Out of the Box(34)

“Would you believe Facundo offered to trade it for a broken lawn mower and a china cabinet full of rusted bike chains?”

I laugh. “No way.”

“Worth a shot,” she says. “Anyway, Frank told him your story, and Facundo wants you to keep playing. He sent a letter explaining it all. It’s in the case. He said you’d know where to find it.”

I’m fighting back tears. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Thank you will do for starters,” she says. “I’ve got his email address, if you want to write to him. Interesting guy.”

“You talked to him?” I ask.

She nods. “Frank invited me along when Facundo came over. You and Frank had quite the sleuthing operation going this summer. Why didn’t you ever mention it?”

I feel my face go red. “I was afraid you’d want me to give back the bandoneón.”

“But you did anyway.”

“I didn’t know I would until Mom showed up.”

She smiles at me. “I’m proud of you, you know.”

“I can’t believe he gave it back to me.”

“He says it’s on loan until you can buy one of your own,” she explains. “The only hitch is that he wants to hear you play next time you’re in Victoria.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Will I be in Victoria again?”

“You will if I have anything to do with it. I’m not going to do all the traveling in this relationship, and you know that house is way too big for just one person.”

I rocket off my end of the couch and tackle her in a bear hug.

“Help! Help! I’m being attacked by a teenager!” she shouts. I pull back, laughing, and she tells me Sarah keeps visiting and asking after me. “She’s even promised to help with the yard sale. She’s going around asking other people on the block if they have stuff to donate too. It’s going to be huge!”

Thank you, Sarah.

“She sent you a gift, by the way. It’s still in the car, but I’ll get it later.” She hugs her knees to her chest and smiles at me. “Anyway, Frank and I decided that, if you’ll be playing for Facundo, you should probably get a teacher here. Frank’s got a pal who lives not too far away who’s willing to make house calls.”

When Dad comes in, I’ve got a grin on my face that doesn’t at all match the raging tango tune I’m playing. He stands in the doorway listening and doesn’t say a word about the horrible accordion-y sound. Instead, he smiles. That evening, while Dad’s watching TV, Jeanette’s reading in her room and Mom is in her office, I place the bandoneón case and Sarah’s gift on my bed.

I take a deep breath and open the case. Peeping out from beneath the liner is a crisp, white envelope. My name is written on the front, and the handwritten letter inside is dated a week ago.

Dear Ellie,

First of all, thank you. My head is still spinning from the twists of fate that brought my father’s bandoneón to me. I don’t have words to express my gratitude, and so I’m resorting to a rather unorthodox gesture of thanks, which I hope you’ll understand.

When I first arrived at Frank’s place a few weeks ago, I couldn’t wait to touch the same keys that my father, and his father before him, had touched. For years, I’ve been hearing about this instrument, how my father received it as a gift from his father and played it every night after school for hours. I’m sure he would have become a professional musician if he could have, but as I told you at the tea shop, in his lifetime, the government forbade the gatherings where tango would be played. It seems to me a terrible irony that the government barred him from doing what he loved, yet killed him all the same.

After my parents disappeared, the bandoneón sat in a place of honor in my grandparents’ living room, next to my parents’ wedding picture. Years later, after my grandparents died, my aunt Ceci brought the bandoneón home with her to Canada. (She had escaped Argentina when the dictatorship first began, and it was she who sent the airline tickets and money to my parents, resources that, unfortunately, they were never able to use.)

A few years before I met Ceci, someone broke into her house here in Victoria and stole all sorts of valuables, including the bandoneón. It was the only memento she had left of her brother, and Ceci was devastated. When she met me and talked to me about my father playing the bandoneón, she cried. She wanted so much to be able to pass the instrument on to me. I never imagined I would someday hold it in my own hands, and I wouldn’t have dreamed that someone who received it as a gift, as you did, would be kind enough to give it back.