The Piano That Changed Everything

Part 1: The Hospital Meeting

My name is Annabelle Thompson, and I’m twenty-eight years old. Four weeks ago, my parents sold my grandmother’s antique piano—the magnificent 1892 Steinway she had explicitly, repeatedly promised would be mine—and used all ninety-five thousand dollars of the proceeds to buy my younger sister a brand-new Mercedes-Benz.

They thought Grandma Eleanor was too sick in hospice, too heavily medicated on morphine, too close to death to ever find out what they’d done. They thought I was too weak, too compliant, too terrified of family conflict to tell her the devastating truth.

They were catastrophically, irreversibly wrong on both counts.

When I finally gathered the courage to tell Grandma what had happened—standing in her hospice room with my hands shaking and my voice breaking—she didn’t cry. She didn’t scream or rage against the injustice or collapse into the kind of grief I’d been bracing myself to witness. She didn’t even seem particularly surprised, which should have told me something profound right then and there.

Instead, she simply reached for her phone with hands that trembled from illness but not from weakness, dialed a single number with surprising dexterity, and said seven words that would systematically destroy everything my parents thought they owned, everything they’d built their lives and reputations upon.

Before I tell you what those seven words were, and what happened next at my mother’s sixtieth birthday party—an event that would become legendary in our family and social circle for all the wrong reasons—let me take you back to where it all truly started: the afternoon my grandmother was admitted to hospice care and my family began the cold, calculated process of dividing up her life like vultures circling a dying animal.

The call came on a Tuesday afternoon in late September, right after my last piano lesson of the day. I’d just finished teaching scales to seven-year-old Marcus Chen, who had spent the entire thirty-minute session complaining that his fingers hurt and asking when we could play something “actually fun” instead of what he called “boring baby exercises.”

I was wiping down the piano keys with disinfectant—a ritual I performed religiously after every student, especially during cold and flu season—when my phone buzzed insistently against the wooden music stand, the vibration making it dance across the polished surface.

“Eleanor’s had another heart attack,” my father said without preamble, without warmth, without even bothering to identify himself or ask how my day had been. His voice was clipped and businesslike, the exact tone he used when discussing quarterly financial reports or firing underperforming employees at his company. “She’s stable for now, but the doctors are moving her to hospice care. Family meeting at Philadelphia General Hospital in one hour. Don’t be late, Annabelle.”

The line went dead before I could respond, before I could ask questions, before I could even process what he’d just told me.

I stood there for a long moment in my small teaching studio—really just a converted second bedroom in my modest one-bedroom apartment—staring at my phone’s blank screen, feeling that familiar churning mixture of anxiety and resignation that always accompanied interactions with my family, particularly my father.

My grandmother. My Grandma Eleanor, who had taught me my very first piano scales when I was barely tall enough to reach the keys without a booster cushion. Who had sat beside me on that piano bench for countless hours throughout my childhood, her patient, weathered hands guiding my small ones through simple melodies that would eventually become complex concertos. Who had believed in me and my musical abilities when absolutely no one else in the family seemed to think music teaching was a “real” career worth pursuing or respecting.

Another heart attack. Hospice care. The words felt surreal and distant, like lines from a tragic play I was watching rather than living, rather than being forced to participate in.

I grabbed my coat and car keys with trembling hands, called Marcus’s mother to cancel my next two lessons with hasty apologies, and drove to the hospital in a daze, my mind unable to fully process the reality that my grandmother—my strong, sharp, endlessly capable grandmother—was actually dying.

By the time I arrived at the hospital and navigated the confusing labyrinth of corridors to the cardiac wing’s sterile waiting area, my parents and my younger sister Megan were already there, huddled conspiratorially in a corner of the room like plotters planning a coup, speaking in those low, secretive voices that immediately made my stomach clench with apprehension.

