Exasperated Children

Katrina Hutchins’ “Exasperated Children” was a runner-up in the 2025 Great American Fiction Contest. Are you a writer with a great short story? You can enter our annual short story contest online!

Every Thursday evening, Mary packed two sandwiches in Ziplock bags and drove her daughter, Sam, to piano lessons. Mary ate her fried bologna sandwich during Sam’s lesson and listened to her daughter admit to not having practiced over the previous week but nevertheless playing the assigned song perfectly after two or three passes.

When Sam’s thirty minutes ran out, she promised she would try to remember her homework for next time, grabbed the remaining fried egg sandwich, and wandered over to fiddle with the teacher’s guitars. Then Mary’s lesson began.

The piano did not warm itself to Mary like it did to her daughter. At forty-one, her hands knew a QWERTY keyboard intimately from decades of secretarial work. When she stretched for a D-sharp, her middle finger twitched for a vowel, thinking her pointer had just hit a consonant, and the piano protested. It hated her hands for speaking a foreign language, hated that she disrespected its grandeur with her mechanical rhythms. But Mary tried. She did her homework every week.

After six months of lessons, Mary wondered, like every novice craftsman flailing in the plateau that follows beginner growth, if the problem was not her hands but her tools. “I’d like to buy a piano,” she told her husband, Bryan, one night while they lay in bed watching a late-night talk show host needle an aging actor.

“For what?” He scratched his forearm.

“Piano lessons,” Mary said. “I think Sam might actually practice if she had a real piano. The keyboard doesn’t have the same pressure. It doesn’t feel right.”

“I can’t believe we pay for lessons. She acts like she doesn’t even like it.”

“But she probably would, if we had a real piano.”

“Are they expensive?”

“A used one isn’t too bad. Besides, she’ll be fourteen next year. The church will let her play evening service when she’s fourteen. She should be ready for that.”

Bryan nodded. His mother had been his childhood church’s pianist before she passed, just like Mary’s sister still was for her church in Kentucky. The three ways to earn esteem in a Baptist church were to tithe a lot of money, become a preacher, or play piano during service. Bryan felt his mother had earned a type of American lordship, and it was his duty to sustain it through his daughter. “Find one for three hundred dollars, and you can have it.”

The county classified ads featured used pianos all the time, but Mary had only guessed when she said they weren’t too expensive because she had never allowed herself to notice them before. Thumbing through the paper at Wendy’s on her lunch break, she saw the cheapest listing was $600. She would have to call her mother.

“What’s wrong?” Mary’s mother, Evelyn, always answered the phone this way.

“Well, what are you up to?” Mary twirled a fry in her hand.

“Just got in from pulling weeds around the carrots.”

“Do they look good this year?”

“Won’t know until I pull them up,” Evelyn said.

“Well …” Mary took a breath, and Evelyn used it to cut her off.

“How’s Sammy?”

“That’s what I’m calling about, actually. I was wondering if you would be able to help me out with buying her something.”

“How much does she need?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

Evelyn repeated the words, scandalized. “For what?”

Mary hesitated, trying to think of a way to avoid the truth without lying. “A piano.”

Her mother was silent for a few moments. “You’re not still in lessons, are you?”

Mary closed her eyes. “Just a quick one after Sam’s.”

“Mary.”

“Mom.”

“You have no business taking piano lessons like a schoolgirl. You’re tone-deaf, Mary. How many times have I told you that?”

“You and Daddy put Hannah through lessons for ten years.”

“Your sister is good at it. She was always good at it.”

Mary knew her mother’s face was hardening into contempt more each minute. Her eyes stung. “I might have been good. I never even got a chance.”

Evelyn huffed and started rifling through her pocketbook. “Well, don’t go being all dramatic. It’s not worth it. I’ll send you the check.”

Mary’s shoulders relaxed. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You might consider spending it on something that little girl actually likes, though.”

* * *

The only space for a piano was in Sam’s bedroom. Mary told Bryan that even if Sam felt cramped, the piano’s jutting presence would remind their daughter to practice. Sam said she didn’t mind much and appreciated having a new place to display stuffed animals and framed pictures of her friends. The only inconvenience was the hour every night after dinner she had to stay out so Mary could play.

The piano’s keys didn’t submit to Mary’s hands any more readily than the keyboard’s, but it protested less in response to her errors. Its ire sounded rounder and richer. Mary’s struggle felt, for a while, more constructive.

She approached her lessons with new joy, laughing each time she smashed an errant note. “I am so proud of the way you stick with this,” her piano teacher said. “A good attitude is the foundation of music education.”

Mary batted the air. “That’s what I think, too. We also just got a piano. I thought it would help Sam practice more.”

The teacher’s eyes flitted to Sam, who was picking out a scale on a Taylor guitar by ear. “Well, it’s a great time for renewed interest because the annual recital will be in a month. Of course, Sam will play her Camel Caravan piece. But is that something you would also like to participate in?”

Mary’s eyes grew wide. “The recital? Would that be allowed?”

“Of course! If that’s what you want.” The teacher glanced back at Sam again.

“I would love nothing more.” Mary beamed.

* * *

The auditorium gurgled with the sounds of strangers and acquaintances feeling friendly. Parents whose children went to the same school greeted each other with warm surprise. Grandmothers offered candy to younger siblings. Mary watched them all, knowing each one would witness either the fulfillment of her dream or her ultimate humiliation. “Stop shaking your foot,” she told Sam. “You’re making me crazy.”

“I’m gonna go find Bev.” Sam got up and walked to the lobby, leaving Mary and Bryan alone in their row.

“I’m nervous,” Mary whispered to him.

