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He glanced at the clock. “I’m not thrilled with the idea of Gramps driving home so late. Maybe I’ll take him, instead.”

Things were still calm in the living room and it did become clear that no one was going to make it to midnight, even after the coffee. Gramps was now yawning like I was and he didn’t say no when Oliver offered to drive him. Oliver’s parents were ready to head north to their house, too, and everyone was nice as they said goodbye and got on their ways.

I had decided that I was going to stay up, at least until Oliver got back from delivering his grandpa. I also wanted to ring in the new year because I had decided that this was going to be a good one. I was going to settle things with my grandparents and get them to help my mom…if they ever responded to me. I was going to fix things with her, too…although I didn’t have a way to contact her at the moment, since her new phone wasn’t working anymore. I would either do a huge push to expand my business or I would look for a new job, I would get new mattresses and more bookshelves, I would…

It was actually a little overwhelming when I thought of all the challenges that I faced in the year ahead. But this last one had been the best of my life! I had made at least two friends, Oliver and Gramps, and I counted Vera and Carmen in that group, too. I was talking to a therapist and I thought that she was helping me a lot. I already lived in the apartment of my dreams, although there had been that little snafu with the song and the glitter. Oliver had talked about “shapes,” too, but it was all over now. And it was a good thing! It was, I reiterated to myself as I rinsed off glasses. It was very good.

There wasn’t much to do since we had done a good job of cleaning as we cooked, and because he had a dishwasher. If I’d had room for that appliance at the Milaflores Building, the song would have come from there, too. “For the longest while, I'd forget to smile,” I sang quietly to myself in the voice that Gramps hated. “Then I met you…”

I moved to the music room at the front of the house, where I would be able to see the lights of Oliver’s car as he pulled in and hear him open the door. The couch in here had thick, fluffy cushions and it didn’t rock or creak at all. I yawned again as I curled up against a pillow. I probably needed a couch in my apartment. I would add that to my list of things to do in the new year, which I could write on my new whiteboard when I left this house and went back to the Milaflores Building.

I would have to do that soon but not tonight. It was really comfortable here, not just the couch but the whole place. Oliver wore shorts and T-shirts when he was home and turned the heat up to a very acceptable level so even in this dress, I wasn’t cold.

“Are you asleep?” he asked me.

“No,” I answered, blinking, but I hadn’t even heard him come back in. “I’m staying up until midnight.” I yawned again.

“It’s not too far off now. Gramps fell asleep in the car so I walked him in. Want this?” He offered a blanket. “I guess I bought too many of them.”

He had put one in almost every room of the house. “Thank you,” I said, spreading it over myself.

Oliver sat down on the piano bench, facing me. “Thank you for helping tonight. Thank you for getting my family back together.”

“I didn’t do that,” I said. “They all wanted to, obviously. It was just a little hint that made it happen, but I think it would have even without the hint. They’re all too nice to keep fighting.”

“Gramps is nice?”

“He is,” I answered. “In his own way.” I checked the time and saw that it really was close to midnight. “Do you have any resolutions?”

“I don’t usually do those. Do you?”

“I have things that I want to accomplish, which I guess is the same kind of thing,” I said.

He looked over his shoulder at the instrument. “I think one of Gramps’s was to stop bothering me about playing this,” he mentioned. “He didn’t pester me for the whole night.”

Maybe Gramps had made a resolution, but there was another reason he had kept quiet. I had texted him under the table and said to zip it every time he opened his mouth and glanced toward this music room. “I hope he keeps to that,” I said.

He swiveled and touched a key. “It doesn’t feel depressing to see this now,” he remarked. He played another note. “I have missed it.”

“I haven’t heard it since the movers were here and you’ve had it tuned since then, right?”

“It sounds great,” he told me. He spread out his fingers and started to play, but after a moment or two, he stopped.

“No, keep going,” I urged. “I like it so much.”

It was lovely. I closed my eyes and listened, and he played for what felt like a long time. The songs all felt familiar but I wasn’t quite sure—I was sort of drifting and I might have fallen asleep for a bit.

Then my eyes opened because I heard something very, very familiar. It was the song. It was the song, the one that had come out of my sink and shower! I watched him finish and then look down at the keys before he got up and walked to the couch.

“It’s a beautiful piece of music,” Oliver said as he joined me. “It’s a little strange to say that I miss it—I don’t miss it, but I find myself humming when I turn on the shower.”

“So do I.” I sat up, facing him

“Why do you think that it stopped?” he asked. “I moved but you didn’t. Why don’t you hear it anymore?”

Because he was gone, of course. Because the song was about him, wasn’t it? It suddenly seemed very clear to me that the answer was yes. I shrugged and tried to answer something that made sense, but I only said a few words like “well” and “maybe” and “uh” before I stopped.

“Kat,” he said.