My father, Richard Thompson, stood with his arms crossed over his chest in that aggressive posture he favored, his expensive tailored suit perfectly pressed despite the supposed family emergency, his silver hair combed back in that particular way he thought made him look distinguished and powerful rather than simply aging.

He was a man who had spent his entire adult life meticulously cultivating an elaborate image of success and unquestionable authority, and he wore that manufactured image like impenetrable armor against the world.

My mother, Diane, clutched her designer purse—this season’s must-have bag from some Italian luxury brand that I knew cost significantly more than I earned teaching piano in an entire month—like it was a lifeline in turbulent waters, like the expensive leather could somehow anchor her to stability and status.

Her makeup was absolutely flawless, her hair salon-perfect with every highlighted strand in place, her expression carefully composed into something that might have passed for genuine maternal concern if you didn’t know her well enough to see the cold calculation lurking behind her expertly mascaraed eyes.

And Megan—four years younger than me, perpetually golden and favored, always the cherished daughter—was scrolling mindlessly through her phone with the bored, detached expression of someone waiting for a delayed flight at the airport, barely even bothering to glance up when I approached our family’s little huddle.

“Good. You’re finally here,” my father said curtly, glancing at his expensive Rolex as if he were timing my arrival and finding it wanting. “We need to divide up responsibilities for Mother’s care. This situation is going to require careful coordination and management, and someone needs to take charge of the logistics immediately.”

Not: How are you holding up with this terrible news? Not: This must be devastating for you, I know how close you and Grandma are. Not even a simple: Thank you for dropping everything and coming so quickly.

Just cold logistics. Just division of responsibilities and management of the “situation.” The business of dying reduced to an efficient checklist of tasks to be delegated and completed.

“Someone needs to visit Mother daily at the hospice facility,” my father continued in that same clipped, authoritative tone, his gaze sweeping over us like a general surveying his troops and finding them lacking. “Diane and I have the business to run. The third quarter is absolutely critical for our company’s performance, and we simply can’t afford any distractions right now, no matter how unfortunate the circumstances.”

He paused, and I felt the weight of what was coming.

“And Megan’s in a critical phase with the Harrison family,” he added, glancing at my sister with unmistakable approval and pride. “This is a delicate time for her relationship with Daniel, and we can’t risk anything that might jeopardize that connection.”

Daniel Harrison. My sister’s boyfriend of exactly eight months. More importantly—far more importantly in my father’s calculation—the privileged son of James Harrison, my father’s most crucial business partner, whose substantial investment capital had been keeping my father’s struggling company afloat for the past two financially precarious years.

“So, Annabelle.” My father turned to look at me with that particular expression he used when assigning someone an unpleasant chore he didn’t want to handle himself. “You’ll handle the daily visits to the hospice facility. Your schedule is flexible, after all. Music teachers don’t exactly work overtime or have important meetings that can’t be rescheduled. You have the time.”

The casual dismissal in his voice, the complete devaluation of my work and my time, was so automatic, so deeply ingrained in how he viewed me, that I almost didn’t even register it as the profound insult it actually was. Almost.

I wanted desperately to tell him that I taught music to thirty-seven children every single week. That I ran three different after-school enrichment programs at two local elementary schools. That I spent countless hours preparing detailed lesson plans, attending student recitals, communicating patiently with concerned parents, ordering supplies, scheduling performances. That my time had genuine value, that my work mattered to the children and families I served, that flexibility wasn’t the same thing as expendability or worthlessness.

But I didn’t say any of that.

The old Annabelle—the one who’d spent twenty-eight years learning through painful repetition that objecting to my family’s decisions was futile, that asserting myself only led to lectures about being difficult and ungrateful—simply nodded in quiet acceptance.

“Of course,” I said softly, my voice steady despite the familiar hurt blooming like a bruise in my chest. “I want to be with her anyway. She shouldn’t have to be alone during this.”

