Chapter 1

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The piano in Hana's living room was covered with a sheet.

The sheet was white, with small blue flowers on it, and it had been there for almost a year. Sometimes, when the afternoon sun came through the window, Hana could see the shape of the piano underneath. The long body. The black bench pushed in close. The three pedals at the bottom, like toes sticking out from under a blanket.

Hana was seven years old. She had brown eyes and long black hair that her mother braided every morning. She liked to read, and she liked to draw, and she liked the smell of bread when her mother baked on Saturdays.

But most of all, she used to like the piano.

It had not always been covered. Once, it had stood tall and shining in the corner of the living room, with its keys bright as teeth and its wood dark and warm. Once, Grandfather had sat at the bench, and his long fingers had moved over the keys like birds, and the whole house had filled with music.

That was before.

Now the piano was quiet. It was so quiet that Hana sometimes forgot it was there, the way you can forget about a chair if nobody ever sits in it. But then she would walk into the living room and see the white sheet, and remember.

"Mama," Hana said one Saturday morning. Her mother was at the kitchen table, reading a book. The kitchen smelled like coffee and oranges. "Can we take the sheet off the piano?"

Her mother looked up. Her mother had kind eyes, but lately they had been tired. Small shadows lived under them now, like little moons.

"Not today, baby," her mother said.

"But the dust," Hana said. "The dust is getting on it."

"The sheet keeps the dust off."

Hana nodded, because she could see that this was true. Still, she did not like the sheet.

"Mama," Hana said, "are we going to see Grandfather today?"

Her mother put her book down. She reached across the table and took Hana's hand. Her mother's hand was warm and a little rough at the knuckles.

"Yes," her mother said. "After lunch."

"Will he know me?"

Her mother was quiet for a moment. Outside, a bird was singing in the lemon tree.

"He always knows you, Hana," her mother said. "Even when he can't say so."

Hana looked at the covered piano through the kitchen doorway. The sheet did not move. The piano did not make a sound. But she thought, maybe, if she listened very hard, she could still hear the notes her grandfather used to play, floating somewhere deep inside the wood.

She listened.

She did not hear anything.

But she decided, right then at the kitchen table, that she was going to listen harder. She was going to listen until she heard.

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The care home was a long, low building the color of sand. It had a garden in the front with pink flowers and a bench where nobody ever sat. Inside, it smelled like cleaner and warm soup, and the hallways were very, very clean.

Hana walked next to her mother, holding her hand. Her shoes made soft squeaks on the shiny floor. A woman in blue clothes waved at them from behind a desk.

"Hello, Mrs. Santos," the woman said to Hana's mother. "He's having a good day today."

"Thank you, Marisa," her mother said.

They walked down a hallway. Past a room with a television turned up loud. Past a room with an old woman asleep in a chair. Past a room with flowers in a jar on the windowsill.

At the end of the hallway was Grandfather's room.

Hana stopped at the door, the way she always did. She took a small breath. Then she pushed the door open, slowly.

Grandfather was sitting in the chair by the window. He was wearing his soft gray sweater, the one Grandmother had knitted for him before she died. A blanket covered his legs. His white hair was combed. His hands rested on the arms of the chair.

"Papa," Hana's mother said. She went to him and kissed his forehead. "We brought you something."

Grandfather turned his head a little. His eyes were the same eyes Hana had always known — brown, like hers, with small gold flecks. But now his mouth did not curve up the way it used to when he saw her. It stayed still. One side of it pulled down a little.

That was because of the stroke.

A stroke, her mother had explained, was when a piece of the brain got hurt. The doctors had said Grandfather's stroke had taken away his words, and part of the use of his right side. He could still think. He could still feel. But the words could not come out anymore.

"Hi, Grandfather," Hana said softly.

She came to the chair. She stood close. She put her hand on top of his.

And Grandfather's fingers — slowly, slowly — closed around hers. He gripped her hand.

He held it tight.

Hana looked up into his face. His eyes were wet, but they were smiling. Eyes could smile, even when mouths could not. She had learned that.

"I brought you a picture I drew," Hana said. "It's of our lemon tree. Mama said you like the lemon tree."

She unfolded the paper with her other hand. The drawing was not very good — the tree was too tall and the lemons were too big, like yellow balloons — but she had worked hard on it.

