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myself away from the keys. Sonja was an unconventional teacher, and I was a gifted student. Instead of lessons once a week, like most students, I had a lesson every afternoon. I flew through the rudimentary lessons, quickly grasping musical concepts and theory, graduating to intermediate books and songs after only a month. For a while I even stopped reading - pushing everything aside for my music. I practiced for hours on end. Luckily for my dad and my brothers, they were outside more than they were in the house, and I rarely disturbed anyone with my obsession. Sonja said I was not exactly a child prodigy, but close. I had deep passion and appreciation for the music, and I quickly absorbed everything she taught me.
    I learned that the music that had so frightened me the day I had followed her white Cadillac home was a piece by Wagner. She pronounced it Vah gner. I didn’t care much for Wagner, but Sonja said it got her blood boiling, and she used it to give voice to her “savage beast.” She smiled when she said this, and I smiled with her. I didn’t think Sonja was ever ’beastly.” Sonja said we all had a little of the beast in us.
    If Wagner spoke to the beast, then Beethoven gave voice to the beauty. Beethoven’s ninth symphony became my lifeblood. I made Sonja play it each day at the end of our lessons, and each day I would leave full of hope, the beast vanquished.

     
    Ten-year-old girls without mothers should not have to bear the burden of early puberty, but be that as it may, I started my period not long after I met Sonja Grimaldi. I believed myself stricken with some sort of terrible malady when I discovered the blood in my underpants, and overwhelmed, I had cried out my fear of certain death to Sonja. She had been playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata , and the beauty and melancholy of the music had me drowning in self-pity.
    “I think I’m dying, Mrs. Grimaldi,” I had wept. She had gathered me to her wispy self and coaxed further confession from me. When she realized what was actually happening to me, she sighed and put me away from her, tears glittering in her eyes.
    “Josie! This is not death! It is a rebirth!” She exclaimed dramatically.
    I stared at her with a dumbfounded frown.
    “It is not surprising, you know. You are beyond your years in every other way. You have earned this right of passage much sooner than most girls. Josie, womanhood is an incredible gift! It is God-given. It is bestowed upon us. Womanhood is incredibly powerful, and you have been entrusted with it years before your peers. This means you are very special in His sight. We must celebrate!” She clapped her hands and rose with a swoosh of her long red kimono.
    So we did. We lit candles and had sparkling cider in crystal goblets. She read the story of Queen Esther with great passion, telling how her beauty, grace, and courage had saved her people. How her power had influenced nations. She read to me the story of the Virgin Mary from the New Testament - only a few years older than I was, and mother to the Savior of the World.
    Days later, Sonja and I drove to the city, and she bought me new underwear and bras in pretty pastels with matching undershirts to wear until the bras were absolutely necessary. We got our nails done, and she purchased enough feminine supplies to stock my bathroom drawer for several years. I felt my mother’s presence that day and knew she had been instrumental in bringing Sonja Grimaldi into my life. After all, hadn’t I been at her grave the day I first saw the white Cadillac? After that, I was much more secure in God’s love for me, and I did not curse my rapid ascent into womanhood again.

     
    One afternoon in early spring, I arrived for my lesson to find Sonja lying on the sofa with a book lying on her chest, her eyes closed.
    “Sonja?” I whispered, not wanting to wake her, but not wanting to leave if she was in need of something. I was a little scared. She looked small and tired and it made