The moon hangs just above the piano, as if shining through the glass dome, but I know it’s an illusion. This place doesn’t see the sun; why would it see the moon? Still, it feels so real. I can’t help but love it. The garden is a dream made tangible.
After drinking it all in, my eyes settle on the beauty before me. I caress the keys with light fingertips. A smile touches my lips.
I haven’t asked his permission, but he must be asleep by now. I’ll ask him tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll steal just a few minutes.
My fingers roam over the keys, pressing them at whim, producing soft, erratic rhythms—until a tune finds its way from my heart to my hands. It always happens like this, the keys and my fingers become the medium through which my heart speaks.
I close my eyes and let the music flow through me on its own.
A new composition flows through me, and I lose myself in it.
It begins in the left hand: low G, held. The note feels like standing alone in an empty room at midnight. My right hand finds B flat above middle C, pauses, then moves on. Left hand repeats the G—heavier this time.
The right hand climbs: B flat to D, reaching, yearning, then falls back to B flat—too scared.
The melody takes shape. The right hand rises slowly—E flat, F, G. The left hand answers with A natural. Wrong, yet beautiful. The dissonance settles in my chest like a bruise.
It’s a melody of a love that shouldn’t exist—but does.
The notes climb higher, the music breaking through the resistance my heart tries to hold.
B flat this time. High and clear. My left hand softens beneath it, surrendering to F minor with an added D flat.Shouldn’t. The word lives in that D flat.
My hands pause for a single beat, letting the last note echo through the garden.
Then it climbs.
My right hand reaches in aching intervals—sixth, seventh, stretching until my palm aches, my left hand follows now instead of fighting. Harmonies blur into ninths, elevenths, suspended chords that never resolve.
My fingers move on their own, battling with my heart. Or maybe they are my heart, finally speaking while my mind sleeps.
The phrase reaches its peak: E flat, G, B flat, high C. My hands crash into the chord, F minor bursting against a brighter force, trying to tear through the walls.
The music pleads now. Pounds against the doors.
Let it in. Let it drown the suffering.
But I’m not suffering.
So why is the music saying this?
The notes descend, as if caressing wounds that were never tended—and they aren’t mine. These wounds aren’t mine, and the music isn’t here to soothe me.
The composition my heart has created is not for me.
I open my eyes and find the owner of this piece. I press the last notes softly, looking into his eyes—eyes that tell a story without words.
A story of pain and suffering my heart recognizes but my mind can’t comprehend.
Salvario
After showering and changing, I head toward Bruno’s room to check on her, but halt when a delicate piano tune drifts through the air to me.
I frown and turn toward the stairs.
Is she playing my mother’s piano?
No one is allowed to touch it. Not even me. And definitely not her.
