But then he played a simple Chopin nocturne. Despite the dust and the sour tuning, the instrument had a resonance that vibrated through the floorboards and into his chest. It didn't sound like a machine; it sounded like a memory. "I'll take it," Leo said.

The following week, a tuner named Elias arrived. He spent four hours behind the panels with a wrench and a vacuum, sucking out a hundred years of debris: a rusted bobby pin, a 1944 wheat penny, and a dried rose petal.

"My mother taught lessons on it for forty years," Martha said, her voice thin. "I can't play a note, and I’m downsizing. It just needs to be heard again."

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