260 words

GERTIE THE GHOST
by Sylvia Honig

My mother, Gertie, is a musician, who played the organ in the great theatres during the early silent era of movies. After my father died, she as a young widow got a job as live-in entertainer at a mountain resort. She continued to play the piano during after-dinner sing-ins for over twenty-five years.
Mine is a piano that doesn’t really work. It emits these strange moaning and squeaking sounds when I press the keys. My children pass the piano and inevitably strike the keys on the way to their bedrooms. Soft whispery sounds similar to sighs often emanate from it.
My mother is still living and in a nursing home nearby. We often bring her over to visit with us knowing she does not have long to live. In the past, she always headed straight for the rickety, shabby instrument and began to play. All the pieces were stored in her memory, and the family would get together, surround the deteriorating piano while she played and sang music from Broadway musicals.
With her music, she kept the children and grandchildren entertained for many years.
When Gertie began to fail, a final recording was made of her singing and playing the piano. All the children received a CD of Gertie playing her beloved piano.
The piano is now old, cranky, and grossly dysfunctional, but I hear the old piano making strange sounds in the middle of the night. Yes, soft jazz sounds saying goodbye to Grandma Gertie.