Its name was Alfred.

Everyone thought it was a ridiculous name for a piano—especially one that was as expensive as this one. Each part of it felt so delicately crafted and riddled with gold, from the web of strings stretched out across its belly to the wooden ridges, metal pins and strips of bright red felt by the ends.

But Mr Wilson and Mrs Wilson were desperate for Selene Wilson, their nine-year-old daughter, to be good at something.

She had given up on ballet classes within two lessons. She had taken a year of tennis lessons before suddenly deciding she was terrified of balls and rackets and sunlight. She had even given up on reading—insisting that books were evil because they made her sleepy.

The piano was their final attempt at any sort of hobby.

So, when Selene slid her finger across the piano's dark lid and breathed out, "His name is Alfred."

Well. That was simply that.

~.~

The first few years were torture for Alfred.

Selene would come home after school, armed with crayons. And instead of pressing her fingers against the notes and listening to the scales unravel around her, she tried to colour in every single key. Even though Alfred lived nowhere near the kitchen—in fact, he was hunkered down in the grey and stale basement of the house—Selene always found a way to smear butter and chocolate and watermelon seeds all over him.

One day, after what Alfred overheard to be 'Halloween', Selene had staggered down the stairs with pink sugar all over her teeth. And then she had thrown up all over his keys.

Alfred didn't mind, though.

Because, eventually, when she did play?

Magic.

It was the curiosity in her fingers—the excitement and wonder as she finally let the sound curl around her. For Alfred, who saw nothing but sad wooden floors and bare concrete walls, it was dappled sunlight. It was twinkling stars. It was a dawn chorus.

But there was something else too.

She was lonely.

He heard it in her every note, felt it on her fingertips. A strange sort of longing. A bleak sort of hope.

She laid her loneliness bare for him with every chord and trill.

And he listened to it all.

~.~

One day, when she was days away from turning thirteen, she flatly padded her way down to Alfred. Placed her hands on the lid. Paused.

"I changed schools today," she whispered.

The basement fell silent for her. Alfred felt her hands trembling against him.

"I sat by myself at lunch time."

Alfred felt something warm fall onto him—a splash of water. Her first teardrop.

"In the toilet stall."

Another drop. And another.

"Alone."

And when she finally opened the lid and let her fingers crawl along the keys, the whole basement heard that loneliness—felt it like a chill sweeping across the floors.

~.~

Only weeks later, her fingers changed.

There was light in her songs—jauntiness and bubbles. She was happy.

Alfred couldn't understand it at first. He only could feel her fingers racing and tumbling ahead of her. Her melodies were a waltz with no rhythm; her fingers were slipping but not caring.

It only made sense later, when she pressed her face against his keys and sighed, "Alfred, I met a boy. And I think I like him."

~.~

And so it continued.

When she failed her first exam, Alfred knew. He heard it when she bashed her fingers into the keys. He saw it in her hot tears as she tore the report in her hands.

When she and Mystery Boy had their first kiss, Alfred knew. Not only did he see Mystery Boy cup Selene's face into his hands in the basement itself, but when Selene rattled her fingers against the keys, there was a different sort of sound swarming around them. A nervous shiver and sugary smile sneaking between each song.

He knew all about her prom. When the night was all over and she swept into the basement in a glittering dress, she had placed a rose on his lid and told him about all the dancing and laughter and terrible food.

He knew about her first break-up. She hadn't cried—she hadn't even uttered a word about it. But she tore into his keys so fiercely—so desperately—that even the spiders gathering in the basement could hear her pushing down the hurt.

He knew about her final exams. She played so absently, so indifferently, that Alfred just knew she wasn't really listening to the music. She was listening to mathematic equations that were swirling in her head.

And, of course, he knew about her college acceptance. In a very prestigious college across the country.

"I'll be studying music," she told him. "Are you surprised?"

Alfred was not, in fact, surprised.

"I wish I could take you. Does that sound stupid to you?"

It did not, in fact, sound stupid to him at all.

~.~

That is when the real absences began.

They were long and relentless. Months and months of deafening silence—dark and thick, wrapping Alfred like a cloak. The dust settled comfortably against his lid. The spiders stirred in their cobwebs.

Then, Selene would throw the door open and race down the stairs, exclaiming, "Alfred!"

And the sunlight would pour back into the room, rich and bright. As if it had been there all along.

~.~

Sometimes, she brought people with her from the college. They would bring their own instruments, while Selene swept her fingers across Alfred to accompany them.

Alfred liked most of them. He particularly liked the cello player—he liked that her brows creased when she played and that she would smile warmly at her bow before every piece. He also liked the one who played the flute, because she always gave Alfred a gentle little touch when Selene closed his lid.

Alfred did not like Jerry, who wore matching engagement rings with Selene. Jerry, who also played the piano. Jerry, who pressed down too hard on the keys one day and snarled, "Babe, you need a new piano when we get our own place."

~.~

She never did say goodbye. That was the worst part.

All Alfred knew was that, one day, Mr Wilson drifted down the basement stairs.

"We're selling the house, old friend," he said.

He paused, then. His mouth parted slightly, as if he had just made a mistake.

"We're selling the house, Alfred," he corrected, with the faintest of smiles. "We're selling the house."

~.~

This time, the darkness was different.

It was lonely.

The footsteps upstairs had disappeared. The light had stopped filtering through the crack in the little door. Even the spiders had died, their cobwebs twisting into dust.

And finally, Alfred understood those little fingers that had first prattled on his keys. It was consuming and hollow at the same time; it was desperate and cold.

It was lonely.

It was agony.

~.~

Until, one day, Mr Jones and Mrs Jones moved in.

"Oh! They never mentioned that the house came with a piano!"

They opened the basement door, light pouring in behind them. But before they could take a single step towards Alfred, a little shadow snuck out from behind them and darted down the stairs.

A little girl. Chocolate on her fingers. Pink sugar in her teeth.

"Piano!" she screamed out. "Piano!"

Alfred heard a chuckle from her parents. But the little girl had her big eyes fixed on him as she swiped the dust from his lid.

"What's your name?" she asked him.

Alfred, he tried to tell her. My name is Alfred.

The little girl cocked her head to the side. Then, a bright grin stretched across her pink little face.

"I know! I'll name you Mr Piano."

And, though he was a piano, Alfred felt himself smile.

Close enough.