BONUS PART 9 — The Key Behind the Counter
My piano teacher listened to the whole piece over the phone. When I finished, she asked me to play the last four measures again.
I played them again.
“Good,” she said. “Now do it without apologizing.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You stopped breathing when you missed the note.”
I looked down at my hands. My right thumb was tucked so tightly under my palm that it had started to ache.
I moved it back onto the keys.
This time I missed a different note. I kept going.
“There you are,” she said when I finished.
Her name was Marianne. She used to leave a cup of tea on the far end of the piano during my lessons and forget to drink it until I was putting my coat on. I could picture her standing behind the counter now with her coat half-buttoned, holding the shop phone against her ear.
“Did you get a piano?” she asked.
“Last Saturday.”
“Does the bench wobble?”
“It did. My dad fixed it.”
“Then you’re ahead of most of my students.”
I laughed. I could hear the man at the counter asking if she wanted him to turn off the lights in the back. She told him to give her another minute.
“I found the note you put in my book,” I said.
“What note?”
“The one about the practice room. You paid for Tuesdays through the end of the month.”
For a moment she didn’t answer. I heard her pull the phone away from her ear and say goodnight to somebody.
Then she came back.
“I remember you standing at the counter,” she said. “You wouldn’t put your bag down.”
“I thought if I sat down, I might tell you why I couldn’t come anymore.”
“I wondered about that.”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
“I did. You told me you couldn’t commit to Tuesdays. Then you looked at the clock behind me.” She paused. “I figured you’d given me the answer you could give that day.”
I picked up the note. It had been folded so long that I could stand it on the piano like a little tent.
“I would’ve come if I’d read it,” I said.
“Would you?”
Her voice was kind. She sounded like she actually wanted to know.
I thought about the weeks after I signed the loan. I’d stopped buying coffee on my way to work. I’d gone home at the same time every Tuesday and made dinner with whatever needed using up. Once I’d driven past the music shop and felt embarrassed that Marianne might see my car.
I could have walked in and asked for the key.
I could also imagine getting as far as the door and deciding I’d used up enough of her time already.
“I wish I’d given myself the chance to find out,” I said.
The shop went quiet around her.
“I teach until eight next Tuesday,” she said. “I usually stay a little later to catch up on things. If you’d like to come by, I’ll be there.”
I looked at my calendar. The space after work was empty.
“What would you want me to play?”
“Something you like.”
“I just finished the piece you gave me.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can play it again. I’ll listen in person this time.”
After we hung up, I turned the note over and wrote the date of the following Tuesday beneath the old practice hours.
I left room for the time.
I’d ask her what worked when I called the shop back.
Brenna wanted to know how the conversation had gone.
She called on her way home from work. I could tell she was walking because she’d get to the end of a sentence and suddenly sound much farther away. She’d bought new gloves and couldn’t figure out how to hold the phone without covering the microphone.
“She remembered me,” I said.
“Of course she remembered you.”
“You say that like you’ve met me and know what I’m like.”
“I have terrible news for you.”
I laughed.
Then I told her Marianne had invited me back. I said I thought I’d go.
“What about my draft?” Brenna asked. “You can take longer if you need to.”
“I’ve read it.”
She stopped walking. The difference was so immediate that I could hear a car idling somewhere near her.
“I’m comfortable with you telling them about the payment plan,” I said. “You can tell them I took out a loan and that you paid me back. I’d like to keep the piano between us.”
“Okay.”
“And take out the amount. It was in the third paragraph.”
“I can do that.”
She started walking again. I heard her pass somebody who was talking about a bus.
“Can I ask why you wanted to leave the piano out?” she said.
I turned on the lamp beside the bench. The light caught the scratch across the lid. I’d found out that if I set the lamp a little farther back, I could see the music without seeing the scratch at all. I’d moved it forward again because I liked it there.
“I’ve only just started telling people I play,” I said. “I want to be the person who gets to tell them.”
Brenna didn’t answer right away.
