Hannah plunked at the piano, fumbling her way through her own hulking rendition of ‘Wouldn’t It Be Lovely’ from My Fair Lady. Freida sat curled into a loaf on the coffee table beside the instrument, her tail flickering at every one of Hannah’s missteps through the keys, her ears flattening and her eyes cracking open ever so slightly to glare at the girl when the squawking sounds of incorrect tones rang out.

Hannah focused hard on the sheet music before it--it was an ancient tome from the basement, with yellowed edges on papers that held waves where moisture had encroached upon them--but Bartrum had dug it out and presented it to her with such pride that she was certain it had been one of his favorites to play through. It was a collection of classic musical show tunes, each with sweeping stanzas of sharps and flats that might as well have been in Greek for how difficult they were to Hannah.

Nevertheless, she persisted, her tongue poking determined through her teeth and her brow knit tight in her concentration. Rain pelted the windows, the distant drone of thunder off in the distance making the small, cozy flat seem as tucked away and sacred as a church house. A candle was lit on the side table beside Bartrum’s large brown recliner, the daily paper folded open to the crossword page where Bartrum had almost completed all the rows upon, getting stuck on the last clue: ‘Good Or Bad Hoover Reviews’, four across, both beginning and ending with the letter S.

Behind her, Bartrum was clearing up from dinner. They had enjoyed a small meal of flaky chicken pot pie--a staple in Bartrum’s home growing up--and Bartrum had even made a lovely little collection of blueberry shortcakes with fresh cream for the top as their dessert. Up to his elbows in suds at the kitchen sink, Bartrum attempted to hum along with Hannah’s rather ghastly playing, but he kept pausing for long intervals as she took the time to place and then replace and then replace her hands.

“I’ll get it,” Hannah muttered under her breath to Freida as she screwed up yet another chord. “Wait and see.”

Freida blinked at her with yet another purposeful swish of her tail.

“You’re coming along in your reading of the music,” Bartrum called over his shoulder to her, placing a plate upon the wire rack to dry. “I can tell that the notes are starting to look more like words in your mind.”

“...Words…” Hannah murmured, playing a few notes and then a chord in succession. The house was glowing orange with throws of light from the fireplace hearth, and it smelled vaguely of dish soap and vanilla cake. Bartrum had since dusted the photographs that lined the mantle and the papered walls, and as Hannah paused her hands upon the keys, she looked above the piano to where photos of Bartrum from his teenage years at boarding school were placed in silver frames.

He had been so young, then--rather handsome from the looks of it--with a shirk of blonde hair and well-muscled shoulders that fit his short frame rather sharply. He and one of his fellow classmates stood before a great ivy-covered door with Latin scripts curving above it in an ornate design that seemed to scream of higher education even through the visage of the fading Polaroid shot. She reached for the photo and pulled it closer to her face, studying the man Bartrum stood beside.

“Who is this with you in the photo from Leeds?” She asked aloud, and Bartrum turned from the sink, wiping his hands on a nearby tea cloth.

“His name was Keller. We met at boarding school and were friends up until we graduated,” Bartrum placed the cloth down and began to fill the teakettle on the stove with water from the tap. “We were flatmates for all three years. I could tell you such stories…”

“Like what?” Hannah grinned, and Bartrum flushed.

“Oh, forget it.”

“Like what, Bartrum?” She laughed. “You absolutely must tell me!”

“Well…once we hung the Dean’s trousers from the flagpole.”

Hannah’s jaw fell to the floor, “Bartrum!” She sputtered, nearly choking in shock. “You didn’t!”

Bartrum was now burning with embarrassment, and he waved a hand to dismiss her. “He gave us mess duty for a minor mistake.”

“What could you have possibly done to get detention? I thought you were top of your class?”

“We were late to class once during second year.”

“That’s hardly grounds for punishment.”

“So we…rode Kel’s motorbike through the hallway to get there in time.”

Hannah lurched so hard on the piano bench that it wobbled violently, nearly tipping over and spilling her onto the floor. She was frozen for a moment in disbelief before positively cracking open with a roar of laughter, clutching one hand to her chest and another to her mouth. Bartrum watched her sheepishly, holding the tea kettle in both his hands and kicking at a bit of dust on the kitchen floor with the toe of his slippered-foot.

Hannah at last calmed, brushing tears from her eyes, “I cannot even begin to understand you, Bartrum Redding,” she chuckled. “You are an absolute mystery!”

“I was young,” he said, moving to the stove.

“You were marvelous!”

“Pfft.”

“Surely you and Kel still speak after such adventures?” Hannah inquired, scratching Freida behind the ears, eliciting a purr. “He seems like such a good companion.”

Bartrum grunted humorously, and he shook his head. “Alas, I came home to London, and he moved out to the western countryside. We stayed close after school via pen for a few years, but after a while he stopped writing.”