Grandfather looked at the paper. He made a small sound. Not a word. Just a sound, like a soft hum in the back of his throat. But Hana could tell it was a happy sound.

"I'll put it on your wall," her mother said, and she taped the drawing up next to the other drawings Hana had made. There were many of them now. A whole wall of them.

They sat with Grandfather for a long time. Hana's mother read to him from the newspaper. Sometimes she stopped and they just listened to each other breathing.

When it was time to go, Grandfather held Hana's hand one more time. He squeezed it. His eyes were asking her something. She did not know what. But she squeezed back.

"I love you, Grandfather," Hana said.

He made the small sound again.

In the car, on the way home, Hana was quiet. Her mother was quiet too. The sun was going down, turning the sky pink and then orange.

"Mama," Hana said finally, "do you think Grandfather misses music?"

Her mother did not answer for a long moment. She kept her eyes on the road.

"Yes, baby," she said. "I think he does."

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That night, Hana could not sleep.

She lay in her bed and looked up at the ceiling, where the shadow of her curtains made long, soft shapes. She thought about Grandfather's hand holding hers. She thought about the sound he had made when he saw her drawing.

Then she thought about the piano.

She got out of bed. Her feet were bare, and the floor was cold. She opened her door, quietly, and tiptoed down the hallway.

Her mother was already asleep. The house was dark and still.

Hana walked into the living room. The moonlight came through the big window and fell on the covered piano, turning the sheet silver. It looked like a ghost standing there.

She came close. She reached up and touched the sheet with one finger.

It was soft. A little dusty.

She did not pull it off. She knew she was not supposed to. But she lifted one corner, just a little, just enough to see the wood underneath. The wood was dark and smooth. She put her face close and smelled it. It smelled like old polish, and like something else — like a memory.

She remembered.

She remembered sitting on Grandfather's lap while he played. She remembered how his foot had pressed down on the middle pedal and the sound had gotten soft, as if the piano were whispering. She remembered him taking her small finger and pressing it on one key, and saying, "That is C, Hana. C is where music starts."

She had been only four then. But she remembered.

Hana let the sheet fall back down. She sat on the rug in front of the piano and looked at it for a long time.

"I am going to play you again," she whispered. "I promise."

The piano did not answer, of course. Pianos cannot talk.

But Hana felt, somehow, that it had heard her.

She went back to bed. This time, she slept.

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In the morning, Hana's mother was making pancakes.

Hana sat at the table and drank her orange juice. She watched her mother flip a pancake in the pan. Her mother's hair was pulled back in a tail. Her apron had a little flour on it.

"Mama," Hana said.

"Mm?"

"I want to learn piano."

Her mother stopped flipping. She turned around. The pancake sat in the pan and began to burn a little, but she did not notice.

"You want to what?" her mother asked.

"Piano," Hana said. "I want to learn how to play it. The piano. Our piano."

Her mother stared at her. Her mother's face did a lot of things at once — it softened, and tightened, and then softened again. Finally, she came over and sat down at the table.

"Baby," her mother said. "Why?"

Hana had thought about how to answer this. She had thought about it in her bed, last night, before she fell asleep.

"Because Grandfather can't play anymore," Hana said. "And the piano is lonely. And I want him to hear it again. I want to play for him."

Her mother looked at her for a long time. Then her mother looked down at her hands, at her own fingers.

"Hana," her mother said, "learning piano is hard. It takes a long time. It takes practice every day. Your fingers will hurt. You will want to quit."

"I won't quit," Hana said.

"You say that now."

"I won't quit," Hana said again. She said it in her most serious voice. She sat up very straight, to show that she meant it.

Her mother smiled — a small smile, but a real one. It was the first real smile Hana had seen on her mother's face in a long time.

"Let me think about it," her mother said.

She got up and turned off the stove. The burnt pancake came out of the pan and went into the trash. She made a new one.

They ate their pancakes. Hana did not ask again about the piano. She had learned, by being seven years old, that when grownups say "let me think about it," you have to wait.

So she waited.

She waited all day Sunday. She waited Monday, at school, while the teacher talked about adding numbers. She waited Tuesday. She waited Wednesday.

On Wednesday night, after dinner, her mother said, "Hana, come here."

Hana came.

Her mother was standing in front of the covered piano.

"Are you sure?" her mother asked. "Are you sure you want this?"

"Yes," Hana said.

Her mother took a deep breath. Then she reached up and she pulled the sheet.

