The guitar appeared when they moved their daughter's wardrobe. For twenty years it had stood between the wall and a cardboard box of cables. Senad wiped the dust away with his sleeve, and Mirsada immediately joked that the neighbors did not yet know what danger awaited them. He laughed briefly and returned the guitar to its case. Their daughter had moved out three days earlier. They planned to turn her room into a workspace, though neither actually knew what they would do there.
The following evening Mirsada heard a quiet sound from the room. Senad was trying to tune the strings and stopped whenever he heard her footsteps. She remembered him playing that way early in their marriage, always a little more quietly than he could. Back then she teased him because she liked watching him blush. She had never considered that the joke had gradually become an obstacle. She entered and asked whether he wanted her to close the door from outside or stay and listen.
He said she could stay but that he still sounded bad. She replied that she had not bought a ticket. Both laughed, this time together. He played a song he once knew, losing chords midway through the chorus. Mirsada tried singing and forgot the words too. After a few minutes they abandoned accuracy and began inventing. For the first time the empty room sounded less like somewhere a person had left and more like a place where something could still happen.
Later he admitted putting away the guitar partly because he felt ashamed of wanting to play without any particular talent. Everything in their life had to produce a result. Mirsada said she had wanted to write short stories for years but always first ironed things nobody had requested be ironed. They agreed on two evenings a week when neither needed to justify how they spent time. Sometimes he played while she wrote; sometimes they sent each other into another room because concentration had its limits.
He did not arrange a concert for their anniversary. He cooked dinner and afterward asked whether he could hear one of her stories. She read a short scene about two people unsure what to do with an empty apartment. He recognized them and did not ask whether she would publish it. He picked up the guitar and found a simple melody. Mirsada rested her feet on his chair. Their daughter messaged to ask how they were. They replied later, after finishing what belonged, for that moment, only to them.