Chapter 21: Her Own Door

The guest house stood at the edge of the vines, a white cottage with a green door and a porch swing.

The kitchen inside smelled of lemon soap.

I carried in my own bags on Saturday afternoon.

There were four of them, and one was a walnut jewelry box.

It was the first door in my life that I had picked myself.

I walked through every room twice.

I opened every cupboard, and ran every tap, and sat on the bed and bounced a little.

Then I went and stood in the middle of the main room and listened to nothing.

There was nobody to apologize to, and nobody I had to be quiet for.

It was the best sound I'd ever heard.

At four o'clock a truck came up the lane, and I looked out to see Chandler climbing down from the cab, in his sorting-line boots.

Three movers stood in the truck bed behind him, holding the corners of a very large wrapped shape.

I stepped out onto the porch with my arms folded.

"I didn't invite you," I said.

"No," said Chandler. "I know."

He took off his cap.

His hands were stained purple to the wrist, from three days of hauling the first picked lots.

"It's Mom's piano," he said. "It's been in the Pacific Heights music room, under a sheet, since the funeral. Dad wanted to sell it."

"I told him I'd bought it."

"With what?"

"A month's salary," said Chandler. "I don't have a salary now, so it's a month of the sorting line."

The foreman had told me he was the worst sorter he'd ever seen, and that he hadn't complained once.

I looked at the piano.

It was a small walnut upright with a chipped corner, and I had not heard it played in fifteen years.

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