Hannah turned to face Bartrum just in time to watch his face soften with emotion as he placed the lid on the kettle. She felt something tighten in her chest. “Did he ever give you a clue as to why he would’ve stopped responding?” She asked him.

Bartrum’s jaw jerked before he reached for the shelf where he kept his tin of various teas, “no, my dear. I chose not to dwell on the fact; sometimes people merely grow distant as the fragile circumstances of life change.”

Hannah winced. “But you did try to reach him again, didn’t you?”

“Many times,” Bartrum chose two bags of tea and moved to the refrigerator for the cream. “My letters went unanswered.”

Hannah felt the constriction of compassion somewhere deep in her stomach for the gentle man standing in his kitchen before her. She wondered if losing friends such as Kel had helped contribute to Bartrum’s hard outer shell when he faced the world around him. Although he was becoming more and more clement with each passing day that Hannah knew him, she also understood that he was a man of long-standing loneliness.

He had his career, and he had his home, and he had had his upstanding reputation…but Hannah wondered if those had been the very things that had built up the defensive walls brick by brick around him in his chosen solitary life.

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He set the cream on the table, and he set out two teacups, adding the tea bags to them each before turning to retrieve the kettle from the stove where it began to whistle emphatically. “It was a long time ago,” he said with morose finality.

Hannah had been mercifully lucky to catch glimpses of Bartrum in moments like these--a man who had multitudes within him, but perhaps had merely lost full sight of himself somewhere along the way.

Bartrum poured the hot water out of the kettle and into the teacups, smiling up at Hannah. “Ready for a nightcap?”

“Indeed,” Hannah said, closing the key cover on the piano and rising from the bench. She sat across from him at his little dining table, and he pushed the cream her direction, which she gratefully took to pour a splash of into her own cup. She brought the teacup to her face and inhaled, the steam curling upward and fogging her glasses. Chamomile and ginger--spicy, earthy--the scent of it was familiar to her as she knew it was Bartrum’s favorite blend for an after-dinner precursor to a good night’s sleep.

She sipped her tea, the warmth of it filling her from tip to toe. Bartrum dropped a cube of sugar into his cup and swirled it with a silver spoon, staring absentmindedly at the photos above the piano over Hannah’s shoulder. Hannah studied him, lost in his thoughts, and she hummed a little bit of My Fair Lady under her breath, waiting for him to emerge for air once more.

At last, he focused on her, smiling in apology. “Got caught up in the memory there for a moment--forgive me.”

“Don’t apologize,” she remarked. “It’s rare I get to hear about your past.”

“How was work today?” Bartrum asked, masterfully changing the subject as he crossed an ankle over his knee. Hannah placed her teacup down, staring at it before replying.

“Fine! Always fair on Mondays. I do enjoy seeing the regular crowd.”

“How is Abbey?”

Hannah cracked a sharp grin. “Strong as an ox, as per the usual. She and I are planning a birthday party for her daughter--I’m going to have her over in a week or two to create some decor--her daughter is going to be six. Can you even believe that?”

“She’s quite an extraordinary mum to have raised her so young,” Bartrum commented graciously, and Hannah nodded in agreement.

“She’s stupendous at it, too. I love watching them together.”

“And how was the turnout for the day? Any tips come home with you?”

Hannah flinched, remembering turning out the coffee can at the very end of her shift and splitting it up between Abbey, Emil, and Ruby. She had made a point to take the four pounds and twenty pence left behind by the man in the peacoat and tuck it into Abbey’s backpack before she noticed.

“Well, Neil gave me a five pound note, which I tucked into the can for all of us. And then a stranger left all his change on his table, even though he only spent eighty pence.”

Bartrum dabbed his face with a little linen napkin, “hmmpf; must’ve been quite impressed with the service he was offered.”

“That’s the oddest part of it all,” Hannah said, her brow furrowing. “He was just about the rudest man I’ve ever encountered. He was in such a tizzy that he sat scowling in the corner for nearly four hours before hurrying out of the cafe.” She glanced again at her teacup, that same general feeling of unease crossing her skin. “He didn’t touch his order. When I went to get his mug at the end of shift, it was sitting untouched on his table.”

Bartrum frowned. “Strange. Did he meet up with anyone?”

“No. He sat all alone and wrote so incessantly in a little notebook that I thought the pages would catch fire beneath his pencil.”

“Perhaps this chap was in a bad way,” Bartrum took a long drink of his tea, and set it clattering back on his dish. “I am sorry that he was so rude, though. I encourage you to heed it no more mind. That attitude will come back to nip him in the bud sooner rather than later, I’m sure.”

Hannah gave Bartrum a chiding glance, “you act as if you’re speaking from experience with that.”

Bartrum laughed, and Hannah bristled with pride at having caught him red-handed. “You never miss a beat, girl. Always one step ahead of me.”

They finished their tea in companionable silence, and Hannah plucked up their teacups and carried them to the sink to wash them gently with the soft sponge. Once they were clean, she told Bartrum that she would see him the next morning before they both left for work, and he thanked her for joining him for another evening.

