Rita lives below me. She plays piano every day. Two or three hours. Long fingers stretching to reach octaves, roll arpeggios, sweep glissandos off the pale ivory keys. She's very good, is Rita. I lie on my bed and listen to her play. She plays and plays. It soothes me. I think I might be her goddess.

Am I your goddess, Rita?

Even her name is musical. A brush and a swat on a cymbal. Ree-TAH! Or a warm wave hissing against the sand. REE-taah...REE-taah...

There's a serious illness in my family, so when the phone rings, I must answer.

"Yes?"

"Caroline, it's Lilly."

"Hi."

"Dad's very low."

"Uh-huh."

"The doctor says it won't be more than an hour or so."

"Oh."

"So if you're coming, now's the time."

"Okay."

Rita is practising her technique, contrary motion exercises, oppositional scales working one hand against the other.

"It would mean a lot to Mum if you came."

"How is Mum?"

Calculated silence.

"Do you want me to come get you?"

"No. That's okay. Thanks anyway."

"All right then. We'll see you in a little bit."

"Okay."

That was two hours ago. Been out for cigarettes since then. Worked on my smoke rings. Smoke rings - an underappreciated art form. Hold your lips so. Create a pocket between teeth and tongue. Then pulse out the delicate blue circle with just the right amount of force. Too much and the ring disfigures. Too little and it dies a-borning. It's like whistling. Only not like whistling. More like blowing bubbles. Only not like blowing bubbles.

Listened to Rita work her way through Joplin, Gershwin, and now, unaccountably, Brahms. She's eclectic, is my Rita.

Did your father want you to study piano, Rita? Lovely Rita? Did he walk you to your music lessons, hold your hand as you crossed the street? Did he sit on the bench with you while you practised, tell you how talented you were, how proud he was of you? Did your daddy tell you he loved you, Rita?

REE-taah?

The phone again.

"Yes?"

"Well, he's gone."

"Oh."

"Didn't quite make it here, did you?"

"Guess not."

"You're coming to the funeral."

It was not a question.

"'Course. When will that be?"

"I'm not sure yet. I still have to finalize the arrangements. Then there's the legal details, the will, the house, the money. As executor, I'm responsible."

Yes, yes you are. You certainly are. Lilly, Lilly, Lilly — the son our father never had.

"How's Mum?"

A sound at the other end of the line. A snick of impatience. No. Not impatience.

Contempt.

"It'll probably be Thursday morning at St. Stephen's. I'll call you when everything's set. And I'm coming to get you this time."

"All right."

"I'll talk to you later."

"Okay."

Rita has stopped playing. Someone's at her door. Muffled voices, excited, joyous. And her laughter seeping up through my floorboards like a warm shimmer of grace notes.

 

Penny-Anne Beaudoin is a writer and editor living in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Her poetry has been published in The Windsor Review, On Spec Magazine, Room of One's Own, Les Bonnes Fees, Membra Disjecta, and is forthcoming in Doorways Magazine. Her fiction has appeared in Lorraine and James, Writers On Line, Quantum Muse, Ascent Aspirations, Flash Me, FreeFall, Rose and Thorn, Skive Magazine, and is forthcoming in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2005.