** BRIAN **

MICAH WAS GETTING VERY GOOD. HE WAS ONLY eight years old and the love he had for music was so beautiful that it inspired me to be a good teacher for him. I’ve only been doing this for a bit over a year and he was my very first student. According to his mother, he had been begging to learn the piano since he was four and the lessons were his seventh birthday present.

I still remember the look in his eyes on his very first class and I think I will carry it with me it forever. It was this magnificent mix of yearning and wonder that swept me off my feet. If I recalled my dear late nanna correctly, that was the very same look on my face when I got my first piano.

His lesson ended when the clock struck four and I had half an hour to prepare for my next one. However, Micah’s mother had texted me to say she was stuck in traffic, so I didn’t know exactly when he would leave. I only hoped it would be sometime before 4:30. I didn’t want to invade the next student’s time. I’m sure Micah would be delighted to stay and just watch quietly, but I couldn’t risk having his mother buzzing in the middle of a class, especially since it was the first one and there was so much to be discovered.

I do have to say I have a fair number of mothers approaching me wanting piano lessons for their kids. I always refused the title of prodigy, but I was indeed finishing my first world tour at the age of fifteen. So, when I moved here and decided to settle for a while, I thought I’d start teaching some lessons to keep practicing and make some money. I stand my ground refusing the title of prodigy, but I do accept the high fares that came with the little fame.

This next guy, however, was a whole different case. First, I wasn’t charging as much as I did the others. His mother was one of my nanna’s friends from church and I did remember her a little bit from some glimpses back from my childhood. Her visit yesterday had been at first packed with emotions as we fondly remembered grandma, and then quite confusing when she actually explained what she was doing there.

‘You see, Brian,’ she said, tenderly trying to make me believe she was looking for the best words as if I didn’t know clearly what she wanted to say all along. Aaaaah, the perks of having worked in the music industry at a young age... ‘I’ve always admired so much the talent that God has given you. So many times, our dear Rosetta would put you in our prayers, God bless her soul. We followed you from afar with a lot of love and pride, you know? Oh, don’t blush, sweetheart, it’s the truth!’ I didn’t know I had, but okay. ‘I just wish my sweet Allan would be so passionate about something as you are with music! Even when he went to college, I knew he was doing it just because people told him that’s the way it is, not because he truly loved what he was doing.’

‘I imagine how awful that must be,’ I said more trying to be sympathetic than anything else. How on Earth could I know? I had never once stepped into a university, unless you count theatre performances as a guest. ‘So how do you think I can help?’

Damn it. The words escaped my lips before I could even process them. Not that I’m busy or anything, but isn’t what she’s wanting a little bit far-fetched? My constant need to please will be the death of me.

‘Oh, I’m so glad you should ask!’ Her eyes gleamed at my words. I cursed myself in silence. ‘I thought, maybe if you could spend some time with him, he might get inspired to find what he loves. But I know what you’re thinking. I know you’ll think you won’t have the time to make new friends, even more with a stranger. So I already have a solution for that!’

I wish I could have felt a tenth of her enthusiasm.

‘I want you to teach him how to play the piano. I’ll pay. This way, he’ll have something to look forward to and you can make some more money.’

‘Please. No. I could never. I would never trade my friendship for money. Not now, not in a million years.’

‘Oh, Brian, dear. How very sweet of you. But please. Hear me out. You don’t have to be his friend. Just his teacher will do. For those lessons, I want to pay. If you think that you can become his friend and spend more time with him, than that’s on you. What do you say?’

I wanted to say that I didn’t want to get involved. That I didn’t know how to pass on my passion for music. That she didn’t look like she could afford my lessons anyway. That she should let her son live his own life. I thought so much about what I wanted to say that I ended up saying nothing at all.

‘See? That’s a good idea! Besides, it will be nice to have a student whose age has more than one digit, won’t it?’

Touché.