Then she said, “I’m glad you told me.”
I ran a finger over the chipped edge of the lesson book.
“I am, too.”
She told me she’d make the changes that evening. Then she asked what I wanted for my birthday, which was still far enough away that I hadn’t thought about it.
“Why are you asking now?”
“Because I keep seeing things and thinking you might like them. Then I remember I could just ask.”
I looked at the piano. There were two pieces of music I’d printed at work, both loose, both already curling at the corners.
“A folder that stands up on the music rest,” I said.
“What color?”
“Anything but the color of Mom’s old ledger.”
“Blue,” she said. “Got it. No blue.”
She stayed on the phone until she got home. I heard her put her keys down and say hello to Gary. Then she told him I was on the phone and waited a beat, as though giving him the opportunity to greet me himself.
“Still rude,” she said.
I was laughing when we hung up.
The workshop was held in a classroom with a clock that ran six minutes fast.
Elise told me as soon as I walked in. She said she’d once finished a whole presentation early because she kept looking up and panicking.
“Does anybody know how to fix it?” I asked.
“Probably. I’ve started using it to get people to the bus on time.”
She showed me where to put my coat. Then she set two chairs at the front and handed me a page with three practice conversations on it.
The one I’d asked her to keep was second.
A student named Jo volunteered to do that one. She wore a jacket with a little patch on the sleeve that had started coming loose. She kept pressing it flat while Elise explained how we’d do the exercise.
Jo wanted to practice asking her older brother for money to cover a deposit on a room. Her brother had lent her money before. She said she was pretty sure he’d help if she told him the deposit was due Friday.
“Do you know what he has going on this week?” Elise asked.
“He works nights.”
“What else?”
Jo looked down at the page.
“I know he’s saving for something. I can’t remember what.”
She glanced up at me.
“Am I supposed to find that out first?”
“You can ask him,” I said. “You can also tell him when you need an answer and give him a chance to work it out.”
She nodded. Then she took her phone out of her pocket so she could hold it the way she would if she were making the call.
We started.
She told me about the room. She told me how much she needed, what she already had, and what she could pay back after her next shift.
Then she said, “I just need to know when you can send it.”
She heard herself say it.
Her eyes went to Elise. Then she looked back at me.
“Can I try that last bit again?”
“Sure.”
Jo looked down at her phone.
“Would you be able to lend me the rest?” she asked.
“I need a day to see what I can afford.”
She opened her mouth. For a second I thought she was going to tell me why I didn’t need a whole day. I’d heard plenty of versions of that sentence. I’d said a few myself.
“What time tomorrow could you tell me?” she asked instead.
“After work.”
“Okay.” She took a breath. “I’ll call about the room in the meantime and ask if they can hold it until Saturday.”
She lowered her phone.
“That felt longer than I thought it would,” she said.
“Which part?”
“The bit after you said you needed a day. I thought I was sitting there forever.”
It had been about three seconds.
I knew exactly what she meant.
A student at the back asked what would happen if her brother came back the next day and said he couldn’t help.
Jo thought about it.
“I guess I’d be glad I’d called about the room.”
Elise waited a moment before she asked for the next volunteer.
I went back to my seat and realized I was gripping the sheet of paper hard enough to crease it.
I smoothed it against my knee.
I’d expected to spend the workshop thinking about what it felt like to get Brenna’s call. Instead, I kept thinking about the first call I’d ever made to my mother from my new apartment. The washing machine had been leaking at her house. I’d taken my eggs off the stove and stood in the kitchen trying to picture where she’d put the towels.
I couldn’t remember whether she’d asked if I had time to talk.
I could remember how easily I’d handed her the rest of my evening.
For three seconds in a classroom, Jo had let me keep mine.
Brenna spoke near the end.
She stood at the front with a single sheet of paper. She’d brought a glass of water and forgotten to set it down, so she held it while she talked.
“I paid a school bill before I called the school to ask what my options were,” she said. “My sister took out a loan to help me. The next day, someone in the office told me I could’ve asked about a payment plan.”
