My mother d.i.3.d when I was fourteen.
Even now, years later, the word cancer still feels too small to hold what it did to her and to us. It crept in quietly and then took over everything. It drained her strength, her color, her laughter. I watched the woman who once filled every room with warmth slowly shrink until she was barely there at all. The worst part was not just losing her. It was watching her fade day by day, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Yet even at her weakest, there was one thing she never gave up.
Every Sunday morning, without fail, she would sit at the piano.
It was an old upright Steinway, dark mahogany, polished smooth by decades of hands, with ivory keys that had yellowed slightly with age. The legs were intricately carved, elegant and sturdy, like something from another era. The bench creaked softly when she sat down, and sometimes she would sigh before placing her fingers on the keys, as if gathering the last of her strength.
Then she would play.
Sometimes it was jazz, soft, wandering melodies that felt like warm sunlight through a window. Sometimes it was old standards, she said her own mother used to hum while cooking. Other days, it was classical pieces she half remembered, stitched together by instinct rather than precision. It did not matter if she made mistakes. It did not matter if her hands trembled. The music always filled the house, wrapping around me like a blanket.
I would sit on the rug with a bowl of cereal, listening. That sound, the piano and her playing, was home. It was her voice when words failed.
After she d.i.3.d, everything went quiet.
The house felt hollow, like a shell abandoned by something living. Even the walls seemed colder. At the funeral, people kept asking me what I wanted to keep of hers, as if choosing objects could somehow soften the loss. Jewelry. Clothes. Books.
I shook my head at all of it.
“The piano,” I said. “That’s all I want.”
My father put his hand on my shoulder and nodded. His eyes were red, his face drawn with grief.
“It’s yours,” he said softly. “I promise.”
He kept that promise, at least at first. The piano stayed in the living room exactly where it had always been. He even had it written into the will later. I saw the paperwork myself. Legally and unquestionably, it belonged to me.
For a while, it felt like the one thing that had not changed.
Then my father met Vanessa.
I was sixteen by then, raw and angry, still drowning in grief I did not know how to express. Vanessa arrived like a whirlwind of forced cheer. She was always impeccably put together. Her blonde hair was styled just so, her lipstick bright, her clothes expensive without trying too hard. She smelled like flavored coffee and floral perfume and spoke in a voice that was just a little too loud and a little too rehearsed.
She smiled constantly, but it never reached her eyes.
She had a daughter, Brooke, my age, who seemed to exist in a completely different universe than I did. Brooke wore designer boots, had flawless hair, and carried a confidence that bordered on cruelty. The very first thing she ever said to me was, “You kind of look like a budget version of Taylor Swift.”
She laughed. Vanessa laughed too.
That was day one.
When my father married Vanessa, I knew life was going to change. I just did not realize how quickly or how deeply.
At first, it was subtle. Vanessa reorganized the kitchen. She “decluttered” drawers. She replaced throw pillows and repainted walls. She talked a lot about fresh starts and new energy. I tried to stay out of the way, counting down the days until I could leave for college.
Then the photos began to disappear.
Pictures of my mother vanished from the shelves, replaced by glossy framed shots of Vanessa and my dad on vacations. They were laughing in Aspen, kissing in Cabo, wearing matching holiday sweaters. One by one, my mom’s presence was erased. Her cookbooks vanished. Her scarves. Small personal things I had not even realized I was clinging to.
Every time I asked, Vanessa waved it off.
“Oh, those old things?” she said. “I donated them. You can’t live in the past forever.”
The piano remained untouched.
For a long time, I thought that meant even Vanessa had limits. Or maybe she knew she could not cross that line.
In hindsight, I think she was just waiting.
When I left for college out of state, I felt more relief than sadness. Home no longer felt safe. It no longer felt like mine.
During spring break, I returned with bags in hand, hoping, naively, for a little normalcy.
I walked into the living room and stopped cold.
The piano was gone.
Not moved. Not covered. Gone. In its place was an empty rectangle of carpet, lighter than the rest, with dust marks where the pedals had been. The silence was deafening. I stood there, heart pounding, waiting for my eyes to adjust, for reality to correct itself.
It did not.
“Dad?” I called out. My voice sounded small. “Where’s the piano?”
Vanessa’s voice floated in from the kitchen, light and casual.
“Oh, that old thing?” she said. “I had it taken away.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
She appeared in the doorway, holding a green smoothie as if this were any other day.
“It was falling apart,” she said. “And honestly, you never even played it. It was just taking up space.”
“That was my mother’s piano,” I said, my hands shaking. “It was mine.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You’re being dramatic. It wasn’t even yours.”
“It was in the will,” I snapped. “Dad promised me.”
Vanessa shrugged.
“Well, it’s too late now.”
I could not breathe. I ran upstairs and slammed my door so hard a picture fell in the hallway and shattered.
I texted my father over and over.
Where is the piano?
Vanessa said she sold it.
Please tell me this isn’t true.
He did not respond.
Downstairs, I heard Vanessa laughing on the phone, chatting about a buyer somewhere in Ohio.
That was the moment something inside me broke for good.
My father came home two days later.
I heard his suitcase roll across the floor, then stop. No greeting. No questions. I crept to the landing and looked down.
He was standing in the living room, staring at the empty space where the piano had been. His face went pale.
“Where’s the piano?” he asked quietly.
Vanessa laughed.
“Oh, that thing? I sold it.”
He froze. Then he whispered, “Oh my God.”
“I hid your birthday gift in there,” he said, turning slowly toward her. “Under the bottom panel. Inside the piano.”
Vanessa blinked.
“What gift?”
“A Cartier necklace,” he replied. “Three thousand dollars. I wanted to surprise you.”
Her smoothie slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor.
She panicked instantly, calling the buyer, pacing, yelling. But it was too late. The piano was already gone.
That night, they fought.
“You never asked her,” my father said. “You never once thought about how that piano mattered.”
The next morning, Vanessa was gone.
A week later, my father filed for divorce.
We never recovered the piano. Or the necklace. But something important was restored.
Months later, he bought me another piano. It was secondhand, worn, and imperfect.
“It’s not hers,” he said softly. “But it’s yours.”
I sat down and played.
And for the first time in years, the music felt like home again.
