My daughter waited until the lights were off. Then she pulled her bunny close and whispered that she had a secret from her new mom. Three mornings in a row, she had watched a blond man in a red jacket come up from our basement before sunrise. I lay awake all night. The next evening, I finally asked my wife what was really going on down those stairs.
PART 1 — AFTER ANNA
My first wife, Anna, died of a heart condition nobody knew she had. She was thirty-six years old. One morning she was packing our daughter’s lunch and humming a song from the radio. That afternoon, she was gone.
Our daughter, Lily, was four.
I am not going to describe the two years that followed in much detail, because I do not remember most of them very clearly. I went to work. I came home. I made dinner, badly. I read bedtime stories in a voice that I am sure sounded hollow. Lily asked for her mother every night for six months. Then, one night, she stopped asking, and that was even worse.
Anna had been a music teacher. She played the old upright piano in our living room every evening after dinner. It had belonged to her grandmother. After she died, I could not bear to look at it. I had two friends help me carry it down to the basement, and I covered it with a moving blanket and never went near it again.
I met Megan at Lily’s kindergarten. She was the school librarian. She had a laugh that made you want to laugh too, and she was the only adult who never looked at my daughter with pity. She looked at her with interest. She asked her questions. She remembered her answers.
It took me a long time to ask Megan to dinner. It took me even longer to tell Lily. But Lily, it turned out, had already decided. “Miss Megan is my favorite,” she announced at breakfast one morning. “Can she come over?”
We were married on a sunny afternoon in our backyard, two years after Anna died. Lily was the flower girl. She threw the petals very seriously, one at a time, as if each one mattered.
I thought the hardest part was over. I thought that if I could survive losing Anna, I could survive anything. I did not expect to lie awake one night, eight months into my second marriage, wondering if I had made a terrible mistake.
PART 2 — THE SECRET
It was a Tuesday night in early March. I was tucking Lily into bed. She was seven by then, and she had a stuffed bunny named Mr. Buttons that she had slept with since she was a baby. Anna had bought it for her at the hospital gift shop the day she was born.
I turned off the lamp. I was halfway to the door when Lily said, “Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Can I tell you a secret? But you can’t tell Mommy Megan.”
I came back and sat on the edge of her bed. “You can tell me anything.”
She pulled Mr. Buttons close to her chin. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“I saw a man coming out of our basement,” she said. “Really early in the morning. When it was still dark. He had yellow hair and a red jacket. He went out the side door and got in a truck.”
My heart stopped.
“When was this?”
“Three times,” she said, holding up three fingers. “I woke up to go potty. I looked out my window. And I saw him. And the last time, Mommy Megan was standing at the side door, and she gave him a hug.”
I made myself breathe.
“Did you ask Mommy Megan about it?”
Lily shook her head. “She said that the basement is a grown-up place and I’m not allowed to go down there right now. She said it’s a surprise. But Daddy, I don’t think it’s a good surprise. Because she said not to tell you.”
I kissed her forehead. I told her she had done the right thing by telling me. I told her not to worry.
Then I went downstairs and sat in the dark kitchen for three hours. My work schedule had changed in January. I left the house at five fifteen every morning for the early shift at the hospital where I worked as a respiratory therapist. Whatever was happening, it was happening after I left.
PART 3 — A SLEEPLESS NIGHT
I did not sleep that night. I lay beside Megan, listening to her breathe, and my mind went to the darkest places a mind can go.
I thought about every time she had been on her phone and smiled at something. Every time she had said she was tired and went to bed early. Every time she had seemed distracted at dinner. A month earlier, I had found a receipt from a hardware store for over four hundred dollars. When I asked, she had said it was for “a project at school.” I had believed her.
Now I wondered.
I also thought about Anna. I thought about how I had lost her without warning, in the space of an afternoon. And I thought, I cannot do this again. I cannot lose another person I love. And I cannot let Lily lose another mother.
At four in the morning, I almost woke Megan up and demanded an answer. I did not. I was afraid of what I might say. I was afraid of what she might say.
At five fifteen, I got up, showered, dressed and drove out of the driveway, the same as always.
Except I did not go to work. I called in for the first time in eleven years. I drove around the block and parked down the street behind a neighbor’s van, where I could see our side door.
I felt ridiculous. I felt like a character in a bad television movie. I sat there with a cold cup of gas station coffee, watching my own house in the dark.
At five forty, a gray pickup truck pulled into our driveway. A man got out. He was tall, with blond hair, in a red flannel jacket. He was carrying a long wooden case under one arm, like a toolbox.
The side door opened. Megan was standing there in her bathrobe. She hugged him. He went inside. The basement light came on. I sat in my car and felt my whole world tilt sideways again.
PART 4 — DOWN THE STAIRS
I lasted about ten minutes. Then I got out of the car and walked toward my own house like a stranger.
I did not knock. It was my house. I opened the side door quietly and stood at the top of the basement stairs.
I could hear voices below. Megan’s voice, and a man’s voice, low and calm. And another sound underneath them, a sound I had not heard in more than two years.
A single piano note. Then another. Then a slow scale, going up.
I went down the stairs.
