Da Capo

It had been a long, long time.

Anne sat slumped on the piano bench, staring at the keys, her fists clenched tight in the fabric of her sweatpants. She could see her reflection in the polished surface of the piano's lid. To say she was an utter mess would be putting it lightly. She'd slept in her ponytail for two days, turning it into a knotted mat and making the top of her head look oddly lumpy. She'd worn the same stained T-shirt since Tuesday of last week. Her face was swollen and blotchy, her eyes glassy with tears, as if she were a child again, crying over a butchered waltz.

But none of that mattered now.

Anne tore herself away from her reflection and dried her eyes, rubbing them until they were red, then turned her attention to the piano.

The piano itself was a black Steinway grand, just as glorious as it had been when she first saw it all those years ago. It shone in the dying sunlight, pristine as ever; though she hadn't played for ages, she dusted it every Sunday. It had sat in the corner of her living room, glossy and obsolete, for almost half her life.

She struck a middle C without thinking, and it rang out, perfectly in tune. She'd had the Steinway tuned monthly, half out of habit and half out of her mother's insistence.

You'd let such a glorious thing go to waste.

Anne stared at her hands, which had come to rest on the keys almost instinctively. They looked like a stranger's hands, dry and cracking at the knuckles. They didn't belong there, perched on the piano, not like the slender, strong hands of ages past. A pianist's hands, young and confident in their motions, eager to dart across the octaves. And before: a girl's small, stubby fingers, straining to reach a major seventh, bursting with pride when she played a perfect arpeggio.

She had spent so many hours at that piano as a girl, lessons and recitals and nights upon nights of practice. She'd done it all: stumbled through basic chords, tentatively sightread a minuet, played concertos to thunderous applause. She remembered her coach at her shoulder, scolding her for forgetting dynamics, and her own fury years later when her memory slipped mid-waltz. She'd bite the inside of her lip so hard it bled and swear to herself she'd do better. She'd drive herself to tears perfecting one piece after another.

But God, it was worth it every time. Every time her wrists cramped, she'd close her eyes and she'd be twelve again, clutching a gold trophy and watching her mother's beaming smile. Her mother so rarely smiled.

You would have made us all proud someday.

Anne straightened. She spent so much time slouching these days, working from her couch and waiting for the hospital to call. Her posture was atrocious. Could she blame herself, though, knowing what she knew? Feeling the collage of emotions that she felt, terror and despair and a tiny bit of relief? It wasn't right to feel that way, but she couldn't help herself.

And now you'll be nothing. Nothing!

She took a deep breath, readying herself to play, and-

The phone rang, and she scrambled to answer.

"It's time, Anne."

Her mother's raspy voice crackled over the phone, a fragile sound that seemed to fill the whole room before dissipating into silence.

"They say they've got to put some..." a pause filled with hacking coughs, "...some contraption in my lungs."

It was all wrong, that crackly whisper. Nothing like the stern, sure voice Anne knew. She wanted to hurl the phone out the window and scream until the whole world knew that a ghost had replaced her mother. A shell of a woman.

She knew what it felt like for dreams to die, but this?

"I wish they'd let me see you one last time."

Anne put the phone on a music stand next to the piano. Her throat was tight, but her eyes were dry. She'd cried over this moment for three days already, and she was all out of tears.

She sat at the bench and brought her hands to their proper positions, palms arched like she was cupping a tennis ball. She brought her right foot to the pedals and kept the other on the floor. Her elbows were bent, but loosely; she'd always been taught that tension in the body would strain the music. The music was all that mattered. Not the body, not the mind, not the fledgling hope for a way out. Just the music.

She'd given so much of her life to the piano: her youth, her dreams, her heart. All for her mother's smile.

And when she had nothing left to give, when it threatened to swallow her whole, she'd turned her back and run.

Damn it all, Anne, you're throwing your life away! You had so much promise, so much talent, and I made sure that it grew. I worked three jobs to pay for your lessons. I sold my favorite dress to buy you that piano. I did it all for you, all for this, for your future.

Anne had been twenty then, playing Carnegie Hall every second Friday. She'd had fame and fortune and she hadn't wanted an ounce of it. She'd canceled all her concerts in one night. Some papers claimed it was a psychotic break; others, that she'd gotten pregnant by the president's son, who had attended one of her performances two months prior. She had let them gossip. None of it mattered anymore. She'd sworn up and down that she was done forever, that she'd never touch a piano again.

Somehow, they'd fixed things after the fight. Anne had made it clear that she was set in her decision, and after a week her mother had sent a letter saying she'd respect her choices no matter what.

But her smiles never quite reached her eyes after.

All that for nothing. Do you know why I did it? Do you?

Anne, alone in an empty room. Her mother, three states away, dying.

"I love you, Mama."

Her mother said nothing between rattling breaths. She'd spent the last of her air already.

But Anne thought she might have been smiling.

Because I love you.

She closed her eyes and began to play.