She stared at the hundreds of other journals before her, remembering clearly what was in some, frightened by what revelations were held in others. These books, collectively, held the essence of what Donna Mehan had been dogging her about for years. In these books was the meat of a story Clare was afraid to tell.

She leaned forward and touched the tops of several spines all at once. She pulled them out, three, four, five. She used both her hands and pulled journal after journal into a heap on the rug in front of her until she had cleaned three shelves worth bare. By the time Roberto arrived for his scheduled weekly private piano performance, Clare was busy stacking the books in piles of ten on her glass coffee table.

Clare had met Roberto at a private party in Pacific Palisades, hosted by the director of the movie based on Clare’s thirtieth book, She Knew You When. Roberto had told her he and his wife were retiring to San Francisco after a long and successful career as a studio musician who had played backup piano for major artists for more than forty years. “It’s my fingers that are needing to quit, damn arthritis. My heart and my head would keep at it right up until they shoveled the dirt into my grave.”

It had been months later that she’d called him. She’d been working on What We Lost, annoyed with her inability to find exactly what she was wanting for mood music. When she’d realized what she wanted, needed, was live piano music, she’d called Roberto and asked if his arthritic fingers would be able to manage one session a week. She’d had a very specific playlist. Music from her past, once played in this exact order by someone she loved very much.

“Shall I play the usual, Ms. Collins?” Roberto asked, his eyebrows raised at the sight of her hauling books from a perfectly useful bookshelf to a cluttered construction of paper in the middle of the room.

“Of course, please don’t mind me,” she said as she leveled one stack and returned to the pile for two more handfuls.

“Do you…would you like a hand?” he asked, making his way toward the pile and moving to pick some books up himself.

“No!” she shouted and held up her hand. “Don’t touch them!”

Roberto stopped midstoop, then stood up slowly, like a man suddenly realizing he was not in a petting zoo but a bear’s den.

“I’m sorry,” Clare recovered. “They’re…special. I’m sorry I shouted.”

Roberto shook his head twice. “No need to explain to me.” He pointed to Clare’s white Steinway and Sons grand piano, Her Majesty, as he often called it, and tilted his head. “I’ll just play?”