Love Song

Matthew, a young boy, sat on the porch of his grandmother’s house. He refused to go inside. He didn’t understand why he had to live with his grandmother. He wanted to move to New York City with his parents. His parents, who made him stay with his grandmother because the city is no place for a child who has two working parents.
The steps on the porch were getting colder and colder as he sat longer and longer. He heard the front screen door creep open. It was obviously his grandmother since it was only the two of them at the house. She sat beside him.
“Matthew, why don’t you come inside?” she asked softly.
“I don’t want to live here. I wanna live in New York with my mom and dad.”
“They didn’t want you to be in the city, maybe when you’re older.”
“They don’t want me. That’s why they left me here.”
“Come on, Matthew, I still have grandpa’s old piano in the house. How about I teach you how to play?”
Matthew had always been intrigued by music, so when his grandmother brought up the option of him learning how to play the piano, he got extremely excited. He didn’t let his grandmother see this excitement, though. On the outside, he stayed cool and calm.
“What do you know about playing piano? You’re old.”
Grandmother was hurt and she got up and walked back into the house. Matthew sensed that his words hurt his grandmother. He didn’t want to leave it like that, so he walked inside.
The inside of the house, which Matthew had never been in, shocked him. It wasn’t like his home. It was full of flowers and old artifacts. Even the wallpaper was flowered. The furniture was old and had blankets on the arms.
His grandmother had walked into the living room and sat on the couch. She sat quietly, knitting.
Matthew walked over, stood over her for a while, and finally sat next to her. He put his hand on her arm.
“Grandma,” he called.
She didn’t answer.
“Grandma,” he called again.
Again, she stayed silent.
“Grandma you’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
When Grandma still didn’t say anything, Matthew still wasn’t sure what to do. He looked over at the piano and sparked an idea.
Getting up, he slowly crept over to the piano. He sat on the bench and started goofily playing it. Grandma looked up and gave Matthew a confused look. When she realized what he was trying to do, he smiled and got up from the couch.
“Scoot over,” she blurted while walked up to the piano. “You’re going to break your grandfather’s piano.”
She stopped him from playing and then paused. She took in a deep breath put her fingers gently onto the keys. She wasn’t playing anything that Matthew recognized. It was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard, but he felt sad while she played it.
“What is that?” Matthew asked.
Grandma kept playing. “Your grandfather used to play this for me.”
“It’s so sad.”
“When we first met, we were at different universities. He was a music major at State and I was an English major at the private university. We met at a social for young students in the city. So since we didn’t go to the same school, we couldn’t see each other a lot. He wrote this for me.
“So, this song is like grandpa saying that he missed you.”
“Yes,” grandma said, smiling, still gracefully playing the soft song.