And Her Fingers Danced Across The Keys

The silence laid in coats upon the house was highly eerie. There was no marvelous piano playing. There was no joyful laughter. There was no interested conversation between father and daughter.

Angelina's father was trying to respect their lovely everyday routine. The table had already been laid for breakfast, and, while reading the newspaper, he was waiting for his daughter to do her usual morning playing, and then to come downstairs, give him his kiss and embrace, and then they would have breakfast and set off to another great day of summer. He did find the fact that she was still asleep strange, but this peculiarity didn't alarm him too much - the girl was on vacation, after all.

What he was ignorant of, though, was that, even if she was not asleep, nor tired, Angelina lay in bed, dreading to get up. She knew that if she got up, her eyes would surely fall upon the piano, which she did not want to play anymore. She kept her glance on the ceiling, forcing herself not to look down, not to listen to the mournful chant that the instrument from the balcony played. It haunted her, she was sure that there was a chant, tempting her to play the piano as heartily as ever.

But she could not.

No matter how immense her love of music was, she wasn't ready to accept this new remembrance, she did not want this reminiscence to haunt her all of the time. She feared. She feared seeing her again, she feared saying that word again. That was a word to be forgotten. A person to be forgotten. Not even dignified to be a memory. Maybe a memory, just maybe, lost somewhere in the subconscious, which it had been just until a night before.

Finally, after a fight with herself, Angelina got up from bed. To avoid the temptation, which was still very strong, she ran straight downstairs and on the terrace. She embraced her father tighter than usual, and pressed her lips onto his cheek more strongly.

Who was she trying to fool?

He tried and ignored the fact that she had come downstairs without playing. He wanted to get to the root of what had caused it silently.

Like never, every beginning of conversation made by him died after a few faint replies given by the girl.

"So why didn't you play this morning?" he asked her, his look falling onto the small wounds she had provoked a night before by playing too much.

The girl shrugged.

"I guess you played too much last night, by the looks of your fingers. Those look pretty bad." he said pointing to her fingers.

"I... they're really less bad than they look. I just had this crazy will of playing last night. You know me..." she responded, trying to shrug off his shoulders any doubt that he might have had.

"I do."

"Aha."

"So you didn't play this morning because of your fingers being injured, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay... I just would have really enjoyed to hear you play. You know, it's become a really big part of my day."

Angelina moved her gaze as far as possible from her father.

"Why don't you put some bandages on them? And play maybe just one song... for your dad."

She was startled. That was what she usually called blackmail, as a joke. This time, it was real blackmail. The emotional kind of blackmail. The love she felt for her father, profound, strong, complete, made her hesitate about not playing. The painful memory stopped her, though.

"I really don't think I can today, father... I'm awfully tired. I played so much last night I got bored, imagine!"

He let out a bittersweet laugh.

"You're my daughter, Angie, you don't get bored with that piano. Who're you fooling?"

She tried to laugh. It came out as a bad, desperate imitation of a laugh.

He glanced at her, as she kept her look down.

"You saw your mother last night, didn't you?"

Her gaze shot up suddenly, in a split second.