I shut the door and realize I still have my towel clenched in my fist. I toss the towel in the laundry and head upstairs to check on Jackson. Still sleeping like a champ. I prepare to go back downstairs, then make a left into the office. I open the closet, reach an arm in, and swat past old coats and bins to find what I’m hunting for: the sleek handle of my cello case. I gently tug it closer. The familiar heft immediately placates something deep inside me.

I close the door, hoping not to wake Jackson, and hoist the case onto the sofa. I run my fingers over the cognac exterior, unlatch the buckles, and stare down into the blurred bowl of my beloved instrument. A great heaving sigh escapes my chest. I pick it up with the same care I show Jackson. I sit on the worn sofa, which is much lower than a chair would be, and separate my knees to allow the cello space. The spike pivots on the rug. I rest it against my chest. The instrument barely clears my left ear.

My fingers hurry to their position—left hand on the strings, right hand clutching the bow. I slick wet hair behind my ears and knot it into a bun. I reposition my four fingers on the bow—pinky finger on the button, ring finger on the metal, middle finger on the hair, and the first finger resting in space. My thumb curls into the butt of the bow.

The first note shudders through my body. The defining sound thunders like a ship entering the dockyard, and I try to contain myself. I warm up, and the bow drags lower to the bridge, so that the notes are a different color entirely.

My elbow cuts the air in a precise angle. My wrist stabilizes the line between elbow and shoulder. I play the next note and the next. The familiar horn amplifies and injects the room with life. I chop the strings into separate notes.

I transition to scales, the notes as familiar to me as the shape of my son’s face. I close my eyes and let the whole tones and semi-tones captivate and transport me somewhere else. My left hand springs to life. I stretch to reach different tones—I stretch to forget. The dormant muscles shake awake.

I channel a different memory. I’m in my finest black dress with ample slits that let the fabric slither up my thighs. I wear earrings, delicate diamond studs that twinkle under the blinding symphony lights. My lips are full and red, my eyes obsessed with the notes on the page.

I am not in my pajamas, my breasts heaving with milk, in a home office in Elmhurst, Illinois. I am on stages in New York, London, Paris, Chicago. I am a traveling cellist who is defined by what her hands can do—not what her eyes don’t see.