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“I do. I remember how she used to hold my hands and we’d clap together. She let me cover the holes on her flute and she’d make funny sounds with it.”

“You were young when we lost her.” Mr. Marchand looked into the distance for a moment, and I realized that he was staring at one of her pictures.

Oliver was also watching him and I saw his forehead furrow. “I toured a few places today,” he mentioned. “Some nice ones.”

It seemed as if he was trying to change the subject and I jumped right in. “Places for what?” I asked.

“I’m not going to renew my lease at the Milaflores Building,” he said. “I’m looking for a house to buy.”

“Oh.” It didn’t really mean anything to me, of course not. There was no reason that it should have felt like a kick in the stomach. “You did say that you wanted to have more room. I didn’t know you meant you would do it so soon.”

At that point, his grandfather started saying something else about having space for a piano, which led to them not getting along very well as the dinner ended. We brought our plates up to the sink and I reached for the tap.

Then I hesitated. Since I didn’t go out to very many places, I hadn’t turned on the water anywhere but in my own apartment. What would happen if I did it now? Would I hear the music in this house, too? I looked over at the radiators along the walls, the same kind I had in my apartment. I wasn’t seeing the same funny steam in here.

“You don’t have to do my dishes,” Mr. Marchand said. He looked at his grandson. “If you want to play…” Oliver shook his head slightly and Mr. Marchand sighed and turned back to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I have you penciled in for four o’clock.”

I would be there at 3:55. “See you then,” I agreed, and the two of them hugged. They might have annoyed each other before, but I was glad that the night had ended well.

Oliver and I walked to his car. “How are the lessons going?” he asked.

“I think that I should have done it sooner. I’ve spent so many years building up fear. Anticipation turned to apprehension,” I explained as we got in. “I should have jumped into driving years ago and it probably wouldn’t make me so anxious now.”

“Some things are like that. You have to just do them, because the wait is worse than the reality.”

“What’s been like that for you?” I asked.

He thought for a moment as we continued toward our building. “The best example for me is the high dive. I have a little fear of heights,” he admitted. “If your apartment had been available on the first floor when I was looking to rent last year, I would have taken it. I would prefer that to being on the second story.”

If his fear was partially dictating where he lived, then it wasn’t “little.” “Where was the high dive? Did you ever go off it?”

“It was at my college and I did jump, but not until my senior year and not until my—not until I was goaded,” he said. “I threw up before I climbed the ladder and I almost fainted when I was at the top.”

“That’s awful! If you had fallen, you could have been really injured.”

“I know. That was why I tried hard not to faint. I forced myself to jump and the entire time, I thought that it was the dumbest thing that I’d ever done. But then it was over. I shouldn’t have spent three and a half years in fear of it.” He paused. “I still think it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, though. It didn’t cure me of my acrophobia, either.”

“Are the houses you looked at today all single story?”

He shook his head. “No. One place even had three floors and an attic, but I probably wouldn’t go up there if I bought it.”

“Do you really want to move? What’s wrong with the Milaflores Building?” I asked.

“I told you that I want more room for my instruments.”

“But you get mad at Gramps when he talks about a piano,” I pointed out.

“That’s not about the piano. I assume that he told you my history. My marital history,” he specified.

“He said that you were married but he doesn’t know why it ended.”

“He doesn’t need to know,” Oliver said. “Just because he likes to talk about his own relationship…” He stopped. “He talks about my grandmother because he loved her so much. I’m sorry I said that.”

“Are your parents still married?”

“Yes, and they also seem to love each other. They laugh all the time.”

“That’s nice. You had two good examples,” I said.