And so, around noon, once the release papers are signed, I raise my father from the wheelchair and help him into the car. We arrive home after a long drive, during which nothing is said. He barely looks at her; nor does he look at me. Perhaps he can sense a certain tension between us; or else, he may be dazed. I do not mind, honestly. After ten years of absence I have nothing to say to this man, whom I hardly recognize. He looks older. No, not older. Just old.

I wonder what happened to him. I do not mean the irritation of the mucous membranes, which is what they said, among other things, at the hospital. And I do not mean the cast on his leg or the brace on his back, or the crutches. It is not just the injuries. I mean, really, how come he inhabits a different body now. Then I wonder the same about me.

Where are we, father and son? Have we been erased, somehow, like figures drawn in dust, where some grains here, some there have been blown away? Not much is left, barely a trace of how I admired him—and later, how I raged.

So I go through the motions of being a son. I carry my father into the building, up a flight of stairs, then walk him into the apartment step by step, first to the bathroom, where very sternly, he refuses any help.

“I’ve had it,” he mutters to himself, “up to here.”

You cannot win an argument against someone this stubborn, and so I stay outside, like a guard. Before I can breathe—bang!—there comes a loud sound, and I push the door open and see the floor, and him lying there in the puddle, with a look on his face that is so surprised, so deeply miserable, because of the shock, you see, and because of losing control, and having pissed, as he fell, all over himself.  

Anita plays the devoted wife. She rushes into the bedroom to bring out a change of clothes. Meanwhile I push the wheelchair, folded, into the living room, over some clutter, which is scattered all around the dusty floor, and then around the piano.

It stands here majestically, blocking your view, as large and out of place as ever, as if it has never been moved away, or used, not too long ago, as a prop for a grand entrance in some wedding.

The air in this place smells of decay, and the silence between us is heavy. I reach the old sofa and push it back a bit, making space so I can unfold the wheelchair. The throne is ready, and it takes a few tries until my father is seated in it.

Now there he is, holding the crutch in his hand, as if it were a royal scepter, and his face is blank again. That moment of humility, when he was vulnerable, is now gone, and I cannot care less that he is back to himself, back to ignoring me. There is my father, and so far, he makes no move.

So in turn, I pace in and out of the corner of the living room, determined to avoid sitting next to him. On a whim, then, I decide to find me a place on the floor, and I throw myself into the shadow of the piano—right under its belly—which is now my cave, my little home, just the way it used to be when I was a six years old. Only now I have to slump, and even bend my head a little if I want, still, to fit inside.

From down here I can see Anita: Her ankles, really, and bare feet as she comes, hips swaying, across the floor. And now there she stands, between me and my dad. She spreads a kitchen towel across his lap, on top of which she places a large tray. Sliding across, from one edge to another is a cup, a porcelain tea cup in the act of finding its balance. It has a flowery design, which I dislike. I do not remember it, and so it does not belong here. This woman must have brought it with her, when she moved in with my father. From this angle, I can see him between her legs.

There is a wisp of steam twisting there, in the cool air between them. I close my eyes and take in her fragrance and the aroma of the freshly brewed tea. I imagine the beginning of a hairline crack, right at the joint where the porcelain handle meets the shapely body. I can hear my father sipping, and his spoon clinking, clanking against the lip of the cup. I can hear the rustling of her dress as she must be bending again, her chest over him, this time to pick the empty cup, which she slams—without hesitation—right on top of me. I mean, on top of the piano.

And somewhere in the background there is also a tick-tock sound. It is faint—but it makes me count, makes me mark time. I imagine it is just his heart, or perhaps the distant beat of a metronome. Mom had one, I remember that. She used it to keep a constant tempo. I listen to the sound, but what I cannot hear—what is missing in this place—is music. The sweet, intricate sound of harmony.

My father points his crutch at the piano. “The cup,” he tells Anita. “Take it, take that thing. Don’t leave it there.”

She picks it up on her way to the kitchen, where a tea kettle starts shrieking; which reminds her to turn back and ask cheerfully, “More tea, anyone?”

“No!” we cry. “Absolutely not! No more tea!”  

Once she is gone he turns to me and, to my astonishment, he says, “I am so blessed.” Which makes me suspect, right there and then, that something is not quite right; I mean, not only with his body but maybe with his head, too.

