PROLOGUE MID-NOVEMBER, 2008
PROLOGUE MID-NOVEMBER, 2008
There had never been a day as blessed as the one I saw through my window that Sunday morning. It was a shy day, November's rosy-cheeked child, which had started with dewdrops racing down chilled windowpanes. I brought my hand up to my window, its icy surface rearing my skin to life, and gazed out at Eastbourne's ocean in the horizon – a bed of sequins reflecting the coalescing clouds above. That was when it struck me: this was it. I was facing life on my own now. I'd prepared myself to dread this very thought, yet the day ahead held so much promise that my fear had already dissipated and made room for a renewed strength I'd never realized I had in me. All around me the world was steeped in silence. A silence like this usually bothered me but today, this was something I was determined to not let happen. I used my imagination to work every sound into my head: along with the quiet rumble under my feet and the gushing of smoke a few short blocks away, I conjured up the scratching sound of a passing train against a rusty set of tracks; the seagulls flying overhead brought back memories of my youth, their cries more vivid in my mind than they had ever been before. As I turned away from the window, my mind equipped with a newfound energy, my eyes fell upon the piano that stood before me. I stared at it, feeling my pulse accelerate as I made out its shape from under the sheet that gave it a ghostly appearance. I reached out towards it but held back in hesitation; I had been acting this way a lot since my return home a few days ago. This time, though, I extended my arm out a little further and pulled the sheet away. The shock that came with seeing my piano's sleek black wood and brilliant white keys sent a wave of chills down my body. Be brave, Lena, I told myself. I sat at the padded bench, and instantly my feet found the pedals and my fingers, the keys. I considered my body's readiness to play: this piano, along with the familiar warmth with which it greeted me, was the one object that had always made me feel safe and connected to the world around me. This piano was my home, my first love, so there was no need for me to fear it. I looked at the score on the rack – the last song I'd played, my favourite piece: Joe Hisaishi's View of Silence – and shut my eyes to feel nothing but the keys at my fingertips. I cleared my mind of everything but the memory of that one song and drew the deepest, most nervous, most silent of breaths.
11
Abbie Cohen