Joy’s mind has wandered. “Papa likes the piano. He came in while I was playing, just stood there listening—I mean, right at the end of the keyboard, and he was staring at my hands, like he’d never seen hands before and wanted to see what they could do? So naturally, I got nervous. My fingers started to stutter.”

I smile. “I thought you did that on purpose. It sounded like improv.”

“Nuh-uh. Just mess up. Why does he have a piano? I mean, like, who plays?”

“No one. But hope dies hard. He thought learning to play was a must for girls, so he bought a piano. None of us took the bait.”

“He didn’t make you?”

“Oh, he tried. But after a few weeks of our practicing while he was home, he caved. Now you’ve come along to play his piano the way it should be played. I’d say his wait was worth it.”

She leans into me and says with a pout, “You say that because you love me.”

“I say it because it’s true.” And because I do know she loves hearing it.

“So who said things like that to you when you were growing up here?”

“Uh … my mother?” When Joy slides me a you-don’t-sound-sure look, I say with greater conviction, “My mother.”

Seeming satisfied with that, she rests her head on my shoulder. The purpling sky soothes. “This is so nice,” she says, and it is. My daughter keeps me in the present, which is where I want to be.

Then, upstairs in my bedroom, she falls asleep, and my grip on the present wavers. While she breathes deeply, her warmth pressed to my arm, I lie awake thinking of this room, this house, the people my family had been back then. I hear flutters in the attic—bats we kids knew, just knew—and my eyes fix on the ceiling, waiting for something to break through and whip around in the dark. When nothing does, just as nothing did then, I close my eyes again and listen to the ocean in real time, rather than dreams. It is as beautiful, as soothing as I remember.

After a while, I hear my father’s footsteps on the stairs. Slipping from bed, I creep to the door and put my ear to the wood. It occurs to me to go out there and see if he needs help with his cast. But I can’t begin to imagine helping this man undress. He was never a touchy-feely guy. If he held my hand when I was a child, it was to lead me somewhere, not to impart warmth. He never dressed me, never tied a ribbon in my hair. I don’t recall whether he ever actually hugged me.