Don’t touch.
Don’t disturb.
Don’t reopen what hurts.
Instead, Edward grabbed one corner.
“Help me?”
The twins looked at each other.
Then they each took an edge.
Together, the three of them pulled.
The sheet slid from the piano and collapsed onto the floor.
Dust floated through the late-afternoon light.
Edward ran his fingers across the closed lid.
“Your mom loved this piano,” he said.
Both boys froze.
It was the first time in months he had spoken about Sarah directly to them.
Edward’s chest tightened, but he continued.
“She wasn’t very good.”
Olly’s eyebrows rose.
Edward smiled.
“She thought she was.”
Liam made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh.
Edward opened the piano.
He pressed one key.
A single note rang through the mansion.
Nobody rushed to silence it.
Over the following weeks, the boys did not suddenly become endlessly talkative.
Some days Olly said several sentences.
Other days he said nothing.
Liam spoke even less.
Edward learned not to measure progress by words.
Ruby continued arriving in her pink jumpsuit and glittering sneakers.
She continued talking to furniture, arguing with dust, and assigning ridiculous personalities to cleaning equipment.
But she never asked the twins to perform.
Sometimes they joined her games.
Sometimes they watched.
Sometimes they walked away.
Edward stopped monitoring every interaction through the cameras.
Instead, he started coming downstairs.
At first he sat nearby with his laptop.
Then one afternoon Olly drove the red fire truck into Edward’s shoe.
“Emergency,” he said.
Edward looked at Ruby.
She shrugged.
“Chicago is dangerous today.”
Edward closed the laptop.
He lowered himself awkwardly onto the floor.
“What’s the emergency?”
Olly pushed the truck toward him.
“Bear trapped.”
Edward picked up the stuffed bear.
“Where?”
Liam pointed beneath the couch.
“There.”
Edward crawled toward it in an expensive suit while Ruby leaned against her mop, trying not to laugh.
Halfway beneath the couch, Edward looked back.
“Sarah would never let me forget this.”
The boys became quiet.
