A Fistful of Rain by Greg Rucka

had been redone while I was away; the last time I’d been by, it’d been the same rotting and sagging boards that had been in place for one hundred years. Now there was new cedar planking, and a new railing to match. The porch swing was still where I remembered it, though, and a puddle of rainwater sat beneath it, a couple of leaves sodden in the water.
    There was piano audible through the door, and I listened for a second. Beethoven, and while I couldn’t name the piece, it was Joan on the keys, and she was playing the way she did when she played for herself, and not an audience or a student. I pulled back the screen door and rang the bell, and the music stopped abruptly.
    The door opened a fraction, then wider when she saw it was me, and Joan stood there, looking tired and a lot older than the last time I’d seen her.
    “Miriam. This is a surprise.”
    I stepped into the hall. “I’m sorry it’s so late.”
    “It’s all right, of course it’s all right. I didn’t even know you were back in town.”
    “I got back early.”
    “You must have done. Last time I talked to Mikel, he said you’d be on the road until June. I thought if I saw you at the holidays, I’d be lucky.” She closed the door and put a hand on my shoulder, already leading to the kitchen. “I’ve got some coffee, from Peet’s. The kind you like, but it’s decaf, if you want some.”
    “No trouble?”
    “It’s already made, honey. If it was trouble, I wouldn’t offer.”
    That was a lie. If it was trouble, she’d have done it anyway.
    Joan poured us two mugs, then put sugar and milk in mine before handing it over. I took a sip as she watched.
    “Good?”
    “Just perfect,” I said.
    “Good,” Joan said again, but softly. She moved her mug from the counter to the kitchen table and took a seat, watching me.
    The kitchen felt the same, looked the same, but for some cosmetic changes. There were still fliers stuck to the corkboard with thumbtacks, the poster for her Chicago recital in 1972. There was the framed picture of her and Steven and Chet Atkins still hanging by the door, and another, only a couple years old, of the two of them standing with Benny Green. There was a new one, too, not really a picture, but a framed one-page article on Steven and me from
Guitar Player
magazine, the “Pickups” column. It was maybe two years old, now, just after
Scandal
.
    Joan saw me looking at it, didn’t say anything. Her hair was a little more silver than the last time I’d seen her, eclipsing the brown, and it was shorter, only to her shoulders, when she’d used to wear it halfway down her back, in a braid. She was wearing casual clothes, baggy corduroys and a wool sweater, but the sleeves had been rolled back, to keep out of the way of her playing. She was wearing her glasses, not her contacts.
    “You cut your hair,” I said, as I moved to join her at the table.
    “After the funeral. Why didn’t you come home, Miriam?”
    I didn’t know how to give her the honest answer, so I gave her the one I’d used before, over the phone, when I told her I wouldn’t be back for the memorial. I said, “We were shooting a video. I couldn’t get out of it.”
    If Joan’s look had been disapproving, the look she’d given me when I was sixteen and had stayed out past curfew, it would have been easier. But now, it was like she couldn’t be bothered, and she nodded her head, maybe not believing me, but maybe not caring. She withdrew her hands, sighing.
    Then she reached back and turned my palm up. “What happened?”
    “Nothing, I cut it on the tour. Broken glass backstage, I picked it up and there you go. Cut myself. It got reopened somehow, I haven’t had time to change the bandage.”
    “It’s not too deep, is it?” Concern made her look even older, even more tired. “That’s not why you’re back, because of your hand?”
    “I’m . . . I needed some time off. Van and Click are still touring, they’re going to finish out the