A Piano’s Tale

By: Amber Sliva

Rain pattered onto Adalyn’s window, cutting the glass into fours. The storm slowly let up after
surging for more than two hours. Despite the cool weather seeping through the window, Adalyn
felt a longing to join the three children splashing in the puddles. Her practice room window on
the second floor gave her the advantage of seeing their grins as they played their childish games.
They leaped from puddle to puddle on the sidewalk across from her house, elated to be caught in
the light rainstorm.
She pushed away from the window, suddenly tired of watching their happiness. As she
wiped streaks from her face with a calloused thumb, a loud pang of thunder rang through her
house, rattling her window. Hurriedly, she swirled around to see the three kids’ reactions. Not an
ounce of fear showed on their faces. In fact, the thunder’s rumble seemed to feed them with more
energy. They bounced up and down, splashing each other senseless. Their brightly colored rain
boots and raingear displayed specks of mud and chopped grass from when they rolled in the yard
moments before.
Unfair. Their laughter, happiness, and naivety of the world was unfair to her.
She narrowed her eyes on the children. Two boys and a girl. Their joy won’t last forever.
They weren’t going anywhere if they kept playing in puddles during rainstorms or throwing balls
after school every day. At least she was aiming for success in this room of hers, away from kids
like them who can taint her ability. It was better to stay away.
You’re lying.
The whispery voice mirroring her own has been popping into her consciousness more
frequently as she has grown older. It accused her of jealousy and regret. Escaping these thoughts
was impossible. They invaded her every time she saw children her age, living without worry or
constraint.
For some reason, she couldn’t detach herself from the scene below, even when she knew
it was causing her pain. The boy with a green jacket shoved the girl into a mud pile they made a
minute ago. He laughed as he watched her struggle to get up. Once she regained her balance, she
interrupts his chortling with a push of her own. Caught off guard, he flung into the boy with
blond hair and they both go toppling over into a rose bush.
A giggle escaped Adalyn’s mouth before she realized it. Quickly composing herself, she
continued to watch them. The only evidence showing her amusement was the small smile
tugging at her lips.
 The three friends sat next to each other on the sidewalk and reclined backward onto the
filthy ground. If her mother had seen her do that, she would have gotten a spanking or worse,
forbidden her from taking breaks between her lessons.
The three of them spread their limbs out so they overlapped each other. This caused more
laughter and a smack to Green Jacket Boy when he poked the girl in the eye. He smirked,
enjoying the attention. Adalyn could clearly tell he liked her, but did she like him?
Isolated from the two, Blondie stared up into the twilight sky. His glasses were probably
too wet and foggy to see the large clouds traveling from the west. Even though he shared
friendship with the other two, Adalyn knew he was the third wheel. When there was a group of
three friends, there was always that one friend that was outcast from the others. It was inevitable.
She, too, experienced it when she went to a public school. Now homeschooled, nothing got in
her way like pesky friendships or socializing.
However, watching her neighbors play outside always did relax her, whether she wanted
to believe it or not. It gave her comfort, something that was absent within her own realm, behind
the glass windows and brick walls of her house. As much as she hated to admit, she lived
through those spontaneous kids. Their joy was her joy. Their laughter, her laughter. Needless to
say, they had no clue of the envious girl with calloused thumbs and silk dresses greedily
watching from above. If they did, would they be frightened or welcoming?
She didn’t waste any more time dwelling on the preposterous thought but instead turned
her thoughts to the questions brewing in the back of her mind. The webs were dense, but she
managed to reach the feelings needing exposure.
What if I had friends? She painstakingly asked herself, letting her hands fall onto the
windowpane as she examined the children closer. Her nose practically touched the glass. Would
I be experiencing the same joy as much as those three? Would I then be normal?
She highly doubted it. There was no escaping the life she had as a pianist. Even if her
parents allowed her such luxury of freewill, she knew nothing about making friends. Whenever
she attempted to make friends, her parents restricted her further. It has been made clear that
friendship can ruin her talent.
She belonged behind these claustrophobic walls. Blind or deaf, her duty was to play the
piano until her parents approved.
Her life belonged to music.
 As much as she has grown to hate it over the years, she has never lost the desire to stop
playing. She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t seek her piano. Despite having to
practice for hours on end every day and night, she exhausted her worries and despair onto her
piano, letting the instrument speak the language she found difficulty in voicing.
Once in the middle of night, when her household was asleep, she drifted to the piano
without a moment of diverse thought and played well off into the wee hours of morning. Her
mother questioned her the following day why she wasn’t as eager during the daytime. The
answer seemed obvious. Playing the piano when not obligatory was beautiful and magical. There
was also a difference in her skill level when not forced to play under the watchful, preying eyes
of her parents.
During her free time, she would lose herself in the music swelling from her soul onto her
fingertips. Every note has its own expression, its own way of speaking only she could understand
when she played. She merely deciphered the piano’s language so others could tune in. The piano
delivered messages solely to those who could hear its true intentions. Adalyn doubted her parents
heard her piano’s messages all these years.
Each key had a story to tell, depending on the dynamics. A crescendo was like the way of
a piano reaching its final argument between the player and itself, while a decrescendo was its
way for the instrument to fall into a sweet descent of musical notes, submitting to the player but
only to be carried off into a whole new world of musicality.
Adalyn always liked to think of the piano in that way. It had a delicate soul she couldn’t
mask. A pianist’s job was to unveil their piano’s secrets. Adalyn had many. It will take years for
her and the piano to merge as one.
Without much thought, she opened the window. A few raindrops trickled onto her dress.
A mist mixed with the wind whooshed into the room, unraveling her perfectly straight hair.
Floating out the window went the velvet hat her parents gifted her for Christmas last year. She
didn’t bother catching it as the hat plunged into one of the flower bushes below.
Droplets coated her skin and dampened her attire. Closing her eyes, she enveloped herself
in the fresh air and cool breeze. It felt amazing; she felt limitless.
So this was what the kids felt.
“What are you doing, Adalyn?” A voice capable of cutting the sky in two shattered her
peaceful solitude. “Close that window. You’re going to catch a cold.”
 Adalyn stepped away, watching her mother stride into the room and place a new sheet of
music on her piano’s music rack. When she realized her daughter wasn’t moving, she noisily
exhaled and crossed the room to shut the window. Once it was closed, she turned her berating
eyes onto her. Suddenly, the room felt ten degrees colder than when the window was open.
“It felt nice,” was all Adalyn could say.
“What?” Her mother was already shuffling back to the piano, a tenseness in her shoulders
and back. Her mother didn’t hear her—or didn’t want to hear her. Sometimes, she thinks it was
mostly the latter. “It’s past supper. You should have been practicing by now.” She placed a hand
on her face. Weariness dragged down her mother’s beauty. “Start going over the music piece I
just gave you. Mrs. Helen will be here shortly to help guide you through it. I want you playing
that piece without the music sheets by the end of this week.”
Obedient as always, Adalyn strode to the familiar stool in front of her piano and sat
down. Its sleek, shining coat sparkled, waiting for her touch. If the kids outside found comfort in
the rain, let her find comfort with her piano.
This time as she sprawled her hands across the keys, she smiled.