by Lora Rivera
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\nOn the end table beside the armchair where Nisha sat, tense and engulfed by cushions, a black cylindrical voicebox sometimes reflected back the light of the chandelier in the great room beyond. \u00a0Nisha carefully did not look at it. \u00a0She looked nowhere but at the three octaves of piano keys angling toward her, the base notes invisible from her corner. \u00a0Lacquered fingers depressed these white and black keys confidently. \u00a0Although Nisha\u2019s gaze was riveted there, it was not the pianist\u2019s song that held her attention.<\/p>\n
She had been sitting for several hours, listening through the evening shadows to the soft tremolo of dancing voices. \u00a0The air, thickened by fireplace smoke, by baked ham and pine and pumpkin candles, by the dizzying m\u00e9lange of perfumes, was just heavy enough to accommodate the dance Nisha had herself performed countless times over the years. \u00a0It was a dance of eyelashes and swirling skirts, of polished shoes and cufflinks, of furtive glances, and above all the bright splash of champagne in the bowels of gold-rimmed crystal. \u00a0And voices.<\/p>\n
Nisha sighed, pushing the white Persian cat from her lap for the fourth time that night and brushing the long fur from her gray velvet gown. \u00a0She adjusted her pearls and huddled deeper into the cushions of the armchair, her eyes drifting to the jouncing of her most adept student\u2019s fingers on the baby grand. \u00a0The piece, 12 Variations on \u2018Ah, Vous Dirai-Je, Maman.\u2019<\/em> Feelingless, but perfected. \u00a0Nisha could not fault Diane Lazear a single note.<\/p>\n Moi, je dis que les bonbons valent mieux que la raison<\/em>, mouthed Nisha, smiling tightly. \u00a0Sweets are worth more than reason.<\/p>\n Nisha\u2019s aging mother floated by in rhinestones and white gloves and sat on the arm of the sofa beside the armchair, making even that awkward perch somehow glamorous, and stroked her daughter\u2019s black hair.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re out here by yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha nodded, refocusing her gaze over her mother\u2019s head and across the piano into the room proper. \u00a0Thirty, perhaps forty, individuals moved about the great room, each with a glass of liquor, eyes too intent on the voice of the person whose hands they were not quite touching.<\/p>\n Her mother\u2019s breath smelled like caramels.<\/p>\n \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be all alone so close to Christmas,\u201d said her mother, frowning.<\/p>\n Nisha shrugged and scanned the room for her students, her own mouth unconsciously mimicking her mother\u2019s when she noticed two of them, Ryan and Bella, in the corner near the bar. \u00a0She had a strict No Philandering While on the Job policy, which had gotten her through Julliard. \u00a0Those two wouldn\u2019t last the first rigorous semester.<\/p>\n \u201cNish.\u201d \u00a0That voice her mother always used when she was about to get her way. \u201cWhat<\/em> is going on? \u00a0It\u2019s been too long. \u00a0You can\u2019t live the rest of your life . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha signed quickly, too quickly, she knew, for her mother to understand fully. \u00a0She also mouthed the words, although she hated the fact that speech was so deeply ingrained that she couldn\u2019t keep her lips from moving when she was signing. \u00a0It made the memory more acute: she, a soprano with a four octave range, who\u2019d had a full scholarship for Voice, could no longer speak\u2014or she could, but only with a mechanical device that rendered her terrifying to small children.<\/p>\n Signing was still strange for her. \u00a0And embarrassing. \u00a0She\u2019d had to take classes with ASL students after the accident. \u00a0Their language had a non-linear quality to it she couldn\u2019t understand until she\u2019d translated linearly. \u00a0At that point, it was too late. \u00a0She\u2019d become confused, and what was supposed to be received as an impression, or as a series of visual impressions, had already lost some of its power and meaning by her very translation.<\/p>\n She signed: You want to parade me around and tell stories to all your rich friends <\/em>Her mother would probably understand only parade<\/em> and rich friends<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re too lovely tonight to hide out here,\u201d said her mother sternly. \u00a0\u201cOf course, I want to show you to my friends. \u00a0And they\u2019re your friends, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Not anymore <\/em> Nisha grimaced. \u00a0Lovely<\/em><\/p>\n Nisha was tall, Indian on her father\u2019s side, French on her mother\u2019s, had fine cheekbones and a stubborn jaw, dark eyes, a warm complexion, and just enough of a nose that she wouldn\u2019t be mistaken for anyone else. \u00a0All these features were lovely. \u00a0And none of them were hers. \u00a0They belonged<\/em> to her, but she was not born with them. \u00a0They were products of her parents\u2019 money, and although she was grateful to her mother\u2019s insistence on cosmetic surgery after the accident, she was angry, too, that both her parents pretended her cheeks and jaw and neck, the skin on her chest and arms, her beautifully individual nose, were the same features that appeared in Nisha\u2019s eighteen-year-old high school glamour shots from nearly ten years ago.