Victoria came downstairs that Thursday morning after bathing and grooming herself for a quiet day at home. Agnes had left for work an hour ago, Grace and Harold had walked off to school with the Collingwood grandchildren at the same time, and Victoria had the house to herself. Mostly, at least. She looked forward to a crisp spring day of knitting and reading while she sipped her morning tea and looked out the window at Spruce Street’s sun-streamed elms.
These mornings alone gave her a sense of peace she hadn’t felt since Norman’s death. She’d finally convinced herself to eat, to come downstairs and join Agnes and the children, even to go walking in Rittenhouse Square. She even –
And then she heard it. Banging Prokofief on the piano. That Brian Larney. Why did Agnes invite him to live here? He played the piano all hours of the day, right when he woke up and right before going to bed in the middle of the night. And those piano students – the little 8-year old boys and girls who trounced into the house and got the floors dirty – and Prokofief! Anything would be better than the heavy chords and depressing music.
“Brian,” she shouted through the hallway, “could you wait a while before playing? I’ve only just settled in for the morning. A half hour, please.”
“All right, Mrs. B. I can wait until Susie comes for her lesson. That’s not for an hour.”
Victoria breathed a sigh of relief and went back to her knitting. Her tea was cold and she had to refill it –
“But Mrs. Collingwood,” Brian’s scratchy tenor screeched into the phone with a laugh and a hiccough, “you told me Susie would be coming …”
That damned telephone. If Brian Larney wasn’t playing the piano, he was talking on the telephone. Somehow the man always had to make noise, one way or the other.
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