The apartment was empty. Almost. The baby grand was yet to be taken out. They were waiting on a buyer, she knew. The owner was dead, and the money left couldn’t cover the cost of moving the piano. She knew the piano, though. Knew each crack in the faded leather bench, knew where each scraped the backs of her legs when she moved the pedals. She knew that, two octaves up, the E string was snapped, and it wouldn't sound. She also knew where her practice music was, in the flip-down compartment underneath. She knelt, unlatched the door, and slid out a piece and the metronome. Set it.

Tempo: 60

The ticking echoed around her. She sat, smoothing out the creases in Bach as she set it on the stand. She hadn't practiced since he got sick, the owner. Her family had no piano. She counted to the metronome -- one, two, three, four -- and began to play. It sounded different in this ghost room, all hollow shelves, bare walls, sheet-plastic-covered floors. She played though, played as though he were still in the room. She had practiced away all her babysitting money every week for the past five years of her young life. So today she played Bach. She played first for an hour, until she truly knew it, till she could ignore the awkward pauses when the broken E was played, she could feel the cadences and the flow, not just each note. She played for an hour. Then, she didn't stop. With no one there to tell her it would cost more money to play for longer, she joined the piano, slid into the vibrations of each string, and played for another half hour, escaped for another half hour, and cried.

Tempo: 120

He found her later. Her father. He banged open the door and glowered, his face bearing frown lines as irreversible as scars. He jerked his head. She bowed hers, and followed him to their mirror rooms. Their apartment looked alive to guests, but certain pictures were missing, certain doors were closed, and if it was alive now, it was dying. She made him salsa in the kitchen, fetched him a beer. He sat on the futon and watched a show. If it was football, he would call for drinks until he passed out. If it wasn't, she could only hope he'd stay there. If not... He called for another drink. A third. A fourth. A fifth.

Tempo: 183

It was too warm this time. That was his reasoning. There were only four in the fridge, so she took it from a grocery bag. She thought he was too far gone to notice. She apologized, asking if she should put it in the fridge. He groaned as he slowly stood up. He told her she should have thought of that before. That she always thought of that before. He raised the bottle, and she cowered -- no matter how many times she told herself that it only made it worse, she still cowered. He swung the bottle. Missed her. He was too drunk. It crashed against the armrest, shattering. Beer leaked into the already stained tan fabric. Glass slid into skin. His.           

Tempo: 225

He hissed in pain, narrowing eyes at her. Eyes that used to laugh, but which now only glared with drink-dulled functions always making her the enemy, because she was there, and she wasn't. So she ran. For the first time. Her bare feet were bitten by a few smaller shards. He reached for her, grabbed her shoulder, but he had slivers of his own hate in his palm, and she slipped away, leaving only smatterings of herself behind. Drops of blood. She’d lost more, before. A mother, before.

Tempo: 50

She sat on her bed, picking murky shatterings from her heel. She surveyed the damage. Only two places bled. Her shoulder and a larger slice on the arch of her foot. But she was tired of damage control and waitressing and longing. She knew, somehow, that her mother hadn't meant it this way, when she said to take care of daddy while she was gone. Maybe she had meant take care of daddy, but not of father, this newer, darkened figure hiding on the futon because his bedroom was too painful. This man wasn't daddy anymore. This man was just another man. She was done. She grabbed a jacket. Bandaids. Shoes. Ten dollars. She walked out.

Tempo: 65

She laid her jacket on the cracked leather seat. Slid off her shoes and placed a bandaged foot on one pedal. She didn't think about where she would go, she didn't think at all. She changed sheet music for something else, something new, and brought one ghost room alive with music.

Tempo: Artist's Choice