The thing was so horribly out of tune; leave a piano out in the open, in the hot and the cold air, in the rain and the dusty dry, and what do you expect? She didn’t care. She played it joyfully over the years, as she grew up, as it grew worse, as she blossomed and the strings broke and buzzed, as time passed.
I was only a year younger and just next door. I watched through sliver gaps in the fence, then peeking overtop it, then leaning my arms on it. Eventually I asked her out. Eventually we married.