Bryan raised an eyebrow. “Why? Sam will do fine. She always does.”

“I mean for when it’s my turn.”

He waved his hand. “Oh, don’t worry about that, everyone knows what you’re doing is different. There’s no pressure.” He smiled and patted her knee.

The lights dimmed, and an usher asked the audience to be seated. Sam returned just as the piano teacher walked on stage to generous applause. “Thank you all so much for coming tonight. This is my favorite part of what I do. My students are all so wonderfully passionate about music, as you will see tonight, taking time from sports and school to mi—,” she swallowed.“— uh, and work to mingle with The Muse. Music is, I believe, why we are human. I’m so excited for you to see the beautiful humanity of all these wonderful musicians tonight.”

The audience clapped, and Mary’s chest swelled, wondering if anyone knew yet that she was included in that group. Maybe one or two people had seen her holding sheet music and were curious. Maybe they looked forward to hearing her play.

One by one children went on stage and played Disney movie scores or Celine Dion songs, some gingerly, some with adult-like confidence. One little boy started to cry as soon as his mother escorted him into the spotlight with his recorder and refused to play. The crowd murmured endearments.

When it was Sam’s turn, she glided to the piano, smiling and waving. She played faster and more energetically than her skill level demanded. The composition was simple, but she leaned in and furrowed her eyebrows for the lines she played gently, then arched away, as if blown back by the power of her loud measures.

Mary watched her daughter play and frowned at her showy, changing posture. She told herself to remember to sit up straight during her own performance. A proper pianist has a back like a board. Mary’s mother said this many times in her childhood.

Sam banged on a chord, sucking Mary back into the present. For a split second, she saw that Sam was a version of herself on stage, one that was not only younger and more beautiful but also had been fully supported by her parents into the center of an adoring crowd, where she belonged. Mary winced. Sam finished and bowed, stiff and serious.

Bryan twitched to leap out of his seat with applause before stopping himself. “She’s so good at this,” he said. Mary nodded. But Sam’s turn was over. Mary’s time had come.

Mary stood up, the concert printout of her composition in hand. The stage was brighter and hotter than it looked from the audience. It grew and stretched, and waved with every step, yet each footfall seemed to land on marble. The stage gave nothing and made no accommodations.

She sat down on the bench, her hands shaking. The distance wasn’t quite right, so she pulled the seat forward, then, feeling cramped, scooted it back again. “Bear with me,” she mumbled. A few people in the audience chuckled. The sound warmed her hands, encouraging blood back into them.

Mary took a deep breath and played the first notes. The keys were soft and loose from years of loving abuse. The willingness with which they gave in surprised her. She had new confidence and pressed harder. She hit a bad key.

She stopped and pulled her hands up. The silence, though it could not have been more than ten seconds, felt hours long. “Let’s try that again,” she said nervously. The audience laughed louder this time, and a few clapped lightly, a show of encouragement. She grinned and returned to the beginning of the piece.

Her mother’s visage intruded on Mary’s concentration, glowering over the phone, admonishing Mary for “wasted” effort. Don’t think. Mary hit a C-chord perfectly. She thought of her sister’s hands flying over Fellowship Baptist Church’s piano, looking smug and unconcerned for those who had no such inborn gifts. Don’t think. Mary hit a B-flat squarely without hesitation.

She pushed the keys from her elbows and with her back. She watched her fingers move only in the periphery. She stared into middle space, refusing to focus on anything but the sound of her progress through the song.

Mary wished the piece was finished each time she completed a measure without any mistakes, and finally, it was. She picked up her sheet music and brushed stray hairs from her damp forehead. Addressing the pregnant silence, she said, “Okay, this time, I’m done.” She stood up and bowed to the loudest applause of the recital.

The piano teacher returned to the stage, thanked everyone for attending, and invited them to enjoy refreshments in the lobby. The auditorium lights came on, and everyone began collecting their coats and bags.

Mary turned to ask Bryan if he was ready to leave when a woman tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” the woman said. “I just have to say I am so impressed by you. It takes a lot of courage to pick up music like that. When you’re not in school.”

Mary stammered. “Oh gosh, I don’t even know, I mean, thank you.” She flushed with pleasure. “I didn’t do well at all.”

“No, no,” the woman clasped her hands. “I wouldn’t even know how to put my hands on the piano. You were excellent.”

Just then another student’s dad came over and asked Mary if she had a background in music.

“Heaven’s no,” Mary said. “It kind of runs in my family, but this is just, I’m just. Well, you saw me up there, I’m a mess. I thought I might not be able to finish that first time I messed up.”

“Oh, I bet that pause feels way worse up there than it sounds down here,” the dad said.

* * *

Sam watched her mother recount her moment-by-moment feelings from the performance and knew it would be a while. Mary had a flair for the dramatic. Sam wandered off to find David, a freshman in high school who had also played in the recital.

“Hey, nice job today,” she said when she found him eating a doughnut in the lobby.

“Thanks.” He swallowed. “You did great. You were the best one.”

Sam laughed and flipped her hair behind her shoulders. “I love your guitar. The blue body is great. I’d love to play guitar.”

David put his doughnut down and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, why don’t you?”

Sam glanced back to her mom, who gestured wildly to a small crowd of six. The other adults smiled at Mary like she was an exotic mouse in a zoo enclosure. “You know how it goes.”

David followed her eyes. “So, your mom takes lessons with you. Is that kind of, like, weird?”

She shrugged. “My grandma told me something once. She said, ‘Some people, it’s just all about them.’”

David shifted his weight. “Well, maybe one day you can pick up guitar.” He smiled, adding, “And then I’ll teach you.”

“Maybe one day.” Sam nodded.