<\/p>\n
I fibbed to Ms. Vanderhooft. It was her word \u201cbeginner\u201d that bothered me. The word gave the wrong impression of my experience. Technically, no, I\u2019d never taken a formal piano lesson before, but (and this held great importance in my seven-year-old mind), I lived in proximity to my sister\u2019s playing, which was very good. The lie earned me a volume of impossible music. A system of horizontal lines that looked like fencing, and dots like scattered ants. I sat, silent, at the piano. Ms. Vanderhooft watered her ferns.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now, at fifty, I wish I\u2019d been a journalist, or someone whose job it is to name paint colors. Instead, I have a piano studio of my own. I have a few Vanderhooftisms: I angle my grand like Ms. Vanderhooft did, over a Persian rug, like she had. I write students\u2019 assignments like she did, using an extravagant, looped cursive. I have a fern. But the similarities end there. I\u2019m less formal than Ms. Vanderhooft, and surely less intimidating.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My personal life is different too. Granted, Ms. Vanderhooft never shared much about her personal life, but I know she never married, which means her husband never suddenly landed his dream job, four states away. She never moved with him, closing her piano studio the week of her twenty-sixth wedding anniversary. She never, in the midst of unpacking, discovered his affair\u2014the result of his sloppy texting. She never repacked her things. Never left him. She never attempted to relaunch her studio with an email sent from a bathroom floor. She never typed \u201cReturning to Virginia\u201d in a subject line, never wrote \u201cleaving my husband\u201d underneath, and she never, to my knowledge, found herself referencing a Gloria Gaynor song to let people know she was just fine.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I slid the U-Haul into park sometime after dawn. The drive is a blur. I remember some gas station coffee. I remember toggling the radio: on to fill the silence, off to cut the noise, back on to fill the silence. I followed some vanity plates\u2014a BCHLVER, a XOXO4U, a SATAN2, which begs the question. According to TikTok\u2019s Therapy Keith, my mental fog is normal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be reoccupying the marital home while we sort out the terms of the divorce. The house didn\u2019t sell in the month I was gone. My sister calls this circumstance a \u201cGod thing.\u201d The place is a faux colonial, nestled in a neighborhood of shaded lawns but leafless driveways. Bucolic by way of tedium. I\u2019m not the ideal resident. The HOA leaves me periodic notes: unapproved shutter color (blue), unapproved door color (also blue), unapproved mailbox, unapproved mailbox flag. This note, taped to my front door, reads, simply: \u201cbrick grout.\u201d My married self would have laughed. I swing open the door and shove the letter into my pocket. It isn\u2019t funny.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I unpack the studio first\u2014the room just off the entry. I need the money. I roll the piano\u2019s port side against the front windows and set my teaching chair to its right. I push our\u2014my\u2014dining table to a side wall and stage it as a workspace\u2014lamp, laptop, calendar, candy dish. I mount a whiteboard low, just above the baseboards, and fill a basket with a rainbow of chubby, dry-erase markers. Three days later, I\u2019m back in business.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Owen, age eight, arrives at three. His wavy, red hair has deepened to maroon in the month I was away. I square the welcome mat with my foot as his mother escorts him up the driveway. She has him captured in a sideways embrace\u2014the kind used in hostage situations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHi, Owen!\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No response.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI have candy. On the desk.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His mother leans in. \u201cO is not exactly enthusiastic about returning to lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She turns to leave. I compliment her sweater.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Inside, Owen is standing over the dish of Jolly Ranchers. He has his investigation down to four economical motions:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Select, unwrap, lick, return.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Select, unwrap, lick, return.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I offer him a dry one and tip the rest into the trash.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He\u2019s easily the least talented student I\u2019ve ever taught. It isn\u2019t just that Owen lacks some innate musical ability. The problem is his dislike for piano, which verges on histrionic. Today, his presentation is dermatological. He rubs his ears while we chat. (School was \u201cfine.\u201d His weekend was also \u201cfine.\u201d) He chases the itch down his back, twisting left, then right, like a toy on a swivel. I bribe him with dinosaur stickers before thumbing to the easiest piece I can find: \u201cMission to Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cCurve your fingers,\u201d I say. He extends them. Rigid.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He and I have been at this impasse since his first lesson. Almost two years ago. \u201cPlay on your tips,\u201d I\u2019ve said. \u201cBe gentle,\u201d I\u2019ve said. I\u2019ve demonstrated, using a feathery voice. Last spring, we spent half a lesson lying on our backs, curling our hands into the soft domed shapes that \u201call good pianists have.\u201d But the corrections never take.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d I stop him. \u201cThose are all the right notes. Well done on that. But this is \u2018Mission to Mars,\u2019 yeah?\u201d I say. \u201cAnd outer space has no gravity.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No response.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cRight?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I glance at the clock. Ten minutes have passed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, float like an astronaut, on the tips of your fingers,\u201d I say, my hands rising. \u201cWeightless,\u201d I add, hoping he\u2019s interested.