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“Who could that be?” Gramps asked loudly, sounding exactly like someone reciting lines in a school play. I had been in the audience for a few really bad ones at boarding school, where we had all attended because there was nothing else to do there if your parents weren’t taking you out for the weekend.

Oliver stared at him like he was aware that something was up, and he went to answer the door.

“I don’t think I should have done this,” Gramps told me. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve.

“No kidding, but it’s too late now,” I said. “Go face the music, in the form of a baby grand piano.”

“It’s a parlor grand,” he informed me, but sidled off to do that.

It took a moment to explain what was going on and then a lot more moments to move the piano into the house. At one point, the atmosphere got so tense between Oliver and his grandpa that I stood between them, not to absorb any physical blows but just to cause the distraction that Gramps had been wanting from me.

“He’s doing this out of love,” I stated. Oliver looked down and nodded, but he wasn’t any less pissed off.

They did get the giant instrument inside and as the men were leaving, Gramps took off to pick up a pizza for dinner. “Coward,” I hissed as I watched him through the window, hurrying toward the hearse. I had asked if I could drive but he’d pretended that he hadn’t heard me.

Then I decided not to be a coward myself. I went to the music room where Oliver stood, staring at his new piano.

“Do you know how much this cost?” he asked.

“I think it was a lot,” I answered.

“He can’t afford it. I’ll pay him back. I’ll make him take the money,” he informed me.

“I didn’t know about it until we were on our way over here. He brought me as a buffer.”

“He wanted you to get out of your apartment, too. He keeps telling me that he’s worried,” he said.

“Well, there’s no need for that because I’m great. Doing so well. I’m still going out to run,” I mentioned. I wasn’t going very often and I wasn’t going very far, but it was cold and the days were short. So that made sense. I hadn’t done any yoga in a while but that also made sense, since I was feeling sore and achy lately. Who would want to do yoga while feeling like that?

Not me.

“I’ve been traveling.”

“That’s what you said,” I responded. “And you have a new house to deal with, too.”

“Now I also have a piano. Damn,” he sighed.

“Why did he want to replace the one you left behind in California?” I asked. “Why didn’t you just bring that with you?”

He walked over and touched a key. It sounded fine to me, but he frowned. “They’re difficult to move.”

“I know. I just watched four guys struggle to get this up two steps and around a corner.” That was why it was better not to own anything, unless you never planned to leave a place. “But you had enough money to buy a house. You could have paid to move that.”

“I was interested in speed when I left, and I didn’t want to argue with my wife about the division of our assets. We did have a prenup, which my former mentor had insisted on. I had thought he was crazy, because of course Lexi and I weren’t ever going to split up.” He touched another key and frowned again. “I probably should have kept my piano. Yes, I definitely should have kept my piano.”

“What do you think she did with it when she moved to Ohio?”

“I have no idea,” Oliver said. “But she doesn’t live in Ohio anymore.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt relief wash over me, although there was no real reason for it. What did I care where that woman lived? It made no difference in my life. “Where did she go?” I heard myself ask.

“She moved here, to Detroit,” he answered. “She can work mostly remotely and she realized that she liked the city when she visited, so she rented an apartment.”

“She came here once. More than once?”

He nodded. “A few times.”

Oh. I nodded back since I couldn’t think of anything to say. Good, that woman liked Detroit. So did I and so did a lot of other people. It didn’t matter that she lived here, too.