Day 29 - First Person

The chair scraped immediately to my right, dragging my attention momentarily. It was the waiter. He smiled at me, conveying several things but one. I glanced back at my coffee; it was two-thirds gone, not finished. Looking across the street, the piano bench was still vacant, although it was starting to fade. It was 5:30 p.m., 29th of May, the closing days of Autumn. It was getting dark; he’d arrive soon.

“Excuse me, Miss.”

I looked up, smiled, and dropped a fiver on the table. “Thank you.”

Taking the cup, I gulped down the last of the coffee. The cup rattled on the saucer as I stood, a lipstick smear marking its rim. I pulled my coat tighter around me, feeling the chill of the encroaching evening. The air carried the scent of rain and fallen leaves, a bittersweet reminder of the year slipping by.

He’d be here soon,  I looked left and right, stepping onto the street.  I needed to get to the nook before he started before he saw me.  I glanced at my watch, it was 5:45 p.m. He’d be here at 6, on the dot, I always wondered how he did that.  I moved up the stairs, into the shadow of the stoop.  My vantage point, I looked down upon the piano now.

Then I saw him, I couldn’t help but look at my watch, 6 p.m. 

A car turns onto the street, its headlights sweeping across him revealing his silhouette in its entirety.  He walked with a limp, it looked painful, it looked worse than the day before, maybe it was arthritis, the cold impacting him.

I’m sure he knows I’m here.

He sits at the piano bench and lifts the lid. Tapping, tinkling a key or two, getting his ear in.

He starts with Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff. The classics.  Then Einaudi, Tiersen, Amalds, all contemporary, all international, Italian, French, Icelandic, how is that even possible?

It ends, and I’m freezing, I’ve been shivering for his last two songs, I can’t leave though. I’m sure he knows I’m here but then he doesn’t, I don’t know.  He’s stopped.

I look down, I watch worried at first that he hadn’t seen it, but he had, of course he had, I’d been leaving it in the same spot for weeks. He takes the twenty, pockets it, and then he is gone.

I descend the steps from my perch, stepping to where he’s just left resting my hand on the piano, watching his back as he returns the way he came, turning the corner and disappearing.

I know who he is, I remember, his repertoire might have changed, but it’s him.  The way he sits at the piano, gets his ear in, strikes the keys, moves.  I remember him, I remember him.

It’s my father.