Love After Layoffs novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Piano Again

The piano stood where the neighbors and Brooks had carried it back, against the wall of the empty living room.

I had not touched the keys since the funeral.

Brooks stood in the doorway with two mugs of tea he had made himself, and I didn't taste mine.

"Play something," he said.

"I'm rusty."

"I'm tone deaf. You'll sound like an angel."

I sat on the bench, which still had my mother's needlepoint cushion, and lifted the fallboard.

The keys were yellow as old teeth.

I laid my hands on them and my fingers remembered before I did.

It was the waltz she played every Sunday while the roast cooked.

The left hand was simple and crooked, and the second line always ran a little too fast.

I played it through once with my eyes shut.

Then the notes wobbled, and I stopped, and my face was wet.

Brooks set the mugs on top of the piano.

He sat down behind me on the bench, with a leg on each side of me, and wrapped his arms around my waist.

"She'd be proud of you," he said into my hair.

"She'd say I played the second line too fast."

"Then she'd be right and proud."

I laughed, with my nose running, and turned my head.

He kissed me.

It began slow and salty and then it did not stay slow.

My hand went up into his hair and the other one slid back along his thigh.

"Janine, we're in your mother's living room."

"She would have laughed."

"Your mother's piano is behind you."

"Then I'll face the other way."

I turned around on the bench and straddled his lap.

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