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not. What evolves instead is an argument about gravity. Where it exists, where it doesn\u2019t. I grab my phone and Google \u201cgravity in space,\u201d knowing the conversation should never have gotten this far. He sits cross-legged, listening, then parries. He has a rare condition, he tells me, making it painful for him to play with relaxed hands. It is especially excruciating\u2014I assume this based on the tortured face he makes\u2014for him to play with anything approximating curved fingers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His medical revelation brings us to 3:30 p.m. I hand him his books, hold open the door. His mother waves. I wave back. I am a charlatan.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A box from my husband arrives just after eight. Inside is the nub of a Maybelline brow pencil, two hair elastics, and four loose cotton balls. The postage on the top of the box reads $18.30. I walk the box to the outside trash barrel, and the barrel to the street. I slide a frozen pizza into the oven, and key his credit card number into a dating website, in the box marked Method of Payment. The lifetime premium package runs $849 if you decline all promotional offers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My next day\u2019s students are siblings. They live in my neighborhood, and from the window, I can see their approach. Mabel, thirteen, is walking down the middle of the street, hunched and pumping her arms against the weight of a large purple backpack. Her brother, Sebastian, two years younger and twenty yards back, is traveling at the edge, following the crack that separates the road from the gutter. The shoestring of his right sneaker is dragging and flapping through a collection of wet sludge. This appears to be the goal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I have mixed feelings about Mabel. On the one hand, I admire her. Here is a young girl who thinks fast and speaks her mind. She dismisses conventions, from fashion to politeness, and never misses an opportunity to lead. On the other hand, she\u2019s annoying.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She looks taller today and wears one of those harnessed safety sashes, the neon yellow kind worn by crossing guards.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHall monitor sash,\u201d she corrects me, swinging her backpack to the floor. \u201cIt\u2019s my job to tell the other kids where to go.\u201d The typecasting is exquisite.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sebastian enters just behind. His sneakers squeak across the entry before falling silent on the carpeted staircase, where he sits, then winks. Newly acquired skill. I wink back.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I spend most of Mabel\u2019s lesson assigning new music and trying to sell her on an arrangement of \u201cRed River Valley.\u201d She\u2019s never heard it, which is fair. They\u2019re not exactly popular, these American ballades. I demonstrate the piece and some sensitive timing I hope she\u2019ll notice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBeautiful tune, right?\u201d I say, holding the final notes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She retakes the bench. I wait while she squeezes hand sanitizer into her cupped palm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s nothing you can\u2019t handle, if you practice,\u201d I say. I mean it as encouragement. \u201cSo, twenty minutes a day, six days a week. Yes?\u201d I\u2019m drawing a practice chart in her spiral assignment notebook as I talk.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She flips the sanitizer closed and returns it to her backpack.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cRight?\u201d I say. \u201cTwenty minutes a day?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWell \u2026 Ms. Bellamy, the thing is, we are really busy.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I reach for my coffee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBusy with what?\u201d I\u2019m imagining acceptable answers: travel, surgery, a funeral.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to Disney World.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Travel. Very good.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cNice!\u201d I say. \u201cWhen do you leave?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s next spring. The thing is, my parents and I are busy discussing how to break the news to my school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Short of full-time employment, I tell her, she\u2019s not busy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
During Sebastian\u2019s lesson, I learn that I can teach while I construct a dating profile. I answer the \u201cBasic Information\u201d questions to a rhythmically bereft \u201cJingle Bells.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Age: 50<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Height: 5\u20192\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The music has stopped.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it a space note or a line note?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSpace?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He finds his note and proceeds.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Astrological sign: Cancer<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Children: grown<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pets: no<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHalf notes get what?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo beats.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cRight. Start back at measure ten?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Smoking: never<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By evening, my Bumble profile is almost complete. Under \u201cInterests\u201d I scroll through dozens of sports, none of which apply. Under \u201cGoing Out\u201d I click \u201ccaf\u00e9s.\u201d I choose \u201ccities\u201d from another list, without understanding what the choice commits me to. I mull the last step\u2014the \u201cAbout Me\u201d\u2014while I flatten the moving boxes I\u2019ve emptied. I carry the flattened boxes to the garage. Cardboard is stacked as high as a car, right in the place his sedan used to sit. Memories of the marriage leave me tired. Just tired. Therapy Keith says I haven\u2019t reached the pain portion of my healing journey. I\u2019m not encouraged.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I peck out the final entry just before midnight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is good but I\u2019m looking for my person. If you like conversation and believe vulnerability is a superpower, I\u2019d love to chat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I wake up to thirty-three likes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u25ca<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the phone with my sister, I read the options. \u201cThere\u2019s Mustang, 52, University of Pennsylvania. Under \u2018About Me\u2019 he writes \u2018I am publish.