<\/p>\n Her mother gripped Nisha\u2019s hand. \u00a0\u201cYou are being morose. \u00a0There\u2019s no reason for it. \u00a0You are<\/em> lovely, and any number of men out there\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha signed furiously: Do you think I\u2019m stupid too as well as mute\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m not like them anymore\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t belong\u00a0\u00a0 leave me alone<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not polite, Nisha.\u201d<\/p>\n That voice again, as if her mother could frown and the world would stop spinning. \u00a0To think Nisha had been like that. \u00a0There were times when she felt she had been given a grace, an unlucky salvation.<\/p>\n I am the dreamer who woke<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou are full of yourself,\u201d said her mother tersely. \u00a0A tiny lock of hair had come loose from the sleek knot at the nape of her neck.<\/p>\n Nisha nodded and slipped the bit of hair back into place.<\/p>\n Her mother frowned again, and then relaxed, sipped her champagne, smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to introduce you to a friend,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s the son of your father\u2019s newest partner, Dr. John Hartford, who\u2019s doing some sort of nuclear research with CERN, if I remember. \u00a0He\u2019s still in Switzerland, but Benjamin is a personal favorite of mine, and I\u2019ve known his mother Donna a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha nodded. \u00a0Andrea Flanders, Nisha\u2019s most recently acquired virtuoso, laughed loudly across the room, and then squealed when she found she\u2019d spilled wine on the back of her hand. \u00a0The young man she was talking with whipped out a handkerchief with the kind of expertise only acquired by long acquaintance with Christmas parties of the caliber thrown by Nisha\u2019s parents. \u00a0He wiped Andrea\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll come meet him, then,\u201d said her mother, dumping the cat from the sofa. \u00a0\u201cDown, Monsieur Fluff, or I\u2019ll have you shaved. \u00a0He\u2019s darling, Nish, a perfect gentleman.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha rose, gestured at Diane to continue on to another Mozart number, and followed her mother through the heady air into the middle of the great room.<\/p>\n Voices. \u00a0Voices everywhere.<\/p>\n \u201cBenjamin, there you are!\u201d<\/p>\n A man in maybe his late twenties, a little older than Nisha perhaps, who wore a designer black suit and deep burgundy tie, whose dark hair attested to mornings spent performing the achingly tedious affair of maneuvering every strand into position as if into military parade rank, and of staring, afterward, into the mirror one more long moment to be sure the masterpiece would not all come undone in a sudden puff of errant wind, turned to flash white teeth at Nisha\u2019s mother and bow slightly while taking her mother\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n Her mother\u2019s face flushed.<\/p>\n \u201cI have the pleasure, Benjamin, of introducing you to my daughter Nisha. \u00a0I don\u2019t suppose you\u2019ve met before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEnchanted.\u201d \u00a0He nodded at Nisha, whose cheeks grew mutinously warm.<\/p>\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t speak, Benjamin, poor darling, though she\u2019s magnificent at the piano.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese are her students, then? \u00a0I arrived late, I\u2019m afraid, and didn\u2019t hear the introduction.\u201d<\/p>\n Her mother bobbed her head. \u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s Diane Lazear playing a Sonata\u2014yes, Nisha? \u00a0Oh, well, I never was good at remembering which piece was what–”<\/p>\n Nisha signed, Concerto Number 24 in C minor<\/em><\/p>\n \u201c\u2014Mozart, at any rate,\u201d said her mother, smiling indulgently at Nisha. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s beautiful, no?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of his finest.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha glanced at Benjamin in surprise, but her mother had already gone into a long discussion of Nisha\u2019s own burgeoning and so-far-triumphal musical career, her years studying at Julliard, the offer she had received to teach there, her compositions and opera: \u201cThe Setting of the Norwegian Sun<\/em> is being performed at the Grand next month.