“Perfect. Excellent.” My father was already turning away, already checking his phone for messages and emails that were clearly more important than his dying mother. “Keep us updated if anything significant changes with her condition. We’ll handle all the legal and financial matters when the time comes.”

As I walked down the sterile hospital corridor toward Grandma Eleanor’s room, my footsteps echoing on the polished linoleum, passing hurrying nurses and exhausted patients and that overwhelming antiseptic smell that all hospitals seem to share, I heard my mother’s voice drift clearly from the waiting area behind me—not meant for my ears specifically, but not quiet enough to escape them either.

“At least she’s useful for something,” Diane said to Megan, her voice carrying that particular tone of condescension that suggested she was doing me an enormous favor by acknowledging my existence at all, by finding even this small use for her disappointing older daughter.

I kept walking. Didn’t turn around. Didn’t confront her. Didn’t demand an apology or explanation.

Not because I didn’t hear it—I heard every single word with painful clarity.

But because I’d grown so accustomed over the years to this specific flavor of pain, so practiced at swallowing it down and pretending it didn’t cut deep, that responding would have felt strange and unfamiliar, like speaking a language I’d never properly learned.

Part 2: The Promise

Grandma Eleanor’s hospice room was nothing like the sterile, impersonal hospital environment I’d just left behind. It was smaller, more intimate, with soft lighting that didn’t glare harshly and comfortable upholstered chairs that actually looked like they belonged in a home rather than a medical facility, and there was that deliberate, careful attempt at warmth and humanity that hospice facilities cultivate to make the process of dying feel less clinical, less like a medical procedure and more like a natural transition.

The room smelled distinctly of lavender and old books—scents I immediately recognized as intentional, as choices Grandma had insisted upon.

“They try to make everything in these places smell like antiseptic and sadness,” Grandma told me on that very first visit, her voice noticeably weaker than I remembered from just months ago but still carrying that sharp edge of defiance that had always defined her. “Like we’re all just bodies waiting to stop working, just biological machines running down. I absolutely refuse to accept that. If I’m going to die—and clearly I am—then I’ll die surrounded by things I actually love, things that made my life beautiful.”

She had insisted on bringing her handmade lavender sachets from home, the ones she crafted herself every spring using flowers from her own garden. And books—towers of them—filled the small shelf by her bed. Poetry collections. Music theory textbooks. Memoirs of long-dead pianists she’d admired and studied.

She was seventy-six years old, still sharp as a blade mentally despite the congestive heart failure that was slowly, inexorably drowning her from the inside. The doctors had given her weeks—maybe a month if she was lucky, possibly two if she was extraordinarily stubborn, which she absolutely was and always had been.

I visited every single day after my last lesson ended, sometimes staying until the night nurses gently suggested I should go home and rest. We talked about music, about her years performing across concert halls throughout the Northeast, about my students who couldn’t yet read musical notes but already felt rhythm in their bones with an instinct that couldn’t be taught.

One evening, about a week into her hospice stay, she reached for my hand with surprising urgency. Her grip was noticeably weaker than I remembered from even a month ago—I could feel the delicate bones of her fingers through papery skin—but her eyes were fierce and intensely focused.

“Annabelle, I need you to know something important,” she said.

“Anything, Grandma. What is it?”

“The Steinway.” She paused deliberately, letting the words settle between us with weight and significance. “My mother’s piano. The magnificent 1892 Steinway that’s been in my living room for as long as you can remember.”

I knew that instrument intimately. I’d learned my very first scales on those ivory keys when I was seven years old, my feet dangling above the pedals, Grandma’s patient hands guiding mine through simple melodies that would eventually become complex concertos and challenging études. That piano had been the soundtrack of my entire childhood, the only place in my family’s world where I felt truly seen, truly valued for something other than my usefulness or my willingness to disappear.