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBut\u2014\u201d she starts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I thought of that. Born and raised in New Jersey. English is his first language.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I scroll.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s Trevor, 50,\u201d I say. \u201cHe\u2019s a \u2018good man whose looking for a woman whose recovered from her woes of life and hasn\u2019t gave up looking for someone to blame for what he done I am worthy of a chance.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cDoesn\u2019t he mean someone who has<\/em> gave up looking for someone to blame?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWillie, 53, is a healer. But it says here he doesn\u2019t have cable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re being picky.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cUnder \u2018Interests,\u2019 this guy writes \u2018COSTCO.\u2019 And this is Bumble\u2019s best. Just think about how good what\u2019s-his-name would seem on a dating profile,\u201d I say. \u201cAnd he\u2019s a complete asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I say \u201casshole\u201d with a forced conviction, though. I mute the phone and pop another truffle into my mouth. Our marriage was easy. We didn\u2019t say \u201cI love you.\u201d Literally, we never said it. We skipped straight to how much. \u201cA line, not a segment,\u201d we\u2019d say, and it became our shorthand. Its comfort lay not just in the meaning of the phrase but in the privacy of its loop, closed tight as a hug. I said it in the mornings when he handed me coffee. I said it over my shoulder in the evenings, when he shooed me toward the piano. He said it as he left for work, holding the lunch I\u2019d packed for him in the red-lidded Pyrex. He\u2019d stopped taking my lunches toward the end, it occurs to me now. He\u2019d been taking Lean Cuisines. He said he wanted to drop some weight. I take another truffle and unmute the phone to repeat the word \u201casshole.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I hang up the phone and Google \u201caffair and brain tumor.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m meeting a new student today. She\u2019s an eleven-year-old girl who, for the last year, has had the misfortune of being taught piano by her mother.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMs. Bellamy, thank you for meeting with us,\u201d the mother says. She seems to be working my name into each statement. \u201cYes, Ms. Bellamy, Gretchen has been playing for one year.\u201d She looks at Gretchen, then back at me. \u201cI brought her curriculum for you to see.\u201d She pauses, and I think she\u2019s forgotten, but she sneaks it in: \u201cMs. Bellamy.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She unpacks a black valise as she speaks, fanning file folders across the piano lid like a nurse arranging surgical instruments. Blue for technique, yellow for theory, green for daily. Red is marked \u201cFUN.\u201d Then comes the binder\u2014a cross-referencing system of curriculum, calendar, and progress reports. The presentation takes the better part of fifteen minutes, then she asks if she can lie down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLike, on a sofa?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, Ms. Bellamy. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I point toward the den and turn to Gretchen. \u201cYour mom feeling okay?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She nods. \u201cOh, she\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stare at Gretchen\u2019s braids, plaits of curly hair, twisted into submission, and I imagine her mother, curled feline on my sofa, her head on my pillows, a drool stain forming. Pooling. I try standing her back up in my mind. She slumps at me, annoyed, then lies back down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat would you like to play?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gretchen thumbs to her latest piece. The notes, which come slowly, are like the words of a child learning to read\u2014some right, some wrong, and none of them delivered in any relation to the next. I imagine my own halting delivery if I were asked to read aloud in Korean.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My four o\u2019clock student makes snoring noises over my instructions. He\u2019s going to be quitting piano, he informs me. He needs more time for Pok\u00e8mon. Expect an email from his parents, he says, lying on the bench. \u201cI will check my email every day,\u201d I say, speaking to his eyelids.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4:30 p.m. refuses to use his third fingers, what non-pianists call middle fingers. \u201cMy parents wouldn\u2019t want me to,\u201d he says. \u201cSticking out your third fingers is short for a bad word.\u201d I tell him that this rule doesn\u2019t apply to pianists. He brightens. I worry he\u2019s misunderstood.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Five o\u2019clock draws me an army of stick men on my whiteboard, rather than the quarter notes we are studying. Through a line of innocent questioning, I discover that the men are not holding swords, as I had assumed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My 5:30 p.m. is an adult student. His name is Bill Dean, which is how he refers to himself. BillDean<\/em>. He\u2019s a retired Air Force colonel and fought in Vietnam. \u201cA fighter pilot,\u201d he adds, during introductions. BillDean is a spry eighty, with that wealthy fisherman look\u2014tight white beard, pressed chinos, a half-zipped fleece\u2014like Kenny Rogers advertising for Orvis. His reenrollment gave me some dread, but he pays on time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNow, Hannah, it\u2019s hard for old BillDean to find this high note,\u201d he narrates as he plays, \u201cso sometimes I take a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI get it.\u201d I nod. \u201cTry moving your hand earlier, during this rest,\u201d I say, pointing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNow, listen,\u201d he says, shaking his head.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLook, Bill. There\u2019s no point in playing complex music until your hands move properly. Think of it as protocol. You wouldn\u2019t fly without completing the flight check, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He smiles and calls me Darlin\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I assign \u201cPink Polly.