The Red Piano

Mrs. Hall didn’t ask many questions when I offered to sub for the music class. “You’re warm-blooded, you know chords, and you’ve got that calm stare kids don’t mess with,” she said. “That’s more than I get most Mondays.”

She didn’t ask why I hadn’t stepped foot in the school for twelve years. Or why I picked now to come back. She wouldn’t have believed the answer anyway.

It was still there, the red piano. Tucked in the corner of the auditorium. I’d imagined it would be gone, taken away or broken, or maybe I’d only imagined it existed in the first place.

Which, I suppose, I had.

But here it stood. As solid as a lie you’ve told too often to let go of.

His name was Benjamin.

He had a lopsided smile, like he wasn’t sure happiness suited him. He cracked his knuckles before playing and swore middle C was the most honest note in music. He had strong opinions about breakfast cereal and let children bang tambourines louder than the rules allowed. But there was something about him that only I knew.

He never existed.

I made him up in the fall of my second-year teaching. After a long day of detentions, spilled milk, and a classroom mouse incident, I sat at the piano in the empty auditorium and invented someone who would’ve handled it all better than I had. Someone who made everything a song.

At first, it was harmless.

Benjamin played Beatles songs on Fridays. He made up songs about pizza. He even helped kids with their spelling words. In the version I liked best, he’d transferred here from Portland after something vague and noble. A sick parent or a failed revolution.

In the staff lounge, I sometimes told stories about “our music teacher.” Nobody questioned it. They assumed he was from another building or that they’d met him once at a training and forgotten.

Benjamin became a fixture. A presence. A counterweight to everything that felt brittle in my own life.

He taught kids to love music. I watched them believe him. Of course, I was the one doing the teaching subtly, clumsily. I’d play old songs on my lunch break and pretend it was his idea. The students adored him. They’d write notes addressed to "Mr. B" and ask when he'd be back.

“He’s shy,” I’d say.

“He doesn’t like crowds.”

“He’s writing a musical in the mountains.”

Every lie was a little gift I wrapped for myself.

And when my apartment felt too quiet or my reflection looked like someone I didn’t want to be, I’d imagine him asking me questions.

What if joy isn’t found, but made?

What if your life could be sung, even off-key?

What if you’re not broken, just… missing a melody?

I let him live in the margins. Until one day, I stopped showing up.

Twelve years later, I came back.

I told Mrs. Hall I was between jobs. Told myself I was being generous, filling in for a district that still couldn’t keep music teachers for more than a year. But the truth was smaller: I missed him. I missed who I was when I believed he could be real.

The auditorium hadn’t changed. Still smelled like sweat and lemon floor polish. The chairs still squeaked when no one sat in them.

The piano sat quietly. Still red. Still chipped at the left leg where I once kicked it in frustration. Not from Benjamin. From me. My failure to live up to him.

I rolled it forward and touched the keys. D major, G, back to D. Simple. Gentle. Forgiving.

The kids filed in with recorders and elbows. No one asked who I was. They just looked for someone who wouldn’t humiliate them.

I gave them Benjamin's rules. No mocking. No shyness-shaming. Sing as loud or as soft as you need but mean it.

We sang "Yellow Submarine." We sang "Blackbird." We made up a song about cafeteria tater tots. The kids laughed. They clapped. I heard him in the rhythm. Felt him beside me, in the silences between verses.

In week three, a girl named Nina asked, “What happened to Mr. Benjamin?”

I froze.

“He used to be here, right?” she added. “My cousin had him.”

I almost said no. I almost told her there was no such person. But I looked at her face at how sure she was. How much she wanted it to be true.

“He moved away,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “My cousin said he played ‘Let It Be’ when their dog died.”

“He did,” I said.

Maybe I told the first lie. But after a while, the world did the rest.

On the last Friday of term, we held a concert.

The “Celebration of Sound.” A name he would've picked.

We sang everything. Old songs. New ones. Songs with hand motions and offbeat harmonies. Parents filled the folding chairs. Some stood in the back, recording on shaky phones.

A boy in the second row played a keyboard solo with his eyes closed. A trio of girls did a mashup of Taylor Swift and Beethoven. I watched, heart full of something I couldn’t name.

After the show, a father approached me.

“You knew Benjamin?” he asked.

I nodded, slow.

“He taught my niece. She talked about him for years. Said he taught her how to sing from her stomach and not be afraid.”

I smiled. “That sounds like him.”

“He was one of the good ones.”

“Yes,” I said. “He really was.”

After everyone left, I stayed. Sat at the red piano and let my fingers drift.

Middle C. Clean. Steady.

It had always been me. Every note. Every lesson. Every moment of light in that classroom. But I couldn’t have done it without him.

He gave me permission.

To be softer. Stranger. More open-hearted.

To teach like someone might remember it forever.

To play, even when it hurt.

I took a folded note from my pocket; one I’d written years ago.

It said:

You were never real.

But you made me believe I could be.

And maybe that’s enough.

I tucked it inside the bench.

Left the piano where it was.

And walked out into the music of night.