She looked down at the page.
“I said I wished I’d known. Then I went to class.”
A few people shifted in their chairs. Somebody near the window uncapped a pen.
“I used to tell that story and go straight from the day she helped me to the day I paid her back. I liked telling it that way. I sounded scared at the beginning and responsible at the end.”
She took a sip of water. A little of it spilled onto her hand. She put the glass down.
“I could’ve called my sister that afternoon and told her what I’d found out. I wanted to be finished with the problem. She was still making payments.”
My sister looked at the page for another second.
Then she folded it.
“What I wish I’d done first,” she said, “is call the person whose job it was to answer questions about the bill. I can tell you what I would’ve asked, if you want to write it down.”
There was a rustle as people reached for notebooks.
Brenna told them.
She didn’t look over at me until she was walking back to her chair. When she did, I moved my bag so she could sit down beside me.
Her hand shook a little when she picked up her water again.
“Want me to take that?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I took the glass.
She put both hands flat on her knees and listened to the next person speak.
Afterward, Jo found us in the hallway.
She’d called her brother during the break. He hadn’t answered, which made sense because he worked nights and was probably asleep.
“I left him a message asking when he could talk,” she said. “Then I called about the room.”
“What did they say?” Brenna asked.
“The deposit isn’t due Friday. Friday’s when they’re showing it again. I heard the word Friday and did the rest myself.”
She gave a little laugh.
“I still want the room,” she said. “I’ve got until Monday if I want to put my name down. They told me there’s another one opening next month that’s cheaper.”
“Do you want to see that one?” I asked.
“I think so. The first one’s got a nice window. I was probably trying to buy the window.”
I remembered looking through the window of my first apartment and thinking I could make anything work as long as I got to wake up there.
“What can you see from it?” I asked.
“The back of a bakery.”
Brenna looked at me.
I smiled.
“Have you been in?” I asked.
Jo shook her head.
“I was going to go after I looked at the room, but I thought I ought to go home and work out the deposit.”
She looked down the hall toward the exit.
“I think I’ve still got time today.”
She checked the clock on her phone, waved, and went out.
Brenna and I stood there until the door closed behind her.
“Do you want coffee?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Somewhere that sells it by the cup. I’m still getting complaints that the stuff I made at graduation was too strong.”
“From who?”
“Dad. He said he could hear the light bulbs.”
“He had two cups.”
“I know. That’s the part I’m struggling with.”
We went to the café across the street. Brenna ordered first and found a table by the window. I brought my coffee over and sat down.
For a few minutes, we watched people come out of the building. Elise was holding the door for somebody who’d brought a bicycle inside. Jo had already gone.
“I was afraid you’d think I was making myself look good again,” Brenna said.
I took a sip before I answered.
“I thought you told them something you knew firsthand.”
She turned her cup a little.
“I was going to mention the check I brought to your apartment. It was in an earlier version. I liked that part because it made me sound like I’d finally got everything right.”
“You asked me to count a cashier’s check.”
“I was hoping you’d forgotten that.”
“I’ll never forget it.”
Brenna laughed and picked at the corner of her napkin.
Then she said, “Thanks for telling me what to leave out.”
I looked at her across the table. There’d been a time when I would’ve tried to tell her it didn’t matter. I knew how to make those words sound generous.
“You made it easy to tell you,” I said.
She went still for a second. Then she leaned back in her chair and took a drink.
We spent the rest of our coffee talking about her new project. She told me a woman at work had asked her to lead part of a meeting. She wanted to do it. She was also afraid she’d speak so fast nobody would catch her name.
“Start with a glass of water,” I said.
“Maybe set it down first.”
“That would help.”
On Tuesday evening, I went to the music shop.
Somebody had moved the stuffed bear to the other side of the window. It was still wearing headphones, but one side had slipped down over an eye.
The man at the counter recognized me.
“Upright?” he asked.
“I’m meeting Marianne.”
“She left the key here for you.”