The basement was transformed. The concrete walls had been painted a soft pale yellow. There was a new rug on the floor. Shelves had been built along one wall, filled with picture books. Strings of little warm lights hung from the ceiling beams. And in the middle of the room, uncovered, gleaming, was Anna’s piano.
The blond man was sitting on the piano bench with the front panel removed, a tuning wrench in his hand. Megan was standing beside him in her bathrobe, holding a cup of coffee. They both turned and looked at me.
Megan’s face went completely white.
“David,” she said. “You’re supposed to be at work.”
“I know,” I said. My voice sounded strange. “Who is this?”
The blond man stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans. He held one out to me. “Kyle Patterson,” he said. “I’m Megan’s brother. I’m a piano technician. I’m really sorry, man. This was supposed to be a surprise.”
I had met Megan’s family at the wedding. Her parents. Her sister. I had never met her brother. He lived three hours away in Asheville and had been on a job overseas when we got married.
I looked at the piano. I looked at the shelves of books. I looked at my wife, who had started to cry. And I sat down very suddenly on the bottom step, because my legs simply stopped holding me up.
PART 5 — WHAT SHE HAD BEEN BUILDING
Megan sat down beside me on the step. Kyle quietly went back to the piano and pretended to be very interested in a hammer felt.
“Lily’s birthday is in two weeks,” Megan said, wiping her eyes. “I wanted to give her a room of her own. A music room. A reading room. Somewhere she could feel close to her mom.”
I could not speak.
“I found the piano when I was looking for the Christmas decorations in November,” she said. “Under the blanket. I asked you about it once, and you just walked out of the room. So I asked Lily. She told me it was her mommy’s piano and that her mommy used to play it every night.”
“She told me her mommy used to play a song called ‘Clair de Lune’ when she couldn’t sleep,” Megan said. “She said she can’t remember how it sounds anymore. She said that’s the worst part. That she’s forgetting.”
I put my face in my hands.
“The piano was in bad shape,” Megan said gently. “It had been sitting in a damp basement for two years. Some of the keys stuck. The strings were rusted. Kyle said it needed a full restoration. He’s been coming before his regular jobs, three mornings a week, for six weeks. He wouldn’t take any money.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered.
“Because I didn’t know if you were ready,” she said. “And I didn’t want you to say no. I thought if it was already finished, and you saw her face, it would be all right. I’m so sorry, David. I didn’t think about how it would look. I didn’t know Lily had seen him.”
“She thought it was a bad surprise,” I said. “She thought you were keeping a secret from me.”
Megan’s face crumpled. “Oh no. Oh, my sweet girl.”
I took my wife’s hand. I looked at the shelves. Many of the books were Anna’s, old picture books she had saved from her own childhood. Megan had found them in a box in the attic and given every one of them a place.
PART 6 — MY APOLOGY
I need to be honest about something. When I sat on that bottom step, before Kyle introduced himself, I had already convicted my wife in my head. I had imagined the worst possible thing about the kindest person I knew.
I told her that, sitting on the step with my coffee going cold.
“I thought you were having an affair,” I said. “I sat in the car down the street like a fool and watched the house. I thought I was losing you.”
Megan looked at me for a long moment. I expected her to be angry. She had every right to be.
Instead, she took my face in her hands. “David,” she said, “you lost someone without any warning. Of course you’d be afraid of losing someone again. I should have known that. I should have thought about how a secret would feel to you.”
“You were doing something beautiful.”
“I was doing something beautiful in a way that scared you and scared Lily,” she said. “Both things are true. I’m sorry.”
Kyle cleared his throat from the piano bench. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I told her this was a terrible idea. Sneaking around at dawn. I said, ‘Meg, every husband in America is going to think the worst.’ She said you were different.”
I laughed. It came out strange and wet. “Apparently I’m not.”
“Nobody is, man,” Kyle said kindly. “Grief makes everybody a little crazy. My wife and I lost our son at birth six years ago. I spent a year convinced everyone I loved was about to die. It passes. Mostly.”
I did not know that about him. I looked at this stranger, my brother-in-law, sitting at my late wife’s piano at six in the morning, fixing it for free for a little girl he had met only once.
“Thank you,” I said. It was not enough. But it was all I had. He just nodded, picked up his tuning wrench and went back to work.
PART 7 — TELLING LILY THE TRUTH
That night at bedtime, Megan and I both sat on the edge of Lily’s bed.
“Lily,” I said, “you told me a secret last night. About the man in the red jacket. You were very brave to tell me.”
She looked nervously at Megan.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Megan said. “Daddy found out about the surprise. And I’m so sorry I made you worry. I should never have asked you to keep a secret from Daddy. That was my mistake, not yours.”
“Who was the man?” Lily whispered.
“That was my brother,” Megan said. “Your Uncle Kyle. He fixes pianos. He’s been helping me get your birthday present ready.”
Lily’s eyes went very wide. “My birthday present is in the basement?”
“It is. But it’s not quite finished. Can you wait twelve more days?”
Lily thought about this very seriously. Then she said, “Is it a good surprise?”
Megan’s voice broke a little. “I hope so, baby. I really hope so.”