It slid off, slow and soft, like water. It made a little cloud of dust. The piano stood there — tall and dark and beautiful, with its keys lined up, black and white, as if they had been waiting.

Her mother folded the sheet carefully. Her hands were shaking a little.

"Okay," her mother said. "Okay, baby. Let's begin."

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Hana sat on the bench. Her feet did not reach the pedals. Her mother put a cushion behind her back so she could sit closer.

The keys were right in front of her. White and black. Small and shiny. They looked beautiful, and also a little scary.

"This," her mother said, pointing to one key, "is middle C."

"I know," Hana said. "C is where music starts. Grandfather told me."

Her mother's eyes got wet again. She blinked quickly.

"Yes," she said. "He always said that."

Her mother showed her how to sit. Straight back. Hands round, like you are holding a little ball. Fingers curved, not flat. Thumb on middle C. The other fingers resting on the next keys.

"Press gently," her mother said. "Don't hit. The piano is not a drum."

Hana pressed middle C.

The sound came out. Round. Calm. A little bit deep.

She pressed it again.

"C," she whispered.

"Good," her mother said. "Now, this one is D."

Her mother showed her each key. C. D. E. F. G. Five notes. Hana pressed them, one at a time, and her mother said the letter each time.

"Again," her mother said.

Hana played them again. Her finger slipped off G and hit the black key next to it, which made a sharp, ugly sound.

"Sorry," Hana said.

"It's okay. That happens. Try again."

She tried again. This time she got it right.

They practiced for fifteen minutes. That was all. Hana's finger already ached a little, especially her ring finger, which seemed weaker than the others.

"That's enough for today," her mother said.

"But I want to keep going."

"Fifteen minutes at a time, at first. You will build up. Your fingers need to grow strong. Like muscles."

Hana nodded. She slid off the bench. She looked at the piano.

It did not look lonely anymore. It looked like something that was waking up.

"Good night, piano," Hana whispered, when her mother was not looking.

The piano did not answer, but Hana thought she saw one of the keys shine a little in the lamplight. Almost like a smile.

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The second week, things got harder.

Hana's mother taught her more notes. Then two notes at a time. Then three. Her mother showed her how to read the black dots on the music paper — how each dot stood on a line, and each line was a note.

Hana tried. She really tried.

But her fingers did not want to listen.

When she wanted her third finger to go down, her fourth finger went down instead. When she wanted to play slowly, her hand sped up. When she wanted to play softly, the sound came out loud and clumsy.

One afternoon, she had been trying for twenty minutes to play a simple little tune from her book. It was only five notes long. Five notes. And she could not get them right.

"No, no," her mother said gently. "The third finger. Not the second."

Hana tried again. Her second finger went down.

"Third finger, baby."

She tried again. Her second finger went down.

"Hana—"

"I can't!" Hana said. Her voice came out louder than she meant. "I can't do it! My finger won't listen!"

She pushed her hands off the keys. She looked down at them. Ten little fingers. Stupid fingers. Fingers that did not know their jobs.

Hot tears came up in her eyes. She did not want to cry. She pressed her lips together hard.

"Oh, Hana," her mother said.

Hana could not hold it in. The tears spilled over. They rolled down her cheeks and dropped onto the white keys, leaving little shiny spots.

"I'm sorry," Hana cried. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Her mother pulled her close. Her mother smelled like rosemary, from cooking. Hana pressed her face into her mother's sweater.

"You don't have to be sorry," her mother said. She rubbed Hana's back in small circles. "This is how it starts, baby. This is how it starts for everyone."

"Did Grandfather cry?" Hana asked, her voice muffled.

Her mother laughed — a small, surprised laugh.

"Your grandfather," she said, "used to throw his shoe across the room when he was your age and couldn't get a note right. His mother told me."

"Really?"

"Really."

Hana wiped her face with her sleeve. She looked back at the piano.

"I don't want to throw my shoe," she said.

"Good. Shoes are for feet."

"Can I try again?"

Her mother looked at her. "Are you sure? We can stop for today."

"No," Hana said. She sniffed. "I want to try again."

She put her hands back on the keys. She wiped her eye one more time. Then she played, slowly, one note at a time.

Third finger. This time it went down.

She almost did not believe it. She played the next note. Then the next. Then the next.

Five notes. All in a row. All the right ones.

She looked up at her mother, her eyes big.