He took it off a hook beneath the counter. There was a piece of yellow tape around the top with the room number written on it.
I stood looking at it in his hand.
For years, I’d pictured that counter as the place I’d gone to stop doing something I liked. I could remember the exact spot where I’d stood so another student could get around me with a guitar case. I could remember slipping Marianne’s note into my lesson book and telling myself I’d read it when I got home.
Now the man waited with his palm open.
I took the key.
“Do I owe you for the room?” I asked.
“Marianne said she’s using it after her last lesson. She asked if you could open it up.”
“Okay.”
He turned back to the computer. I put the key in the lock and opened the door.
The bench was still set low from the last time I’d used it. I took my coat off, put the music on the rest, and played the beginning.
Then I played the part Mom had hummed wrong.
I’d only meant to warm up. I got to the end of the second page before I noticed Marianne standing in the doorway.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She had a mug in one hand and a cardigan draped over her arm. There was a chair by the wall. She set the mug on the floor beside it and sat down.
“Keep going,” she said.
I played the last four measures.
This time I remembered to breathe.
Marianne waited until the sound faded.
“You changed the fingering in the middle,” she said.
“Is it wrong?”
“Does your hand hurt?”
“No.”
“Can you get to the next note?”
“Most of the time.”
“Then show me how you’re doing it.”
I played the line for her. She leaned forward, watched my hand, and asked me to do it slower. When I did, she pointed to a place where I was lifting my wrist too early.
I tried it again.
The note came out clearer.
“Oh,” I said.
She picked up her mug.
“That was my favorite thing you used to say.”
“What was?”
“‘Oh.’ You always sounded surprised that there was something you could do besides try harder.”
I laughed and tried the line again.
When I finished, Marianne asked what I wanted to learn next.
I’d brought two possibilities. The first was short and looked manageable. The second had a page I didn’t understand.
I handed her the second one.
She opened it across her knees.
“What do you like about this?”
“The part where the left hand takes over.”
She turned the page and pointed.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Show me what you can do with it.”
“I can’t do much.”
“All right.”
She waited.
I put my left hand on the keys.
After we finished, I asked Marianne why she’d paid for the room all those years ago.
She was winding her scarf around her neck. She stopped with one end hanging lower than the other.
“I used to book that hour for myself,” she said. “My son had started working evenings. I could’ve gone home and practiced, but I knew if I went home I’d put a load of laundry in and call it a night.”
She pulled the longer end of the scarf through.
“I’d already paid for the month when you came in. I thought if you used the room, I’d practice at home and see what happened.”
“What happened?”
“I did laundry.”
I laughed. She did too.
“Then the man who owned the shop put the radio on in the back while he did his accounts,” she said. “I went in and asked if he’d mind turning it off for half an hour. He said he’d rather hear a piano anyway.”
She found her keys in the pocket of her coat.
“I hoped you’d come,” she said. “I liked hearing you play.”
I thought about all the evenings I’d gone home instead. I’d never considered that there might have been somebody at the shop who would’ve been pleased to see me walk through the door with nothing to explain.
“Could we do a lesson next month?” I asked.
“Once, or do you want a regular time?”
“Once first. I want to see how it fits.”
“Good. Ask at the counter. They’ve got my calendar.”
We went out together. The man was turning the sign on the front door.
I booked a lesson for the second Tuesday of the following month. Then I reached into my pocket to return the key.
The man was busy closing the register. He pointed beneath the counter.
I put the key back on its hook.
It made a little click when I let go.
Mom called the next week while I was practicing.
I could see her name on the screen from the bench. My hands were in position for the part where the left hand took over. I’d spent most of the evening getting there without losing the rhythm.
The phone rang four times.
I played the line.
It came out wrong on the way down. I went back one measure and tried it again. By the time I reached the bottom of the page, the phone had stopped ringing.
I picked it up when I was done.
Mom had left a message.
