They played for moments more, and when they played one final note trading smiles with each other, Greta succumbed and nudged the door open. The three musicians looked up in surprise.
Noa and Mother folded into each other and wept like charcoal silhouettes against a bleak world, before Noa left for the place where the sea meets the sky.
She pummels ground with heel and wall with head and breathes tilting mouth pants and, forehead on floor, slobs saliva down cheeks and coughs wet hurt noises.
I was six or seven, and I stood a little ways from my father, who was grasping the handle of a small navy suitcase in one hand and, with the other, knocking on our bathroom door. His face was stoic, unmoved by the reality of being cast out, exiled from us.