The street was called Abbott, and the house was the forth on the right, painted porcelain white. The black window boxes were filled with a few sparse scarlet flowers, and the front yard had been recently manicured so that the lawn was shorn down with precision and the trees had been dutifully pruned.

The mailbox, bright blue, stood on a single post by the gate in the short brown fence that surrounded the home, and just a few steps beyond it, the gravel road of Abbott stretched north into the cross street of Gale and south into the intersection at Little Brook. On either side of the house were the neighboring homes with similar structures and similar neat landscaping, but each looking perhaps just a slightly bit different from the other--a red front door three homes down, a birdbath in the yard of the second to the left--but almost all the same.

Abbott was a quiet road, mostly lively during the morning and evening hours when the inhabitants would go to and fro about their various lives, and there were always a few familiar cars parked on the curbs on either side, symbolizing the existence of some stay-at-home mothers (or fathers) and a few tele-commuters. Some homes had bright plastic childrens' bicycles in their paved drives, and quite a few were littered about with personal gardens that sat in squat little boxes crafted from either thin sheets of rounded tin or blocks of hardy plywood.

In the summers, it wasn't unusual to see the occasional sprinkler system chirping away on the front lawns of the homes of Abbott, and in the winters when the frost and feeble snow would fall gently in the city, there would always be a snowman or two lining the sidewalk, their carrot noses perpetually being pecked away at by the common sparrows that lived in the swooped arches and rain gutters of the homes.

Abbott was a common neighborhood, with common people living within its two tidy rows of common homes. It was hardly the kind of place for anything unexpected to occur.

London in 1990 was a vast ecosystem of rising individualism and of technological feats. With large-scale demonstrations occurring more and more frequently to rally for fair wages, the support of various workers and civil rights movements coming more and more prevalent in the city, and the children of the seventies beginning to blossom upward and join the workforce and cognitive world as young adults, politics were a rather fine point of interest in everyone's conversations, even if it arose briefly only to be followed by vague comments on the ever-so-trustworthy gray weather.

The modernisation of London as it began to prepare for the turn of the century--new cars taking to the roads, new stores such as the German-branded Aldi springing to life here and there, etc--was apparent and alluring to every native, especially so to the aforementioned younger crowd that was beginning to take root and sprout into their own. Fashion and lifestyle began to trend towards that of the likes of grunge--gone were the days of spandex, impressive mustaches, and voluminous hair--the city surged with denim denizens and mismatched patterns; much to the dismay of many parents who watched helplessly as their children adopted the looks of American culture stars such as Kate Moss, Nirvana, and Winona Ryder.

The news was a blur of Princess Diana's latest and greatest action within the Royal Family, America and their work at space exploration with their feat of the Hubble, and military unrest in the outlying world of the Middle East. The daily newspapers always spoke in bold lettering, each of them screaming of political opinions, celebrity scandals, blue-collar uprising, and where to turn London's hungry eyes to next as it searched for progress and change at the turn of the decade.

As London grew, Abbott watched. The tube station of West Hampstead, which was only four streets down, became more and more populated with travelers to and fro from the city as more people moved to suburbs to create their retired home lives, to escape the noise of the booming city, to put down money on houses instead of cramped towering flats, and the likes of that sort. The homes of Abbott became a solace for families seeking refuge from the lights of London, even if it was only five tube stops and one rail transfer away from the outskirts of Bromley.

Hannah Ellis was just twenty-three when she first moved into the house that summer. Her landlord, a middle-aged man named Bartrum, had received a letter from the girl from Hastings with a clipping of the newspaper ad which he had been running for the top level of the abode since the beginning of spring. Hannah had sent him a formal letter--"something quite unexpected from a young person, these days," Bartrum had mused to his neighbor Philip whilst watering the flower boxes--and in it she had written about her fervent interest in coming to live there, including her telephone number in the bottom right corner below where she had signed her name in messy blue ink.

"I don't know if I want some nosy twenty-something living above me," Bartrum had continued on with Philip as he wound up the yellow garden hose and placed it carefully on its hook fixed to the right side of the house. "They can be so irresponsible--so impulsive--I hear about the riots they start in America! What if she brings home delinquents, or throws all sorts of lewd parties? No," he scratched his thinning hair and looked up at the top level of his home. "I don't know if I like the sound of it all, even if I need the income. I'd rather protect my home's dignity than let some sloppy youngin' move in and ruin the place."

