Dividing the House
A free B2-level English story for language learners, readable online in English, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
Adult siblings Corbin and Rhiannon disagree over their late mother's piano until a hidden promise comes to light.
Corbin and Rhiannon had spent the whole weekend sorting through their mother's house, room by room, deciding what to keep, sell, or give away. It was slower and harder than either of them had expected.
The piano was the only thing they hadn't agreed on by Sunday afternoon. Rhiannon wanted to keep it. Corbin, who was paying to store everything else in a rented unit, thought it made more sense to sell it and split the money.
"It's an expensive piece of furniture neither of us plays," Corbin said, trying to keep his voice reasonable. "Storage isn't cheap, and neither of us has room for a piano in an apartment."
However, Rhiannon didn't answer right away. She ran her hand along the closed lid, the way their mother used to before she sat down to play in the evenings.
"You think I want the money that badly," she said finally. "That's not what this is about."
"Then what is it about?" Corbin asked, more gently than before.
Rhiannon told him something he hadn't known: two years earlier, their mother had asked her to promise the piano wouldn't be sold. If they sold it now, she said, it would feel like breaking a promise that still mattered.
Corbin sat down slowly on the piano bench. If he had known about the promise from the start, he would never have suggested selling it at all.
"You should have told me that yesterday," he said, though there was no real anger in it, only something closer to regret.
"I didn't want it to sound like I was using her against you," Rhiannon admitted. "I know how that would have looked."
They ended up renting a slightly larger storage unit than planned, one with enough space for a piano neither of them could play. By then, both of them finally understood why it mattered.
