My mother died when I was fourteen.
Cancer did it. Slowly. Cruelly. It hollowed her out piece by piece until the woman who used to laugh too loudly at bad sitcom jokes became someone who struggled just to lift her hands. But even near the end, when the house smelled faintly of medicine and fatigue, there was one ritual she refused to abandon.
Every Sunday morning, she played the piano.
The instrument sat against the far wall of our living room, an upright Steinway that had belonged to her long before I was born. Its dark mahogany finish gleamed even in low light, polished carefully over the years. The legs were carved with delicate flourishes, and the ivory keys were worn smooth from decades of use. Some of them had yellowed slightly with age, but she said that gave them character.
I would wake up to the sound of it drifting down the hallway. Jazz melodies, old standards, fragments of classical pieces she half-remembered. She never stuck to one thing. She just played what her hands felt like playing. I would sit cross-legged on the rug with a bowl of cereal growing soggy in my lap and listen.
It felt like safety. Like her voice, even when she was too tired to speak much.
When she died, the house changed overnight.
The warmth disappeared. The silence felt heavy, like it was pressing in on my chest. I kept expecting to hear the piano on Sunday mornings, but instead, there was nothing. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my father moving around the house too carefully, like he was afraid to disturb something fragile.
At the funeral, people kept asking me what I wanted to keep of hers. Jewelry, clothes, keepsakes. I didn’t care about any of that. None of it mattered.
“I want the piano,” I said finally. “That’s all.”
My father didn’t hesitate. He put a hand on my shoulder and nodded. “It’s yours, sweetheart. I promise.”
Later, when he updated his will, he made sure it was written down clearly. The piano belonged to me. I saw the paperwork myself. It felt like an anchor in a world that had suddenly come loose.
For a while, things stayed that way. The piano remained in the living room, untouched, like a promise that hadn’t yet been broken.
Then my father met Helena.
I was sixteen when she first came over for dinner. I was still raw with grief, still angry at the world, still exhausted from pretending I was okay. Helena swept into our house like she belonged there. She had carefully styled blonde hair, an overly bright smile, and the kind of confidence that felt rehearsed. She smelled like expensive coffee and mint gum and laughed a little too loudly at her own jokes.
She asked me personal questions right away. How was school? Was I dating anyone? Had I “moved on” from my mother yet?
She had a daughter, too, Brielle, who was my age but might as well have been from a different universe. Brielle wore designer boots and always looked effortlessly put together. The first thing she ever said to me, after looking me up and down, was, “You look like you dress out of thrift store bins on purpose.”
That set the tone.
When my father married Helena a year later, I knew things would change. I just didn’t realize how quickly.
At first, it was subtle. Helena reorganized the drawers. She replaced the curtains. She rearranged furniture. She framed new photographs of her and my father on vacations I hadn’t even known about. Gradually, the pictures of my mother began to disappear. One by one, they were replaced with glossy prints of Helena smiling in scenic locations.
Then my mother’s belongings started vanishing. Her cookbooks. Her scarves. Small things at first. When I asked where they’d gone, Helena brushed me off.
“Oh, they were clutter,” she said lightly. “I donated them. Someone else will appreciate them.”
The piano stayed, though. I think even Helena understood that some boundaries shouldn’t be crossed. Or maybe she was just biding her time.
When I left for college out of state, it felt like an escape. Home no longer felt like home. It felt like a place where my mother was being slowly erased.
Spring break of my sophomore year, I came back unexpectedly early, hoping for a little comfort, maybe even some nostalgia. I dropped my bags in the entryway and walked into the living room.
The piano was gone.
Not covered. Not moved. Gone entirely.
There was a space against the wall where it had stood for decades. The carpet was lighter there, protected from years of sunlight. A faint outline marked where the pedals had rested. I stood frozen, staring at it, half-convinced it would reappear if I blinked.
“Dad?” I called, my heart pounding. “Where’s the piano?”
Helena’s voice drifted in from the kitchen. “Oh, that thing? I had it taken away.”
I turned slowly. “What?”
She stepped into the room holding a green smoothie, completely unbothered. “It was old and falling apart. You never played it, and it was taking up space.”
My mouth went dry. “That was my mom’s. That was mine.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. It wasn’t even legally yours.”
“It was in the will,” I said, my voice shaking. “Dad promised me.”
She shrugged. “Well. It’s gone now.”
I couldn’t breathe. I ran upstairs and slammed my bedroom door so hard a framed picture fell off the wall and shattered.
I texted my father immediately.
“Where is Mom’s piano? Helena said she sold it.”
No response.
Downstairs, I could hear Helena laughing on the phone, chatting about a buyer out of state. I curled up on my bed and cried until my head hurt.
My father came home two days later.
I heard his suitcase rolling across the floor, then silence. I crept to the top of the stairs and looked down. He stood in the living room, staring at the space where the piano had been. His shoulders sagged.
Helena walked in cheerfully, still in workout clothes. “Oh, you’re back! How was the trip?”
He didn’t look at her. “Where’s the piano?”
She laughed lightly. “That old thing? I sold it.”
His face drained of color. “I hid your birthday present inside it.”
She blinked. “What?”
“A necklace,” he said quietly. “I taped it under the bottom panel. It was worth three thousand dollars.”
Her smoothie slipped from her hands and splattered on the floor.
She panicked immediately, calling the buyer, pacing, raising her voice. But it was too late. The piano had already been transported out of state.
That night, they argued for hours. I heard my father say something that stayed with me forever.
“That piano was hers. And so was my trust.”
The next morning, Helena was gone.
A week later, my father told me he had filed for divorce. He apologized. Not with excuses. Just remorse.
We never recovered the piano. Or the necklace. But something between us shifted. Slowly, carefully, we started rebuilding.
One Sunday morning, he made breakfast like my mother used to. Pancakes. Scrambled eggs. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to.
Later that week, he asked me to come to the garage. Under a tarp sat a secondhand upright piano. It wasn’t the same. But it was mine.
I sat down and played. The notes were shaky at first, but they came. And for the first time in years, the music felt like home again.