"Well," Philip had said after a moment's pause, his briefcase still in his hand after he had exited his car since arriving home from work. "You certainly didn't seem to be pleased with any of the other applicants since January, and no one likes to move in the summer. So I guess you'll just have to wait till next year, eh?" As Philip had approached his front door, he spoke over his shoulder with a dismissive wave of his hand, "although I did hear something about the property tax rising again this June in our district; God save us. But that's not a daunting issue for you, right chum?"

Bartrum had called Hannah that next morning. They had a short conversation in which Bartrum had asked her many leering questions that he had hoped would scare her off, but Hannah had been eloquent and calm, and she hadn't even so much as hesitated when Bartrum had brought up the increased rent from what he had originally posted in his ad.

"It's considerably more," he had said, trying to make his voice sound unapologetic. "As the prices rise here in Abbott, I've got to prorate it accordingly, you understand."

"Yes, of course, sir," she replied. "It shouldn't be a problem."

"I don't know, Miss Ellis, didn't you say you'd be working as a cafe girl in London? A bar girl?"

"A barista, and a baker, sir."

Bartrum stifled the urge to roll his eyes. "Unless you can make an impressively sturdy shortbread, I know they don't pay those jobs very well."

"I assure you, I will be able to handle it."

"Well...aren't you even going to wait until I tell you what it'll be?"

"I feel quite confident, Mister Redding."

"Rent is due promptly on the first of every month; at eight o'clock in the morning and not a minute after. I do not accept late payment, and if it's not paid by the stroke of the clock, you will certainly lose the space."

"I prefer to pay a few days before it's due, if that's to your liking, sir. I can either have a clerk's check written for you, or if you'd prefer notes, I can have those ready also."

"Humph," Bartrum furrowed his bristly brow and squeezed the space between them with his thumb and forefinger. "And, I already mentioned the loud nearby neighbors and their four or five obnoxious children?"

"You did indeed, sir, although I think you said that they only had three children at first."

"It's definitely five, perhaps even six. And I did tell you about the constant patrol cars in the neighborhood as well? The ones with coppers that pound on the door at any sound of a ruckus, or a party, or at the sight of any delinquents?"

"I should think that I will feel very safe with them watching over the home. That is every bit a perk."

Bartrum had pinched the space between his eyebrows very sharply at this moment, knowing he'd exhausted every last excuse in his arsenal. "Um...yes. I suppose it is."

Hannah let a beat pass in silence before she made a noise that almost sounded like an imperceptible chuckle. "Are you offering me the position in your home, Mister Redding?"

"Harumph."

"When can I move in?"

--

Hannah had arrived on the first of June with two large suitcases, a shoulder bag, and an old brown and silver street bicycle. When she stepped lightly from the cab car that had brought her from the train station, Bartrum had spotted her from his seat in his kitchen where he had been anxiously awaiting her arrival, hoping earnestly she would be late so that he would be able to tell her his premeditated speech on how he didn't appreciate tardy tenants.

At ten o'clock in the morning--sharp--Hannah's suitcases were placed beside her on the sidewalk just at the end of the house. She handed the cabbie a crumpled five pound note after he had unloaded her flimsy bicycle, and he kindly tipped his baseball cap to her before driving away.

Bartrum came out to meet her, and once she had dragged her heavy bags down the drive and to his front door, she brushed off her jeans and extended a hand to him.

"Mister Redding," she had said with a smile. "A pleasure."

"Welcome to Abbott," he had said flatly, giving her hand a quick shake. The girl was totally unremarkable--she was dressed simply in denim and a white tee shirt with flat canvas sneakers--and she stood only a few pegs shorter than his squat stature of one hundred and seventy centimeters. She wasn't a slight girl at her height, that was for certain. Her hair was brown and ramrod-straight, and her eyes were green and framed by brightly colored glasses; also green. Her face was round--her nose was a little hooked--and when she smiled, he could see only her top teeth. She had a strong handshake, so much so that it surprised him.

Without another word, he pointed the girl towards the staircase on the backside of the house leading to the top floor where the flat was tucked away, and she took her bags up.

