Piano Lessons
RUNNER-UP! Best Essay Prize
ELLEN MICHAELSON is a physician in Portland, Oregon, and an MFA graduate from Pacific University. Her work has appeared in Portland Monthly, Women in Solitude (SUNY Press), and Literature in Medicine. From the Love of Strangers, her novel, has been a finalist/semifinalist for the Brighthorse Prize and the William Faulkner Society Writing Competition.
“CALL MRS. ROTH and explain why you’re not coming today,” my mother announced, her arm outstretched toward me with the receiver of the black rotary telephone.
My first piano teacher, Mrs. Roth, had dark, fussy hair and stylish glasses she constantly pushed up her small, straight nose, which I was sure had been surgically perfected. She sat to my right. She pointed one of her long fingers over my shoulder at the lines of music in front of me while I played. That matronly digit waved in the air on
