He Swapped Himself Out at the Altar, So I Married the Honest Stranger novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Day Eighty

On the eightieth day I tuned a nine-foot concert grand in a hall with a leaking radiator, and I did not think about Cal.

That was a lie, and I told it to the piano.

It was January, and the snow had been falling since morning against the high depot windows.

The Duluth winter benefit paid for school music programs, and I had tuned for it every year since my father died.

I struck the A and listened to the beat in it, the slow wobble of two strings not quite agreeing.

I turned the pin a hair.

The beat slowed, and slowed, and stopped.

That was the only part of my life that week that was settling.

Cal had not said the sentence, and I had not said it either.

On the ninth morning there had been a paper cup of coffee on my back step at Ridge Street, still hot, and a footprint in the frost with a heavy left heel.

It had been there every morning since.

I had never once opened the door in time to catch him.

I drank every cup.

"Ma'am?" said a young man's voice behind me. "They're letting the first guests in."

"Thank you."

I closed the lid, took my folded program, and moved to the side of the stage to wait.

The hall filled in layers, coats and boots and the smell of wet wool.

I heard the benefit chair thank the sponsors.

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