--

Life fell into a new rhythm. Bartrum watched as the month of June passed and waited for Hannah to begin causing problems--he studied the girl as she descended early in the mornings down the outside staircase on the back of the house and as she ascended in the late afternoons up it once more, her cafe apron slung over her shoulder with her crammed bookbag.

He knew it was only a matter of time before the other young people--her no-good, irresponsible, trouble-sniffing friends--would begin to show up on his property. But Hannah always came and went on her own. Bartrum waited expectantly for the late night rock music to filter down through the wooden ceiling into his sitting room, but Hannah had remained quiet as a mouse, the only sounds being a few thuds whenever she brought home a piece of second-hand furniture from the charity shops to decorate the barren upstairs space. Bartrum knew that it would be any day until the boyfriends came streaming in, smelling of cigarettes and driving black motorcycles and wearing thick-heeled muddy boots, but they never arrived. Hannah came and went, always within respectable hours of the day, and she was always on her own.

Their conversations in passing were quick, but admittedly not unpleasant. Hannah would always wave to Bartrum when she saw him in the yard or through the open window to his kitchen, and he would raise a stiff hand in reply, to which she would smile. They spoke of the weather, even though the days were the typical England gray more often than not, and Hannah would compliment Bartrum's garden, which teemed with herbs and small sweet tomatoes from the little wooden beds he had laid beside the driveway by the fence.

Hannah took to greeting the neighbors of Abbott in passing--especially the children, whom she loved to stop and speak with no matter if she was in a hurry--and Bartrum even saw her laughing casually from the driveway and across the fence with Philip and his wife Martha one afternoon.

"She's perfectly pleasant," Philip commented cooly to Bartrum during one of their momentary conversations as each of them returned home from work one day.

"Who?" Bartrum said gruffly, feigning innocence.

"Your new tenant."

"Hmmph." Bartrum closed his car door with a little more annoyed force than usual. "She's still in her trial period in the flat."

"And how long does that go for?"

"Until I say so."

Philip smiled patiently and crossed to the worn step leading to his front door, "I see how it is, Bartrum. Well, she is very pleasant; even for a young person."

He disappeared into his home, and Bartrum huffed once more with indignation, trying to ignore the fact that he too wouldn't deny in earnest that Hannah was indeed quite pleasant.

--

"You work a lot, don't you?" Bartrum had asked her in the third week as she came walking up the sidewalk in her work uniform, a smear of dried milk on her jeans from where a latte had inevitably spilt hours before. She had come up the drive to where he was washing his old green Cadillac, and she stepped carefully to avoid the streams of sudsy water that were collecting and rolling down his driveway to the street gutters.

"I like to work," Hannah said with a smile. Her glasses were reflecting a small beam of late afternoon sunlight shining onto the cold pavement. "I'm happy to have a job in the city."

"You work six days a week."

"I have to make a living, Mister Redding."

"Don't you have any friends or boys or loud concerts to attend to? Any rallies or civil unrest? Perhaps a flash mob?"

Hannah had grinned at him then, a smile that pinched her face up in a certain way, and it softened him ever so slightly. "I much prefer to keep quiet than to go romping around with hordes of boys, but I do appreciate your confidence in my capability."

Bartrum put his hands on his wide hips, his washrag still leaking in his fingers and onto his sensible shoes, "are you sure you're twenty-three?" Freida, Bartrum's haggard old house cat, scurried from a nearby bush as he turned the hose upon it to water, and she ran up to Hannah, butting her hip up against the girl's legs and meowing softly; almost endearingly. Hannah knelt to scratch between the mottled orange tabby's ears.

"If I've counted correctly, then yes."

Bartrum wrung out his rag, which promptly dripped onto his trouser leg, and he watched Freida as she hummed with a loud, satisfied purr. "You seem rather...strange."

Hannah laughed aloud then--a boisterous, crackling explosion of joy--and Bartrum dropped his hands from his hips. "I think it's alright to be called that, sometimes," she said with a curt wrinkle of her nose. Hannah crossed to the doorstep and placed down her backpack. She then approached the bucket of suds that Bartrum had been dipping his rag into, and she drew out a rag of her own, turning towards his Cadillac. "If we work together, it'll be quick business. What do you think?"