“Your father found a table at the secondhand shop,” she said. “He thinks it’ll fit by the kitchen window. I think he measured everything except the part where the chairs go. Call me when you feel like it. I want to know how your lesson went.”
I listened twice, mostly because I liked hearing her say the last sentence.
When I called her back, she was trying to move a chair away from the table so she could open a drawer.
“Can you get to the drawer?” I asked.
“If I sit down first.”
“Is that how you want to get a spoon for the rest of your life?”
“I don’t think so.”
There was a scrape. Then I heard her ask Dad to help her move the table an inch.
“Do you want me to measure it again?” he asked.
“I want you to pick up your end.”
I waited while they did that. A moment later Mom came back to the phone.
“It works if we put the chairs on the other sides,” she said. “Anyway. What did you play?”
I told her about Marianne and the practice-room key. I told her about the note.
Mom was quiet for a while.
“You used to come home late some Tuesdays,” she said. “I remember asking if they were making you stay at work.”
“I used to say I had something to do.”
“You did.”
I put the phone on the music rest and looked at the page I’d been practicing.
“I still do,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “I called halfway through it, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Did you finish?”
“I finished the page.”
“Good.”
I could hear Dad opening the drawer. He called out that there was room for the spoon after all.
Mom said, “Would you play me the part you were working on?”
I looked down at the keys.
“Over the phone?”
“If you feel like it.”
I put the phone flat on the end of the piano and played the line where my left hand took over. I got farther than I had before. Then I caught two keys at once and stopped.
Mom didn’t say anything.
“Are you still there?” I asked.
“Yes. I thought there might be another bit.”
I looked at the music.
“There is.”
I played it.
In November, Lauren asked what I wanted to do for Christmas.
We were eating lunch at her kitchen table. She’d opened a jar of pickles and put it between us because neither of us wanted to wash another dish.
“Are you asking about the pies?” I said.
“I’m asking about you. My brother asked about the pies in September.”
I’d spent the last two Christmases at her house. I knew where they kept the extra forks. I knew her mother liked to have the water glasses filled before everybody sat down. I knew Lauren would cut herself a piece of both pies and tell anybody who asked that she was checking whether they’d set.
“What are you doing this year?” I asked.
“Dinner at three, probably. My mother bought a tablecloth she wants everyone to see before my brother drops something on it.”
I smiled.
Then I told Lauren what I’d been thinking about.
“I’d like to have breakfast at my place.”
“Christmas morning?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you want there?”
I’d spent a few weeks asking myself that question. My answer had stayed the same, which gave me enough courage to say it out loud.
“Brenna. Patricia. You, if you’d like to come. Mom and Dad.”
Lauren took a pickle out of the jar with her fork.
“What do you want to make?”
“Pancakes.”
“Chocolate chips?”
“On the table. Anybody who wants them can put in as many as they like.”
Lauren nodded.
“Can I come in pajamas?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m in.”
I ate another bite of my sandwich. Across the room, a stack of envelopes sat beside her kettle. Her brother had written his name on one of them in huge letters because it contained money Lauren had collected for a present, and he was afraid she’d forget who it belonged to.
“I haven’t invited my parents yet,” I said.
“Are you worried they’ll say no?”
I thought about it.
“I’m worried I’ll invite them and then spend the whole morning watching them to see whether they’re having a good enough time.”
Lauren chewed for a second.
“If you do that, I’ll ask you to sit next to me,” she said.
I looked at her.
“Will you?”
“Yes. I’d like you to sit next to me anyway.”
We finished eating. She put the pickle jar back in the refrigerator and told me she had two mismatched folding chairs I could borrow.
I took both.
I invited Brenna first.
She asked what time, then asked if I wanted her to come early.
“Would you make the coffee?” I said.
“Do you want it the way I made it for graduation?”
“Yes.”
“Should we warn Dad?”
“He can put water in it.”
She laughed. Then she told me Gary had outgrown his pot. She’d bought a bigger one and hadn’t moved him yet because she wanted Patricia to show her what to do with the roots.
