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“He’s going to be mad,” he admitted to me. “He’s going to get upset at what I did.”

“What did you do?” I demanded.

More mumbling but finally he said, “I bought him another piano.”

“What? Aren’t those really expensive?”

“What else am I doing with my money?” he snarled back. “What do you care how I spend it?”

“He’s going to care!”

“I know that.” Now he sounded chagrined. “I know he will, but I want him to have this and be happy. Why can’t I do something nice?”

“And I’m here…as a human shield?” I hazarded.

“Exactly. He’ll be distracted by your presence and he won’t say all the things he’s thinking in front of you.”

“He’s going to be grateful, too,” I said. “He’s not going to scream and swear at you.”

“Oliver never did either of those things in his life. No, I take that back. I have heard him yell at someone, but that kid deserved it. He was chasing after a cat with his car and my grandson stepped right in the way. He almost got hit, him and the animal.”

“Oh, no! What happened?”

“He marched over and opened the driver’s door, dragged the little bastard out, and shook him like a cabasa.” He had to explain what that was, a percussion instrument that I’d never heard of. “Oliver was always a tough kid, running and playing hard, and he did all that rowing. But I’d never seen him use his strength like that before.”

“The other guy deserved it,” I said angrily. “Oliver won’t do that to you, even if he wants to. He loves you too much to shake you like a calabaza but you and I both know that you shouldn’t have bought him a giant piano.”

“It’s only a parlor grand.”

“Don’t split hairs,” I said, but he told me that I was wasting gas and to turn off the engine. It got cold very quickly, since it was December in Detroit, so we got out to walk toward the house.

“Does he even know that you’re coming over right now?” I asked as he rang the doorbell.

“He knows that I was coming. But—"

Oliver opened the door and it was clear that he hadn’t heard anything about me. He stared, surprised, and then just said, “Kat.”

“Don’t make her stand outside. You know how she shivers like a—”

“Nobody say anything about hairless dogs,” I interrupted. “Nobody.”

“Come on in,” Oliver said, stepping back. I did and Gramps followed.

This house was just as pretty as the first time I had seen it and almost as empty. The music room at the front was totally bare and I watched Gramps glance in there nervously. Oliver led us back to the kitchen, which was not as vacant. Instead of blank space, there were boxes piled around.

“I haven’t had time to unpack,” he mentioned. “I’ve been traveling a lot for work.”

“I know,” his grandfather said. “I haven’t seen you much.”

I hadn’t seen him at all but I kept that to myself. I looked at the refrigerator instead but when I flicked my eyes back towards Oliver, they met his.

“How have things been at the Milaflores Building?” he asked me.

Now we both looked at the sink and I knew what he meant. “It’s quieter,” I answered. “I mean, Carmen is in Florida for the winter so it’s a little quieter for me.” Oliver was gone, too, which made things almost dead. It was empty and dead. “I know that he didn’t tell you that I was coming and he also didn’t tell me where we were going,” I said, to explain my presence in his house. “It’s a surprise for both of us.”

It must have been my imagination that he looked disappointed—I wanted him to feel that way, probably, so I was dreaming it up as a true emotion for him. I had wanted him to miss me but actually, absence did not make the heart grow fonder. It made the heart forget.

It was an awkward moment, even for me in a lifetime full of those. But the silence was broken by a pounding at the door that made everything worse.