"I did it."

Her mother was already smiling. "You did it, baby."

They laughed, a little. Hana's tears were still drying on her cheeks.

She had done it.

It was only five notes. But she had done it.

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Hana practiced every day. Sometimes before school. Always after school. Sometimes again before bed, if her mother said it was okay.

Her fingers were getting a little stronger. She could feel it. The fourth finger was still her worst — it seemed to have a mind of its own — but even it was getting better.

On a Saturday afternoon, about three weeks after her first lesson, there was a knock at the door.

Hana was at the piano. She had been practicing the same little tune over and over. She was getting frustrated again, though not as bad as before.

Her mother opened the door. Hana heard voices. Then her mother called, "Hana, come here a minute."

Hana slid off the bench and came to the door.

A woman was standing on the front step. She was small — not much taller than Hana's mother — with gray hair cut short around her face. She was wearing a flowered dress and a pair of very clean white sneakers. She had a kind, round face, but also a sharp look in her eyes, like someone who paid attention.

"This is Mrs. Ortega," Hana's mother said. "She lives next door."

"Hello, Hana," Mrs. Ortega said. Her voice had a small accent that Hana could not quite place. "I have been hearing your piano."

Hana felt her face go hot.

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry. Was I too loud?"

"No, no," Mrs. Ortega said, and she laughed. Her laugh was soft, like rain. "Not too loud. I have been enjoying it. But —" She tilted her head. "Can I come in a moment?"

Hana's mother stepped back. "Please."

Mrs. Ortega came into the living room. She looked at the piano. Her face changed — soft, respectful, like someone walking into a church.

"Ah," she said. "A good piano. A Baldwin?"

"Yes," Hana's mother said, surprised. "How did you—"

"The sound. You can tell, from outside. It has a good voice." Mrs. Ortega turned to Hana. "How long have you been playing?"

"Three weeks," Hana said.

"Three weeks!" Mrs. Ortega's eyebrows went up. "And you are already trying that song. You must work very hard."

"I want to play for my grandfather."

Hana did not mean to say that. It just came out.

Mrs. Ortega nodded slowly, as if this was not a surprise to her. As if she understood, right away, without needing more words.

"I was a piano teacher," Mrs. Ortega said, "for thirty-eight years. In Manila. In the Philippines. Do you know where that is?"

"It's an island," Hana said.

"Many islands. Seven thousand of them. I taught in a school there. Young children, older children. And then my husband and I came here, and now I am retired. But my hands —" She held them up. They were small and wrinkled, but her fingers looked strong. "My hands still know the keys."

She looked at Hana's mother.

"If you wanted," Mrs. Ortega said, "I could teach her. I live just there." She pointed to the wall. "I could come over, two times a week. I would not charge money. It would make me happy to teach again."

Hana's mother blinked. She looked at Hana. She looked at the piano. She looked back at Mrs. Ortega.

"I don't know what to say," her mother said.

"Say yes or no," Mrs. Ortega said, and smiled. "Either is fine."

Hana's mother looked at Hana. Really looked.

"Hana?" she asked.

Hana nodded so hard her braids bounced.

"Yes please," Hana said. "Yes."

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Mrs. Ortega came on Tuesdays and Thursdays, after school. She always wore a different flowered dress. She always brought a little bag with music books in it. She always said "Good afternoon, Hana," in her soft voice, and Hana would say "Good afternoon, Mrs. Ortega," and then they would go to the piano.

Mrs. Ortega was patient.

She was patient in a way that was different from Hana's mother. Her mother got quiet when Hana made a mistake. Mrs. Ortega laughed.

"Ha!" Mrs. Ortega said, when Hana played a wrong note. "Your finger is a sneaky one. It wants to go its own way. We must teach it."

She had a way of making the lessons feel like a game. She would tap Hana's knuckle with one finger — tap, tap — to remind her to keep her hand round. She would sing the notes as Hana played them. "Cee-Dee-Eee-Effff-Geee." She made up little words for the rhythm. "One — and — two — and — three — and."

The first real song she taught Hana was "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

"It is a simple song," Mrs. Ortega said, "but it is a real song. Real people have played it for hundreds of years. And when you play it well, it sounds like what it is — a little light, in the sky, very far away."

She showed Hana how the song began on C. C, C, G, G. Then A, A, G. Then F, F, E, E, D, D, C.