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Therapy Keith wants me to establish a routine. I choose coffee. Coffee and Bumble. Frankly, I\u2019m surprised by the number of bare-chested men I see online. Some bare-chested men hold beers toward the camera. Some hold recently caught fish. Others hold recently caught fish and beer. Then there are photos of bare-chested men leaning against their cars. Or their trucks. Others are on their motorcycles. One bare-chested gentleman straddles his motorcycle, holding what appears to be his infant daughter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n McKinley, ten, is sobbing. Her parents have lied to her. And she\u2019s pretty sure she \u201ccan never trust them again in her whole life because who would lie to their ow<\/em>n child<\/em>?\u201d She repeats \u201cown chiiiild\u201d like a grieving mother. She sinks into silent-sob territory, and I wait for the breath that follows before offering her a chocolate. From what I can piece together, McKinley has spoken to Riley in the other fourth grade. Riley has an older brother who has a friend who has declared Santa to be \u201csus.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d I say, but the jig is up.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a trick.\u201d Her eyes are still brimming. \u201cIt\u2019s all from Target.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I nod sympathetically and redirect her to the lesson. McKinley manages to lose herself in the music for a few minutes before her jagged inhales return.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTalk to your parents,\u201d I say, handing her another chocolate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll sit them down after dinner,\u201d she says, handing back the foil.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My own dinner is another frozen pizza. I add the black olives he always hated. Here is the upside of my broken marriage. Olives. I eat and load my plate into the dishwasher. Then I pause to remove my wedding band. What\u2019s left behind is an indentation more noticeable than the ring itself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Noon today marks seven weeks since I received his text\u2014the one meant for some unknown woman. I feel a stinging in my chest. Therapy Keith says it\u2019s important to observe these sensations without trying to change them. As if changing them were possible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I marvel that so many people have weathered this situation. It\u2019s a little like you feel after you deliver a baby. For weeks, you see other mothers and think, really? You did this too? I hung pictures today, arranged a bookshelf. I sprayed some Lemon Pledge. My mother called this effort \u201cputtering.\u201d I suspect she puttered to lift her mood. It works a bit. I even find the courage to sit at the piano. But Mozart triggers memories of college practice rooms, closet-sized spaces, just large enough for a piano and a bench\u2014and in our case, his bended-knee proposal. I can\u2019t touch the Schubert he liked to hum, or the Debussy I was learning the day of his text. I play a scale and close the lid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Owen\u2019s maroon hair bobs down my driveway. He\u2019s unescorted today and claims to have practiced every day since his last lesson.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible, since his music has been sitting on the lid of my piano all week. I say so, pointing to his books. \u201cI did it by memory,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The noises that follow have no resemblance to the assignment, but his commitment to the moment is absolute. It is, in a way, the most impressive performance I\u2019ve ever witnessed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I unpack the last two cardboard boxes tonight and find things I wish I hadn\u2019t. Pressed flowers, loose pictures. One of us at nineteen, sharing an Orange Julius, another of us standing in front of our first house. The second box contains our wedding album. I flip to the final page, but backing into our memories is no safer. A candid photo stares back, one someone snapped as we left the reception. We\u2019d made it as far as his Camry, rice in my veil. We\u2019re beaming. I look at my eyes, staring back at me. And his. I see no guile.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I haul both boxes to the street.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to one website, a ring indentation can linger for a year, even two. \u201cPlease avoid any ring on your indented finger, until your finger has returned to its normal shape.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No problem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mabel\u2019s \u201cRed River Valley\u201d is still unrecognizable. The problem is her pace. \u201cIt\u2019s sluggish,\u201d I say, watching a fine mist soak the boxes at the curb. \u201cYou\u2019re sauntering.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what that means,\u201d she says, slow-blinking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLike, wandering. And you can\u2019t just wander from note to note whenever you feel like it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI can.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAll right, you can<\/em>, but wandering disrupts the flow. Do you know the song \u2018Anti-Hero\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She exhales. A curt puff. \u201cOkay, obviously. But what if Taylor just \u2026 meandered?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s me, Hi, I\u2019m<\/em>,\u201d I sing, then stop.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cthe<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cproblem<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cit\u2019s<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOh my god,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sebastian hasn\u2019t practiced either. He\u2019s more interested in studying his feet. I watch the clock as he mashes the pedals, raising, lowering, and raising the damper mechanism. When the novelty wears off, I hand him his music. The \u201cJingle Bells\u201d that follows is predictably slow and, like the previous week\u2019s effort, sounds nothing like \u201cJingle Bells.\u201d I squirm through his notes, each suspended from the time-space continuum. In the time it takes him to peck out a disjoined o\u2019er the fields we go<\/em>, I\u2019ve written a grocery list. I straighten books to his laughing all the way<\/em>, and by his bells on bobtails ring<\/em>, I give in, feeding him answers, like the Google Maps voice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYield for the whole note.