“Ask her at breakfast,” I said.
“I could call her tonight.”
“You could.”
She did. Patricia called me afterward to say Brenna had described the roots in more detail than she’d needed before dinner.
I invited her while I had her on the phone.
“Can I bring oranges?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to cut them first?”
“We can do it here.”
“All right. I’m bringing a knife. Yours is terrible.”
I looked at the knife on my counter. I’d been making excuses for it for months.
“I’d like that,” I said.
I called Dad on Sunday afternoon.
Mom was with him. I could hear her reading something out loud, then stopping when he told her it was me.
“I’m having breakfast at my place on Christmas,” I said. “I’d like you both to come. It’s at ten.”
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
I wondered if they’d already made plans. I wondered if Mom was about to ask whether I wanted to have breakfast at their place instead, where there were enough chairs and a new table by the window.
Then Dad said, “Do you have room?”
“I borrowed chairs.”
“Are they the ones that fold up if you lean forward?”
“I haven’t tested that.”
“Test them before you sit down with a plate.”
Mom laughed. Dad laughed too.
Then Mom asked, “What would you like us to bring?”
I looked at the list on my kitchen counter. I’d written coffee, flour, eggs, butter, oranges. Beside syrup I’d put a question mark because I hadn’t checked the cupboard yet.
“Would you bring syrup?”
“Yes,” she said.
Dad said, “I can get it tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to get it tomorrow,” Mom told him.
“I know. I’m going to the store anyway.”
They talked to each other for a second about what else was on the grocery list.
I stood there listening to them and realized I wasn’t waiting for either of them to bring up the old Christmas.
Then Mom came back to the phone.
“Are you still going to Lauren’s in the afternoon?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What time do you need us to go?”
I hadn’t planned for her to ask. I looked at the table, at the chairs I’d brought home folded in the back of my car.
“Eleven thirty,” I said. “I want a little while to myself before I go over there.”
“All right,” she said. “Ten to eleven thirty.”
I thought we’d finished.
Then Dad said, “Could I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Would you play for us while we’re there?”
I looked at the piano. The new piece was open to the page I still couldn’t finish. I could get through most of it now. There were six measures near the end where I kept having to stop.
“I might,” I said.
“Okay.”
“Can you ask me that morning?”
“Yes,” he said. “I can do that.”
On Christmas Eve, I moved the kitchen table away from the wall.
I set out six plates and discovered I only had five matching forks. I put the odd one at my own place because it was the one I liked best. It was a little heavier than the others. I’d bought it by itself at a flea market without knowing what I’d do with one fork.
Then I tested Lauren’s folding chairs. They held.
I set the chocolate chips in a bowl and covered it. I put the good pan on the stove. I took the butter out of the back of the refrigerator so I wouldn’t have to dig for it with everybody standing around.
There was a little snow coming down outside. It wasn’t sticking to the road yet.
Brenna texted me a picture of the coffee bag she’d bought. Gary’s new pot was visible behind it. She’d put a towel under it because she hadn’t bought a saucer big enough.
I followed Patricia’s instructions. So far he’s still upright.
I wrote back, Take a picture for the key ring before he changes his mind.
Then I went to the piano.
I played the new piece slowly. When I got to the difficult stretch, I stopped after the first mistake and went back a line, the way Irene had told me to. I tried it again. I got through four of the six measures before my left hand went somewhere I hadn’t asked it to.
I stopped and laughed.
Outside, somebody knocked.
I looked at the clock. It was a little after eight. I wasn’t expecting anybody.
For a second, I thought I’d heard a cupboard close in the apartment across the hall.
Then came the second knock.
I took my hands off the keys and opened the door.
My father was standing there with a bottle of syrup in one hand and the little wooden stirrer from the park in the other.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Your mother bought two bottles,” he said. “I thought I’d bring one over tonight in case we forget in the morning.”
I took the syrup.
He held up the stirrer.
“I found this in my coat. Do you remember it?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got a spoon this time,” he said. “An actual one. I checked.”
