If Walls Could Talk Read Online Free Page A

to the curb, air brakes wheezing. Three smiling men the size of Wisconsin were squeezed into the cab. Nico and his nephews.
    “Matt Addax asked me to move a couple of things out of the garage and then to close up,” I told the police officer. “Is that a problem?”
    “Nah, seems okay. That your dog?”
    I turned around to see a medium-sized, long-haired brown dog with a red bandanna around its neck sniffing at the garbage. I shook my head.
    “Off leash, no collar.” The police officer shook his head. “There’s an infraction right there.”
    I studied him. He seemed as concerned about a dog without tags as he did about Kenneth’s grave injuries.
    “Look, you might want to call a cleanup outfit; you got a real mess in there. Somethin’ like this happens out on the street, we could call the fire department to hose things down. But seein’ as how it’s on private property, you’re responsible for doin’ it yourself.” He scratched his head, consulted his notepad, and nodded with finality. “Anyways, we’ll take another look around, and then you can lock up. Cal-OSHA usually sends out an accident investigator to file a report in construction accidents such as this, but since it’s a private homeowner deal, I’m not sure if they’ll get involved. Depends on permits. We’ll call you if we need anything else.”
    With that, the cop hustled back into the house.
    Nico jumped down from the cab of the truck, a huge smile splitting his pleasant, smooth face. He gave me a bear hug and lifted me clear off the ground.
    “Mel! You look gorgeous. How come you not remarried yet?”
    “I learned my lesson the first time, remember?”
    This exchange had become our ritual when we saw each other after a long separation, and despite Nico’s propensity for dousing himself with cheap aftershave I felt a surge of gratitude for the safe, familiar feel of his muscled arms.
    I gave him and his nephews the short version of what had happened. After clucking their sympathy, they tromped up the stone stairs, tape measures in hand, to assess whether the piano would make it out the front door. If not, it would have to be maneuvered through the expansive living room window. Many of these old houses still have anchored hooks under the roofline that were used to winch large pieces of furniture up the three or four floors that make up the typical ritzy townhome.
    The sight of a piano being hoisted two stories above the sidewalk always made me think of hapless cartoon characters getting squashed flat by falling pianos before reinflating like blow-up dolls.
    If only real humans recovered so easily.
    I lingered on the sidewalk, not yet willing to force myself back into Matt’s house of horrors. The views from the peak of Pacific Heights were unparalleled, and today the Tuscan red Golden Gate Bridge and the emerald green Marin headlands beyond were crystal clear, as were the vistas of Alcatraz, Angel Island, Sausalito, and Tiburon. Sailboats crowded the smooth, blue-green bay waters, vying with a handful of China-based container ships lumbering to and from the Port of Oakland.
    Somewhere nearby a dog barked, a motor revved, neighbors chatted.
    I felt removed from it all, altered by recent events. My mind cast back to the morning my mother died, when I couldn’t believe that the world refused to stop, even for a moment, to acknowledge its loss. I remembered watching people rush about in their everyday routines; I had despised them for their normality, for not recognizing that such an essential part of the world had just slipped away.
    Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and I felt that strange, otherworldly sensation of being hugged that came over me whenever I thought of my mother.
    “Is everything all right, dear?”
    I looked up to see that the neighbors had descended their front steps and come over to stand by me on the sidewalk. Preceded by a subtle fog of expensive perfume, the two women looked to be in their early sixties, blond, well