At the end of his lesson, the teacher picked up a newspaper she had left beside the piano.
“Have you been reading this?”
“What is it?”
“This column they’ve been running. I think this is the third one.”
She opened the folded page.
“The man writing it hasn’t seen his daughter in years.”
“Oh.”
“He writes her a letter every birthday. Never sends them.”
She handed him the paper.
“Read this week’s. I liked this one.”
Still sitting at the piano, he looked down at the page. Under a small headline was a piece written by the father.
Mom used to tell me this story about when you were two.
“Before you even see him, you know it’s Dad. The second he comes home, you start yelling for him.”
Maybe you recognized my footsteps. Maybe it was the sound of the front door. Somehow, you knew. You would come running down the hall, and when you saw me standing there, you would call, “Dad,” all over again.
As work kept me later, there were more nights when you were already asleep by the time I came home. I still remember you running to the front door to meet me.
Below it was a photograph of a handwritten letter.
To You at Fourteen
Happy fourteenth birthday.
Are you getting used to your school?
Do you have a favorite class yet?
What do you do after school?
When you were little, you loved to run. Do you still?
Once, Mom cut your hair too short and you cried about it.
I wonder how you wear it now.
When I see characters you used to love in a store, I still find myself picking them up before I remember you probably like completely different things now.
What kind of music do you listen to?
Next time I see you, I’d like to walk by the river where the three of us used to go. Maybe we can race again and see who’s faster now.
He read to the end. Then he went back to the line about racing by the river.
He handed the newspaper back.
“That’s kind of sad.”
“I know.”
The teacher looked down at the page.
“The first one was good too. It had the letter that started the whole series.”
“A letter?”
“Yeah. He found it somewhere. And it mentioned Mélancolie.”
“Mélancolie?”
“The piece she played at the recital.”
“Right.”
The teacher set the newspaper beside the piano.
“There’s something about that piece with this story.”
She put her hands on the keys. The first few measures filled the room. He recognized them immediately.
“It really is a beautiful piece.”
She kept playing.
“Ever since I started reading this, I hear it differently. Makes me think about when my kids were little.”
Her hands stopped.
“Gets me a little.”
“It does sound kind of lonely.”
“Lonely, yes. But not only lonely.”
She played the opening again.
“She’s working on another Chaminade piece now. I came back to this one.”
“You still practice?”
“Of course I do.”
“But you already know how to play it.”
“Knowing the notes and playing the piece are not the same thing.”
He watched her hands.
“I want to learn this.”
“Mélancolie?”
“Yeah. After I saw her play it at the recital, I wanted to try it too.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not easy.”
“I still want to.”
“Then we’ll work on it. It’s worth learning.”
She reached up to the shelf and pulled down a book of music.