Mrs. Yamamoto's fatal accident is an unintended death caused by the ordinary placement of Lucy Fly's cello, but its consequences reach beyond the spare bedroom: it ends a cherished musical routine and leaves Lucy unable to resume playing or contact the women who shared it.

Background

For several years, Lucy played cello with Mrs. Yamamoto, Mrs. Katoh, and Mrs. Ide almost every Sunday. The sessions were the high point of her week; she began anticipating them by Wednesday or Thursday and did not imagine they would end. After each practice, she carried her cello to the spare bedroom and left it beside the wardrobe.

The Accident

One Sunday, just as Lucy was about to leave her apartment, Mrs. Katoh telephoned to cancel that day's practice. Her voice was unusually deep and flat, without her customary giggle, and she told Lucy there would be no further sessions. Mrs. Yamamoto had gone upstairs that morning to dust the spare bedroom. Unaware that the cello was there, she was dusting the wardrobe when she tripped backward over it, fell, and struck her head on the floor. Her husband found her no longer breathing.

The instrument had been left in an unusual position. After the previous practice, Lucy had placed it behind the bed, a little out of the way, rather than beside the wardrobe. She could not explain why she had done so. Neither had Lucy intended to create a danger: she had not known Mrs. Yamamoto would enter the room to dust, and the cello became a fatal obstacle without her awareness.

Aftermath and Significance

Lucy was so upset by Mrs. Yamamoto's death that she no longer wanted to play cello or see Mrs. Ide and Mrs. Katoh. She did not contact them and never asked the Yamamotos to return the instrument from the spare bedroom. The accident thus breaks both a weekly practice and Lucy's connection to the cello; although she wanted to preserve aspects of those days, the music itself became inseparable from the loss. A routine she had treated as a dependable pleasure ends abruptly through a small, unexplained change in where she set down her instrument.