"Just the right hand for now," Mrs. Ortega said. "Later, we will add the left."

Hana practiced. She practiced in the mornings. She practiced after school. She practiced after dinner. Her fingers were beginning to know where to go without her thinking so hard. It was strange. It was like her fingers were becoming smart.

One Thursday, Mrs. Ortega sat next to her on the bench and said, "Play it for me."

Hana played.

She played it all the way through. Slow, but steady. Each note in the right place. The C at the end landed solid, like a foot coming to rest.

Mrs. Ortega did not say anything for a moment. Then she put her small hand on Hana's head.

"Beautiful," she said. "That was beautiful, Hana."

"Really?"

"Really. The first time a song comes out of you, whole — that is a special moment. You will remember it. A long time from now, when you are a grown woman, you will remember that you once played 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,' all the way through, on a Thursday afternoon when you were seven years old."

Hana looked at her hands.

They did not feel like her hands anymore. They felt like her hands plus something else. Like her hands had a partner now. A quiet partner, who lived inside the piano.

"Mrs. Ortega," Hana said, "when will I be able to play for my grandfather?"

Mrs. Ortega thought for a moment.

"When you have three songs," she said. "Three songs that live in your fingers. So that even if you are nervous, your fingers will remember."

"Three songs."

"Three. Are you willing to wait?"

Hana nodded.

"Good girl," Mrs. Ortega said. "Now. Let us learn the left hand."

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The second song was called "Ode to Joy."

"A German man wrote it," Mrs. Ortega said. "A very great man named Beethoven. Do you know — when he wrote it, he could not hear. He was deaf. But he heard the music in his head."

"He wrote music without hearing it?" Hana said.

"Yes. He heard it inside. The way you might hear your grandfather's voice, even now, even though he cannot speak. You remember his voice. Inside."

Hana went very still. She had not thought of it that way before.

"Yes," she said. "I do."

"That is what music is," Mrs. Ortega said. "It starts inside. The fingers only carry it out."

Hana learned "Ode to Joy." It was harder than "Twinkle, Twinkle." The notes went up and down in a different way. Her fourth finger had to do more work. She grumbled at her fourth finger under her breath.

"Come on, fourth finger," she whispered. "Wake up."

But she learned it. It took almost three weeks, but she learned it.

The third song was "Amazing Grace."

"This one," Mrs. Ortega said, "is a prayer. People sing it at funerals, and at weddings, and at the end of long days. It is about being lost and then being found."

"Are we allowed to play prayers?" Hana asked.

Mrs. Ortega's face was very kind.

"Music is prayer, Hana," she said. "It is one of the oldest prayers. Before people could write words, they could sing. Before they could sing, they could hum. Every song you play is a little prayer. Even 'Twinkle, Twinkle.' Even the scales. It is the heart talking."

"Even when my fingers mess up?"

"Even then. Prayers do not have to be perfect. They only have to be real."

Hana thought about that for a long time.

"Amazing Grace" was slower than the other songs. It was easier to play, in some ways, but harder to play well. Mrs. Ortega said playing slow was harder than playing fast, because you could not hide.

"Every note stands alone," she said. "Every note must be true."

Hana practiced "Amazing Grace" every day for two weeks.

Her mother started sitting in the living room while she practiced.

This was new.

Before, her mother had sometimes listened from the kitchen, or from the hallway. But now she sat in the big armchair by the window, with a book in her lap. Sometimes she read. Sometimes she just listened. She never said much. But she was there.

And Hana thought — though she was not sure — that her mother's face was a little less tired than before. The little moons under her eyes were lighter. Or maybe it was just the light from the window.

Either way, her mother was in the room.

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It was a Saturday morning.

Hana was practicing "Amazing Grace" for maybe the hundredth time. She had gotten pretty good at it. She knew which notes needed to be softer, and which needed to ring out longer. Mrs. Ortega called this "phrasing."

"Music breathes," Mrs. Ortega had said. "Like people. Some notes are breaths in. Some are breaths out."

Hana finished the song. Her last note hung in the air, then faded.

She took her hands off the keys. She sat quietly, the way Mrs. Ortega had taught her — letting the end of the song be its own thing, not rushing.

Behind her, her mother was quiet too.

Then her mother stood up. Hana did not turn around, but she heard her mother's footsteps. Slow. Coming closer.

Her mother stood next to the bench. She looked down at the piano.