“It’s yours,” Grandma said with absolute firmness, her voice taking on that quality of certainty that meant the decision was final and completely non-negotiable. “I’ve already told Richard and Diane explicitly. Told them last month at the family dinner, in front of everyone, so there could be no possible confusion or misunderstanding. That piano belongs to you when I’m gone.”

I remembered that conversation vividly—remembered every uncomfortable detail. My father’s jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. My mother and Megan exchanging one of those loaded looks that communicated entire conversations in a single glance. My sister rolling her eyes dramatically and muttering something dismissive under her breath about “sentimental junk that’s probably not even worth the cost of moving it.”

“Grandma, you don’t have to—” I started to protest.

“I want to,” she interrupted firmly, squeezing my hand with surprising strength. “You’re the only one in this family who truly understands what it means. The only one who sees it as more than just an antique to be appraised and sold to the highest bidder. Promise me you’ll take care of it properly. Promise me it will be played regularly, loved, treated like the living thing it is.”

“I promise,” I said, tears burning hot behind my eyes. “I promise, Grandma.”

She smiled then—a knowing, almost mysterious smile that seemed to hold secrets I couldn’t yet begin to comprehend.

“There are some things more valuable than money, child,” she said softly, her eyes searching my face with an intensity that made me feel like she was memorizing every detail. “And some people who desperately need to learn that lesson the hard way. Your father… I’ve spent forty years hoping he’d change, that he’d remember the values his own father tried so hard to teach him. But hope can only carry you so far before you have to face reality.”

I didn’t understand what she meant then. Not really. Not fully.

But I would. God, I would understand soon enough.

Part 3: The Empty Space

Two weeks later, on a rainy Thursday afternoon when the sky hung low and oppressively gray like a funeral shroud, everything changed with the terrible finality of a door slamming shut forever.

Grandma had asked me to bring some old photographs from her house—pictures from her performing days, images of her on stages across the country, her hands poised above piano keys while rapt audiences sat in reverent silence. She wanted to see them one last time, wanted to remember when her body had been strong and capable and her future had stretched out endlessly before her.

I still had a key to her Victorian house—the same key she’d given me when I turned sixteen, telling me I always had a place to go if I needed one, if I needed to escape. So after my last lesson ended at three-thirty, I drove across town through increasingly heavy rain to the house where I’d spent countless afternoons of my childhood.

The house was quiet when I let myself in through the front door. Too quiet. The kind of heavy, oppressive silence that feels fundamentally wrong, like something essential has been removed from the space.

I walked through the familiar foyer, past the formal dining room with its table that had hosted so many holiday dinners and family gatherings, and into the living room where—

I stopped breathing entirely.

The Steinway was gone.

Where that magnificent instrument had stood for thirty years—longer than I’d been alive, longer than my parents had been married—there was absolutely nothing but an empty space. Not even truly empty. There was a rectangular indent in the carpet, slightly darker than the surrounding fibers where the piano’s legs had compressed the pile for decades, a ghost of something that had lived there and had now been violently, inexplicably removed.

My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I pulled out my phone, my vision blurring at the edges like I might actually faint.

“Mom.” My voice cracked, barely recognizable as my own. “Where’s Grandma’s piano? What happened to it?”

A pause on the other end of the line—I could hear background noise, voices, the cheerful clink of glasses. She was somewhere social, somewhere pleasant, having drinks or lunch while I stood in this empty room trying to understand what I was seeing.

Then my mother’s voice came through, casual and dismissive, as if I’d asked about something completely trivial.

“Your father handled it. Adult matters, Annabelle. You don’t need to worry yourself about it. It’s taken care of.”

“Handled it how?” My voice was rising despite my desperate efforts to control it. “Where is the piano, Mom? What did he do with Grandma’s piano?”

“I said don’t worry about it.” Her tone had shifted to that particular flavor of irritation she used when I was being inconveniently persistent. “We’ll discuss it later if it becomes necessary.”

Click.

She hung up on me. Just disconnected the call mid-conversation like I was an annoying telemarketer rather than her daughter asking a completely legitimate question about a piece of irreplaceable family history.