"I'm perfectly capable of washing my vehicle on my own, thank you very much!" Bartrum hadn't meant for his tone to come off as harsh as it had, but he had felt a quick vice of annoyance grip his stomach at her question. Girl thinks I'm unable to do something as simple as scrub when she doesn't even own a car of her own? The absolute gall she has to-

"I know you are, I've often seen you wash it all alone," Hannah said evenly, cutting Batrum's angered thoughts short. "I want to help."

"You'll scratch it," he grumbled. "It's a vintage."

"I've washed my father's '76 Porsche many times to earn some pocket change," Hannah wrung the rag well over the bucket, and she folded it into a triangle in her palm. "Never wash in circles, and never use the rag seams, just in case there's a speck of stone in the fibers."

Bartrum gaped at her, his own rag now starting to dribble fat drops down his wrist and into the cuffs of his rolled-up shirtsleeves. Hannah shrugged, and she motioned to the car. "Watch me for a moment. If I'm satisfactory, perhaps you'll enjoy my company."

"Hmmph."

Hannah and Bartrum washed the rest of the car in broken conversation; mostly Hannah asking the man questions about himself and he giving mercilessly short, spined answers. She didn't tire however; her resilience against his defiance was, in a way, rather admirable considering Bartrum's staunch rudeness.

"Have you always lived here?"

"Always."

"Since when is always?"

"Since I was twenty."

"Then where were you before twenty?" She tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked at him from across the hood of the Cadillac. He rolled his eyes imperviously.

"Boarding school in Leeds."

"Mm," she knelt to the hub caps and began to rub at the road muck that was lining the silver prongs. "A house at twenty. Did you attend university?"

"Graduated preemptively from Brown. Finance."

"Oh, yes! And now you're a banker at First Regent."

"Senior banker."

Hannah grinned, peeking over the hood again. "That is a given, Mister Redding."

"You're all questions today, aren't you?"

"Trying to make conversation, sir. It's a cafe girl's greatest strength."

"Your father owns a Porsche, then," Bartrum said gruffly, changing the subject. His statement of interest caught Hannah by surprise, and she nodded, a gleam of satisfaction in her eye.

"Yes sir; black-blue. It's his third child. Treats it better than all of us, save for the dogs."

"I never liked dogs," Bartrum said, and Hannah laughed again.

"Freida supports that theory." The girl stood and circled to the front of the car where she knelt at the headlamps, making short swipes with the rag to clean them off, stopping momentarily to scrub at the smashed carcass of a bug that had cemented itself in the center of the light. "Where did she come from?"

"Found her trespassing on my doorstep when she was a kit. Gave her a sliver of a leftover anchovy, and she never left the plot."

"Are you fond of cats, then?"

"I'm fond of Freida, I suppose." Freida, who had retired to the stoop beside Hannah's backpack, flicked her tail in the setting sunlight at the sound of her name. Bartrum looked at her for a long moment, and Hannah could've sworn she saw a note of endearment cross the man's wrinkled expression. "She's been constant."

"Mm, how nice to have someone like that." Hannah stood from the headlamp and dropped her rag into the bucket to soak up another round of soapy water. "I think Freida likely believes the same about you."

Bartrum's face clouded again, any sign of tenderness fleeing beyond the corners of his heavily downturned mouth. "Hmmph."

After half an hour or so, the car was sparkling--Hannah had even insisted on squeeging the windshield to perfection--and Bartrum dumped the sudsy bucket down the street where it ran in bubbling waves until it reached the gutter entrance to the sewers below. Hannah took up her backpack and waved goodnight to Bartrum, and he watched her as she headed towards the back staircase leading to her upstairs flat. Once she was up them and out of sight, Batrum saw Freida rise from the stoop and stretch, a huge yawn breaking open her triangular face before she stood still and stared at him with those knowing yellow eyes, her tail flicking to and fro intensely.

Bartrum scowled at her, "what? I'm being perfectly amicable with the girl! She invaded my privacy and picked up a rag!"

The cat stared on into his eyes, her nose twitching as she sniffed the approaching dusk. "She's nosy. She asks too many questions. I just want to keep to myself and be left alone--I have taken on a tenant, not another prying neighbor--and besides, she should know better than to cross business with personal matters. I have no interest in tolerating that sort of behavior!"

