Part 6
The coordinator wrote a new line on a clean sheet and turned it so Nora could read it. Her name stood beside the composer and title, with no paragraph underneath.
That was the version sent to the printer.
At home, Ben put a pot on the stove and made supper without the radio. Nora carried two plates to the table. She set his down, noticed a chip in the rim, and turned it away from his place.
“I made it sound like you sold Mom.”
Ben kept stirring. “You know what I sold.”
“I know.”
He didn’t answer for her or tell her she hadn’t meant it. Nora rested her fingers on the back of her chair.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
Ben set the spoon down.
“I wanted you to let them use that paragraph because I’m scared about the funding. I can count twelve weeks. I don’t know what happens after them.”
Nora watched steam gather on the window above the sink.
“I thought that if people saw what you’d been using, somebody might give enough to keep it going,” he said.
“Would they?”
“I don’t know. We might just end up with strangers knowing our business.”
“I still want to keep it.”
“Then we keep it.”
Two evenings later, Ben came to the school before aftercare ended. Nora had asked him to listen, something she hadn’t done since Mara died.
He chose a chair at the back and put his cap on his lap. Nora waited until he had settled, then opened the score.
At the passage Mara had taught from the couch, his hands closed around the cap. Nora could see him above the rack when she glanced up. He remained in the chair.
She reached the newer fingering, put the wrong finger down, and stopped. Her father shifted his feet beneath him, but he didn’t get up.
Nora found the beginning of the measure and tried again.
The independent auditions followed the next week. Ms. Hensley managed the children waiting outside the auditorium; the district arts coordinator and a middle-school choir director sat inside with the scoring sheets.
Audrey was selected for a sonata solo. Mateo’s percussion group earned the opening place.
Nora completed the nocturne. Once she lost her place for a beat, and a pedal change clouded the harmony before she cleared it. She reached the final chord and took her hands away while the judges finished their notes.
Her result came after music class. Ms. Hensley handed her an envelope rather than announcing it to the room.
“The evaluators included comments,” she said. “They’ve offered you a featured place near the end. You may turn it down.”
“I want it.”
The teacher took out a rehearsal sheet.
“Tell me about the bench. Should we set it beforehand?”
“Leave it for me.”
Ms. Hensley made a small mark beside her name.
At dress rehearsal, Mateo’s group lost its pulse during the opening. Ms. Hensley inhaled through her nose. Nora, waiting near the curtain, heard the start of the familiar sigh.
The teacher closed her mouth and lowered her hands.
Mateo listened to the child beside him, found the beat, and brought his sticks down in time.
Later, Audrey rushed the same sonata transition. Her mother called something from the auditorium, and Audrey’s hands stopped above the keys.
“I can’t go back into it there,” she said.
Ms. Hensley started toward the stage, then halted beside the aisle.
Nora’s fingers had begun moving against her knee. She caught them with her other hand.
“Audrey, would counting help?” she called. “We could start a couple of measures back.”
Audrey glanced toward the seats, then nodded at Nora.
Nora joined her on the bench. She kept her hands folded while she counted softly, giving Audrey the lead-in without touching a key.
Audrey entered. At the transition, both hands arrived together, and she went on to the end of the phrase.
From the aisle, Ms. Hensley wrote on her clipboard and waited for Audrey to finish.
On the final Friday in May, Nora could hear the audience through the dressing-room door. Folding chairs knocked against one another as families made room for late arrivals. Tickets cost six dollars, and most of the people carrying them were parents, teachers, students from the center, or neighbors someone had persuaded to come.
The lobby held directions to the auditorium and a table for donations. There was no photograph of the paper keyboard, no account of Mara’s illness, and no one waiting to interview Nora.
Ben had traded a whole shift to attend and given up overtime he usually counted on. From a gap in the curtain, Nora found him in the second row. He wore the brown button-down shirt she remembered from the funeral.
Judith sat beside him, working the edge of her brace back beneath her sleeve. Dr. Whitcomb had the aisle seat.
Mateo’s group began. He entered a fraction late, corrected, and stayed with the others. Audrey’s sonata came a little later. After the first page, her mother stopped leaning forward to whisper.
Nora stepped away from the curtain. The center had lent her a dark green recital dress, and someone had used temporary hemming tape to keep it from catching under her shoes. Her backpack stood against the wall with the paper keyboard folded inside.
When the choir came off, Ms. Hensley approached with a cue card.
“Your turn after I introduce you.”
Nora nodded.
“The short introduction still?”
“Yes.”
The teacher checked the card and walked to the microphone.
“Our next pianist is Nora Voss, performing a nocturne.”
She put the card down and stepped away.
Nora crossed the stage during the ordinary welcoming applause. At the piano, she took hold of the bench herself, moved it, and tested the height with her feet on the floor. Ms. Hensley stayed near the curtain while Nora gave the side knob one more turn.
She opened Mara’s score on the rack.
The lights made it difficult to see individual faces. Ben’s shirt was a patch of brown beyond the keyboard; she could make out his hands lying open on his knees.
Nora settled her fingers and played.
She no longer needed to brace herself against the first sound. The chord came at the volume she intended, and she gave the keys room to return before moving into the melody. At the marked pedal change, she lifted her foot and heard the harmony clear.
A program rustled in the audience. Somebody coughed behind the second row. The sounds reached her, but her hands kept their course.
She passed the penciled arrow Mara had drawn from the far side of the music rack. Then came the measures taught from the couch. Nora kept her eyes on the notes while the accompaniment traveled beneath the tune.
At the place where her mother’s handwriting ended, her own small 2 waited below the staff.
She used that finger. Her hand turned, found the next shape, and went on.
The faster passage began to gather. Nora’s left hand reached one chord too early and sounded a wrong note, clear enough to make Audrey’s face move in the wings.
For a moment, Nora’s wrist began to lock. She let the mistaken note go and moved her arm toward the next chord.
It arrived under her fingers.
On the final page, the numbers were all hers. Some had been changed; two left faint eraser marks where she had pressed too hard. She followed them through the quieter return, hearing the long bass notes beneath her right hand.
The last chord needed less force than she once would have given it. Nora lowered her fingers together, listened, and kept her foot still while the sound diminished.
When she could barely hear it, she released the pedal and lifted both hands…
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