I stood in that empty living room for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, staring at the indent in the carpet, at the dust motes floating in the gray afternoon light streaming through the windows, at the space where something irreplaceable had been and now simply wasn’t.

The rain pattered steadily against the windows. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled low and ominous.

I didn’t cry. I was too shocked, too completely stunned for tears.

I just stood there, phone clutched in my trembling hand, trying to process the magnitude of what had been done, trying to understand how they could have taken it without telling Grandma, without asking me, without any regard for the promise that had been made.

They’d taken it. While Grandma lay dying in hospice, while she trusted them to respect her wishes and honor her explicit instructions, they’d simply taken the piano she’d promised me and done something with it. Something my mother wouldn’t even admit to, wouldn’t even acknowledge.

By the time I made it to my parents’ house—driving through rain so heavy my windshield wipers could barely keep up, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel—it was after six o’clock in the evening. The house was lit up warmly from within, looking welcoming and perfect from the outside, a flawless picture of suburban success and family harmony.

My father answered the door with a glass of expensive scotch already in his hand, looking mildly annoyed at the interruption to his comfortable evening.

“The piano,” I said without preamble, without greeting, without the usual pleasantries that normally greased the wheels of our dysfunctional family interactions. “What did you do with Grandma’s piano? Where is it?”

He didn’t even have the decency to look uncomfortable or caught. Didn’t flinch or hesitate or show any sign whatsoever that he understood he’d done something profoundly wrong.

“Sold it,” he said simply, casually, taking a leisurely sip of his drink like we were discussing stock trades or sports scores. “Got ninety-five thousand for it. Excellent price, actually. The appraiser said we could have potentially held out for more if we’d been willing to wait, but I wanted to close the deal quickly and efficiently.”

The world tilted violently on its axis. The floor felt unsteady beneath my feet.

“You sold it?” I heard my voice from very far away, like I was underwater. “Grandma said it was mine. She told everyone at dinner last month. She was completely explicit about it.”

“Grandma’s dying, Anna.” He used my childhood nickname deliberately, the one that made me feel small and childish and powerless. “She doesn’t need a piano where she’s going. And frankly, neither do you. What would you even do with an instrument that size? Your apartment is barely large enough for a keyboard, much less a full grand piano.”

Behind him, I heard the distinctive jingle of car keys, that particular sound that luxury key fobs make.

Megan appeared in the hallway, practically glowing with excitement, holding up a set of keys that caught the light. “Look, Anna! New keys for my new car! Isn’t it amazing? Dad, you’re absolutely the best!”

Time seemed to slow down, each detail crystallizing with painful clarity.

“You bought her a car?” My voice sounded flat, dead, like all the emotion had been compressed into something hard and small and cold. “With Grandma’s piano? With the piano that was supposed to be mine?”

My father shrugged—actually shrugged—like I’d asked him why he preferred one brand of coffee over another.

“Mercedes-Benz,” he said with unmistakable pride in his voice. “The new C-Class. Megan needs to make exactly the right impression with the Harrison family. Daniel’s parents are extremely particular about appearances, about the kind of people their son associates with. A luxury vehicle shows we’re the right kind of family, that we have the appropriate status.”

“That piano was supposed to be mine,” I repeated, hearing the desperation creeping into my own voice and hating myself for it.

“And what would you do with it, really?” My mother appeared behind my father, her arms crossed over her chest in that defensive posture I knew so well. “You teach children’s music classes in that tiny apartment of yours, Annabelle. You don’t perform professionally. You don’t have concerts. You don’t have the space or the lifestyle that justifies owning an instrument like that. Megan needed this money for her future. For building the kind of life that actually matters.”

“Her future,” I repeated slowly, tasting the bitterness of the words on my tongue.

Megan sauntered into the foyer, swinging her new Mercedes keys like a trophy, like tangible proof of her superiority.