Freida sneezed, and she raised a soft orange paw, licking it twice before setting it back on the stair, a slow blink in his direction following. "The car does look good, I'll agree," the man continued, waving a dismissive hand towards his beloved Caddy, "but no better than what I can do all on my own!" The cat looked skyward, watching a bird in flight many miles up from where she sat. Bartrum bristled, and he threw the two washrags at the bottom of the steps with a noise of indignation. "My house, my rules! No questioning!"

Freida didn't even flinch when the rags hit the stone just below her and sent water drops flying. Instead, she flicked her tail once more before sitting, her moonish eyes once again locked on his face. Bartrum retrieved the rags and headed for the door, stomping past the cat without another glance, "you'd think I'd gone mad--talking to a cat--what a sight I must be!"

When he disappeared into the house and closed the door behind him, Freida watched the street lights blink on one by one, her tail wrapping itself tightly around her seated rump.

--

The next morning, on Hannah's one day off, she came down the steps to greet Bartrum, who was putting his leather briefcase into the front seat of the caddy, the early morning mist hanging low over the glimmering green of its shining exterior. She was wearing a roughly-knitted sweater that Bartrum thought looked rather too large on her, and she was carrying a sizable yellow textbook underneath her arm. She waved over the low fence at Melody, Philip's wife, and Melody beamed at her up from the purple and pink hydrangeas she was snipping at the stems and placing delicately into a thin crystal vase.

"Still coming over next weekend, Hannah?" Melody reached over the fence and handed one of the bushy flowers out to her, "here, take one."

"That's so kind, thank you!" Hannah said with a good natured smile, taking the flower. "Indeed. Looking forward to it." When Melody turned away and headed for their front door, Bartrum leaned against the hood of his Cadillac and glared at her with a quizzical eye.

"Visiting the neighbors, are you?"

"I'm sitting their children on my next off day this coming Saturday. I met her and Philip and their family in the cafe a few days ago, and we all got to talking about how nice it would be to have me come over and let them escape for a date night once in a while. Did you know that Philip is the CFO of a law firm in Midtown?"

"Of course I knew that!" Bartrum growled, looking at his hands. He hadn't known. In fact, in all the years he had lived beside Philip and Melody, he had never even bothered to ask.

"They're lovely people," Hannah continued, tossing her textbook into her old bike's basket and taking it from where it was leaning neatly against the side of the house. "It's good to be making some friends."

"Where are you going with a book that size?"

"I'm riding to the library to study."

"You're in school with a schedule like yours?"

"No, sir. I'm aiming to apply for some medical schooling as soon as I get my feet beneath me; I've been thinking about a career in the NHS for some time now."

Bartrum looked her up and down, "that's quite a large goal for a barista."

Hannah smiled patiently at him and she rolled her rattling bike out onto the drive beside his car, "I'm an EMT, Mister Redding. Got certified a year ago."

Batrum gawked for an instant before catching himself. "Why are you working a service job with an education like that?"

"Working emergencies is a service too, just a different kind. The cafe job was the only one I could get here in the city for the time being, and I needed to get out of Hastings."

"Why?"

She kicked her heel over her bike and gave him a look that seemed to go right through him, "You're all questions today, Mister Redding." Bartrum was surprised at the smile that came to his face faster than he could suppress it with a scowl--his own words turned against him wasn't a jab that he had experienced in quite some time. "Have a wonderful day at work; perhaps I'll see you this evening."

Hannah smiled at his struggle to conceal the upturning of his lips, and she pushed off from the drive, her bike creaking with the exertion as the wheels crackled a turn on the gravel to the left and headed off towards Gale.

--

When July came rolling around, Hannah arrived home on the first Sunday with a blue frosted cookie for Bartrum wrapped carefully in linen from the cafe she worked at.

"It's shortbread," she beamed, brushing her hands on those same old denim jeans as she passed him the parcel. "We made it during morning bake; I think I remember you mentioning in passing that you quite enjoyed the experience of a good, sturdy shortbread."

From that day on, Bartrum decidedly stopped looking for faults in the young girl. She helped him wash his car a few more times throughout the month, and after the third time or so, Bartrum thanked her by offering her a can of RustBGone for the wheels of her bike. When August arrived, Hannah brought home a pastry box of assorted treats for Bartrum, and he invited the girl down for afternoon tea in his drawing room, where they had a surprisingly lovely long hour of intelligent conversation. Hannah learned that Bartrum came originally from Dover, and that his family had built the house on Abbott after the first War when the neighborhood had been initially reclaimed by the banks, leveled down, and restored into purchasable lots.

