I tuned pianos for forty years. I knew the feel of a temperament, the resistance of a hammer, the exact moment a string settled into pitch.
But I never heard the A-440. Not really. I fixed it by touch, by habit.
Tonight, I put in the hearing aid for the first time. The world snapped into focus like a lens.
She was packing in the next room. I heard the clink of the coin jar—half full of pesos and euros from her trips. I heard her breathing.
She stopped. She said, "You can hear me now."
We're moving tomorrow. She's moving to her mother's, across the state. I'm staying here with the piano.
I thought I’d been listening to her for thirty years. But I’d only been feeling the vibrations.
Now I hear her, and she’s already halfway out the door.