I used to be earwormed by eighties and nineties pop songs, and now it’s cello-sawn versions of ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, ‘Frère Jacques’ and a piece I remember from school as ‘Emerald City’ – a song about wizards and lemonade.

I have the listing. Ellen left a message on my voicemail while I was in the gym. I played it twice to be sure I’d heard it right.

Inside, Lacy’s now playing the piece, to demonstrate. In her hands it’s still simple, but musical, more than just the sum of its notes. It’s a sad piece when she plays it, not a sequence of painful bowing events.

The Novotny family puts Lacy’s musicality down to an unspecified Central European musical ancestor. The official genealogy goes no further than Ellis Island in the late nineteenth century, and I suppose whoever arrived then brought that history with them. It’s a memory the current Novotnys stake a claim to, though, as far as I know, its details remain unexplored.

The first time I met her family was at a performance in Anchorage. It was a piece for cello and piano, just the two instruments – the first one where the cello got equal billing, she told me. Her father, Wade, marvelled at her playing, staring at her as if she was spinning eight plates on sticks, as though playing the cello was an act that defied explanation. Wade is a man whose every day is tangible, explained, and he needed an answer for her playing, too. But it’s no bad thing for a father to think his child is capable of magic.

Wade is in construction, Colleen was a nurse, but hasn’t done that in the time I’ve known them. Lacy’s name comes from Colleen’s side, from a family name said to be from Limerick in Ireland, from a family of rebels and roaming generals. Another good tale that has passed unexamined.

Wade built his business pouring concrete in the eighties infrastructure boom. I once picked him up at the airport and, before he even had his seatbelt on, he was quoting its square footage of concrete and asphalt, since his men had poured some of both in the rebuild of 2006. His business is at the mercy of fluctuations in the economy but it varies seasonally too, and Wade has worked out how to weather both. He keeps the company compact at its core, but has a large pool of labour he can take on for projects. In good times, he tucks some money away. In bad, he avoids Chapter 11. I can’t help thinking the business has not made him as much money as it should have.

I met Lacy through ski lessons when I was teaching her son, Cedar. He was four then. He’s now seven. Seven and a half. He leaves no doubt about the half.