For the first time all afternoon, he seemed to understand that being her son was not going to answer the question.
Mom tried a different direction.
“We thought Margaret still owned it.”
Grandma replied immediately.
“No, you thought I wouldn’t find out.”
That landed harder than shouting would have.
Rachel set her drink on the patio table.
“I didn’t know about any documents.”
I looked at her.
“You knew whose cello it was.”
“I knew Grandma let Lucy use it.”
“She gave it to her.”
“I didn’t know that part.”
“You laughed when I said it belonged to Lucy.”
Rachel’s face tightened.
“She’s eleven, Emily. I thought Mom and Dad could make that call.”
Lucy flinched beside me.
Grandma noticed.
So did Rachel.
For once, Rachel did not keep talking.
Andrew put the seller document back into his folder.
Then he gave my father the first piece of news that actually changed the situation.
The collector had been contacted.
Dad stared at him.
“You contacted my buyer?”
Grandma corrected him.
“Lucy’s cello’s buyer.”
Dad ignored her.
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth,” Andrew said.
He had provided the identifying information for the cello and explained that ownership was disputed because Grandma had already documented the gift to Lucy before the sale.
The collector had compared the information with the instrument he bought.
It matched.
He had not sold it again.
Lucy’s hand jerked in mine.
“You know where it is?” she whispered.
Andrew finally looked at her.
“Yes.”
It was the first hopeful word Lucy had heard about the cello since she walked into that empty music room.
She did not smile.
Not yet.
She was too cautious for that now.
“Can I get it back?” she asked.
Andrew paused before answering.
“That is what we’re trying to do.”
Dad exhaled through his nose.
“And what does the collector want?”
Andrew looked back at him.
“His $87,000.”
Mom laughed once, but there was nothing amused in it.
“We spent it.”
Everyone knew where.
The bright blue water behind her made the sentence almost obscene.
Dad pointed toward the house.
“You think we can just produce eighty-seven thousand dollars because Margaret decided to make some paperwork for a kid?”
Grandma’s eyes sharpened.
“I made the paperwork before you sold anything.”
Dad stopped.
She continued.
“And no, I do not think money appears because you need it.”
She glanced toward the pool.
“You apparently believed that once already.”
Rachel stepped forward.
“Okay, but my children had nothing to do with this.”
Neither Grandma nor I answered immediately.
Lucy did.
“Neither did I.”
Rachel looked at her niece.
Lucy’s voice had been quiet.
It was still quiet.
That was why everyone heard it.
Rachel sat down in one of the patio chairs.
Mom pressed both palms against the edge of the grill station.
Dad looked at Andrew.
“So what are you threatening?”
“I’m not threatening you.”
“You show up with a lawyer at my house and demand $87,000?”
Andrew closed the folder halfway.
“I’m explaining the choice in front of you.”
Grandma stepped in before Dad could answer.
“I want the cello returned to Lucy.”
Dad gave a bitter laugh.
“And if we can’t?”
Grandma looked at him for a long moment.
“Then you can explain to her why keeping your new pool mattered more than correcting what you did.”
Dad glanced toward Lucy.
She lowered her eyes.
That hurt him more than anything Grandma had said.
I could tell because his anger suddenly had nowhere clean to go.
For six weeks, my parents had treated the situation like a finished transaction.
Cello sold.
Money received.
Pool built.
Problem over.
Now the order had reversed.
The pool was finished.
The transaction wasn’t.
Grandma asked Andrew to put the papers away.
Mom looked surprised.
“That’s it?”
“For today.”
“You humiliate us in front of everybody and then walk out?”
Grandma looked around the backyard.
“I did not invite everybody.”
Mom’s face reddened.
“This was supposed to be a family celebration.”
Grandma looked toward Lucy.
“So was giving my great-granddaughter something I loved.”
Nobody had a good answer to that.
Grandma walked over to Lucy and held out her hand.
“Come with me for a minute.”
Lucy looked at me.
I nodded.
They walked through the back door together.
I followed a few steps behind and stopped when I realized where Grandma was taking her.
The music room.
The empty stand was still there.
Mom had apparently decided moving the stand would make things look worse, which meant she had left behind the one object that made the missing cello impossible to ignore.
Grandma touched its wooden edge.
Lucy stood beside her.
“I should have made sure you had the papers too,” Grandma said.
Lucy shook her head quickly.
“You didn’t do anything.”
The words sounded painfully familiar.
They were the same words I had said to Lucy when she asked whether losing the cello was somehow her fault.
Grandma smiled at her.
“Then we agree neither of us did.”
Lucy finally smiled back.
A little.
She asked whether the collector had played the cello.
Grandma said she didn’t know.
Lucy asked whether it had been damaged.
Grandma said Andrew had been told it was safe.
Then Lucy asked the question that had apparently been bothering her more than the money.
“Did he take the picture out of the case?”
Grandma looked confused.
