Chapter 5: Finished

Outside, she buttoned her coat while the boy lifted the bag over the threshold. They walked to the bus stop together. Once, he slowed to let her draw level with him, but he did not ask a question. She watched the pavement until they reached the shelter.

On the bus she kept her handbag on her lap. The envelope’s corner pressed through the lining against her fingers. She moved it, then moved it back. Beside her, Eli Finch braced the tools with his shoe as the bus turned.

At their building he carried the bag upstairs and set it inside her door. She paid him from her purse. He accepted the money and waited while she put the purse away.

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night.”

His door closed next to hers.

She left her coat on and carried the handbag to the kitchen. When she opened the drawer for the household bills, the envelope caught against its upper edge. She withdrew it instead of bending it to fit. For a while she stood with the drawer open. Then she laid the payment on the table and went back to the entry.

The tool bag sat where the boy had placed it. She opened it to straighten the things she had packed on her knees. Her fingers found the wrapped lever, then moved through the smaller pockets in their familiar order.

One was empty.

She checked the bottom of the bag. Her fingertips came away gray. She opened the cloth around the lever, although the missing felt could not have been folded there without her feeling it.

The windowsill returned to her: pale paint, the reflection of her wrist, the mute laid down apart from everything else.

She set the lever back and left the empty pocket open. The piano was finished. She had left something of hers beside it.