“Which room did you pick out?” Grace asks her mother.
“I think I liked the turret bedroom,” her mother confesses shyly. “The views are very special.”
“I’m glad,” says Grace. She doesn’t mention that it was Gene’s bedroom when he was a boy. The doorbell rings in the kitchen as well as in the parlor. Brushing crumbs off her hands, Grace walks to the front door. She thinks, Good timing. She says, “Hello.”
“I thought it would be better this way,” replies Aidan. “Didn’t want to seem like I lived here.”
“Smart. Come into the sitting room with me, and then I’ll take you out to the kitchen to meet my family.”
Aidan has on a good suit, an even better pair of black shoes. His concert clothes, she guesses. He’s trimmed his hair.
“I’d like you to stay,” she says, “but there’s one hitch.”
“And what’s that?” he asks.
“I want to take over the second floor. My children and I will sleep there. So the piano will have to be moved downstairs.”
Aidan raises an eyebrow, and she can see him pondering that reality. Is he thinking of the size of the windows, the expense to move it, or the possible loss of quality of sound?
“Big undertaking,” he says, sitting back.
“Yes. I hate to ask, but can you afford such an operation?”
“I can,” he says without hesitation. “Traveling soloists sometimes have good spells.”
“You’ll agree then?”
“Yes, I’ll agree, but you risk harming the piano. And I can’t say if the quality of the sound comes from being situated where it is. I guess we’ll just have to find out.”
“I’d like to leave it where it is,” Grace admits, “but I have to have a place for me and my children. I think my mother would find it awkward if we all slept on the third floor with you on the second.”
“I’m sure the instrument will survive. Where would I sleep?”
“Have you wandered into the library?” Grace crosses her ankles. Because she couldn’t wear the blue suit again, she has on a red sweater and a gray wool skirt. The skirt was Gladys’s and doesn’t fit her well. “We’ll make up a bedroom for you in there.”
Aidan nods.
“And there’s one more thing.” Grace hesitates. “We’ll have to sort out some kind of rent.” The music ought to be enough, she thinks. More than enough. Grace names a price she thinks is fair. Aidan agrees without further comment. “I should warn you, my mother will want references. She won’t say it to you, but I’ll have to produce something.”
“That’s not a problem,” he says.
Grace’s family stares at the stranger she brings into the kitchen. He walks straight to her mother and says, “I’m pleased to meet you. Aidan Berne.”
Bold Claire stands on the table, as if wanting to make sure the stranger notices her.
“And who are you, little girl?” he asks, gently shaking her hand.
“I’m Claire. I’m two. I’m bigger than two.”
“Are you now?”
“Claire, please don’t stand on the table,” Grace warns. Claire complies by sitting on the table.
“And this little one?” Aidan asks, chucking Tom under his chin.
“This is Tom,” Grace explains and gestures for Aidan to sit in the extra chair.
“Aidan and I have worked out arrangements,” she announces to her mother, who is too polite to ask what they are in front of the stranger.
“Claire, you like this house, don’t you?” asks Grace.
Claire, thoughtful, surveys the kitchen, as if assessing it. She gives an exaggerated nod.
“So I think we’ll move in tomorrow,” Grace says to Aidan. “You needn’t move the piano just yet, but I do wonder if you could manage to get a bed into the library.”
“I can take a bed apart and bring it down in pieces and then put it back together again,” he offers.
“Before we go today, my mother and I will sort out the linens to make sure you have everything you need. And while I have the car, I’ll go to the grocery store. When we move, I won’t have an automobile. It belongs to the woman whose house we’re currently staying in.”
“The market isn’t even a mile away. I can help you with that when you no longer have the car.”
“You’re very kind.”
“You’re very generous,” he says.
“I’m not that generous,” Grace says. “Would you mind playing something for my mother?”
The adults rearrange the chairs in Merle’s bedroom turret so that the seats are to one side of Aidan. Grace wants to see his hands, which she was only able to imagine when she first heard him. With Tom on her lap, her mother to one side, and Claire to the other, she watches Aidan remove his jacket and take his place on the bench. He rolls his sleeves. She has no idea what to ask him to play since she doesn’t know the names of classical pieces, but he seems to sense that, or he simply wants to play what pleases him, because he starts in straightaway with his right hand only, and then after a minute, allows the left to crash in. Claire comes alert with a start. Tom claps.
And then Grace can hear the melody, the notes that will repeat themselves during the piece. With her mother beside her, she’s careful not to betray, except with a smile, the sensations she experiences. She has a nearly overwhelming desire to bend her head, bare her neck, and let the tensions of the day leave her.
She examines Aidan’s fingers—stretching, reaching, confident, fast. She studies his face, a visage of perfect concentration. She doesn’t think she has that ability—to focus so acutely on a task that nothing else matters. To be able to do this any time one wants—what a perfect gift. She has often wished she could sing. How heavenly to be able to entertain herself in that way. But the playing is something different. When the piece comes to a close, she thinks it ridiculous that she even mentioned rent.
“He seems a nice young man,” her mother says as they leave Merle’s driveway. Both children are asleep on the backseat.
“Indeed,” says Grace.
“I thought he was very polite. Good manners.”
“Yes.”
“And very well spoken,” adds her mother.
“He is.”
“And I liked the way he played children’s songs for Claire at the end.”
“Nice.”
“And the music, really. I’m not sure I’ve ever…”
“Nor I.”
“I wonder where he went to school. He must have gone to music school.”
“Mmm.”
“He’s Irish I think. His name.”
“Maybe.”
“The Rooneys are Irish,” her mother points out. “Very nice people.”
“They are.”
“And I have to admit, he’s handsome.”
“Mother.”
“It’s amazing good luck that you found him when you did.”
At Gladys’s house that evening, as her mother attempts, in an awkward way, to explain why it is they will have to leave, all Grace can think about is Aidan’s hands. She imagines them muscular and flexible, the skin soft, the reach long. For how many years has he been playing? Since he was a small child? And how did he come upon such a gift? One doesn’t learn talent. And why is he not playing in New York or Boston, with the orchestras they have there?
Gladys, strangely, has tears in her eyes, which immediately produces a teary Marjorie. “You’ve been so kind to us,” her mother says. “I hope you know how grateful we are.”
“Gladys is softhearted, if you haven’t noticed yet,” says Evelyn, sniffing and giving no sign of sadness at the prospect of their four guests leaving imminently.
“And you’ll come visit us,” Grace adds. “Just as soon as we have the place fixed up. You must come for a meal.”
One meal as payback for dozens? Absurd. Somehow Grace will find a way to recompense them for all the provisions. Or would they mind that? She wonders if her mother will stay close friends with the two women, if she’s unhappy to be going.
In the morning, they pack, making the beds with fresh linen, leaving the room spotless.