"Move over a little, baby," her mother said.

Hana scooted to the side.

Her mother sat down.

For a long time, her mother did not do anything. She just looked at the keys. Her hands were folded in her lap.

Hana held her breath.

Then, very slowly, her mother reached up and put her hands on the keys.

Hana had never seen her mother's hands on the keys. Not in her whole life that she could remember.

Her mother's hands looked different on the piano than they did other places. They looked like they belonged. Her fingers curved just right. They settled on the keys the way a bird settles on a branch.

Her mother took a breath.

And then she played.

It was not a song Hana knew. The notes were slow and thick and sad. They fell down like drops of water. Then they lifted up again. Then they fell. The left hand made a low, rolling sound underneath, like a heartbeat.

Her mother played maybe eight bars. Maybe ten. Hana did not count.

Then her mother stopped.

Her mother's hands stayed on the keys, but they did not move. Her shoulders were shaking.

Hana realized her mother was crying. Crying without making any sound.

Hana did not know what to do. She was afraid to move, afraid to speak. So she just reached out and put her small hand on her mother's arm.

Her mother took a big, trembling breath. She wiped her face with one hand.

"Your grandfather taught me that piece," her mother said. Her voice was wet and quiet. "When I was eight. He said — he said if I could play Chopin, I could play anything."

"Chopin?"

"The man who wrote it. A Polish man. He died a long time ago. He wrote music that sounds like — like how your heart feels when you love somebody."

Hana nodded, slowly. She thought she understood.

"I haven't played in a year, Hana," her mother said. "Not since he got sick. I couldn't. I opened the fallboard once, six months ago, and I closed it again. I couldn't do it."

"Why today?" Hana asked.

Her mother looked at her. Her mother's eyes were red, but they were also shining.

"Because you played," her mother said. "Because you kept playing. And something in me — loosened."

She pulled Hana into her arms. She hugged her tight, right there on the piano bench. Hana could feel her mother's heart going fast, against her ear.

"Thank you, baby," her mother whispered. "Thank you."

They sat like that for a long time. The piano was quiet around them. But it was a different kind of quiet now. Not the quiet of a covered piano, a forgotten piano.

The quiet of a piano that had just been played.

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Mrs. Ortega came on Tuesday. Hana played all three songs for her, without stopping. "Twinkle, Twinkle." "Ode to Joy." "Amazing Grace."

When Hana finished, Mrs. Ortega clapped her hands, slowly, three times.

"You are ready," Mrs. Ortega said.

"Am I?"

"Your fingers know the songs. Your heart knows them. Now you only have to share."

Hana's stomach did a little flip.

"What if I mess up?" she asked. "What if my fingers forget?"

"You will mess up," Mrs. Ortega said.

Hana stared.

"Somewhere," Mrs. Ortega said, smiling, "you will hit a wrong note. It happens in every concert, even the great ones. Even Horowitz — the greatest pianist of my time — he hit wrong notes. Do you know what he did?"

"What?"

"He kept playing. He did not stop. The music kept going."

"So I should keep playing."

"Yes. Keep playing. The music is bigger than one note. The music is all the notes, together. One bad one does not ruin the song."

Hana thought about that.

"Also," Mrs. Ortega said, "your grandfather will not be listening for mistakes, Hana. He will be listening for you."

That night, Hana could not sleep again. But it was a different kind of not-sleeping. It was the kind where your body is tired but your mind is full of music.

She was going to play for Grandfather.

In four days. On Saturday.

She lay in bed and moved her fingers in the air, like she was playing. "Twinkle, Twinkle." "Ode to Joy." "Amazing Grace." Over and over. Until finally sleep came and took her.

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The common room at the care home had a window that looked out on the garden. It had brown couches and a round table with a vase of silk flowers. In the corner, there was a small upright piano. It was old. It was not a Baldwin. It was a color Hana did not know the name of — somewhere between yellow and brown.

The nurse, Marisa, wheeled Grandfather in.

Grandfather was in his soft gray sweater. His hair was combed. His hands rested in his lap.

"Papa," Hana's mother said, "Hana has a surprise for you."

Grandfather's eyes moved to Hana.

Hana's knees felt watery. Her hands were cold. She looked at her mother. Her mother nodded.

"It's okay, baby," her mother said. "Just play. Just like you do at home."