Bartrum's drawing room was filled with old pictures, and Hannah listened intently as Bartrum pointed out his father and mother, from whom he had inherited the home at their early passing when he was twenty. He pointed out his brother, Jarvis, who had moved house back to Dover a decade prior, and his childhood cat, Eglentine, who sat poised above the rickety baby grand piano occupying one wall of the room.

"Do you play?" Hannah asked him, motioning to it.

"I used to...when company would come calling," Bartrum said as he set down his teacup. "I haven't played in a millennia. I imagine the keys are terribly out of tune." Hannah crossed to the piano and carefully lifted the key cover, a cloud of dust rising from it as she pushed it back and stroked the ancient ivory with her fingertips. "It was mother's," Bartrum said from the table, watching her as she carefully studied the instrument. "Older than dirt. Wouldn't be surprised if it soon returns to it as well."

Hannah plunked one of the keys, and the sound it yielded was sweet as it rang out, tearing through the drawing room air. Hannah played another couple of notes, these ones minor, and melancholy. Bartrum fell silent, letting his hands clasp together limply in his lap. The piano rose and fell with Hannah's simple pressing of keys, and the sounds of the sleepy instrument swirled around him, a tangible nostalgia formed suddenly at the table in the memories that flooded into his mind.

Parties were always such fun when Bartrum threw back his coat tails and sat at the bench, much to the delight of his guests. After a stiff pour of brandy, he became no less talented and grand than Mozart himself, and everyone would gather round him to sing old shanties, lilting show tunes, and jaunting choruses from army songs. A few of his friends would often bring their instruments--Cora had a fiddle, and Thomas knew a fair bit of flute--it was as if the Royal Orchestra were pouring out from the drawing room windows on those sacred summer evenings. Neighbors bearing their young children would come knocking to hear the music that filtered down the streets and to bring sweets to share. Inevitably, drinks were poured so freely that everyone around would blur into a comfortable, wonderful Picasso of light and sound. Most entrancing of all, Violet would at long last come and sit beside him on the bench, singing out in a tone that-

"It's beautiful," Hannah said quietly, ripping Bartrum from the spell so abruptly that he lurched forward in his seat, knocking the table and rattling the teacups in their dishes. He looked around the room in shock for an instant as the past melted away, his eyes coming to rest on Hannah where she still stood with her back to him at the piano bench. Her shoulders sagged ever so slightly, "it sounds like a story."

"What do you mean?" Bartrum asked her after he had collected himself and righted the jilted teacups, hoping that she hadn't seen him drifting away momentarily. Hannah tilted her chin to look over her shoulder at him, a sad smile playing on her face.

"It's almost as if it's speaking to us. As if it has something secret to share." A few more nostalgic notes, and Hannah let her hand fall from the keys, coming to rest on her leg. "I wish I could play."

"You could learn," Bartrum said in the silence. Hannah pulled the key cover back over the ivory, and they disappeared from sight.

"Lessons are costly. Perhaps someday."

"I have a few beginner books somewhere around here..." Bartrum muttered, almost as if he were trying to speak just under his breath. Hannah stared at him, awe crossing her expression. "I suppose you could have them, if I can ever find the time to go searching for them, and if the moths haven't completely eaten them into swiss cheese. It's slim that they'll appear--they've been in some box in the basement for ages--it would probably take me the better portion of a week to drag them out--but in the very unlikely case that they are still here and still somewhat legible...and if you wanted to come down during reasonable hours and play for only a few minutes at a time, minding the noise level for the neighbors and such-"

"I would love that!" Hannah burst out, her grin breaking her wide face practically in two. "Thank you, Mister Redding!"

Bartrum spent half the night diligently scouring the basement for the lost piano books until they were uncovered from an old stack of vinyl records, perfectly intact and not a moth bite in sight. Before leaving for work early the next morning, he crossed the dew-soaked lawn and left the four practice books on the bottom step leading to Hannah's flat, carefully wrapped in a plastic shopping bag to keep out any unwanted moisture.

That evening, Hannah knocked on his door, still in her work uniform, her arms full with Freida, some leftover cafe butter crumpets, and one of the books. She practiced for a whole hour, and Bartrum sat behind her at the tea table, offering some advice from afar.

