Everyone watched.
“The movers can take the piano wherever you direct within sixty miles. I’ve already paid.”
Norine’s eyes filled.
“Or you can arrange another company and storage under the written terms we discussed.”
Darcy shook her head.
“Don’t.”
Norine stared at her daughter.
Then at the piano.
Then at Lahie.
For the first time, she looked exhausted.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
I picked up the page I’d given her the day before.
“Three furnished rooms.”
She took it.
“One is near your students.”
Darcy whispered, “Mom.”
Norine turned.
“No.”
Darcy stopped.
Norine took a breath.
“I let you convince me this was easier.”
Darcy’s mouth tightened.
“It was easier.”
“For you.”
The words were not loud.
They did not need to be.
Grady finally looked up.
Then said something I had not expected.
“Our apartment.”
Darcy stared at him.
“What?”
“Take the piano to our place.”
“We don’t have room.”
“Neither did Mom.”
That landed.
He looked at the movers.
“I’ll give you the address.”
Darcy’s face went blank.
The movers removed the legs.
Wrapped the piano in blankets.
Tipped it carefully onto the board.
Exactly as they had twenty-six days earlier.
Parents gathered their children quietly.
Two women stopped near me on the way out.
One squeezed my hand.
The man who had called me heartless stood by the door.
“I’m sorry.”
I nodded.
That was enough.
When the piano rolled across my living room toward the front door, it passed under the porch camera.
Darcy stood beside me.
I could have repeated her sentence.
Part of me wanted to.
Instead, I said, “This never had to become this hard.”
She looked at me.
For once, she had no answer.
Norine packed her suitcases.
She chose to stay temporarily with Grady and Darcy until she found a room.
Before leaving, she held the old metronome.
“My mother’s.”
“I remember.”
She looked toward Leif’s chair.
Then at me.
“I’m sorry about his chair.”
That almost broke something in me.
Not because it fixed the damage.
Because it was the first time anyone acknowledged what had actually been displaced.
“Thank you.”
She left.
Grady was last.
He stood on the porch.
Then reached into his jacket.
The ladybug key.
He placed it in my palm.
Closed my fingers around it.
For one second, he looked eleven years old.
He did not apologize.
Not then.
He simply said, “Lahie waved at you all afternoon.”
“I know.”
“She wants to come Sunday.”
“She’s always welcome.”
He nodded.
Then followed the moving truck.
At 5:40, the house was quiet.
Dedra and I carried Leif’s chair back to the window.
Three round dents remained in the carpet where the piano legs had stood.
One of the chair’s feet settled into a dent.
The chair rocked once.
Then became still.
I sat down.
Put on Leif’s glasses.
Everything blurred.
“I’m home,” I said.
The sentence sounded strange inside an empty living room.
Then it sounded right.
The following week, I changed the locks.
The spare key had been returned, but trust had not.
Not yet.
Darcy stopped coming to my house.
Lahie still came on Sundays.