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cProceed four beats.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYour destination is on the right.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m getting nowhere with BillDean either.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019d curve your fingers, lower your wrists, and count the beats, you\u2019d be playing the hell out of \u2018Pink Polly,\u2019 \u201d I say, but he\u2019s already shaking his head.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cGoddamn it, Hannah.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat, Bill?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He\u2019s a fighter pilot, he reminds me. He wants to play \u201cgoddamned classical music.\u201d Good music, he emphasizes as he reaches into his bag. \u201cGood\u201d comes down to two selections for him: \u201cDanny Boy\u201d and \u201cThe Man from Snowy River\u201d (the titular movie\u2019s theme song).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe Man from Snowy River\u201d is eleven pages long. It\u2019s dense and difficult. If BillDean isn\u2019t ready for the complexity of \u201cCat in the Hat,\u201d this \u201cSnowy River\u201d is his Finnegans Wake<\/em>. \u201cDanny Boy\u201d is no better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNow just listen,\u201d he tells me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Over the next ten minutes, BillDean finds a dozen notes\u2014first on the page, and then on the keyboard. He\u2019s bent and mumbling as he pecks, and most of what he says is inaudible. I catch a \u201cChrist Almighty\u201d and something about being a \u201cgoddamned patriot.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My attorney calls. If asshole and I can agree on the financial split, I can be divorced in thirty days. It\u2019s been sixty-one days since we\u2019ve spoken. Sixty-two days ago, my biggest fear was him dying first.<\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have noticed an unrealistic number of hikers on Bumble. Given the hundreds of times I\u2019ve read \u201chiking\u201d and \u201cclimbing,\u201d every trail in Virginia should be jammed with middle-aged men.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The students are using my whiteboard as a kind of message center now. They\u2019ve partitioned off a corner for me, which was thoughtful, and have asked me to keep my instructional diagrams within the confines of a wavy-line-and-dot pattern. The concept is the work of Haven, a fifth-grade girl with beautiful penmanship and inexhaustible organizing propensities. I agreed to the request, because why not. Besides, so far at least, I like the board\u2019s content. Today\u2019s entries include the creation of a book exchange by a boy who needs Book Three of the Warrior Cats<\/em> series, a nice drawing of a dragon, and two uplifting reminders: \u201cFind The Music You Love,\u201d one student has written, encircling the words in a flowering vine. \u201cIt\u2019s okay if you mess up,\u201d another assures, the words speech-bubbling from a toothy orange sun wearing shades. Haven noticed the theme too. She roped the sentences off with more wavy lines and slapped the word ENCOURAGEMENT at the top.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The blue minivan in the driveway means that Gretchen and her napping mother are here. My mouth is moving as I quietly plead for Mom to stay in the car, but Therapy Keith is wrong about manifesting your desires though positive thought.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll set my alarm,\u201d she calls, walking toward the den.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I spend the evening eating olives directly from the jar. A lot of the Bumble profiles I read start with the same line: \u201cLooking for my partner in crime.\u201d Men who say this are the same men who choose Bumble\u2019s prompt \u201cthe quickest way to their heart.\u201d Then they all write the same answer: \u201cthrough my chest.\u201d I\u2019m developing a gender-wide ick.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I head for the stairs, flipping off lights, locking doors. Daily tasks remain oblique marital references. I linger by the piano, reaching to play a phrase, then sit, pajamaed, to play another. I pick Mozart for its rationality, but my playing sounds severe.<\/p>\n In the morning, I trim the Christmas tree. It doesn\u2019t take long. The ornaments are ironic now. I unwrap \u201cOur First Home\u201d from its tissue paper and send it sailing. The twenty-five silver bells, etched with dates, make sickening thunks as they hit the back of the kitchen trash can.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mabel has practiced. You\u2019ve got to hand it to her. Her \u201cRed River Valley\u201d is solid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI like what you\u2019ve done with it,\u201d I say. \u201cThe piece flows now\u2014like musical sentences, telling the story. What do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not really sentences, though.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And here we go.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo, that\u2019s true. The musical term we should be using is \u2018phrase.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t think of them as phrases, either.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell, but they are phrases, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She shrugs. \u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNot maybe<\/em>. That\u2019s what they are. Those black lines over the notes are phrase markings.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Silence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBy definition.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMmm.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat, mmm<\/em>? It\u2019s a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a fact to you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a fact, period. Unchangeable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo, yeah. Unchangeable to you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I reach for my coffee and picture Mabel as Napoleon, jerking the crown from the hands of the Pope.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an F-sharp here,\u201d I point. \u201cNot F-natural,\u201d I say. \u201cAs you played it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat the fuck,\u201d she mutters.