Staccato piano notes jarred me awake the next morning. It's not like I was asleep, though - not with the image of Sarah in her window pounding against the walls of my head.
Who the hell was playing the piano? The sound shook my eardrums and vibrated through me. I pressed the sides of my pillow to my ears, but I could still hear it. The sun barely peeked through the closed blinds, so I knew it couldn't be Darby. She was harder to wake up in the morning than me. Dad didn't even know where to place his hands to make notes, so I knew it couldn't be him, either.
A tremble of dread bolted me upright. I recognized the short, choppy notes of a song. The same Ramones song Mom used to play to wake Darby and me up every morning.
I pictured Mom hunched over the piano, dripping mud from her tatte
