Kate’s Piano
“You’d been gone for a week and came back with this. It’s ruined.” Theresa put her hand on the piano’s lid. The wood of its outer shell had warped and split, peeling away in long curls to reveal pale, splintered bone. She kneeled next to the wooden leg. “Did beavers find it?”
“That’s how I know it’s the one I was looking for.” Marcus touched the chipped leg. Someone sculpted its side into a square with a hole in the middle. “Robocop’s head. Well… Apparently. Pavel managed to do only that much before he got caught.”
“Pavel… Pavel who almost burnt down the foster home?”
“That was Peter. Pavel was the one who broke a leg jumping from the window onto a tree. Remember? He was clacking around the playroom on his crutches. The nuns followed the noise.”
A single note rang from the piano as Theresa pushed off it to stand up. She wiped her hand on her jeans. “When was it cleaned? Ten years ago or never?” She kept wiping her hand.
“Three years, I think. They kept it in a shed. I’ll have it repaired and tuned. It’ll sound better than when Kate played it.”
“Better? You told me she was great at it.”
“She was. But the nun who tuned the piano wasn’t.”
Marcus closed the water faucet, put the sponge away, and placed a plate on the dish dryer. Theresa stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest. They heard Patricia playing the piano in the living room.
“She really likes the piano,” Theresa said. He pulled flour and a bowl from the cupboard. Marcus opened the flour bag and held it above the bowl. Patricia ended the melody. His hands shook. Flour spilled around the bowl. Kate’s flourish. Kate ended the same way. Three notes, maybe four, dropping away from the rest of the melody like a door being gently pulled shut. Marcus swept the flour off the table.
“When did she learn it?”
“Today. She didn’t even eat breakfast. Told me she had a dream about a melody. She was furious at the start, couldn’t play what she wanted. But I think she found it finally.”
Marcus poured milk into the bowl. Two eggs followed. He whipped the pancake batter. “Isn’t she spending too much time playing the piano?”
“Come on. How can you even say that?” Theresa patted his arm. “Your daughter is talented. I have…” Theresa smiled. “I have seen her fingers move while she was sleeping.”
“That’s what I am talking about. What about the school grades? She could spend more time on math.” Marcus set a pan on the stove and switched on the gas. He poured a teaspoon of oil onto the pan and held a hand over its surface.
“What? She’s learning all night. Yesterday, I saw her at her desk at 3 am.”
“Was she doing math or learning to read notes?” The oil sizzled. Marcus poured the batter onto the pan, lifted it, and rotated until the batter covered the entire surface. They heard the three notes ending the melody. The same one started right away. A constant rewind. This time Patricia played faster. “If only she were so eager to practice other things.”
“Her grades didn’t get worse.”
“They didn’t get better either.” The first pancake landed on the plate. The melody interrupted in the middle.
Patricia stood in the doorway. “Hi, Honey,” Theresa said. Patricia didn’t say anything. She grabbed a glass with her right hand, filled it at the tap. Theresa touched Patricia’s tangled hair. “Do you want me to brush it while you play?”
“What for? I don’t go anywhere.” Patricia took a sip, put the glass in the sink.
“How many pancakes do you want?” Marcus asked. Patricia left the room. Her left hand kept tapping the melody on her thigh.
Marcus slid into the bed next to Theresa, hugged her, and pulled the linen over himself. Theresa lifted herself onto her arms, looked at him.
“She asked me about Kate.”
“What? Patricia? Why? What did she ask?” He sat on the bed, switched the bedside lamp on. Theresa grimaced and covered her eyes with her palm.
“She asked if your sister was left-handed. Turn that lamp off.”
“Sorry.” Marcus flipped the switch again. “She was. Did she tell you why she asks?”
“No. It’s strange. She never cared.”
“Maybe she wanted to know who played that piano before her, or realized she wasn’t the only good pianist in the family.”
“She doesn’t remember where the grave was. She wants to visit Kate’s grave.”
“What? Wow. Five years ago you had to drag her to the car.”
“She was nine and you wanted her to spend one hour in a car just to look at a tombstone. Now that tombstone means something to her.”
“Kate would be so proud. If only I didn’t leave her there.”
“Stop. You had to leave and she had to stay one more year. That’s a fact. Not your decision. Not your fault.”
“She didn’t even wait long enough to receive my first letter.”
“Stop. I will call your therapist in the morning.” She hugged him. He stared at the wall, ignoring Theresa’s touch. She knew what would happen next and knew she couldn’t stop it. His body shook.
“She never said a word, acted so happy about my departure.” His voice cracked on “departure.”
Theresa backed off knowing he would need space to gesticulate.
“She told me to find a place with an oak tree visible from the window, so she could look at it every morning when she moves in.”
His arms drew an oak crown in the air over the bed. Theresa nodded, hearing the story for the hundredth time. She pulled him closer and kissed his neck. She had learned the choreography.
“I left in the afternoon. In the evening…” He stopped and collapsed on his pillow, trembling. She caressed his beard.
One hour later, his breathing evened out. She stayed awake longer.
“What’s that?” Marcus asked, pointing at a scribble that looked like a stop sign written between two notes in the note sheet.
“It tells me to pause here.”
“Don’t the notes already do it?”
“Yes. But I need an extra pause. The melody sounds better this way.”
“And when you need to speed up, do you draw a highway sign?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“It seemed logical.” And I had already seen it when your aunt marked her sheet music.
Patricia flipped the pages. She pointed at the highway sign in the middle of the page. “Here.” A curly “3” was written next to the sign. “The number means to play it three times as fast as the composer wanted.”
“Interesting. Where did you learn that?”
“It came to me when I was taking the shower. Mom always says the best ideas come in the shower. They really do.”
“Can I take a look?” He asked, grabbing the sheet music by its corner. Patricia’s hand stopped halfway to his. She sighed, then nodded. He flipped the pages, read Patricia’s notes. “I think the author imagined rain while writing this. It should sound like tapping on the window.” Kate’s handwriting looked like straight lines, squares, and right angles when she was correcting composers. “Rain? Why is this melody wrong?” Marcus asked.
“It’s too fast. Too joyous.” Like child’s laughter. “Like laughter.” When did you hear a child laugh here? It should feel like tears in the rain. “But I feel it sounds better when you imagine someone hiding their tears in the rain.” It fits this place better. She never cried, but always talked of crying.
“Do you want people to cry listening to this?”
“No. Unless they want. I want them to know they are allowed to cry if they want.”
“Can music do this?”
Patricia didn’t say anything. She put her hands on the piano keys, closed her eyes, and played. Marcus placed the sheet music back in front of her. She didn’t look. She stopped where the stop sign would tell her to stop, if she saw it. She sped up on the highway. She tapped the keys when it was time to cry in the rain. A tear slid past her cheek and fell on her blue dress. She ended the melody with Kate’s flourish. Marcus coughed, wiped his eye, and left the room.
“Patricia! Open the door!” Theresa yelled through the bathroom door. “You are flooding the house! Marcus! Come here!”
Marcus ran upstairs. He stepped into a puddle on the carpet by the door. Water sprayed up the wall.
“She has been there for one hour!” Theresa yelled to Marcus.
He pushed the door. Didn’t open. He moved a step back and barged with his shoulder. Didn’t open.
“Patricia! Patricia, can you hear me?” He couldn’t hear anything besides the tap water pouring into the bathtub. A photograph floated under the door. He kneeled and reached for it.
An oak with a sentence scribbled under it. Squares and right angles. “Why don’t you let me go? Kate”
Marcus collapsed on the wet carpet.