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“How about your grandma’s favorite?” Gramps looked at me. “It’s called ‘Moonlight Serenade.’”

“Just a few bars and then we’ll go to dinner,” his grandson said. He blew out a note, grimaced, and readjusted his hands and mouth. “Been a while.”

Then he played what I thought might have been the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. He didn’t stop after a little bit, but kept going and I didn’t want it to ever end. It wasn’t just that the music was so lovely, but also how Oliver changed while he played it. He closed his eyes after a moment and he seemed to feel what he was doing. There was emotion and animation in his face that I’d never seen before. It was almost like he was vibrating along with the sounds that came from the clarinet.

The song ended on one long, high note, and after it faded into silence, he put down the instrument. “It sounds better with piano,” he said.

“No, that was good.” Gramps rubbed his shirt cuff over his eyes and cleared his throat. “That was good.”

I was crying a little, too, and I didn’t even care about music. “It was very good,” I agreed as I used my own sleeve. I understood why his grandfather wanted him to play—this side of him had to get out. “I hope your new house has room for a piano.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He started to take apart the instrument, shaking his head. “Everybody ready to eat? Kat, you can drive the hearse.”

“It’s not a hearse!” Gramps protested. I walked out of the record store with them still arguing and I looked back at the clarinet case on the counter.

“She likes to turn up the heat, so take off your coat now,” Gramps was saying as they followed me. “Let’s go!”

He flicked off the lights and we left.

Chapter 7

“It’s a great area. Quiet, nice neighbors. The elementary school is only four blocks away and it’s highly rated.”

This reminded me so much of the first time I’d seen the Milaflores Building, with Mrs. McGlothen singing the praises of the street. There was the party store, the flower shop…

I looked up and realized that the real estate agent was nodding and smiling at me. “I’m not interested in schools,” I told her.

“Right, you guys don’t have kids. But you always need to think about resale,” she answered. “Let me see if I can get the lockbox open.” She hurried toward the front door.

“I won’t be living here,” I said, but she had taken her phone from her pocket and was telling us to hold on just one second.

“She doesn’t listen well,” Oliver mentioned as we followed her up the stone path. “I’ve told her at least ten times that I’m from the area, but she keeps trying to explain how Detroiters really like hockey and how the big, round building is called the Renaissance Center.”

“I’m learning things like that from your grandfather. But he also tells me stuff that I don’t think is true. He said that as a younger man, he was the model for the Spirit of Detroit sculpture.”

The agent was talking to us again, but Oliver was laughing too hard to answer. I stood there smiling and ignoring her, too, because it was so fun to watch him.

“A music room,” she said even louder. “It’s an interesting feature. Shoe covers are in that basket, please put them on and follow me.”

It was a beautiful home, the kind that you would pass by in your car and admire (if you had a car, and if you weren’t focusing on the road like you were supposed to do at all times). The real estate agent called it “Tudor revival” and I just called it pretty. There was tile all through it that was a special kind from Detroit called Pewabic, and the music room was more like a music hall—that big. Despite the good-sized rooms, it didn’t feel overwhelmingly large, but I did see an obvious problem.

“You’re going to have to hire people to help you clean,” I mentioned as we passed through the butler’s pantry. “And to work outside.” This was a city lot but it was spacious and green, and I foresaw a lot of mowing in the seasons when it wasn’t so cold and dark. “You can do it all yourself, but you won’t have time unless you quit your job.” And if he did that, how would he pay for this place? In fact, how would he do that anyway?

After the tour was complete and after he had promised that he would text the agent soon, we sat in the car to discuss the house.

“This is a nice area. She was right about that,” I pointed out.

“The roof is real slate tile. Is that good or bad? If things go wrong, how would you ever replace it?”

“You would have to hire someone, for sure. This house will need a lot of upkeep,” I said. “We lived on a large property in La Grieta that my mom called the commune. It got out of control very quickly due to ignoring problems and hoping that they would go away. They do not.”

Oliver studied the Tudor revival house. “A few years ago, I would have told you that I’m not the kind of person to ignore problems, but now I do understand the urge. I won’t behave that way again. I mean that I won’t let a house fall into disrepair because I want to stick my head in the sand.”

“That’s good. But another reason that people skimp on upkeep is the expense of it,” I continued. “The place where I lived during my senior year of college suffered because of that. It was a shared house and I had the attic with a private bathroom and kitchen, but we could all use the outside stuff. The other tenants had tons of parties on the deck and then it fell off. It just detached and collapsed into the yard, and it was all because the landlord had never replaced any of the rotten wood. Luckily, no one got hurt.” It was also lucky because then they’d taken a break on the parties, so things were quieter.

“There are a lot of bad landlords,” he agreed. He put the car in drive and I approved of the way he checked the street and his mirrors before pulling out. “I had my share of those. One of the guys I rented from during college had stopped paying property taxes a few years before I moved in. Three months into my lease, the building went up for sale at an auction. I’ll be more circumspect about taking care of problems, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It wasn’t, not exactly. I was trying to figure out if he had enough money to pay for a place like that, but I wasn’t sure how to ask. The real estate agent seemed to think so and maybe she had inside information, like, he had gone through an approval process for a mortgage? Not being a property owner myself, I wasn’t sure how it worked.