Joe wiped his gardening shoes on the doormat, rainbowed with painted handprints growing larger as they overwhelmed the edges. He smiled at the earliest ones, tiny, smudged fingers worn faint. She’d gone too fast from a shrieking toddler to an impossible teenager to only a weekly visitor. But she always came. Every Saturday for dinner. He’d wanted everything perfect, yet time had escaped him. The doormat was dirtier than he remembered, and now there was no time to clean it before it was hers. He should check everything else. It had to be perfect.

Opening the door, Joe greeted the chipped, upright piano inside, finding baby’s first bite marks by the keys. Remembered uncertain fingers finding melodies, then graceful hands birthing magic. Remembered his wife decades before blessing the air with those same melodies. His daughter would have her own baby soon, and she’d want the piano for new memories. He imagined Hope’s face when he gave it to her, tears in starlight eyes he remembered as too big in a squashed face fresh to the world.

He sat at the bench and depressed the yellowing ivories with his ignorant hands, feet tapping the pedals beneath. One thumped, stuck. He frowned at the crooked metal. He’d taken such good care of it since she left. The piano had never failed, never stuttered. But the time. Hope was coming. He couldn’t fix it now.

Forehead creased, he went for her doll collection, rubbing phantom pain from his chest. It used to be bad, but then it stopped, and Hope would be so happy to hear the good news when she came. She always came. Every Saturday for dinner. And his first grandchild was due soon. She’d want her collection.

Joe opened the glass cabinet, counted lifeless figures in dusty clothes. Two missing. His fist clenched on the knob. Those dolls had waited a lifetime for Hope to reclaim them. He hadn’t touched them, didn’t recall her taking them. Now two missing, and Hope was coming. He was supposed to go to the hospital, and he’d wanted everything perfect when he gave her their memories. To remember. To share. Now they were ruined. Tears tracked his cheeks. She’d be so disappointed.

A car pulled up outside. He squinted at the SUV through the mini blinds. Hope must have traded up her white sedan for the baby. He shuffled toward the approaching voices, shame snagging his ankles. The door opened. A stout man stepped in with a blonde woman.

“—on the market for a steal, including all the furnishings,” she was saying. “People believe it’s haunted just because some doors won’t stay closed and they think they hear the piano sometimes. Ridiculous, right?”

Just more of Hope’s rude friends. They always ignored him. Joe wiped mysterious wet from his face and went out to his garden. Hope was coming. She always came. Every Saturday for dinner. She’d want their memories for the baby, before he had to leave. Everything had to be perfect.