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it really is. \u00a0She\u2019s an affinity for minor keys, though, I\u2019m afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n They both smiled at her.<\/p>\n \u201cReally,\u201d continued her mother, \u201cyou\u2019d think her life was tragic, the way she rips out sheet after sheet of tear-jerkers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTear-jerkers.\u201d \u00a0Benjamin\u2019s expression was unreadable.<\/p>\n Nisha stared, horrified, at her mother. \u00a0The following year, she\u2019d be starting as a professor at Julliard; she\u2019d be dealing with prodigies only a few years her junior. \u00a0Her mother had called her opera a tear-jerker, like some cheap Hollywood movie that had debuted as a hardback bestseller only a few months before, to be forgotten by nearly all its viewers the following week. \u00a0Years ago, she would have scolded her mother, would have laughed and looked up at Benjamin through mascara-thick eyelashes, would have proceeded to sweep him off his feet and then fuck him\u2014as Andrea would probably do to what\u2019s-his-name just as soon as the young man nursing her wine-spilled hand had been properly liquored\u2014but Nisha was done with the debonair type, Benjamin included. \u00a0Though he had nice eyes.<\/p>\n Alone on Christmas! \u00a0She wanted to laugh outright at her mother\u2019s ludicrousness.<\/p>\n \u201cBenjamin, your glass is empty, and Nisha\u2019s probably been too busy with her students to get anything at all.\u201d \u00a0Her mother clucked her tongue. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d<\/p>\n She glided across the room as if over ice.<\/p>\n Nisha rolled her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re unkind,\u201d said Benjamin softly. \u00a0\u201cShe is<\/em> your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha swallowed, looked around, realized that her artificial voice box was still over by the armchair on the end table, and held up a finger. \u00a0Why she cared, why she felt like she had to defend herself from him, she didn\u2019t know, but her heart thumped, and her face flushed as she hurried from him and grabbed paper and a pen from the desk in her father\u2019s study at the far end of the long hallway that led out into the foyer.<\/p>\n When she returned and found him, surprisingly, still waiting, she wrote, That\u2019s no excuse.<\/em><\/p>\n He tilted his head. \u00a0Nisha noticed her mother had not returned with the promised drinks; she was laughing at a joke told by one of Nisha\u2019s father\u2019s friends, fanning herself with her hand.<\/p>\n Benjamin said nothing as he gazed at the paper; Nisha offered nothing more.<\/p>\n Diane Lazear hit a wrong note, and Nisha winced. \u00a0Scribbling hastily, she wrote, Diane has never played for an audience this large<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s very good.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s stiff, like a machine. No feeling.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Benjamin paused, cocking his head, staring vacantly in the direction of the piano. \u00a0When the song was over, he sighed. \u00a0\u201cI would give my right arm to play music like that, stiff or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha had begun writing, Both arms, your legs? How about<\/em>, when Benjamin said, \u201cMy father\u2019s in Switzerland, did your mother tell you?\u201d<\/p>\n She crumbled the paper and nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cMay I see your garden?\u201d<\/p>\n Surprised, she nodded again. \u00a0She drew him along through the hall, down a short flight of stairs and into the library. \u00a0The doors opened onto a veranda. \u00a0Benjamin closed the doors after them.<\/p>\n The air was bright and cold, light without the scent of food and perfume, without the heat of bodies and the smoke from candles and fireplaces. \u00a0Nisha hugged herself. \u00a0The skin on her arms had already begun to ripple into goose bumps. \u00a0Snow had fallen earlier, spattering the cold stone steps and the garden below; frosted Christmas LEDs lined the branches of dark firs and peeked out from beneath small accumulations of snow along the benches and trellises twisting along the garden path.<\/p>\n I am afraid there is not much to see<\/em>, she signed to him, for she\u2019d left her paper indoors.<\/p>\n Perhaps Benjamin did not know sign language; he stared at her face for a moment, and then looked out on the garden. \u00a0His breath was gray as he spoke.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s working at ISOLDE. \u00a0I don\u2019t quite understand it all. \u00a0Studying the beta-decay of radioactive isotopes or some such physics-talk. \u00a0What do you think? \u00a0He\u2019s not here, you see, he\u2019s never here, same as when I was a kid. \u00a0Even when he\u2019s here<\/em> he isn\u2019t here, you understand. \u00a0His mind is always gone, off in that place, that world of equations and periodic elements. \u00a0He\u2019s missing out on the real world for his miniature one.