He picked up the instrument. It felt foreign—a polished ebony stick with silver keys that winked in the lamplight. He wet the reed, set it, and blew.
She had played this piece with her own mother in 1962, in a small church hall. The program was tucked inside the tube: yellowed, fragile. He read the date and imagined two women in modest dresses, a borrowed piano, a secondhand clarinet. His great-grandmother had been the pianist. She had died three months later. Clarinet And Piano Sheet Music
Elias closed his eyes and played the clarinet line from memory, without the instrument—just his voice, humming. The melody climbed like a question, then descended in a long, exhausted sigh. Lento e malinconico. Slow and melancholy. He picked up the instrument
He placed the sheet music back in the tube, but left the clarinet on the stand. Tomorrow, he would call the hospice where he taught piano lessons. He would ask if any patients needed a lullaby. She had played this piece with her own