After Lily fell asleep, Megan and I went down to the basement together. Kyle had gone home, but the piano was uncovered, its new finish gleaming in the warm little lights. I had not touched it in over two years.
I lifted the lid. I pressed one key. Middle C. It rang out clear and true.
I sat down on the bench and put my hands on the keys. I do not play. Anna tried to teach me once, early in our marriage, and gave up laughing after twenty minutes.
But I sat there anyway, with my hands resting on her keys, and I cried for her the way I had never let myself cry before. Not in front of Lily. Not at the funeral. Not in two years.
Megan sat beside me on the bench and held me the whole time. She did not say anything. She did not need to. She just let me grieve, finally, in the room she had built.
PART 8 — LILY’S BIRTHDAY
On the morning of Lily’s eighth birthday, we blindfolded her with one of Megan’s silk scarves and led her slowly down the basement stairs, one step at a time. Kyle was there, and his wife, Rachel. Megan’s parents had driven in from Greenville. Anna’s mother, Ruth, had flown in from Ohio. Megan had invited her herself, without telling me.
At the bottom of the stairs, Megan untied the scarf.
Lily stood very still. She looked at the yellow walls, the little lights, the shelves of books. Then she saw the piano.
“That’s Mommy’s piano,” she whispered. She walked toward it slowly, as if it might disappear. She touched the polished wood with one finger. “It’s not broken anymore.”
“Your Uncle Kyle fixed it,” Megan said. “Every single key.”
Lily turned to look at Kyle. Then, without a word, she walked over and hugged his legs. Kyle, who is six foot three and has hands like baseball mitts, had to sit down on a box.
Then Ruth stepped forward. Anna’s mother. She had been a piano teacher too, for forty years. She had taught Anna everything.
“Lily,” she said softly, “would you like to hear the song your mommy used to play for you?”
Lily nodded. She could not speak.
Ruth sat down at the piano. She was seventy-one, and her fingers were stiff with arthritis. But she placed them on the keys, closed her eyes and began to play “Clair de Lune.”
The music filled the basement. It filled the whole house.
Lily climbed up on the bench beside her grandmother and leaned against her shoulder and closed her eyes. And when the last note faded, she said, very quietly, “I remember now. I remember how it goes.”
PART 9 — LESSONS ON SATURDAYS
That was a year and a half ago.
Ruth flies in from Ohio one weekend every month now to give Lily piano lessons. On the other weekends, Lily practices with a teacher from her school, a gentle older man who used to work with Anna. She is not a prodigy. She hits wrong notes. She gets frustrated and bangs on the keys sometimes. But she practices every day, and she is getting better.
Her favorite song to practice, of course, is “Clair de Lune.” She can play the first two pages now. When she plays, Megan and I sit on the basement stairs and listen.
The music room has become the heart of our house. Lily does her homework down there. Megan reads to her down there. On Friday nights, the three of us have picnic dinners on the rug, surrounded by Anna’s books.
Last month, Lily asked if she could put a photograph of Anna on top of the piano. Megan helped her choose one, a picture of Anna laughing at the beach, the wind blowing her hair across her face. They chose a frame together. Megan placed it right in the center.
Some people might think it is strange, that my second wife would build a shrine to my first. I asked Megan about that once.
She thought about it for a long time. Then she said, “It’s not a shrine. It’s a family room. Anna is part of this family. She gave me the greatest gift of my life. I just want to say thank you to her in a way Lily can see.”
I have learned that love does not divide. It multiplies. Lily does not have to choose between remembering her mother and loving her stepmother. She has room for both. We all do.
Megan and I are expecting a baby in the fall. A little brother for Lily. She has already informed us that she will be teaching him piano, and that she will be very strict about practice.
PART 10 — THE NIGHT I LEARNED TO PLAY
There is one more thing I want to tell you.
Last Christmas, I decided to surprise Lily and Megan both. For six months, in secret, I took piano lessons on my lunch breaks from a teacher near the hospital. I practiced on a little keyboard in my car with headphones on. I am forty-one years old, and learning was humiliating. My fingers felt like sausages.
I learned exactly one song. The first page of “Clair de Lune.”
On Christmas Eve, after dinner, I asked everyone to come down to the music room. Ruth was there. Kyle and Rachel. Megan’s parents. Lily in her red pajamas.
I sat down at Anna’s piano. My hands were shaking so badly that I had to wipe them on my pants twice. Then I started to play.
I played it badly. I missed notes. I stopped twice and had to start a line over. But I played it, all the way to the end of the first page.
When I finished, the room was completely silent. Then Lily threw her arms around my neck from behind and said, “Daddy, you played Mommy’s song.”
Behind me, I heard Ruth crying. Megan was crying. Even Kyle was wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his red flannel jacket, the same one he had worn on all those dark mornings.
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I went back down to the basement alone. I sat on the bench and looked at Anna’s photograph on top of the piano.
“Thank you,” I told her. “For Lily. For everything. I’m doing okay now. We’re all doing okay.”
I know it is foolish. I know she could not hear me. But when I went back upstairs, the house felt warm and full, and I slept better than I had in four years.
