Whenever I was alone, I would climb onto the wooden bench in front of the piano in our living room. I was so small, that it was a struggle to get my fat knee onto the seat and pull myself the rest of the way up. I would press my short, fat little fingers to the keys. I didn't have any idea what I was doing. I just liked the sounds. I liked the sad sounds of the keys to my left. I liked the way the black keys sounded... off. They sounded how I felt. Sad and off. Like I didn't quite belong with the notes on the right, the pretty high notes that said everything is all right.

That piano was my secret best friend. It was a pretty honey walnut color and had intricate cut-outs in the sheet music holder. Just above the keys, there was a tiny brass plaque. My brother read it to me: Schafer & Sons. And I thought that one day I would grow up and marry a Schafer son. That's how much I loved my piano.

But I never let anyone see me play except him. Matty would sit on the bench next to me and watch my chubby fingers move over the keys. He tried to mimic my playing sometimes, but his fingers stumbled, and it never sounded the same. I never told him how much I loved that piano, or having him sit there with me. But I know he knew. He smiled a secret smile, a smile just for me, when he would find me perched on that bench.

I think I learned what a broken heart was the day my father smashed that piano. I had been playing all morning. When my brother got home from school, he sat down next to me and played along, terribly. Loudly. Too loud. I was always quiet and timid. I didn't want anyone to hear. But Matty was a rebel. He wanted the noise. He wanted it loud.

My father did not. He was a big man with a shaggy beard and a fat belly, like an angry, dark-haired Santa, who destroyed presents instead of giving them. His footsteps through the house were enough to send me scampering behind a couch.

But my brother stayed, playing those off-key chords.

The sound when the piano finally tipped over crushed me. My father cussed and grunted and pulled for quite a few minutes before it gave way, nearly crushing Matty along with it. And then my satanic Santa-dad just stomped away again, leaving the mess behind. Leaving me a mess.

I didn't play a piano again until I moved out, into my own house, thirteen years later.