I laughed. He put the stirrer back in his pocket.
Then he looked past me toward the piano.
“I heard you playing from the stairs,” he said.
“Was I already at the bad part?”
“I heard you stop and laugh.”
I leaned against the door.
“Would you like to come in?”
His eyes went to my face. He looked a little surprised.
“Only if you’ve got time.”
“I’ve got time for a cup of coffee.”
He wiped his shoes on the mat and came in.
I put the syrup on the table. Dad looked at the six places I’d set out. He saw the odd fork and picked it up.
“This one feels good in your hand,” he said.
“I know. That’s mine.”
He put it back exactly where he’d found it.
I turned on the kettle. Dad took two mugs down after I showed him the cupboard. For a minute, we stood side by side waiting for the water to boil.
Then he said, “There’s something I’ve been trying to work out how to ask you.”
I turned toward him.
“Is it about tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
The kettle began to rattle. I switched it off.
Dad took a breath.
“Tomorrow’s going to be the first Christmas I’ve seen you in person since the one when I left you on the porch,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about that every time your mother tells me what time we need to be here.”
I set the kettle down.
I’d known this, too. I’d counted the Christmases without meaning to. I’d thought about it when I told him ten o’clock and again when I set out his plate.
“What did you want to ask?” I said.
“If I come up tomorrow and I get as far as the door and realize I’m nervous, is it all right if I tell you?”
I looked at him.
He was watching my face the way he used to watch the weather through the front window, trying to tell whether the rain would let up long enough for him to get to the car.
“You can tell me,” I said.
He nodded.
“I might be nervous, too,” I added.
His eyes moved back to mine.
“What would you like me to do if you are?”
I thought about the old porch. My glove against the door. The sound of the bell going all the way through the house.
Then I thought about the empty chairs behind me, the covered bowl of chocolate chips, and the coffee we were about to drink in my kitchen.
“Come in anyway,” I said. “If I open the door and ask you in, you can believe me.”
Dad put a hand on the back of the nearest chair.
“All right,” he said.
I poured the water. He opened the drawer I pointed to and took out two spoons.
We sat down at the table. He stirred his coffee and handed me the other spoon before I had to ask.
We talked until our cups were empty. I told him how far I’d got with the new piece. He told me he’d gone to the shop that afternoon for syrup and come home with a jar of mustard because he saw it first and thought that must have been what he needed.
“Is that why Mom bought two bottles?”
“She didn’t want to send me back by myself.”
I laughed. Then I asked if he wanted to hear the part I’d been working on.
“Tonight?” he said.
“Yes. Tomorrow I might feel like playing something else.”
He brought his chair over. I sat down at the piano.
I played from the start of the second page. When I got to the six measures, I made it through five.
My father waited while I went back and found the one I’d missed.
The next morning, I heard Brenna come up the stairs before she knocked. Her keys made a little noise against the railing.
Patricia arrived with oranges and a knife wrapped in a towel. Lauren came in wearing pajamas under her coat and asked which chair I’d saved for her.
I pointed to the one beside mine.
Brenna started the coffee. Patricia cut an orange and handed me the first piece while I stood at the stove warming the pan. Lauren opened the chocolate chips and ate two before she put them back on the table.
At ten, somebody knocked.
For a second, my hand stayed on the handle of the pan.
Then I set it down.
I went to the door and opened it.
Dad stood there beside Mom. She had a bottle of syrup tucked under her arm. He took his gloves off one finger at a time.
“I’m nervous,” he said.
“So am I.”
Mom looked down at the bottle.
“We remembered the syrup,” she said.
I laughed. Then she laughed, and Dad finally got the second glove off.
I stepped back to make room.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
My father looked at me. He’d taken his gloves off so carefully that he was still holding them by the fingertips.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
From the kitchen, Brenna asked whether anybody wanted coffee.
“Yes,” Dad called.
Then he looked at me once more.
I held the door open.
And this time, he came in.
END OF BONUS PART 9