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BillDean is outraged again. He wants his country back. He\u2019s sick to death of safe spaces and pronouns and everyone and their goddamned woke.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWoke?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He\u2019s just come from a rally. \u201cThe Governor was there and he goddamned loves us. He thanked us and thanked us. No goddamned government is going to take my guns, and I\u2019d love to see them try.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He sounds like Yosemite Sam.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I scroll Bumble while the French press steeps. Therapy Keith would appreciate the consistency of my schedule.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s standing next to a tank,\u201d I say when my sister picks up. \u201cIn an ascot.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cStop,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAnd get this,\u201d I continue, reading the paragraph beneath the picture. \u201c\u2018SWIPE LEFT if you work for the GOVERNMENT, are a scammer, STALKER, timewasting MORON, obsessed ex and her \u2018entourage,\u2019 or ENTITLED VEGAN LOSER.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cJust no.\u201d My sister sounds sleepy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I message him anyway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d he writes, \u201cThose aren\u2019t categories. Those are individual people. They know who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDo you ever worry you seem, I don\u2019t know, aggressive?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He thanks me for being ladylike.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the tank guy. \u201cI\u2019m sick of most of you,\u201d one profile begins. \u201cI\u2019m not here to save you from your boring-ass life,\u201d another warns. \u201cPlease be capable of intelligent conversation,\u201d one specifies. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that last request, I guess, except that there is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My final student this evening is also my youngest. The boy is five, with tiny blue Crocs and a pregnant mom in tow, her spine bowed into the signature S of the third trimester. I don\u2019t interact with many expectant mothers. I did when I was younger, but I\u2019ve aged out of knowing the latest in maternity fashion or baby gear. My ideas of newborn gizmos would strike her as my mother\u2019s struck me: out of touch. The woman is having a girl, she tells me. But sometime during the list of possible baby names\u2014Harper, Daphne, Pippa\u2014the avalanche happens. Feelings first, followed by discernable thoughts. Memories. The work stories he shared. The reoccurring names. Name. My ears begin to ring. And like finally seeing the image in one of those random dot auto-stereograms, those Magic Eye pictures, you wonder how you ever missed something so plain. Because what pregnant woman calls her boss between contractions?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWren\u2019s in labor,\u201d he\u2019d said, walking back into the room a few minutes later. \u201cDilated to four,\u201d he said, checking the ringer on his phone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We visited Wren the following week. Rang her doorbell. Gift in hand. I greeted the baby first, then handed Pippa to my husband. He held her all evening. On the way home, he talked about the baby. When we pulled into our driveway a few minutes later, he was still talking about her. Until suddenly he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI sent Wren an email today,\u201d he said. \u201cA forward, really. Of our first office interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He\u2019d titled the forward \u201cLook How Far We\u2019ve Come.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By the time I say all of this to my sister, later in the evening, I\u2019ve thought of a parade of other incidents. Altered routines, suspicious locations, dodgy answers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She says nothing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you saw this many clues in a movie you\u2019d be insulted,\u201d I say, filling the silence, then I pause too. Because there\u2019s no explaining how sick you feel when you realize someone\u2019s found pure joy at your expense.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe baby visit,\u201d she says, finally. \u201cHow long ago was that?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She\u2019s trying to construct a timeline, but I already have.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I spend the evening writing him an email.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHi\u201d gets replaced with \u201cHello\u201d then changed back to \u201cHi.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Delete.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No salutation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow dare you,\u201d I begin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Delete.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt has come to my attention,\u201d I write.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Delete.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI know that it\u2019s Wren,\u201d I write.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then, hands shaking, I delete that too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI want the house.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He waits twenty-four hours, then calls. I suspect his attorney has advised him, pointing out the danger of admitting anything in print. I put the phone on speaker, and set it on the coffee table, speaking to it from the doorway. Fifteen seconds later, the house is mine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve had it with Owen\u2019s playing. It isn\u2019t improving, and frankly, he\u2019s making me question my ability to teach. My new plan is to ignore his fingers. I\u2019ll focus on his sound.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cCan you do it?\u201d I say, playing a string of round tones.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Owen plays his notes. Each is a cataclysmic event.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s play echo,\u201d I say. \u201cI\u2019ll be the loud shout, and you\u2019ll be the soft echo.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He rubs his neck. Overhand. Underhand. Overhand again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cKnow what an echo is, buddy?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I demonstrate, shouting \u201cecho.