A Mother's Love

He shivered as the night drew in. With the darkening skies, street lights became friends but also enemies - with them he was blinded by what lay outside the frame they cast, but without them he felt alone. He bit his lip as he pondered how he had managed to get here. But he knew. The rain drifted down lightly, like snow, but with a cold drenching that just seemed unrelenting.

He decided to walk tonight, to see how far he could get before he spotted a family that looked like his might have. If he had kept on with it, and not run off. The dark skies would be a help, not everyone drew the drapes across the windows to shut out the world. And they didn't know how much that meant to someone like him.

Finally, exhausted and cold, he found what he was looking for. His stomach gave an audible growl, but he didn't feel it as he gazed with longing eyes on the scene in front of him. The light shone brightly in the room, creating the essence of warmth his bones craved as he watched. The piano in the room, nothing fancy - just an old upright - was being played in what seemed like a jaunty tune as the mother turned her face to the son, singing alongside. His face lit up as she gazed at him, her mouth moving soundlessly. He nodded and moved off, returning a short while later with a violin in his hands. The beggar could only imagine the scene... he had been that little boy once upon a time. His mind drifted back...

The warmth of the room was stifling. His hands trembled as he looked to his Mothers stern face as she sat at the piano, knowing he couldn't disappoint her. He loved her with all his little heart. This was their moment. This is what they had been working towards for all the years before. He loved his Mother dearly, but she didn't feel the same way, of this he was sure. Or else why could she be part of sending him away, forever. He raised the violin to his shoulder, ignoring the rows of faces that matched his Mothers in the gallery. Watching him. Waiting. Expecting. His stepfather's face was there too, in his tuxedo but deathly dull. He gave the boy a steely glare, hoping that this would be the day that he was packed away into a boarding house forever; so that he could enjoy his new wife's undivided attention and total loyalty, as any good man deserved to get. It was unfortunate that she was saddled with the boy, but that was tonight was for - he was going to be asked to join the music school because his talent was prodigal.

As stepfather had hoped, things went as they should. The boy played beautifully, the Maestro had lamented that never before had there been a talent this great - as great as Mozart - but the Mothers teachings had been wrong! Wrong! How could she get simple things like the correct arpeggio timings wrong, when everyone knew what was correct! And his hand positioning had been violated, and who knew if this would ever, COULD EVER be corrected. The only way to save the genius would be to move him along to the Music school and hope for the best. The boy's heart fell into his shoes, his stepfathers soared. He agreed, nodded along with all the Maestro said, and at the end of the evening they had come to an agreement. Maestro would take the boy away - tonight - and they would all hope that the damage had not been done.

Ah! But the damage was done with those words. This little boy, this young prodigy who had Mozart on his shoulder counting the beats into his ear, felt his heart shatter into tiny pieces. He knew where he was unwanted. He knew that a Mothers love far surpassed learning with a Maestro - but it didn't seem as though his mother felt that way. He glanced at her bowed head and knew she didn't love him.

Oh, but she did. Her own heart was being pulled from her body, but what was she, a simple woman, to do to argue with her husband. He was the man. He knew best. She needed to know and keep to, her place. Without his love for her, and mercy, she and her boy would have nowhere to sleep. Nowhere to call home, and nothing to fill their bellies. And the music would be a luxury that they would not have even begun to have enjoyed. This was the right way. The only way to make sure her boy was clothed, fed and warm AND learning to create the beautiful sounds that constituted music. That might offer him a place in the world, one day.

Mothers hopes were dashed, not because the boy had no talent. But because the boy failed to thrive. He couldn't, wouldn't, create something as beautiful as music without his Mother by his side. He didn't see the beauty in it, he found it a chore and a bore. And the more he was renowned and revered for the tunes he created, the emptier his soul felt. Eventually, he found alcohol. And this dulled his senses. It took away his undying hurt, it felt like a short cure for his heart. His fingers thickened on his strings, his bow became slippery. Maestro frowned, cursed, and berated but this was not enough. Nothing was enough. Nothing could fill the void of a mothers love that was gone. As the concert halls emptied, so did his Maestro's patience. So did his self-worth and his appreciation for music. For how can something be beautiful, when you don't have a heart?

And so the beggar heard sounds in his own head, of the little boy's violin and the mothers playing of the piano. He flew back to the time of his life before his stepfather was around, the few years of happiness with his own mother as they created beautiful music together and she taught him all she knew. He unzipped his bag and pulled out a thin sleeping bag, imagining the warmth of a mothers love as he settled down with his face under a bush but his body in the mud. And he dreamed as he drifted off, of ballrooms and happiness and warmth that he had long since forgotten.