‘See?’ She said, taking her phone from her purse and showing me her home screen. It had a picture of her hugging someone who was obviously her son, my new student. ‘That’s my Allan, right there. He was hugging me right after he got his first pay check from his current job. It wasn’t much, but he was so happy. So pleased with himself. So proud. I only wish to see him smile like that again.’

Damn, this woman played a dirty game. But I couldn’t pay much attention to her words anymore. I simply couldn’t look away from that picture. His smile was so wide you couldn’t even see his eyes. He was hugging her so tight his right cheek was crushed and almost up on his forehead. There was so much love in that picture that for one second it was almost as if I could feel it myself. Towards myself.

If anything, that person didn’t deserve to be as lost as she made me believe. True, no one did. But he....

Damn it. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times: my constant need to please will be the death of me.

I accepted whatever amount she offered, after all it wasn’t even near my regular fare anyway. She paid for a full month. Worst case scenario, he would give up on this as well and in thirty days, I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

But after she left, that smile stayed on my mind.

Micah’s mother knocked on my door, waking me up from those memories. It was only five minutes before Allan was supposed to arrive. She apologised a thousand times, but I kept saying it was nothing. I reminded Micah of his homework (as if I had to) and they left happy. As I closed the door, I could hear her trying to buy his forgiveness for her tardiness with a special-occasion ice-cream.

I watched the pavement through my window and saw the pair exiting the building as what I was sure to be Allan entered. Let’s pray for the best.

‘Jesus, I have to pee!’ I half screamed as I realised I probably wouldn’t have the time to do so anymore, but I ran to the bathroom real quick and rushed back to the door just in time to hear the ding of the lift announcing he had arrived.

I positioned myself right by the doorknob. It’s an old habit of mine, I liked to be ready to open the door right when my students knocked. Now I just had to wait for it.

So I waited.

And I waited a little longer.

And a bit more.

This stupid door doesn’t have a peephole, but I was sure he was still there.

Was he okay?

Almost ten minutes had passed and nothing happened. I thought of opening the door myself, but if he needed time, I didn’t want to invade it.

His mother was right. He really needed a friend.

No. No, Brian. That’s not your job. You’re his teacher, not his friend!

At long last, he knocked. Four times. Nice. Most people knock only three. He barely finished and I swung the door wide open with the biggest smile I could give him, because I thought he might need one.

‘Allan! Finally, mate! I was beginning to wonder you’d take the lift back downstairs! Come on in, come on in! I’m Brian, your new piano teacher!’

Exactly. You hear that, Brian? You’re his piano teacher. That’s what you are. Stick to it.

He crossed the threshold with an uncertain look and took in his surroundings. He seemed strangely at peace. So what was it that took him so long?

I stopped smiling a bit before it was too long to become creepy and pointed him to the large stool by the piano, where we sat side by side.

‘You okay, mate? You seem a bit lost,’ I asked. It took him a while and a sigh before he could answer me.

‘Lost is a good word. But I’m actually surprised. Don’t take me wrong, but—’

‘You were expecting a frustrated retired pianist that would be cruel to you from the get go?’

He laughed relieved.

‘I think I’m not the first one, then.’

‘No, you’re not. But you’re lucky you won’t get to meet my grandpa, though. He was exactly that.’

Why was I oversharing?

‘But that’s not all,’ he continued as he stared blankly at the piano keys. I wondered if anything else surprised him and what it could have been. ‘About the lost thing. See... I’ve never considered piano before. Actually, I’ve never even considered anything related to music before.’

‘But do you like it?’ I asked.

‘A lot. I can’t stop listening to music. It’s been this way since I was a toddler, but I’m practically tone deaf and I can’t carry a tune at all.’

‘That’s all the start we need,’ I tried to reassure him while I wondered how underpaid I was being with a clueless tone-deaf student. ‘If you love music, that right there is all we need to begin with.’

‘And you?’ He asked, turning his head in my direction and opening a smile. True, not half as wide as the one I had seen on that picture the day before, but still honest, warm and, above all, right there in front of me. My heart skipped a beat. ‘What makes you love music so much?’