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He shouts back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I echo him quietly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He shouts again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The staircase carpeting is loose. As Owen leaves, I give the lowest corner a yank. Disintegrated carpet backing flies up and rains down on my sneakers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n During Mabel\u2019s lesson, I pull some more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you doing<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNothing,\u201d I call. \u201cYour pedaling is late. Listen for clarity. One more time, please.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The lowest step is free, and I\u2019m admiring my own work when the playing stops again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWas that any better?\u201d I\u2019m asking because I forgot to listen, but she hears it as criticism and plays again. I walk to the kitchen for the dustpan.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gretchen\u2019s mother steps over the tiny demolition and sighs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI have a favor to ask you,\u201d she says, pinning her hair while she talks. Oh god<\/em>. I think. She wants to take a bath.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n She asks me to drive her teenage son to an orthodontist appointment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d I say, and sigh back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNow just let me talk for a minute,\u201d BillDean says, interrupting his own monologue. \u201cIt\u2019s important that you understand what old BillDean is thinking when he plays.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I count backward from ten before standing. I can see the lowest two risers. Pitted, raw wood. \u201cDid you get my email?\u201d I lie.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t read goddamned email.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo? About the rate increase?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I pull carpet all evening. I\u2019m wearing the asshole\u2019s work gloves and using his vice grips. I took his toolbox when I left him. Traded, really. He got my wedding gown, which I assume he\u2019s found by now. I hung it in his closet on my way out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what percentage of Bumble men use fake names, but I suspect the number is high. Mr. Love just wants someone to listen to him. Big Daddy gets \u201cway too excited about God.\u201d Sometimes the fake names are too explicit, forcing Bumble to moderate the information. These men are renamed, aptly, as \u201cModerated.\u201d Moderated, 54 is \u201cbrutally honest.\u201d Moderated, 49 is \u201cfluent in sarcasm.\u201d Moderated, 53 \u201cisn\u2019t angry.\u201d I wonder what he isn\u2019t angry about.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The carpeting on the third stair is impossibly stuck. It\u2019s affixed by something called a tack strip, which I hadn\u2019t encountered yet. I pry it up with a butter knife, but the removal leaves a deep trench in the wood.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWood filler,\u201d my sister says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMaybe,\u201d I say. \u201cThere should be a name for that heavy feeling, ya know?\u201d I cradle the phone, tipping the omelet pan, watching the egg turn white.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat feeling?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou know, that feeling you have where you\u2019re grief-stricken, but you just propel yourself forward anyway? I bet the Germans have a word for it. One of those multisyllabic compound words. Google it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cGerman words for complex emotions,\u201d she says. I can hear her typing. \u201cI see leibeskummer<\/em>, but\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s it mean?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTranslates to \u2018lovesickness.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cGross. No. Needs more grief.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Grief,\u2019 \u201d she says slowly. We\u2019ve got Trauer<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOkay, but add the dragging around.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cShe laughs. \u2018Perseverance.\u2019 Beharren<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Okay. Smash them together.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBeharrentrauer<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYeah. Closer.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The students are asking where my husband is. Not that they typically saw him during their lessons. Maybe they\u2019ve noticed that my wedding band is gone, or spotted the indentation it\u2019s left. Or maybe the timing of the questions is coincidental. Regardless, it\u2019s the fourth time this week I\u2019ve felt ashamed to be single, and I\u2019m pretty sure this makes me a terrible feminist.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three students ask if I \u201clive alone.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLive alone now?\u201d one says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s your husband?\u201d one blurts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I should say, \u201cI don\u2019t have a husband,\u201d or, \u201cOpen your music.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instead, I say, \u201cHe\u2019s at work.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Owen is dropped off by a sitter today. It is date night for his parents.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mabel and her brother are staying with an aunt. Their parents are on a cruise. BillDean tells me that he and Hildy have been married for fifty-two years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This makes me exactly half as lovable as BillDean, mathematically speaking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Therapy Keith says your worth isn\u2019t wrapped up in another\u2019s perception of you. But his need to say it suggests a lot of people believe otherwise.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have eleven new likes this morning. One especially torpid-looking man dates only \u201cfit\u201d women.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow fit?\u201d I type, clicking past a photo of him, his left hand deep in a bag of Funyuns. \u201cLike, how far would I need to be able to run? Is there a distance or pace I should train toward?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He asks for a full-length picture.