Chapter 1

Maestro Daniel Abogado pulled the collar of his coat up higher and grunted. “Lord, it’s cold. I prefer the West Coast. If the wind would just let up.” He shivered as he caught another sharp blast from around the corner of the theater. “Tomorrow I’ll laugh at all these freezing people,” he mumbled.

Tonight he had to conduct the last performance of two weeks of Mozart in Toronto. January was the composer’s birth month and Daniel had been invited to lead the celebration. He enjoyed doing it since he had worked with the orchestra before. He had developed a good relationship with the musicians.

However, he also had to endure the cold winds, snow and occasional slippery sidewalks of the city. Even though the evenings of symphonies, concertos and recitals had been well received with full houses, Daniel was ready to go home. Missing Elvira, his wife of five months, and being used to milder winters in Vancouver, he had grumbled maybe a bit too often. Which gave him the nickname Grumbling Bass from the orchestra members. In good-natured humor he had threatened them with overtime during rehearsals. Of course, nobody took that seriously.

Daniel was pleased with the orchestra and himself. The soloists for piano and violin had been excellent. Tonight’s program showed Mozart’s clarinet concerto. Daniel could depend on a good performance. He knew the soloist from other occasions.

Cozy warmth met him as he entered the stage door. “Ah, that’s better.”

A stage hand motioned to him. “Maestro, there is a phone call for you.”

“Who? My wife?”

The stage hand nodded and grinned. “Of course, who else? Another girl friend?”

“Hey, watch it.” Daniel poked one finger into the man’s well-rounded stomach and hurried into his dressing room. Elvira and he had decided on a once-a-day phone call to make the separation easier.

He lifted the receiver. “Hi, my love. What’s new? Just got here.”

“I have big news. I’m pregnant.”

As he listened his eyes got bigger and he sat down. “Repeat that once more, please.”

“You heard me.”

He took a deep breath. “I can’t believe it. How did we manage that? We’re usually so--”

“Just lucky, I guess. I’m so excited.”

“But what about your music, your playing?” He got up and shrugged the coat off his six-foot frame. “You don’t sound upset, which makes me happy.” He heard a giggle from the other end of the phone line.

“I wanted to wait until you come home tomorrow,” Elvira said. “But I found out today and couldn’t wait.”

“Hey, I’m glad you did. This is unbelievable. It will take some time for me to digest. You know I had given up on that. Oh, I do love you. I’m glad I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When he finally replaced the receiver, Daniel stood quietly for a moment. He shook his head. “I can’t believe it, I’m going to be a father.” He raked his fingers through his dark hair. Right now he couldn’t quite envision how a baby would fit into his and Elvira’s active lives of rehearsing and performing, sometimes in different cities. But Daniel was too excited to worry about it now. And talking about performing, he looked at his watch. I better get a move on or the orchestra will start without me.

On his way to the orchestra pit, he still had thoughts bouncing around in his head. His first wife, Louise, had been unable to have children. So he had made his peace with the fact that, in this life, he wouldn’t be a real father. He loved Elvira’s four-year-old daughter, Mia, dearly, but that was different. Now he actually had created another human being. He chuckled. “How about that.”

For now he needed to keep his composure to bring the musical evening to its proper conclusion.

In this last performance, Daniel had selected the overture to Don Giovanni, then the clarinet concerto and, after the intermission, the Symphony Number Forty-One. “To go out with a bang,” he called it. That symphony was Mozart’s last one and, in Daniel’s mind, the most far-reaching of all of them. No wonder they called it the “Jupiter Symphony.” It was over everybody’s head. By that time, Mozart had been far ahead of his contemporaries.

Applause greeted him when he stepped onto the podium. He heard one voice calling, “Three cheers for Mozart!”

You got that right, Daniel thought. He quickly bowed and raised the baton. He tried to wrap his whole attention around the music. Usually that came naturally but tonight he had to work at it. Thoughts like Elvira being pregnant and his pending fatherhood kept creeping into his mind.

At the intermission, he couldn’t keep it inside any longer. As the clarinet soloist talked to him about the just finished concert, Daniel looked at him and said, “I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh, do tell.” Bernhard, the soloist, beamed at him.

“My wife just phoned to tell me that I’m going to be a father.”

Bernhard stared at him. “You mean to say, you had time to make that happen?” He laughed and shook his hand. “Congratulations, Maestro, well done.” Then he turned around and shouted to the rest of the orchestra members, “Incoming message! Our Maestro is going to be a papa.”

After a few seconds of stunned silence, everyone came forward to shake Daniel’s hand.

“Well, I guess, next time you come here with kids in tow, ” the concert master said.

“I can’t even imagine it,” Daniel answered. “I’ll have to wait until I get home and see my wife before it sinks in.”

“In the meantime you have to go out with us after the performance. You need a drink,” the concert master continued. “We have to keep you in good shape for the approaching excitement.”

Daniel sighed. “Ask me in nine months.”

Yes, a brandy was exactly what he needed.

© 2017 by Gisela Woldenga