At the end of “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, the piano becomes a very special and symbolic gift.

The piano sits unused at Suyuan’s house for many years. On Jing Mei’s thirtieth birthday, her mother offers the piano to her as a gift. From the mother’s point of view, the gift can be viewed as a peace offering from mother to daughter.  

At first, Jing-Mei perceives the piano to be a prize in the mother-daughter stand-off, and it remains at her parents’ apartment. After her mother’s death, she has the piano tuned, and during one of her visits she decides to play. When she opens the bench, she finds the piece she attempted to perform at the ill-fated recital that led to the irreconcilable differences between the mother and daughter. Jing-Mei sat down at the piano and realized she was able to play “Pleading Child” with relative ease. She then attempted to play the song on the other page of music. At that point, she comprehends the symbolism of how the two melodies were related.

It had a lighter melody but with the same flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. "Pleading Child" was shorter but slower; "Perfectly Contented" was longer but faster. And after I had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.