I Paid My Father $250 in Rent Every Month for Five Years. After His Funeral, His Best Friend Gave Me a Key and a Box.

Dad had kept the marks I made as a teenager.

I lifted the instrument from its stand and tried a familiar chord.

It rang out bright and clean, so different from the dull sound I remembered.

My fingers were stiff.

I hadn’t played regularly in months.

I tried a second chord, then an old progression from one of my earliest songs.