Sophie looked at her mother. “Why?” Rebecca repeated the order, but my granddaughter lowered herself onto the rug and aimed the light upward again. “There are names engraved on it,” she said. Rebecca suddenly crossed the room as though she wanted to pull Sophie away.
I stepped closer. “What names?” Sophie squinted at the first line, then slowly raised her eyes toward me. “The first one says Eleanor.” That was my name.
A murmur moved through the relatives who were still standing around the room. I felt an old memory stir—Thomas kneeling behind the piano years earlier with a screwdriver while I asked what he was doing, only for him to laugh and tell me it was nothing I needed to worry about. Rebecca, however, did not look confused. She looked frightened.
Then Sophie brushed more dust away. “There’s another name.” Rebecca’s voice changed completely. “Sophie, get up.”
My granddaughter didn’t. She looked underneath the piano one more time, then turned slowly toward her mother. “Mom,” she whispered. “The second name is Rebecca.”
My daughter stopped breathing.
And I suddenly realized the question was no longer why Rebecca had slapped me for touching the piano.
It was why my late husband had secretly engraved both our names beneath it—and why my daughter had apparently known that plate was there all along.
…FULL STORY IN THE COMMENT 👇👇👇
Rebecca’s hand, which had been reaching toward Sophie, stopped halfway between them.
For a moment she simply stood there, fingers suspended in the warm light from the table lamp, as if completing the movement would somehow make everything worse.
I looked at her.
“Rebecca.”
She swallowed.
Sophie remained on the rug with the phone flashlight in one hand. The small beam trembled against the underside of the piano.
“You knew,” I said.
