A long pause.
"There's the piano," my mother said.
"What about it?"
"It's worth something. It's a 1924 Story and Clark. It's in good condition. Mama kept it tuned every year till the end. Somebody would pay three, four hundred. Maybe more, from a dealer."
"Carol. That's your mother's piano."
"It's a piece of furniture," my mother said. "It's a big piece of furniture that we don't have room for, that nobody in this house plays. It's four hundred dollars sitting in our living room."
"And the cat?"
"The cat," my mother said, "will have to find something else to do at midnight."
I went back to my room. When the note came at 11:54, I put my pillow over my head, and then I took it off again, because it seemed wrong not to listen. As if someone had said your name and you had pretended not to hear.
* * *
The ad ran in the Erie Times-News classifieds on Saturday, under MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, between a Peavey amplifier and a set of Ludwig drums. My mother circled it in pen and left the paper folded open on the kitchen table, I think on purpose, so we'd all see it and she wouldn't have to say it.
UPRIGHT PIANO, Story & Clark, 1924. Walnut. Good cond., well kept. $450 or best offer. Must sell. 455-2817 after 5.