\u201d<\/p>\n She signed, This is not the real world<\/em><\/p>\n Benjamin gave her a long, thoughtful look. \u00a0\u201cI think he\u2019s an amazing man,\u201d he said finally. \u00a0He had watched her hands. \u00a0Had he heard what they said?<\/p>\n He gave a small laugh, then; an awkward, odd sort of laugh that often accompanied this sort of unsolicited intimacy from people Nisha barely knew.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does it matter, right?\u201d he said, grinning out at the garden and shaking his head. \u00a0\u201cWhether he is or isn\u2019t, an amazing man?\u201d<\/p>\n The wind gusted, and Nisha shivered.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d said Benjamin, shrugging quickly out of his coat. \u00a0\u201cAnd I\u2019m supposed to be a gentleman.\u201d \u00a0He helped her into it and then paused, his fingers on the lapels. \u00a0His face was very near hers. \u00a0His lips parted, wet. \u00a0He had just licked them.<\/p>\n \u201cI wondered,\u201d he continued softly, \u201cwhen your mother told me about you earlier. \u00a0She didn\u2019t tell me how it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha had thought when she was recovering in the hospital bed, trying to piece together in her mind the shreds of her life as it had been, wondering which aspects were salvageable, that people didn\u2019t usually ask about accidents. \u00a0But somehow, her case was different. \u00a0They pried because they were clumsy, talking to a mouth unable to respond. \u00a0And because they couldn\u2019t understand her, they tried to commiserate. \u00a0And afterwards, how nervous and distant they became!<\/p>\n But Benjamin, still so near, pulled the lapels of his coat shut, and his knuckles brushed her throat where her larynx had been. \u00a0She jerked back.<\/p>\n I have to check on my students<\/em>, she signed, and turned to slip back through the door, back into the warm, sweet-saturated air of her parents\u2019 mansion. \u00a0She swept into the alcove on the far side of the piano, touched Diane\u2019s shoulder and received a headshake\u2014no, she was not yet tired, she could do a few more pieces\u2014and curled up in her armchair. \u00a0The fat white Persian immediately claimed her lap, and this time Nisha didn\u2019t bother to push him off. \u00a0She took a few deep breaths.<\/p>\n On the table beside her right hand lay her black, battery-operated larynx. \u00a0She lifted it, closed her eyes, and put the vibrator to her throat. \u00a0\u201cAh! Vous dirai-je, Maman, ce qui cause mon tourment?<\/em>\u201d <\/em>It was a French nursery rhyme American children sang to the words and tune of \u201cTwinkle Twinkle Little Star.\u201d Ah! Will I tell you, Mother, what\u2019s causing my torment? \u00a0Nisha could hear the pitches in her head, but the voice that emitted from her mouth was loud and robotic. \u00a0Diane missed a note but recovered fluidly.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is<\/em> the cause of your torment?\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha jumped, her movement dislodging the cat. \u00a0Benjamin sat on the sofa at her elbow, head tilted again the way it had been when he was listening so intently to Diane\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n She signed, Papa wants me to reason like a grown up but I say that sweets are worth more than reason<\/em><\/p>\n She grinned at him suddenly. \u00a0Because his eyes had lit up, recognizing the rest of the verse. \u00a0Because it meant he understood her language. \u00a0But no, it was not her language; it was simply the only language left to her.<\/p>\n He licked his bottom lip. \u00a0\u201cWill you play something? \u00a0Play something from your opera.\u201d<\/p>\n A tragedy my opera<\/em>, she signed. \u00a0She gestured at the thirteen-foot Christmas tree near the entryway resplendent with shining red and gold balls and bright icicles.<\/p>\n \u201cChristmas is the most tragic time of year,\u201d said Benjamin.<\/p>\n And because she could not tell whether he was serious, uttering some curious, enigmatic kindness for people whose lives were not like his own, Nisha agreed to play. \u00a0Diane rose graciously after finishing the second movement of the piece she had been working through, and stood on Nisha\u2019s left, as if to turn pages.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I have the score in my folder in the foyer,\u201d offered Diane, but Nisha shook her head. \u00a0She would play from \u201cAugust\u2019s Song.\u201d \u00a0After the lovers\u2019 tryst and their fatal undertaking to resurrect their stillborn son, following a series of perverse commands from the sadistic priestess who agreed to carry their child, Aren sings of the coming of winter and offers a tribute to his partner\u2019s resulting suicide.