Chapter 5: Finished

“It’s finished,” Ada Mercer said again.

Nora Bell approached the piano. She had a pale mark across one wrist where a grocery handle might have pressed. Ada Mercer played the middle note for her, then the chord.

“Yes,” Nora Bell said. “That’s lovely.”

She looked at the boy.

“And you think so too?”

“That little wavering sound is gone,” he said.

He bent to put the wrapped lever into the bag. Ada Mercer began returning the photograph and the bowl to the piano. The receipt had opened slightly on the low table, and she folded it along its old crease before setting it beside the bowl.

“Shall we put another afternoon down?” Nora Bell asked.

Ada Mercer kept her fingertips on the receipt.

“For what?”

“To see how it holds.”

“You can let me know if it changes.”

“I thought it might be easier to have something arranged.”

From where she stood, Ada Mercer could see through the doorway into the kitchen. A bunch of carrots lay beside the sink, their cut ends showing through an open bag. There was an envelope on the counter. She recognized its purpose without being able to read anything on it.

“Is there something else you’ve noticed?”

Nora Bell took the towel from her shoulder and folded it lengthwise.

“Perhaps the lower notes.”

Ada Mercer sat down again. She played at the lower end, testing rather than demonstrating. The bench pressed against the backs of her legs where she had not settled fully onto it.

“Which one?”

“I couldn’t say exactly.”

She played more slowly.

Nora Bell watched her hands.

“You don’t have to do it now.”

Ada Mercer stopped.

The boy straightened beside the open bag. He did not come closer or turn toward the keyboard. She could ask him to listen again, and he would give her what he heard. But she had heard these notes well enough.

“What would you like me to do when I come?”

Nora Bell unfolded the towel. A piece of onion skin clung to its hem. She picked it off and held it between her fingers.

“I wanted there to be another appointment.”

Ada Mercer rose from the bench.

“There has to be work.”

“I know.”

The answer was so quiet that she looked directly at her to be certain she had caught it.

Nora Bell set the towel on the back of the dining chair.

“We wanted to keep giving you work. When we asked you to come back. That was part of it.”

The warmth of the room seemed to gather under Ada Mercer’s sleeves. She pulled one down and found the cuff turned inside itself. Her thumb could not get beneath the fold.