My eyes settle on the grand piano on the far end of the room by the windows. Memories of my mother pressing her palms onto the lacquered black surface to feel the vibrations of the music I was playing roll like a movie clip.
Next to the piano is an amp and a smirk lifts one side of my mouth remembering how she’d perch on it as I played. She’d signmore!and turn it up louder.
They brought in the best instructors, they bought me any records or CDs I wanted. To this day my mother helps me rework lyrics, somehow she innately understands the flow and cadence of the words.
She loves poetry and she has never admitted it but I think she pretended not to understand it so Da would have to spend more time with her, using his hands to spell the lovely sentiments of the poems.
Da was brought to the estate to help teach her sign language. She was seventeen, he was twenty two. The local school had done their best but for higher education, she'd need to know the proper movements.
To hear him say it, or sign it, he was immediately smitten but didn’t make a move until after she graduated high school.
Ma fully admits she doodled his name in her diary for months.
Da was only partially deaf then, it's deteriorated in the years since. But their devotion to each other has only strengthened.
It's inspiring.
It’s impossible not to marvel at how the universe put them in each other's path. How their friendship blossomed into so much more.
My mother pulls me from my thoughts with a pat on my knee.Did you have tea?
Aye, at Duncan's.
She smiles and sits up. She reaches for the tablet on the side table and taps out a message. I wonder if she knows the volume is on and I can hear each keystroke?
More tea is on the way.She signs after setting it down.What's your new song?
New song?
The one in your head.She taps her temple.
How'd you know?I shake my head with astonishment.
My sixth sense is stronger because one of my five sucks.
My dad and I both spurt out a laugh.
When life gives you lemons...she signs and then shrugs.
Actually, Franny has a spin on that phrase. She says, life is the whole fruit salad!
My mom presses her palm to her chest as she laughs, her way of feeling the sound. My dad claps his hands together with mirth. My smile stretches wide.
Things might be quieter up here than down at the Paisley Cottage but there's no less joy.
No less love.
***
After tea and a detailed accounting of the spring onion crop from my father, I move over to the piano.
My mother was right, of course, the step, step, clop-clop beat has been steady in my chest all afternoon.
I balance my fingers over the cold keys and lightly start to find the notes to convey the sounds in my head.
As things fall into place my eyes flutter closed and I press the keys harder. The tempo moves easily across a few octaves and it starts to feel like an actual song.
A hand on my shoulder startles me.
