It was Lucy’s idea that the children should use Mrs. Greely’s piano for their lessons. Emma did not want them going to Mrs. Cohn’s house, and besides, transporting them there would have required a coach, so a deal was struck: each Saturday Mrs. Cohn would come to Leverett Street and, on the Steinway Mr. Greely had given Mrs. Greely as a wedding gift, teach the children and Mrs. Greely how to play. The piano was a black-painted upright with vines carved into its front, through which you could see the hammers strike and retreat.
The first Saturday, Lucy sat beside Mrs. Greely on Mrs. Greely’s cat hair–covered sofa as Jeffrey made his first tentative pokes at the keys. She had seen Mrs. Greely only once, on her way to the woods one night. Mrs. Greely had been leaning out an upstairs window without any clothes on, her breasts swinging like sinkers. Lucy had run. But up close, apart from a jiggle in her chin and her long white hair, the woman did not appear crazy: her skin was smooth and pink, her cheeks almost plump, her eyes sparkling. After Jeffrey went Liam, then Janie, then Maggie, then Anne, and all the way down to Joshua, who giggled as Mrs. Cohn showed him how to hold his wrists. Lucy winced, waiting for him to be admonished. It was her turn next. But Mrs. Cohn giggled back, and Lucy, bewildered, jealous, went outside to the porch, where she found Emma sitting by herself on the top step, her back to the music, like a guard dog.
“I don’t want my lesson,” Lucy said.
Emma looked up. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t think I’ll be any good at it.”
Emma nodded. She looked surprised, and also, Lucy could tell, pleased. Lucy sat down next to her. And so it went. During the fourth lesson, from their spot on the porch, Lucy and Emma listened to Janie, who had a natural talent, it seemed—already she was playing something recognizable as a song. It was almost October, the shadows purpling across Mrs. Greely’s cluttered yard, the flame-colored leaves of sugar maples drifting steadily down from the woods. Mrs. Cohn had had the piano tuned and it sounded so nice Lucy regretted, a little, not taking the lessons herself. She might be a natural, given her resemblance to Mrs. Cohn in almost every other way. She handed Emma one of the pears Mrs. Cohn had brought with her that morning, and bit into another one herself. Emma had told Lucy the story now, of the night they found her in the orchard. Still, Lucy saw her go pale when Mrs. Cohn lifted the sacks of fruit from the trunk of her uncle’s car. Mrs. Cohn had been learning to drive so she could make the trip to Lanesville by herself. “They’re overripe,” she apologized, setting bag after bag on the ground. “I forgot about them this year.”
“Sweet,” Emma said now, as juice dripped down her forearm into the sleeve of her dress. “Too sweet.”
Lucy nodded. The pears were too sweet, and a little mealy, but they would make good perry, she hoped. She peeled skin from hers with her teeth, and chewed that for a while before biting into the juicy part. Slowly, she made her way around the fruit like this, before she spoke the words she’d been rehearsing all morning. “Mrs. Cohn’s parents want to meet me.”
Emma wiped her arms on her skirt. She faltered with the right one—it hadn’t broken, but was badly bruised. “I guess that’s not surprising.”
Lucy waited. A loud, dissonant chord came from inside. Mrs. Greely.
Emma squinted into the yard. “Would you like to meet them?”
Lucy shrugged, her blood pounding.
“You can.”
Again Lucy shrugged. She thought she would cry if she started to talk. She couldn’t have said why. She wasn’t old enough yet to know that having choices could be as hard as not having them. She did want to meet her grandparents, of course she did. How could Emma not know that? Lucy squeezed the pear and it fell instantly apart, mush oozing through her fingers. In moments like this, Emma’s grip on Lucy made Lucy want to escape her, too. Last week, in Emma’s book, Lucy had found the address for Peter, a post office box in Quebec City, and, with the help of the postmistress, sent a postcard (Are you still their? Your sister Lucy) but immediately after she wondered if the postmistress would mention it to Emma and then she realized, if Peter wrote back, that Emma would see his response first. And she might show Roland, which would defeat the whole exercise. What are you, planning to go to Cah-nah-dah? Ha.
And just to send the postcard had cost a penny, so she was even further now from her ticket to Quebec.