Serge’s mother had given him a train calendar every Christmas right up until she died.  It had been nearly thirty years since they’d ridden the rails for the one and only time, taking passage on the Maple Leaf from Albany to Toronto after Serge’s father died.  Serge had shown a brief interest in locomotives afterward.  He asked for a train set, declared himself a future engineer.  But he soon moved on to other things; video games, piano, guitars, forged checks, pills, and fighting.  Outside of subways, he hadn’t ridden a train again in all those years.
   The last calendar she’d given him featured the narrow gauge rails of Colorado; black-and-white images with tunnels and ledges and sharp peaks in the background, the iron mules hauling rocks out of the mountains, from Silverton and Leadville and the gold town, Cripple Creek.
   “Your house smells like cinammon rolls and beer.”  The little girl looked up from the piano.  She’d been running through a G major scale like a flanged wheel with no groove.
   “Do you really want to play the piano?” Serge asked.
   The girl shook her head.  “My mom says I’ll appreciate it when I get older.”
   Serge had his chair tilted back on two legs.  He was staring up at the calendar, smoking a cigarette, thinking about a guy named Ted who had pissed him off earlier in the day.
   “That’s hard to say.”
   “Do you get drunk every night?” the girl asked.
   She had her mother’s mouth, and in her frown he recognized a sad plea for something.  The only difference was that her mother always smiled.
   “No,” he said.  “I eat cinammon rolls.”
   “My daddy used to get drunk every night.”
   Serge set his chair down and checked his watch.  He couldn’t remember if the girl was eleven or twelve.
   “This isn’t working out, is it?” he asked.
   The girl shook her head.  “I like to sing.  The piano is boring.”
   “So, why did you come over for the lesson?”
   She leaned forward, pulled a long strand of hair away from her face and studied it.  She checked her hair every minute, or two, as if it might have changed color or gathered a coat of ash.
   “My mom says it’s not up to me to decide what I want to do right now.”
   Serge felt an ache behind his eyes.  He had no idea how to teach the girl piano.  Of course, he’d hardly even tried to come up with a plan.
   “I’m sorry,” he told the girl.  “Forget the scale.  There are some other things we can do.  I’ve just got something on my mind right now.  I had to deal with somebody today who couldn’t understand simple reasoning.  Do you know what I mean?”
   “I don’t like your calendar,” she said.
   He looked back up at the April photo, a load of rocks emerging from a dark tunnel.  “Why’s that?”
   “It’s depressing,” she said.  “And it’s the only thing on your wall.”
   “What’s your name again?”
   The girl sighed, shook her head.  “I bet you do get drunk every night.”
   Then she pushed her hair behind her ears.  “My name is Gabriella.”
   “What do you know about depressing?” he asked.
   “That calendar,” she said.  “That’s depressing.”
   He remembered his father, long ago, skating backward across an empty ice rink, holding out his hockey stick so that Serge could cling to the Sherwood lumber; a light flickered and hummed in the ceiling, the diesel fumes of the Zamboni felt like a dirty bandage across his mouth.  January gray outside.  A cold pickup truck waiting in the parking lot.  Watery hot chocolate.  Stale potato chips in the vending machine.  Buffalo, New York.  Those were a few depressing things.
   “You’re right,” he said.  “Let’s forget the piano.  Do you drink coffee?”
   She looked up expectantly.  “I like the hazelnut hot chocolate at Starbucks.”
   Serge stood up, grabbed his keys and phone from an end table.  “All right, Gabriella.  Let’s go get some hot chocolate.  I’ll talk to your mother.  I’ll get us out of this, okay?”