Chapter 2

After they sent me home from the hospital, I sat down at the piano and tried to play a piece I’d known since I was six. I got four bars in before my fingers stopped doing what I asked. I tried again. By then, there was blood on the keys.

I missed the final. Vera played my compositions under her own name and won. When I said they were mine, people accused me of stealing them from her. Someone posted a clip of her performance next to a photo of me leaving the hospital. The caption said I’d hurt myself to get out of competing.

I went to Vera’s apartment to make her tell the truth.

Wyatt had paid for the apartment. The door was ajar. I pushed it open and followed a familiar voice to the bedroom. Wyatt’s shirt was hanging over the back of a chair.

He and Vera were naked in the bed.

Wyatt pulled her against him and yanked the sheet up over her shoulder. Then he looked at me.

“Mildred, if you still want to be Mrs. Simmons, get the hell out.”

I’d been married to a man who used to stop whatever he was doing when he heard me sit down at the piano. I kept looking for that man in the face of the one telling me to leave.

Then I started yelling. I don’t remember half of what I said. I remember starting a livestream with my bandaged thumb and pointing the camera at myself. I told anybody who would listen that I’d written those pieces. I named them. I told them which one I’d started the winter before, when the heat went out and I had to wear my coat at the piano.

I thought if I said it where enough people could hear, Vera would have to give me back my music. Some part of me still thought I could get my husband back, too.

By then, Vera had pulled on Wyatt’s shirt. She stayed out of frame, close enough for me to hear her crying.

“Wyatt, I’m not afraid of her,” she said. “Remember what you call me? Your brave little lamb. I love you. I want to be with you.”

She started toward me. Wyatt held out an arm to stop her.

“If Mildred lets you go, I’ll get down on my knees right here and tell them the pieces are hers.”

Wyatt took the phone out of my hand and ended the stream.

That night, Wyatt called a press conference at Simmons Group. He sat beneath the company logo. The reporters in the front row were the ones his family invited to every charity event. They let him tell his version without interruption.

“My wife took Vera Swanson’s compositions before the competition,” he said. “I found out in time to return them.”

I watched him say it on my phone. The bandage on my thumb was coming loose again.

“Mildred doesn’t play the piano. I indulged her. I paid for awards she hadn’t earned, and she came to believe she was a pianist. The story about Vera and me is another fabrication. Vera’s a hardworking young woman who deserves to be judged on her talent.”

His office passed out copies of what it claimed was a psychiatric evaluation. My name was at the top. I’d never met the doctor who’d supposedly examined me.

By morning, everyone knew Vera Swanson. Booking agents wanted her. Reporters wanted to know how she’d managed to perform with all that pressure on her. I stopped answering my phone.

Over the following months, I stopped opening the curtains, too. On my birthday, I went out onto the third-floor balcony. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital with Wyatt beside the bed.

He had divorce papers in his hand.

“Mildred,” he said, “do you have any idea how terrifying you are?”

I looked at the envelope. He’d already put a pen inside.

I signed.

Now, seven years after the divorce, Wyatt was standing outside a showroom trying to buy me the piano he knew I’d never play in concert.

I picked up the purchase order from the wall and handed it back to him. Then I called the showroom.

“Deliver the upright I paid for,” I told the associate. “The address is on my original order. If anyone changes it again without my approval, I’ll file a formal complaint.”

The associate started to explain that Mr. Simmons had told him we were family.

“He isn’t authorized to change my order,” I said. “Please put that in the notes.” The associate confirmed he’d reinstate the original delivery.

I hung up. Wyatt reached for my arm, and I moved out of reach.

“Mr. Simmons,” I said, looking past him, “does your wife know you’re out here buying pianos for other women?”

He turned.

Vera was crossing the lot with a cup of milk tea in one hand. She’d once waited for Wyatt to introduce her. Now people stepped out of her way. She’d had years to get used to being Mrs. Simmons.

She still wore the same perfume. The wind carried it ahead of her, and I sneezed before she reached us.

Wyatt shrugged off his jacket and dropped it over my shoulders.

“You always get sick when the weather turns,” he said. “Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”

I caught the jacket by the collar, ready to hand it back.

Vera stepped between us before I could.