“Don’t be jealous, Anna,” she said with a smile that was all teeth and absolutely no warmth whatsoever. “It’s really not a good look on you. Maybe if you’d picked a better career—something with actual earning potential and prestige—you could afford nice things too. But you chose music teaching, so…” She shrugged elaborately. “This is what happens when you make poor life choices.”

I looked at my parents. At my sister. At the life they’d constructed where I was always the afterthought, always the one whose needs and wants came last, whose promises could be broken without consequence or guilt.

“Does Grandma know?” I asked quietly.

Silence fell over the foyer like a heavy, suffocating blanket.

“Does Grandma Eleanor know that you sold her piano? That you took ninety-five thousand dollars of her property and bought Megan a car with it?”

My mother’s face hardened visibly, her jaw setting in that way that meant she was about to say something deliberately cruel.

“She’s in hospice, Annabelle. She’s on morphine half the time. She drifts in and out of lucidity. She doesn’t need to know anything that might upset her in her final days. We’re protecting her.”

“You mean you don’t want her to know,” I said.

“I mean—” My mother stepped closer, her voice dropping to something cold and threatening that made my skin crawl—”that if you tell her about this, and it causes her stress, and something happens to her heart because of that stress… that will be on you. Do you understand me? If your grandmother dies because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut and mind your own business, that will be your responsibility. Can you live with that?”

The accusation hung in the air like poison, designed specifically to paralyze me with guilt.

And for a moment—just a single moment—it worked.

The old Annabelle would have backed down right then and there. Would have swallowed the injustice, accepted the blame for even asking questions, made herself smaller and quieter to keep the peace.

But something had shifted inside me during those two weeks of sitting with Grandma every evening, listening to her stories, remembering who I used to be before I learned to systematically disappear.

“Grandma has a right to know what happened to her property,” I said quietly but with absolute firmness. “She’s dying, but she’s not dead yet. Her wishes still matter. Her voice still counts. And I won’t lie to her to make your theft more comfortable.”

I turned and walked out before they could respond, before my fragile resolve could waver, before the weight of their disapproval could crush the tiny spark of defiance I’d somehow managed to light.

The rain had stopped, but the world felt washed out, colorless, like all the vibrancy had been drained away.

I sat in my car in their driveway for a long time, engine running, heat blasting, trying to stop shaking.

My mother’s words circled relentlessly in my head like vultures: If something happens, that will be on you.

Was she right? If I told Grandma the truth, would the shock damage her failing heart? Would I be trading justice for her life? Would I be responsible for killing her?

But then I remembered something Grandma had told me when I was twelve and terrified to admit to my parents that I’d failed a math test.

“Truth can wound,” she’d said, holding my hand across her kitchen table. “I won’t lie to you about that. Truth can hurt terribly, can cut deep. But lies always wound deeper—they just take longer to show the damage. And by the time you finally see what they’ve done, the rot has usually spread too far to cut out cleanly.”

I pulled my knees to my chest and thought about the last twenty-eight years of my life.

Every time I’d stayed quiet to keep the peace. Every time I’d accepted less because fighting felt futile, because making waves felt dangerous. Every time I’d made myself smaller, quieter, more invisible so my family could feel bigger, louder, more important.

And where had it gotten me?

Here. Alone in a car in my parents’ driveway. Watching them erase Grandma’s wishes like her words were meaningless. Accepting their version of reality because challenging it felt impossible.

If I stayed silent now, I wasn’t keeping the peace. I was becoming complicit in their theft, in their casual cruelty, in the systematic erasure of everything Grandma valued.

By three in the morning, lying awake in my bed and staring at the ceiling, I’d made my decision.

Grandma deserved the truth. She deserved to know that her son—the boy she’d raised, the man she’d loved despite everything—had stolen from her, lied to her, and assumed she was too weak, too close to death to matter anymore.

