The Ex-Change novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Last Exchange

The folding chairs in my studio in Dayton had never held more than twenty people.

On the second Thursday in November there were forty of them, and Jude had bought every one.

"That's what my check was for," he said, when I found the receipt. "That and the ramp."

He had put in a wooden ramp by the front door, for my mother's cane.

Then he kissed my forehead and went to sit in the front row.

He had flown in from a tour stop in Chicago that morning, on a day off he'd been promised for a month.

He wore a plain grey sweater and carried a bouquet of white roses so large that the six-year-old at the piano stared at it instead of the keys.

"Is he a famous person?" the boy whispered.

"A little," I said. "Play your piece, sweetheart."

My mother sat beside Jude in her good blue cardigan, with her hand on his sleeve.

She was thinner than she had been, and she walked with a cane.

In the doorway she had given me a look that meant she had opinions and would share them in the car.

My own check had gone where I'd said it would.

Part of it had cleared the last of her hospital bills.

The rest had bought a second piano, an old upright with a cracked lid.

I'd put a small sign on it in felt marker.

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