With Me Again
By Alison Reeger Cook (04BA), Washington
Microstory Contest Winner - Adult, University of Iowa Alumni (Prompt B)
“You should play again,” she told me before she died.
It wasn’t the trumpet’s fault that I had stopped playing; time, like illness, is a thief.
“It’s been a long time,” I said.
“Practice for the reunion. Play like you once did,” she said with a faded smile. “Play for me.”
That summer after she was gone, I braved to open the old case. It was like uncovering a time capsule; the trumpet still glistened, untouched. When I put it to my lips, it sang with the same pure timbre, and she was with me again.