The next evening passed the same way, but this time, Bartrum had found a book on learning to read music in his collection, and he sat beside her on the bench, explaining the dots and dashes that magically formed themselves into legible stanzas and where they meant her fingers must land each time on the ivory keys. After a week, Hannah could play two childrens' songs. After another, she could play the Royal March. At three weeks, Bartrum tried his hand, and Hannah sat in awe with Freida in her lap as he worked his way gracefully through a classical piece that he recalled from memory, sometimes even getting so lost in the melody that he closed his eyes and simply felt the keys dance beneath his fingers.

That is how July passed: pastries, and piano lessons.

August crossed their path much in the same gentle way—Hannah got promoted to manager at the cafe, Bartrum got the piano professionally tuned, Freida caught a few very impressive rats under the porch steps. Hannah had moved from children's tunes to church hymns; clumsily plunking out How Great Thou Art as Bartrum fussed in the kitchen trying to remember how to make those delectable American marshmallow moon pies he had first experienced in the army. Hannah said they were delightful, even if he had managed to burn them almost the entire way through, turning them into something that much more resembled lumps of coal than charming chocolate cakes. They laughed about it anyway.

As September dawned, Bartrum and Hannah picked up lopsided aluminum rakes from the small shed around the back of the house and began the early autumn yard work together. They had a list of home improvements that they were looking to accomplish before the winter came on, and the first thing was to get the yard in shape and to cover the garden before frost began to kill any of Bartrum's tenderly cared-for plants. When that task was done, they ordered a large pepperoni and basil pizza for a late dinner after the work was finished--thin crust--and sat behind the house in two rickety lawn chairs that Bartrum had drugged out of the recesses of the shed alongside the rakes. Freida patrolled the steps of Hannah's entryway, batting at the leggy spiders as they tormented horse flies in their silvery webs.

The next week, they began to seal the siding of the house with rubberized chinking--Hannah did the work up on the highest portion of the ladder and Bartrum worked along the low foundation--and once that was finished, they went to work on filling the cracks in the driveway with mortar. They pruned the rose bushes to their stumps. They whitewashed the picket fence. They trimmed the poplars in the backyard. Down the list they went.

The evenings were always filled with music, good food (Hannah soon learned that Bartrum knew quite a bit about cooking—despite the moon pie fiasco—and she was rather skilled in the kitchen as well), and conversation about art, literature, travel, and history. To Bartrum's surprise, Hannah was much more intelligent than he had ever thought her from the outside, and to Hannah's delight, the old man began to change before her eyes as time went on.

The more time they spent together, the more he smiled; occasionally even laughed. The more questions Hannah asked, the easier it was to get him to talk about the things that interested him. They both were greatly pleased to discover that, against all odds that had been put in place between them when they had first met (largely due to Bartrum's attitude, which he will surely admit to), they weren't so different at all.

And so, when the welcoming winds of October came whistling through Abbott, an unlikely friendship took root between the two. It had been so long since the house on Abbott had seen any sort of warmth or joy held within its walls that neighbors began to whisper about whether or not the old grump who dwelled there was experiencing some sort of mental decline.

But then there was Hannah; in the yard raking leaves, playing with the neighborhood children, bringing cookies to all the nearby homes on her evenings off--she was a player in the unsuspecting revue of the suburb that had seemed to bring a newness wherever she went. Bartrum, who had never been much for small talk or greetings, began to wave at those same suspecting neighbors as they drove their sensible cars off to work or as they returned home from errands.

When Philip and Melody invited Hannah and Bartrum over for dinner in the first week of November, they were delighted to see Bartrum and Hannah playing a lively game of Knights and Dragons with their small children in the sitting room as the table was set. Philip gave Melody an impish smile from his place in the armchair where he sat smoking his pipe as she set the tureen of beef stew down on the table, and he motioned to Bartrum, who was donning a set of cardboard wings and sitting up on his knees with a dragonish roar so convincing you'd think he'd been practicing it all his life.

"Mel," Philip mused. "We've got to have the neighbors over more often, I think."

"Yes, I agree completely," Melody nodded, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling wide at her children who were shrieking in delight. "I never thought I'd see the day when I'd say that they're both such wonderful company."