A thump. A thud. A bang. Silence. The silence marking before and after.

Bewildered, I looked at the scattered random toys of a fourth child – a few blocks, dolls with their faces scribbled out, chipped wooden men that balanced on each other’s shoulders if you had more than two. The toy box lid had slammed shut, and our dad lay dead on the floor. Bang. The black telephone clutched in his hand. Thud. He barely fit in the hallway head to shoe. Thump. His heart gave out, and he was gone. The two questions, first as a child – “where did he go?”, later as an adult –“who was he talking to?”.

The cramped hallway had a huge attic fan whose maw opened up to suck in all the air, balloons, and paper airplanes. Darkly numinous, it was a perfect place for a game called Murder in the Dark. “Murder in the dark, murder in the dark, monkey wants to speak, speak, monkey, speak.”

Made up games, children’s voices, songs, laughter, bitter tears, slammed doors, and the piano.

An old upright piano has a unique quality of sound, warm and round and sentimental. If it’s in a room with wooden floors, the floor becomes a part of the instrument. In a room with wooden floors, surrounded by people and played by someone attuned to the sound, then the breeze comes through the screen door next to the piano, and that becomes a work of art.

The attic fan purred on, swimming through the air of time, pulling the hot summer air through the screens, past the piano which played on and through the organic life our family pieced together.