<\/p>\n Benjamin stood near Diane\u2019s shoulder, on her student\u2019s other side, and too far for Nisha to see him without looking up from the piano. \u00a0She could hear Diane whispering the story to him as she played. \u00a0In the great room, conversations inconvenienced by the jarring minor chords grew first hushed and then rejoined even louder, as if to drown out the piano\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n Halfway through, Nisha paused at the end of a fermata to slip out of Benjamin\u2019s coat, which had become too warm in the stifling heat of the room, and let it fall to the floor. \u00a0After rescuing the coat, he returned to Diane\u2019s side, bent toward her ear, and murmured the question that had made Nisha leave him on the terraced patio overlooking the snow-covered garden.<\/p>\n Nisha glanced at him, but he was not looking at her, and she felt her pulse quicken. \u00a0As she bent more deeply into the lyric passages, Nisha listened in her mind for the dance of Aren\u2019s voice. \u00a0It did not prevent her from hearing Diane\u2019s response, still in a timid whisper, yet loud, much louder than the piano, so much louder than any of the voices in that room, loud like the fire had been, the roar of it, and the blast of heat in her ears.<\/p>\n Her senior year at Julliard, her tiny studio apartment with its red, chipping wood paneling, mauve curtains, a poster-sized framed first page of a score by Stravinsky. \u00a0She\u2019d been plucking out an easy third cello line near the window.<\/p>\n Sometimes, Diane\u2019s voice drifted through the memory. \u00a0\u201cShe\u2019d been sleeping and the stove was on . . .\u00a0 a few blocks from campus.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019d curled up on the sofa and shut the window, being cold. \u00a0An omelet for dinner, and probably the personalized linens her parents had given her as a Christmas gift, lying on the counter still in their box. \u00a0Flames were so bright and so dark all at once. \u00a0And loud.<\/p>\n \u201c. . . the whole place on fire. \u00a0Anybody else would have just left everything and got out. \u00a0But not her. \u00a0And maybe that\u2019s not true. \u00a0Maybe if I had my music in there\u2014she was writing the opera at the time\u2014maybe I wouldn\u2019t have left until I had everything either. \u00a0She\u2019d gotten it in her arms, but then there was an explosion. \u00a0They said some chemicals were the cause, went up in flames, too, along with all the wood. \u00a0And a violin, a cello, and a piano. \u00a0God. \u00a0She\u2019d had it in her hands.\u201d<\/p>\n Diane paused, listening, and Nisha felt the woman\u2019s eyes, felt Benjamin\u2019s eyes, felt their sadness, their sympathy. \u00a0The way one would look at a misshapen, ugly wound on a once-beautiful face. \u00a0She focused on the keys, on the movement of the music. \u00a0She did not want their sympathy: she spoke a strange tongue; she was an impostor. \u00a0Her very presence shattered their careful politeness, their delicate sensibilities frustrated by her unwillingness\u2014no, she\u2019d had enough of lies\u2014her inability<\/em> to play their games. \u00a0She was to blame for Diane\u2019s nervousness, for Benjamin\u2019s efforts to make her feel human. \u00a0It was the first party she had attended after the accident. \u00a0She was the reason for the missteps in tonight\u2019s dance, the blunders and broken rhythms. \u00a0They were not calloused, Benjamin and Diane. \u00a0Had they ever seen a face like hers among all the throngs of masks worn at her parents\u2019 parties? \u00a0A voiceless monster. \u00a0Anyone would gawk.<\/p>\n Diane went on, and this time, no flames accompanied her. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s called \u2018August\u2019s Song.\u2019 \u00a0She didn\u2019t write it until after the accident. \u00a0Mostly she\u2019d had to rewrite the entire opera from memory. \u00a0But this piece she wrote first. \u00a0Only months later, while she was recovering from reconstructive surgery. \u00a0They did their best on everything they could. \u00a0It was because it was such a small, enclosed space. \u00a0That studio, with the windows and doors shut. \u00a0She inhaled all that super-heated smoke and it just destroyed her larynx. \u00a0They had to take it out. \u00a0Third degree burns. \u00a0And it\u2019s a wonder it didn\u2019t destroy her lungs, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha glanced up for a moment to see Benjamin\u2019s eyes on her. \u00a0She did not look up again. \u00a0The song finished on a twisted, broken arpeggio, ending on the aggravatingly unfulfilling Picardy third, the promise of happy endings. \u00a0Nisha plowed on to another part of the opera. \u00a0She heard their voices over the smooth black piano lacquer, heard her own name several times. \u00a0She felt them leave the piano, the sound of their voices fading into the background of conversations. \u00a0Her students approached intermittently to ask if she was tired, if they should take their turn, but she did not reply except to shake her head. \u00a0She played set after set until a herd of slightly offbeat footsteps and clacking heels echoed through the foyer, voices well-wishing and Merry Christmasing, and at last the hollow boom of the front door. \u00a0Her parent\u2019s voices sighed goodnights.