"I think we should play music together."

I nearly spit out my soda in shock.

"Steven, what do you mean?" I managed to gasp.

It was Friday, and we were home after having dinner together at a Mexican restaurant in town. It had been a decent evening, for the most part. We had dropped off our son at my parent's house so he could spend the night with them, and my husband was being nice to me, which always worried me. I foresaw us playing music together as yet another harebrained scheme of his, I just didn't understand what the catch was.

"Well, you used to play the violin, right?" He asked as he pointed at the corner of our living room, where my violin sat upright in it's black case, leaning against the blank white wall.

It was true that I had loved playing that instrument. I had been in orchestra throughout my middle and high school years, but once I gotten married, I had put it away. It wasn't the same playing it by myself, I had no motivation to keep practicing on my own. So, it sat in the corner of our room, next to Steven's banjo, which was also resting against the wall in a black case. Both were covered in a thin layer of dust.

"I already invited Joe over to join us tomorrow. He says he wants to learn the banjo."

My brain put together the pieces, and it clicked together. Now I understood what Steven's motive was. He only knew how to play two songs, barely at that. He simply saw this as an opportunity to show off to someone who didn't know anything about the banjo.

"Okay, that sounds like fun." I said as I nodded my head. "Can I invite friends over too?"

His brown eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Who do you want to invite over?" He asked slowly.

"Well, Amber said at one point to me that she used to play bass, and that Salvador used to play guitar." I smiled innocently. "You remember that couple, right?"

Steven sat a moment and thought it over. I watched in amusement as the cogs and wheels slowly churned in his head. "Yes, I do. That's fine."

Although he didn't say it, I knew he was only okay with them coming over because neither of them played banjo. He didn't want to be competed with.

"Maybe we could all learn a few songs together." I mused aloud thoughtfully.

Steven still didn't know that I had hung out with Salvador alone for the past few days, and although I was scared of him finding out, I was also impressed with myself for daring to disobey the rules, something I hardly ever did.

Earlier today, Amber had finally moved back in with Salvador sometime after I left. She had thanked me, via text, for helping out with cleaning their house, and was fine with me continuing to do so. I had confided in Salvador and explained to him how my husband and family would be angry at me if they ever found out I had been alone with him, since it wasn't a Christian thing for me to do. He had simply said he would not rat me out, and I knew he was sincere. He had also said he would tell Amber not to say anything, and I trusted that she would keep it a secret.

Although I hadn't done anything wrong and my conscious was clear, that didn't mean I wouldn't suffer consequences if Steven or my family ever found out. That was what scared me the most; their wrath, shouting, their interventions where they'd all circle around me and give me long winded lectures of making me feel guilt for things I hadn't done, and their constant monitoring of everything I did. I felt like I lived under everyone's thumb, and that my best effort of obeying them and doing everything right was never enough to please them.

Ever since that day when my father told me I'd be the one in sin if I ever divorced my husband, something changed within me. Despite being terrified of making my family members upset, I was also desperate to make myself happy within the confines of my situation, and I was now jumping at every opportunity to do so.

"Do you want to practice a song together now?" I offered. The thought of learning songs with other people awoke excitement in me. I wondered how good Salvador and Amber were on their instruments, and what we would all sound like together.

"Okay..." Steven shrugged his broad shoulders, got up from his seat at the dining room table, and walked over to his banjo case. I followed suit and went to my violin case. I held my breath as I grasped the small zippers and undid them so I could lift the top open. My violin that I had played back in high school was inside, sitting perfectly preserved in the soft, red velvety innards of the case. I traced my fingertips across the dark wooden face and lightly tapped the strings. They were out of tune, which was to be expected, but it brought back all sort of nostalgic memories for me.

"Oh wow!" I heard my younger self exclaim excitedly from inside my head. I smiled as I thought back to the first time I had ever played the violin. After learning piano for three years, which is what my mom had forced me to learn, I had finally earned the right to own and play a violin. I had immediately grabbed the bow out and tried playing on the strings, but no sound had come out.

"I broke it already!" I had cried out in a terrified voice as I struggled to make the violin sing. In that moment, all I could think about was Mom becoming upset at spending so much money on the instrument, only for it to not work. My Dad, laughing, had calmly asked for the bow and showed me how to apply rosin to it.

"You should be able to make sound now." He had smiled as he handed it back.

I had played the violin for several years after that moment. I still loved it, with the cello being a close second, but my passion had faded after I got married to Steven...

"Are you ready?" My husband asked, interrupting my thoughts.

"Give me a minute." I replied as I mentally snapped back to the present. I gently scooped up my beloved instrument and tuned it as best I could by ear. The knobs at the ends were a bit tight, but I managed to turn them. After fighting with my violin strings for a few moments, they were finally all in tune with one another. "What song did you want to play together?" I asked him curiously.

"This one." He said as he pointed at a song from his banjo beginner book. I hovered over his shoulder so I could read the sheet music.

"You can set the tempo." I said as I waited for him to start playing. "I'll join in and figure it out."

After a few messy attempts, we finally got the song down. It felt so good to be playing again even though I was incredibly rusty. Although my fingers remembered where to go, and my right arm was decent with the bow, I could hear when I was off, and I managed to make the violin squeak a few times, and it bothered me that I was this out of shape.

"I need to practice more." I laughed aloud. "Here, let me text Amber and Salvador and invite them over for tomorrow. It'll be great with four people playing different instruments. Maybe Joe will learn one and join in, too."

I dug out my phone from my pocket and texted both of my friends. I smiled when they replied, "We'll be there. What time?"

"When is the get together?" I asked Steven.

"It's at 5 pm." He said, though he was looking at me oddly.

"What? what's wrong?" I asked him after texting Amber.

"You're really happy... like REALLY happy."

"I guess I am." I smiled widely. "This felt really good."

"Good." He smiled awkwardly back. I realized that he was trying to mimic my smile, and it slightly creeped me out.

Steven had a tendency of having what I called, a "resting blank face." I noticed that he mirrored the emotions of others a lot, though I wasn't sure why that was. It helped when there were more people in the room because it forced him to better behave, which lead to him treating me well.

I was, truly, incredibly happy in that moment. He had come up with an idea that actually sounded fun and was worth pursuing, but I was even happier that my friends would be joining us tomorrow.

Even after Steven had demanded sex from me later that night, and after he had fallen asleep without satisfying me, I was still grinning to myself. I was going to see Salvador and Amber more often because my husband wanted to play music. I didn't want him taking away this joy from me, and I wasn't going to let him.