The only place I could think of where I would have ready access to a piano was my grandmother’s house: a grand four-story brick house on the Near North Side that everyone referred to as ‘the Big House’. It stood as a monument to both the Adomnan family and the Adomnan family business: Metron, a development company dedicated to maintaining the balance of the universe by building up the city of Chicago faster than it could tear itself down. Under normal circumstances, I avoided it as assiduously as I avoided a wasps’ nest and for much the same reasons. The last time I’d been there, I’d come away stung by the news that Dearie had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. The wound was still fresh.
I stood on the sidewalk and screwed my courage to the sticking place. Visiting the Big House meant
