The house gave away its secrets more easily, and I got to know it well. It was four floors altogether. Leah lived at the top. She slept in the back room, in a canopy bed, and in the front one she kept an upright Steinway under a stained-glass skylight; at certain hours of the afternoon, the ivory keys became streaked with color. Before I met Leah, I’d been intimidated by the idea of the place she held in Yoav’s life. He referred to her often in conversation, sometimes as my sister, and sometimes just as she, and frequently he spoke of the two of them collectively. When her playing stopped, I was sure that she was watching from somewhere in the house, and the hair on my arm would rise. But when Lea finally appeared for the first time I was surprised at how slight and unassuming she was […]. She seemed held together by some great pressure exerted from within. She kept a second piano, a baby grand, in a study on the ground floor. Sheet music was stacked everywhere. These pages migrated through the house, turning up in the kitchen and bathrooms. She spent a week or two memorizing a piece, breaking it down into smaller and smaller parts. She wore an old cotton kimono and rarely got dressed.