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I send a photo of Emily Blunt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n AlligatorBoots closes his profile paragraph with an apology: \u201cUnable to send pictures of p3ni$. Camera lacks wide-angle lens.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I assign Mabel a beautiful arrangement of \u201cGreensleeves.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSome people think Henry the Eighth wrote the tune,\u201d I say, but then wonder how accurate this is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDivorced, beheaded, died,\u201d she begins.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She\u2019s right. We substitute \u201cCarol of the Bells.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cSet your right hand to autopilot,\u201d I call from the front hall, looking up the staircase. \u201cBecause it\u2019s just the same four notes over and over. And the best part?\u201d I say, picking up the carpet\u2019s edge and yanking. \u201cYou get to clamp the pedal down. B-flat, third finger, and right foot on the pedal. Keep your heel down and go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I know more about the other woman than I want to admit. I know from him that she\u2019s the youngest child of a single mom. I know she grew up in Pensacola and spent her summers on the beach.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I fold the carpet under and tighten his vice grips.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hark how the bells<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sweet silver bells<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes on the notes,\u201d I call. \u201cBut no to your rhythm. Two eighths in the middle. Think long-short-short-long.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She carries on. By repetition four, it\u2019s improving.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I know she carries Cheez-Its in her purse. Is addicted to ChapStick.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, but how many measures, Mabel? Count the bars before your left hand comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cEight?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cGood. Start again?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The scar on her neck is from a dog bite, and she didn\u2019t even have the dog put down. That\u2019s how he always put it. Didn\u2019t even have the dog put down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The fourth stair releases with a pop. I reach for my butter knife to pry up the tack strip. She rode horses as a kid. Crushed on her middle school band director. Loves Gilmore Girls<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christmas is here.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bringing good cheer<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n To young and old<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meek and the bold<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWow, yes,\u201d I call. \u201cStart again, but soft pedal with your left foot this time. Let it off in measure five and build.\u201d<\/p>\n Except for a missing E-flat, she\u2019s error free.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Her curtain bangs were his idea. So was finishing her doctorate. \u201cOne of the most talented up-and-comers in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAmbitious,\u201d he called her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mabel\u2019s scale passage is halting, but every note is there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThumb under on the G.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I set down the knife, clamping his vice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She plays the passage again, then again. It\u2019s almost fluid.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNow from the beginning,\u201d I say, removing his gloves and descending the stairs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I listen from my chair and smile when she\u2019s done. She\u2019s on her way. The piece just needs continuity now\u2014the kind that organizes small moments into something bigger.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLong lines, okay?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She nods.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I tuck her copy of \u201cCarol of the Bells\u201d into her spiral notebook and scrawl \u201cyou\u2019ve got this\u201d across the top.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u25ca<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I pull carpet all evening, first with his gloves, then without. I don\u2019t know when he started bringing her home in his mind, but I see now that she was there. In the mornings when he packed the Lean Cuisines. In the evenings on his walks. She sat with us at dinner. She watched him barely eat. And in those lapses when he hardly spoke, so lost in thought, I know now that he was speaking to her. She was with him when he couldn\u2019t sit still and when he worked too long, even from our sofa, and somehow, in his duplicitous state, she was in his mind when he fell asleep with his head on my lap, the last night I ever saw him. Maybe she was in his mind when he handed me coffee or ate lunch from the red-lidded Pyrex. Maybe she stood with him while he cleaned the kitchen, shooing me toward the piano.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I worked my way to the top of the staircase today. Below me, Mabel played her \u201cCarol of the Bells.\u201d It\u2019s cohesive now, a proper narrative, and she knows it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell?\u201d I said, catching her eye as I dragged the carpet out the door.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cGood,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m playing lines.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And not segments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elizabeth Chapman I fibbed to Ms. Vanderhooft. It was her word \u201cbeginner\u201d that bothered me. The word gave the wrong impression of my experience. Technically, no, I\u2019d never taken a formal piano lesson before, but (and this held great importance in my seven-year-old mind), I lived in proximity to my sister\u2019s playing, which was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":9146,"template":"","categories":[9,48,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9144","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-fiction","category-literary-features"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n