Hana went to the piano. She pulled out the bench. It scraped a little on the floor. Her hands did not feel like hers.

She sat down.

She looked at the keys.

For a moment, she did not remember any of the songs. Not one. Her whole mind went white, like a piece of paper with no writing on it.

She took a breath. Mrs. Ortega had taught her this. Breathe in. Breathe out. Put your hand on middle C. Let your finger remember.

She found middle C.

Her thumb settled. She felt the little groove in the key, the tiny bit of wear where many thumbs had rested before hers.

She began.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star."

C, C, G, G, A, A, G.

The piano was not as good as hers at home. It had a funny, bright sound. One of the keys stuck a little. But the notes came out. Her fingers remembered.

"How I wonder what you are."

F, F, E, E, D, D, C.

She played the whole song. Once. Twice. She added the left hand the second time, the way Mrs. Ortega had taught her.

She did not look at Grandfather. She was afraid to.

When "Twinkle, Twinkle" was done, she took another breath. She began "Ode to Joy."

She made a mistake in the third bar. Her fourth finger went down when it shouldn't have. A wrong note clanked out.

She almost stopped.

But she heard Mrs. Ortega's voice, in her head. Keep playing. The music is bigger than one note.

She kept playing.

She finished "Ode to Joy." She finished it well.

Then she started "Amazing Grace."

She played it slow. Every note stood alone. Every note was true, or as true as she could make it. She thought about what Mrs. Ortega had said — that music was a prayer. She let the song be a prayer. She did not know exactly what she was praying. Maybe she was praying that Grandfather could hear. Maybe she was praying thank-you. Maybe she was praying that love could be carried through her hands, out into the notes, across the room, and into him.

When she played the last note, she let it ring. She did not rush.

Then, slowly, she took her hands off the keys.

The room was quiet.

She turned around, finally, to look at Grandfather.

Grandfather was crying.

His eyes were wet, and tears were running down his cheeks — not many, just a few, slow and quiet. The good side of his mouth was moving. Not smiling exactly. Something more than smiling.

And then — Hana heard it.

A sound.

A small sound, coming from Grandfather. A hum.

Three notes.

Low — higher — lower.

Hana's eyes opened wide. Those were the last three notes of "Amazing Grace." The ones she had just played.

Grandfather was humming them.

His voice was rusty. It was barely a voice at all. But the notes were right. All three of them. Right on the pitch.

Hana's mother made a soft sound, a half-laugh and half-sob.

Hana slid off the bench. She walked to Grandfather. She knelt down by his chair and put her head on his knee. Grandfather's hand came up — slowly, slowly, the good hand — and rested on her hair.

He hummed again. The three notes. Over and over, soft, like something he had been waiting a long time to say.

He was talking to her.

She understood him. She understood him perfectly.

"I love you too, Grandfather," she said into his knee.

His hand did not move. But it stayed there. Warm. Heavy. Certain.

Outside the window, the garden was bright with sun.

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After that day, things were not fixed, exactly.

Grandfather still could not speak. He still could not walk without help. The stroke had not come undone. That was not how strokes worked, her mother said. Once the brain was hurt, it stayed hurt in some ways.

But some things were different.

Grandfather hummed now. Not all the time. But sometimes, when Hana came to visit, he would make the three little notes again. The ones from "Amazing Grace." He would hum them, looking at her, like a greeting.

It was his way of saying hello, she decided. It was his new word for her. A word with no letters. A word made of music.

At home, her mother played the piano too. Not every day, at first. At first, only sometimes, when she was sitting alone after Hana had gone to bed. Hana would lie in her room and listen through the door. The notes would come up through the floor, slow and thick, and wrap around her like a blanket.

Then, slowly, her mother started playing in the daytime. Not to perform. Not even on purpose. Just a few bars here, a melody there. As she walked past the piano on her way to the kitchen, she might stop and play something. Then keep going.

Mrs. Ortega came two times a week, as always.

"Your mother is playing again," Mrs. Ortega said one afternoon. She had heard it through the wall, the way she had first heard Hana.

"Yes," Hana said.

"Good," Mrs. Ortega said, and nothing else. But her eyes were wet.

Hana kept learning. New songs. Harder ones. She learned a little piece by a man named Bach. She learned something called a nocturne, which was a song about nighttime. Her fingers got stronger. Her fourth finger still had a mind of its own sometimes, but now she could usually boss it.