<\/p>\n \u201cNish,\u201d said her mother through a huge yawn delivered through the fingertips of her white gloves. \u00a0\u201cYou should go to bed. \u00a0It\u2019s almost four in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha looked up, blinking, for her eyes had become glued to the keys in a daze. \u00a0She almost said, \u201cI\u2019ll just play one more,\u201d before realizing that she couldn\u2019t say anything. \u00a0Nor could she sign with her fingers still scudding along the piano keys. \u00a0Her hands were like machines attached to her wrists. \u00a0Even if she had wanted to stop, it would have been impossible. \u00a0Impossible now to look up, or earlier\u2014when Benjamin\u2019s hands had been so very close to her face, to the flesh of her neck, even if it was not<\/em> her own flesh!\u2014impossible to be still for that moment longer, to linger there and wait. . . . But for what? \u00a0A shudder, a thick voiceless gulp, an awkward apology? \u00a0No, it was over: She would not attend any more of her parents\u2019 parties. \u00a0Her hands moved faster, melody like an imprecation\u2014or a protestation? \u00a0She could not be sure; they were tearing through the notes too quickly.<\/p>\n Her mother stared at her for another minute or two. \u00a0Finally, she sat on the edge of the piano bench and reached around Nisha\u2019s head to smooth her hair. \u00a0For a brief moment, Nisha felt the warmth of her mother\u2019s hand, the flick of a fingernail against her scalp near her ear. \u00a0The caress slid down the length of her hair and fell to her waist.<\/p>\n \u201cBenjamin\u2019s a nice boy, Nish,\u201d said her mother. \u00a0She sighed, resting her head against her daughter\u2019s shoulder as Nisha continued to play. \u00a0\u201cDonna told me he studied sign language in college. \u00a0He would have made a good match.\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha couldn\u2019t remember what the piece was; the notes were all wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cHe probably doesn\u2019t like Diane as much as he does you, anyway,\u201d continued her mother. \u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re much prettier. \u00a0Now, that\u2019s an interesting song. \u00a0What\u2019s it called?\u201d<\/p>\n Nisha lifted her hands momentarily from the piano. \u00a0There were wrinkles on her knuckles, fine crisscrossing wrinkles all over the backs of her hands, skin just beginning to ripple softly like a disturbed pool.<\/p>\n Several minutes went by. \u00a0She felt her mother rise and kiss her forehead, heard the thin stilettos tapping across the floor, stopping somewhere near the bar.<\/p>\n The piano came to life again. \u00a0Mozart\u2019s first variation, one stroked key at a time: Ah\u2014Vous\u2014Di\u2014rai\u2014Je\u2014Ma\u2014man.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNish.\u201d<\/p>\n She stopped playing and looked up. \u00a0Her mother seemed ancient, holding onto the stair railing like that, as if she was unable to raise her foot to the next step. \u00a0The strap of her dress was slipping, and one of her gloves had bunched at the wrist, making the fabric come up only to the elbow.<\/p>\n \u201cI just thought . . .\u201d Her mother shook her head. \u00a0\u201cI was so sure he was right for you.\u201d<\/p>\n In the empty room, the sound of the cat\u2019s purr as it rubbed up against the legs of the piano bench was accompanied only by the last note Nisha had played before looking at her mother. \u00a0Her foot had begun to ache from holding the pedal. \u00a0On the air, the note attenuated gently, resonating, an almost imperceptible passing. by Lora Rivera Ah! Vous dirai-je Maman To the tune of \u201cTwinkle Twinkle Little Star\u201d On the end table beside the armchair where Nisha sat, tense and engulfed by cushions, a black cylindrical voicebox sometimes reflected back the light of … Continue reading
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\nLORA RIVERA<\/strong> is currently finishing her MFA at the University of Arizona. She works for Claire Gerus Literary Agency in Tucson and lives with her husband and three cats. She writes literary and young adult fiction, as well as juvenile fantasy, a love she owes to Mandala’s, a tiny used book store in her hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida. Her fiction can be found in A cappella Zoo and in forthcoming spring editions of MARY Magazine, Amarillo Bay, Two-Bit Magazine, and Crash, with short excerpts appearing on her blog: lorariverainsidewriting.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"