The piano sits in the corner of the living room like a piece of furniture that forgot its job. Nobody has touched the keys in six years, not since my mother's arthritis got bad.
I'm back in my childhood bedroom because the condo sold faster than I expected. The shower curtain rings are a pale lavender that fights the beige tile, a choice she argued about with my father for three years before he finally gave in.
My mother was the only one who could play. She'd sit there after dinner, running scales, and my father would complain from the den. He said it was noise.
When I write parking tickets all day, I hear the same thing. Drivers roll down their windows and tell me I'm a menace, a parasite, a joyless bureaucrat. They see the uniform, not the woman who learned to read music before she learned to spell her name.
Last week I found an old rival's name in my ticket book — Janet something, from the high school choir. She got the solo I wanted, forty-seven years ago. I wrote her a citation for an expired meter and didn't even recognize her until I ran the plate.
Tonight I opened the piano lid and pressed middle C. It was sharp, so far out of tune it sounded like a stranger's voice. The felt hammers are moth-eaten, one pedal sticks.
I closed the lid. But I left it open a crack, the way you leave a door when somebody might be coming home.
I'm not going to learn to play. That's not the battle. The battle is sitting here in this lavender-ringed bathroom, brushing my teeth, and not apologizing for the space I take up.