She was eight now. She had been eight for almost two months. She did not feel very different than seven, but she could play more songs, and she could read music faster, and her hands were a little bigger.

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One evening, in the spring, her mother stood up from the couch after dinner and said, "Hana. Come listen."

Hana came.

Her mother sat down at the piano. She looked at the keys for a moment. She cracked her knuckles gently, one at a time, the way she used to when Hana was smaller.

"I want to play something for you," her mother said. "A long piece. I haven't played it all the way through since your grandfather was — since before."

"What's it called?"

"It's a piece by Chopin. A nocturne. Do you know that word?"

"A song about nighttime."

"Yes. Exactly."

On top of the piano sat a new picture. It was a framed photograph of Grandfather, from before the stroke. In the picture he was laughing at something, his eyes almost closed. He was wearing the gray sweater. Grandmother, in the picture, was cut off — you could see only her elbow. She had taken the photograph, maybe. She used to always take the photographs.

Hana's mother looked at the picture for a moment.

Then she began to play.

The piece was long. It was longer than any song Hana could play. It had parts that were quiet and slow, and parts that were fast and almost wild. Her mother's hands flew, and then they rested, and then they flew again. Her mother's face was concentrated but also open, like she was telling a story.

Hana sat on the rug. She pulled her knees up to her chest. She listened.

The music went up into the high notes — so high that they sounded like little bells far away. Then it came back down, low and warm, like the sound of a deep river. There were places where it sounded like someone was missing someone. There were places where it sounded like forgiveness. There were places where Hana could not put words to what it sounded like at all. Words ran out.

Her mother played for a long time. Ten minutes, maybe. Maybe more. Hana did not look at the clock.

When the last note finished, it hung in the air for a long second before it faded.

Her mother did not move for a while. Her shoulders rose and fell. Then she turned, still on the bench, and looked at Hana.

"That's the piece," her mother said. "That's the one he taught me when I was eight."

Hana could not speak. There was too much inside her chest. It felt like her heart was full of something hot and good, like soup.

She got up. She went to her mother. She climbed up onto the bench next to her, even though she was getting a little big for that. Her mother put an arm around her.

They sat and looked at the piano together. They looked at the photograph of Grandfather.

"He would have loved that," Hana said.

"He heard it, baby," her mother said.

"He wasn't here."

"He heard it," her mother said again, firmly. "Some things you hear without your ears."

Hana thought about this. She thought about how Grandfather hummed the three notes. She thought about Mrs. Ortega saying that music starts inside. She thought about Beethoven, who was deaf, writing music in his head. She thought about prayer, and how her family said prayers at dinner sometimes, holding hands, and how the prayers did not seem to go anywhere out loud, but somehow they got to where they were going.

Maybe music was like that too.

Maybe music went places that people could not see.

"Mama," Hana said.

"Yes?"

"I think music is a kind of prayer."

Her mother looked down at her. For a long moment, her mother did not say anything. Then she kissed the top of Hana's head.

"Yes," her mother said. "I think it is."

They sat together on the bench for a while longer. The sun was going down outside. The light in the living room was turning gold. The piano was warm under Hana's hand.

Somewhere, across the city, Grandfather was in his chair by his window. Maybe he was looking at the garden. Maybe he was humming.

Maybe, just maybe, he could feel the music in his chest — even from here.

Hana closed her eyes.

In the quiet of the room, in the quiet of her heart, she could still hear every note her mother had played.

She would carry them with her.

That was what music was for.

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THE END

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A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

There is an old idea, carried by many traditions and written about in the Bahá'í Faith, that music is not just entertainment. It is a way that the heart speaks when words fall short. It is a bridge — between one person and another, between one generation and the next, between the life we can see and the life we feel inside us.

When someone we love can no longer speak — because of sickness, or distance, or simply because some things are too deep for words — we sometimes wonder how to reach them. This story is about one girl who found a way. Hana learned the piano not to perform, not to impress anyone, but to carry love across a silence. And her grandfather, who could not answer with words, answered with three small notes.

Service, in this little book, looks like a child practicing scales. It looks like a neighbor knocking on a door. It looks like a mother finding the courage to place her hands on the keys again. None of these things are loud. None of them are grand. But together, they are prayer.

If you have ever loved someone you could not reach, maybe this story is for you. Play your three notes. They will carry further than you know.

— Crimson Ark Publishing

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