Hans couldn’t be more stunned. Ten days. “But—”
“It’s my fault. I’ve been too easy about the debt and let you believe we’d carry it indefinitely. Sadly, with the new management, that won’t happen. I’m already getting pressure.” He sighed loudly. “I didn’t want to say it in front of Greta and your father. We don’t want a scene.”
Scene? Shit. He’d gladly dissolve into tears right there.
There was nothing he could say, so he turned and stumbled out of the office and then out the front door of the bank.
On the sidewalk in front, Greta had managed to get their father onto a bench near the bus stop.
Hans wanted to run to her and cry on her shoulder, but that wasn’t fucking fair. Besides, trying to explain in front of their father was just going to confuse him more, which in turn confused Hans. Their father might have been a bit air-headed, but not really out-of-it until lately. Taking a deep breath, Hans walked to the bench and sat beside Greta.
A muscle was jumping in Greta’s jaw and she stared at their father. Uh-oh. Greta’s voice grated. “What happened to the money you were going to have for the payment?”
His father frowned abstractedly. “Arachne invited me to lunch, but then I found I must be a gentleman and pay.”
“Who the hell is Arachne?” Greta’s temper was closer to the surface than Hans’s.
Hans murmured, “She teaches with Father.”
“And she got the money that was supposed to pay our bill? Oh God.” She covered her face with her hands.
Father said, “But I had to.”
Hans patted his back, but he had no words.
Greta stood behind Hans and gripped his shoulders. She knew. She knew as well as he did that the collateral on the loan was their house. And inside the house, was Hans’s piano. But what she didn’t know was that ten days from then, they’d be homeless.
Fifteen minutes later, they got off the bus a block from their house. When their mom was alive, it had been cute, with fresh paint and lots of flowers, partly because their mother loved those things and partly because she’d worked in a boutique to provide a separate income. They’d gotten by fine. Now, the neglect showed, despite Hans trying to keep the grass mowed and a few pansies going in the beds.
As they dragged up the walk, their father stopped at the mailbox. Hans and Greta went on into the house. Man, it sure wasn’t what it had been.
An old second—no make that third- or fourthhand—sofa sat in the living room, along with some half-decent chairs and the piano. Hans’s baby. His pride. It was a Steinway B model, smaller and less costly than their concert grands but still an important instrument. His mother had inherited it from an uncle who’d favored her and knew she played. When she got it, they’d had to clear half the living room to make room for it, but their mom had loved it so much, no one begrudged the fact that the only TV in the house was a small one in their father’s study.
After his mother died, the piano had kind of slipped into the space she’d left in his heart. It also became his only source of income. While he’d been caring for her, he could still have students come to the house for lessons. After she died, he stepped up his schedule. Still, it was tough to get students. He was shy and weird, and the kids knew it. They wanted to study with somebody who could look them in the eye and give them rewards when they did well.
He ran a hand over the piano and then followed Greta up to their two tiny bedrooms that they’d made from one regular-sized bedroom with a pile of reclaimed particle board. That way their father got the master and the third bedroom housed a few old comfortable chairs, the TV, and a lot of books. Oh God. How would they find a place for their father’s books if they lost the house?
The strong smell of herbs and dried flowers wafted from Greta’s room where every inch of space not occupied by the bed she pushed against the wall was taken up with her beakers and potions. All the energy he poured into music, Greta reserved for science, particularly chemistry. That’s why he’d been chosen to leave school and care for their mother. He’d begun teaching himself music on a child’s keyboard and graduated to a piano