“Sleep well, neighbor,” he said jovially at the doorstep when Hannah crossed it and stepped out into the crisp, cool night, the hood of her jacket pulled tight up over her hair to abate the rain.

“Until tomorrow!” She quipped, leaping down the porch stairs and streaking along the edge of the house to the back where her staircase led up to the balcony of her front door. She bolted up the steps two at a time until she reached her flat door, pushing it open and stepping into the silent darkness within. She hit the lights, and her little slice of home was illuminated--it was one large room, with a little white kitchenette in the far corner, and her bed on the opposite wall near her large, beloved bookcase. She had a small dining room table with three chairs, a shag rug from the charity shop, a bureau for her clothing, and a patched leather loveseat that Philip and Melody had offered to her before hauling it to the dump.

Among her other possessions were her reading desk--piled high with textbooks and papers--a stained-glass lamp on her nightstand, the pink landline telephone on the wall, a rectangular standing mirror beside the dresser, and a few assorted paintings and prints hung on the walls that she had found during her escapes around London with Abbey. The powder room door was directly ahead, between the kitchenette and the space where she slept.

The little radiator in the kitchenette thrummed loudly on the tile floor beside the slender refrigerator, holding its own against the cold air that was weedling its way inside her space through the cracks in the fading, dilapidated trim surrounding the windows, Hannah pulled off her wet jacket and hung it on the hook beside the door, locking it up tightly behind her. She kicked off her rain boots, crossed the creaking floorboards to the kitchen, and poured a glass of water from the tap before moving to the bureau to dress for bed.

Her flat was tiny, dated, a bit mildewy, and perfectly suited for her needs. When she had first stepped into it the summer prior, she felt an overwhelming sense of peace, regardless of her landlord’s cold reception at the time. She had unpacked her suitcases into the bureau that Bartrum had provided--the very same that she used to that day--and she pulled her packed sheets onto the full-sized bed that sat on the floorboards (Bartrum had failed, however, to provide a bed frame). She had flopped onto the mattress with a sigh of happiness, staring up at the knotted wooden ceiling in gratitude.

That flat, however dingy and however unglamorous to anyone on the outside looking in, was her own personal haven of freedom. She had spent so long searching for a place in London that she had been close to throwing in the towel when she happened upon Bartrum’s ad in the paper. Emancipating from her hometown had been one of the greater moments of her young life, and she still could recall the trembling excitement she felt cascading in her chest when she stood on the platform of the train station, preparing to leave the southeastern countryside for the very first time.

Her parents hadn’t seen her off--neither had her brothers. Instead, she had packed up her things, called a cab, and embarked out purely alone. It hadn’t been a sad sort of thing; in fact, it was quite completing for Hannah, in a way. She had always dreamed of getting out of her hometown--getting away from the things that held her there so firmly--and when she had finally mustered up the funds to leave, she did so without a second glance back.

In her pajamas, Hannah hit the overhead lights off and turned on her little colored lamp beside her bed. She crawled under the covers (the mattress was settled on a solid wooden bed frame these days, courtesy of another charity shop) and she hefted the book she was currently engrossed in off of her nightstand and opened to the last dogeared page that she had been reading late into the night the evening before. It was a sweeping sort of fantasy--one of distant lands, dragons, evil spirits, and courageous heroes--and it had been a marvelous companion to fall asleep with for the last week that she had borrowed it from the local library.

She read for a long stretch of time, allowing herself to fall into the world within the pages, cuddling low into her blue-checkered down comforter. Outside, the rain tapped unceasingly against the panes of the windows, its rhythmic tympany harmonizing with the drone of the radiator. A few of the ceiling panels groaned with the shifting weight of the old shingle roof. A breeze began to whistle softly after a few brief rolls of thunder called out somewhere far off into the blackness of the storm-riddled night.

The house seemed to breathe with the glaring silence of it all. The street below was gleaming in the streetlamp lights, puddles forming and streaming this way and that with the push and pull of the fat torrents of rain. There were few homes with lights still shining out from their windows--their soft illumination like watchful eyes peering into the mist. No cars traveled the roads, all of the commuters having turned down for the evening, letting the last hours of Monday slide onward into the rest of the week, preparing themselves for the sun to rise on another day of work in just a sleep’s time.

On the sidewalk of Abbott, a few homes down, a man walked beneath a streetlight, his long coat brushing the tops of his high boots. He had his hands wound firmly into his pockets, and his face was hidden from view, the collar of his coat pulled up high past his cheekbones.

He stopped after a moment, staring up at the glimmering multi-colored light from the window, a pair of hazel eyes shining out from the shadow of his hood. He studied it, frozen to the spot.

Hannah yawned, setting the book aside. Sleep was calling to her, and she was too tired to resist it any longer. She reached for the lampstring and tugged, shutting off the light.

The man watched it blink out.