And so I cannot help asking, with a chill in my voice, “Blessed? I mean, you? In your condition?”

My father looks at me, for the first time he looks deep down into my eyes and then—not finding what he wanted to find—he pauses for a minute. “You used to be such a sensitive kid,” he says. “So fragile, so delicate. What happened, son? You have changed.”

I look back at him, defiantly, and I say, “I sure hope so.”

“You are still angry,” he says. “After all these years, angry about mom.”

To which I say, “No, just about the piano.”

And he is about to say something, but I do not let him, because something in me flares up and I cry, “What happened to me, you ask? How dare you? What about you, how could you?”

He hesitates to ask, What? And so I go on to say, “What, do I have to say it? It was mom’s piano! She took such care of it... It was perfect, pristine! And now—”

A blush spreads across his face.

I curl myself even tighter in my cave, trying to hold myself, hold me from bursting in anger. And I scream, “I hate you! I know what you have done, what you’ve allowed her—this Anita of yours—to do. All that horrible damage!”

He glances in the direction of the kitchen door, wondering perhaps if Anita can hear me; and so I raise my voice even louder, “The ugly marks! The spills from her tea cups! The scratches from her high heels! The dent, you know, from the weight of that woman.”

And I cover my face, wailing, barely able to say, “Mom will never come back now. She will never, never play here, not ever... All because of you... You have spoiled it, damn you... Spoiled everything for us both.”

It is then that he leans over, as much as his brace will let him, trying perhaps to reach out to me. There is, I notice, a strange glint in his eyes.

And he says, “I know how you miss her. But try not to blame everything on me. Besides, she has no need for it. The piano,” he says, “it doesn’t matter, really.”

I look at him, utterly in confusion, because this is different from what I wanted, which was some trace, some admission of guilt. It seems that—as usual—he has none.

“Mom can play,” he insists, “even without the piano. Yesterday,” he says, “in the hospital, I woke up. It must have been after midnight, and for the first time in a long while my heart was pounding with such force, I was so alive and could hear everything with great clarity. And then I could hear her. I am so blessed. She let me hear it.”

And I say, “Mom let you hear what, exactly?”

“Music,” he says dreamily. “Do you remember her fingers, when she played for us, how they looked?”

“I do,” I whisper in return. “I remember. Like a total blur.”

And he says, “Exactly. That’s how it was, last night. I could feel her presence: She came close beside me, right there by the bedside, and held me, touching me softly, caressing my arm, stroking it slowly, all the way, right down to the wrist. And I turned the palm of my hand, and opened it to her, to receive her.”

Which suddenly brings to mind a long forgotten moment, when they set this sofa next to the piano. The sofa was brand new back then, and its pillows still puffed up and firm. I bounced on it for a while, then got off, leaving a space there that separated between the two of them.

And dad looked at her over the divide, and said, “Play for me, Natasha.”

And she said, in a tired voice, “I can’t. I haven’t practiced for such a long time. I think I’m losing my touch.”

And he looked away, saying, “Just say it. You’re blaming me for all this.”

There was a long silence, which left both of them worn out—until she reached out. Mom passed a finger along the back of his hand, and his hand turned over, so that she could tickle him.

And to my great relief, their hands joined, and their fingers intertwined. If not for the glint of her ring, you could no longer tell which were his fingers—and which hers.

My father stares into the distance. He mumbles, “And then, as she touched me, the air stirred... It was reverberating, vibrating with music. And I noticed the fingers, the blur—a total blur, just like you said—which is how I knew it was her.”

Uncertain what to make of this I ask him, “And her ring? Did you see it? Did it glow when she played?”

Which makes him, all of a sudden, come unglued from this memory of last night, and snap at me. “Ring,” he says, grumbling. “What ring? It was lost: She threw it at me, the day she left. You know that very well, don’t you.”

He looks at me with outrage. Perhaps I remind him of something in her, and he rambles on, “What a difficult woman. Whatever I did for her, it was never enough. She always had to lean on me, and she leaned so hard.”  

But then, with some effort, he overcomes his anger and he says, “You may not trust me, or what I say, but all the same there she was, playing for me. Her fingers,” he says, “they were flitting, all across my skin, and I closed my eyes, just to be focused, to feel her. With such speed she played; such fury, even.”

