A Piano Player can strike more cords with her gloves off   Thursday was when Papa died- cold-sweat, pale skin fists clenched instead of teeth that had fallen out years ago, blue bed sheets placidly slope to the floor   Save for where my brother clenched crying but biting back the tears as best he could- trying to show Papa he’d learned the lessens of his youth.   And I on the ottoman draped like a black coat with white hands remembering the painful cancer-days Mother spent in the same room.   She, my sister, held her quivering lips, with her thin piano hands wrapped in a handkerchief embroidered by some long-forgotten friend.   No pain about her face, with it’s look of a child; inquisitive, observant almost expectant. She is not watching-   Not her, but a memory is pushing up against the bars, hectically darting with her eyes from his face to his hands to one brother, another the hand the gums the toes the heaving chest struggling out some final breaths staggers- a thin rasp now staccato stopping as if done then releasing, letting it all fall out with a single, smooth breath.   The air becomes the edge of an envelope, sticky and wet with the sweat and tears of the past three hours-   And she reaches out with those pristine hands, touching the bed curtain delicately fingering it’s seam down to the post-tie. As she pulls the cord the edge gives.   Her fingers release.   What are the words a child would say to an abusive father? Would they be kind malicious, true…   Even on his death bed would a forty year silence persevere the air between them?   What words would be thought, Not said, to a Daddy who bit a pretty red heart in two?   And why would a child toss her gloves on his bed as she crossed and left the room.   by Peter B. Sanderson Community