And maybe—just maybe—I deserved to stop apologizing for taking up space in the world.

I set my alarm for early morning.

I would go to hospice before my first lesson.

I would tell Grandma everything.

And whatever happened after that… well, at least I’d know I’d chosen truth over comfortable lies.

Part 4: The Phone Call

Grandma was awake when I arrived the next morning, propped up against her pillows, watching the sunrise through the window with an expression of peaceful contemplation.

“You look like you haven’t slept at all,” she said softly, her eyes immediately finding mine.

“I haven’t,” I admitted.

I pulled a chair close to her bed and took her hand, feeling the fragility of her bones.

“Grandma, I have to tell you something, and it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt badly.”

Her eyes—still sharp despite everything—studied my face carefully.

“Then tell me. I can handle the truth, sweetheart.”

So I did.

The empty space in her living room. The ninety-five thousand dollars. The Mercedes-Benz gleaming in Megan’s driveway with a bow on top. My father’s casual dismissal. My mother’s threat.

I told her all of it, my voice breaking multiple times, bracing myself for tears, for shock, for the kind of devastation that might break what was left of her fragile heart.

Instead, Grandma Eleanor let out a long, slow breath.

Not a gasp of pain. Not a cry of betrayal.

A sigh.

The sigh of someone who had seen this coming.

“Grandma,” I whispered, confused by her reaction.

She turned to look at me, and her expression wasn’t grief-stricken at all.

It was calm. Almost resigned. Almost… prepared.

“I knew this might happen, sweetheart,” she said quietly.

“You knew?”

“I know my son.” Her voice was steady, matter-of-fact. “I’ve watched him become this person for forty years. I hoped desperately that he’d change, that he’d prove me wrong. But I also prepared for the very real possibility that he wouldn’t.”

My mind raced, trying to understand.

“Prepared how?”

She didn’t answer directly.

Instead, she reached toward her bedside table with surprising purpose.

“Hand me my phone, would you?”

I passed it to her, completely confused about where this was going.

She scrolled through her contacts with surprising dexterity for someone so ill, found a specific name, and pressed call.

Then she put it on speaker.

Three rings.

Then a man’s voice—deep and measured and professional.

“Eleanor? How are you feeling today?”

“I’m dying, Harold. But I’m clear-headed, and it’s time.”

A pause.

“I understand completely. When?”

“Sunday. Diane’s birthday party. At my house.”

“I’ll prepare all the necessary documents.”

“Thank you, old friend.”

She ended the call and looked at me with a small, knowing smile.

“Grandma,” I said, staring at her in complete bewilderment. “Who is Harold?”

“Harold Jennings,” she said, setting the phone down gently. “He’s been my attorney for thirty years. He was your grandfather’s closest friend.”

“You have your own attorney? Since when?”

“I have many things your father doesn’t know about, Annabelle.” Her eyes actually twinkled despite the exhaustion etched into her face. “Richard assumes he understands everything about my affairs. He’s always assumed that. It’s his greatest weakness—that arrogant assumption that he knows everything.”

I felt like I was standing at the edge of something vast, looking down into depths I couldn’t see.

“What’s happening on Sunday at Mom’s birthday party?”

“Justice,” Grandma said simply, squeezing my hand. “Delayed perhaps, but justice nonetheless.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand everything yet.”

She leaned back against her pillows, suddenly looking more tired.

“I just need you to do one thing for me.”

“Anything.”

“Come to the party. Dress nicely. And bring your patience.”

A ghost of a smile crossed her face.

“The kind of patience I taught you when you were learning Chopin and wanted to throw the sheet music across the room.”

I almost laughed despite everything.

“That bad?”

“Worse,” she said, and her expression softened. “But necessary. Your father and mother need to learn that actions have consequences.”

She exhaled slowly, heavily.

“And I’ve spent five years making absolutely sure that when the lesson finally came, it would be unforgettable.”