“And you heard it?” I ask, not really wanting to believe him, but remembering suddenly how, every night before bed, mom would tell me to practice my fingering, to play notes in the air—without touching the keys at all—because that was the method passed in her family, from generation to generation: The method of committing a long piece of music to memory.

“What do you mean, did I hear it,” says my father. He seems to dislike the question, because he never doubts himself. “I sure did. I heard it.”

“What was she playing, then?” I inquire.

“The left hand,” he recalls, “it was playing broken chords. And it alternated, you know, between two scales, where the notes were sharp and rising. And the right hand, it was playing a melody, which hovered in the air, trembling up there, over the left hand chords. After a while the music became wild... It became agitated, and so did I; which made me see things—”  

“What,” I ask, “what was it you saw?”

And I note that he is listening—but not to me—trying, perhaps, to steady himself, to find, somewhere inside, at the core, a constant tempo. Perhaps, like me, he can hear a beat, the distant beat of a metronome. I wonder if he, too, is counting time.

Then, in an odd tone of voice he says, “I saw the top, the shiny top of her piano. It flashed as it opened. And there, in that surface, which looked almost glassy, like a mirror, you could see her eyes.”

At this point I am ready to berate him, because anyway, what is so special about the top of that piano, other than the dent, and those marks and scratches? And who, in his right mind, can see it appearing there, out of thin air, right next to a hospital bed? And the eyes, where did they come from, the twilight zone? He must be insane, don’t you think? Insane—or totally out of his mind!

So I say under my breath, “Fat idiot!”

And he snaps again, as if he could hear me, and he says, “Don’t call me fat!”

Startled, I glance at him. “You never question yourself, dad, do you.”

“I do not,” he says. “I know that top was not there—but still there it was, and I saw it.”

I wave my hand at him, and he seems annoyed; moreover, he seems saddened by my disbelief. “It was lifting,” he insists, “just like that, lifting open before me. Like a wing, you see, with the edge sweeping up over you.”

“Don’t you tell me, I know how it looks,” I tell him.

“Like a wing,” he repeats. “A wing, held in place by a crutch. And that,” he says to himself, with no further explanation, “that was the way we were.”   

I wish to tell him No, I don’t think so—even though this time, his words find an echo in me, and I can almost hear that wing, flapping in the air above us, and then coming down heavily, and leaning hard, right on top of its support, its crutch, with a jolt and a creak.

And I hate to admit it, but I know what he means, because all of a sudden I remember him asking, “Natasha, why don’t you stop teaching? Stop wasting yourself, giving piano lessons.” Because he knew that she hated doing that, and he would have done anything for her, so she could concentrate on becoming a concert pianist, a renowned one; and her dream, which she inherited from a long line of musicians, could finally come true: The impossible dream of rising to stardom.

Then suddenly—in the shadow under his wheelchair, where the sofa used to be before I pushed it over—right there, I think I see something: A few traces... Can you see them? Shaped like little loops, pressed lightly one after the other, into the dust.

I crawl out from under the belly of the piano, and there I find it, after all these years, buried in layers of dirt: My mother’s lost ring. Only now it is a bit stuck; it seems to be frozen in place, and it has no halo.

I dig it out and I shiver, because here, in my hand, is a token of my family, the way it used to be; the way it had better be. Whole. Perfect. Ideal. Worthy of all that pain, the anxiety, the longing. Now, if I open my hand—even a little—it may slip away. Here is my past. I would like to think it was in harmony. I must keep hold of it, so I can keep my grip.

My father used to watch over me in the past; and now he watches me, but his eye, the one I can see, is different: It is set in its socket, and from there it discloses a hint, just a hint of suspicion. I rise up over him and at once he clenches the armrests, and steers the wheelchair away, not knowing what I hold in my fist, not aware of the cold, metallic touch, or of how much it can make you hurt, in here—but noticing, perhaps, the trail of tears shining down my face.

Here is that thing that, once upon a time, would light up and zigzag in the air with such spark, such energy, when she played for us. And then—after mom threw it away—nothing was ever the same again. No one would believe me if I told them. And now that I found it, I am at the point where I begin to doubt it myself.