It’s no wonder that the sculptor Auguste Clesinger bronzed Chopin’s hands after the composer died in 1849.

I wonder what my hands would look like if they were bronzed.

When I was ten years old, my piano teacher, Miss Gladys, turned my hands over and over in hers, looked at my mother, and proclaimed that I had the hands of a gifted pianist.

“Not all hands are made for the piano,” Miss Gladys said to my mother, who proudly hovered over us and wondered why she had never noticed this before. “See how slender her fingers are? See how long? That is perfect for playing the piano. I have students with short, stubby fingers and they have a difficult time because they can’t arch them properly. To play the piano well, you have to know how to stroke the keys.”

After piano recitals, Miss Gladys introduced me to adults in the gallery foyer and showed them my hands.

“Like a gifted pianist,” she said.

That was forty-five years ago. Miss Gladys is long gone now. When I look at my hands today, I wonder what she would think of them. I wonder if they would make her cry. I wonder other things, too. Like how my hands would look if they were bronzed. Or how it would feel if they no longer existed at all.

II

That day – the day my hands started to disappear – began with pain. I’d had a dull ache in my fingers for months, but would never describe it as pain until that morning.

The pain and the sunlight descended on me at the same time as soon as I opened my eyes. I stretched my fingers – tried to, at least – to relieve some of the tension in my joints, but that made it worse. Shots of fire darted through my hands and I wailed.

Maybe I’ve been playing too much, I thought. I should take it easy.

The pain drifted away by mid-morning and instead of calling the doctor, I replaced the receiver without dialing and waited for my four o’clock student, Sabrina Melos, to arrive. Sabrina was twelve years old and struggling through her own version of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 – “Portrait of a White Butterfly,” by Wallace De Pue.

After three of her typical errors, she stopped playing and sighed.

“I should try something else,” she said.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “Keep going.”

She played for a while longer, then stopped midway and rested her hands on her lap.

“Do you think I’m any good?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Could you play this song when you were a kid?”

“This composition didn’t exist when I was a kid.”

She giggled. “Sorry.”

I grinned and nodded toward the piano. “Try again.”

Sabrina rested her fingers on the keys. Took them off again. “What’s wrong with your hands? You keep rubbing them.”

I hadn’t noticed, but when I looked down, she was right.

“They’ve been a little sore,” I said.

“You should ask my dad about it.” Her father was a doctor. “I bet he can tell you what’s wrong.”

“He’s a gynecologist. I don’t think it works that way.” I tapped on the music book. “Back to your exercises.”

When Sabrina’s father picked her up thirty minutes later, she nudged his belly and pointed to my hands.

“Something’s wrong with her hands,” she said. “And she won’t go to the doctor.”

I chuckled and waved it off with burning fingers. “I told you not to bother your father about it, Sabrina. It’s nothing. Probably just carpal tunnel syndrome.”

Sabrina’s father took long strides toward me and gently took my hands in his. He turned my hands over, just as Miss Gladys had done four decades earlier. I grimaced.

“Do they hurt in the morning?” he asked.

I nodded.

He brushed his fingertips across my knuckles. I grimaced again.

“I can recommend you to Dr. Hughes,” he said. “You should see him.”

He did, and I did.

III

When I close my eyes at the end of the day, after taking my Methotrexate, Planquenil and Azulfidine, I remember my visit to Dr. Hughes. The X-ray screen glows over his shoulder, and he tells me that I have rheumatoid arthritis, and I ask if I will still be able to play the piano, because this was before my fingers curled and stacked. Before my knuckles swelled.

He answers without answering.

The condition accelerated quickly. Maybe because I had acknowledged it; I’m not sure. The pain soon became unbearable and the medication made me dizzy and nauseous. When I told Dr. Hughes about it, he gave me more medicine.

“You should develop a pain management plan,” he said. “When the medication doesn’t work, try to relax and distract yourself from the pain. Avoid anxiety.”

When he said “relax” and “avoid anxiety,” I immediately made a mental note to spend more time at the piano, because that was how I relaxed. Then I remembered.

That afternoon, I called the parents of my students and told them I was retiring.

“Time to relax,” I told Olivia Martin’s mother. “I think I may travel. Spend some time seeing the world. I’ve been teaching piano for so long now, it’s time for a change.”

Like all the other parents, Mrs. Martin agreed that I needed a break. She congratulated me.

“I’m jealous,” she said, and sighed. “I have years and years before I can retire.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll get there.”

Sabrina was the last person I called. I talked to her parents first, then to her.

“Who will teach me ‘Butterfly’?” she asked. “I’ll never learn it now.”

“You will,” I said.

“My parents said you’re gonna travel. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Do your hands still hurt?”

“A little.”

When I finished calling the parents, I decided to clean the house – a good distraction, I told myself. I wiped down all the countertops and swept the kitchen. With the broom in my hand, I stood before my overstuffed bookcase and looked at all the stray books I’d stacked on the floor in front of it. I’d always planned to get a smaller bookcase for them, but I never did. Now I didn’t need one.

I leaned the broom against the bookcase, gathered armloads of books, and stacked them on the piano bench. When I ran out of room on the bench, I stacked some underneath, near the foot pedals. When I ran out of room there, I stacked the rest on top of the piano itself.

IV

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I don’t see the doctor. Instead, I hear Piano Sonata No. 3. Four movements: Allegro maestroso, Scherzo, Largo, finale. In life, it takes thirty minutes to perform, but I hear the sonata in seconds. Before Dr. Hughes and the X-rays, I heard the sonata the way I imagined Chopin would play it. Now I hear me. Even the errors.

At night, I sit on the couch, cover my hands with a blanket, and watch television. I tell myself that I’m going to travel. Go somewhere nice. Somewhere exotic, maybe. But I stay here, mostly.

Without my students, there isn’t much happening at the house, which is why I was surprised to hear someone knocking on my door around seven o’clock one night, in the middle of a summer rerun. I walked to the door and peered through the crackled glass. It had been months since I had seen Sabrina, but I could tell it was her by the outline of her ribbon, the way she stood, and the silhouette of her father standing next to her.

When I opened the door, she immediately hugged me and asked how I was doing.
“Just fine,” I said, smiling. “What brings you here?”

“I have a surprise for you,” she said. “Hand-delivered.”

I examined both of them. “I don’t see any gifts. Unless it’s that sedan in the driveway.”

Sabrina giggled. “Not exactly.”

I stepped aside and they walked in, as if it was four o’clock and time for a lesson.

“Have you gone anywhere exciting on your retirement?” Sabrina asked. Her father followed on her heels.

“Not quite, but there are things in the works.”

“How are your hands?” her father asked.

I put them behind my back and shrugged. “Not great, but sometimes it’s not too bad.”

He nodded silently.

“So,” I said, to Sabrina. “Where’s this big surprise?”

“You have to follow me to the piano room first,” she said, and before I could stop her, she sprinted to the room and flicked the light switch. The lights had been off for so long that my eyes had to adjust. As soon as they came on, Sabrina gasped.

The three of us stood there for a long time, staring at the buried piano and its massive stacks of hardcovers and paperbacks, without saying a word. Finally Sabrina walked to the piano bench, gathered an armful of books, and stacked them in the corner. She went back, took another armful, put them in the corner. Her father joined in. They passed each other, back and forth, carrying and stacking. I watched from the doorway as my piano was unearthed. When the deed was done, her father joined me in the doorway and Sabrina stood in front of the piano bench and bowed.

“Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “I would like to present ‘A Portrait of a White Butterfly,’ by Wallace de Pue.”

She bowed again, sat on the bench, and played.