“That isn’t an excuse for whatever that was.”
She played it again.
Louder.
Julian grabbed his guitar.
“Oh, now you’ve done it.”
They began playing.
Badly at first.
Then Julian found a rhythm.
Maya followed.
The notes bumped into each other, separated, met again.
Mr. Ortiz leaned against the doorway beside me.
“Think they’ll ever sound good?”
“No idea.”
“Should we stop them?”
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved.
The music grew louder.
Not polished.
Not perfect.
Not yet.
But alive.
On Julian’s desk sat Thomas’s old letter.
Beside it was the photograph of Lucas.
And beneath the window, in the afternoon light, the old empty guitar stand was empty no longer.
Julian glanced up and caught me watching.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
He smiled.
“Close the door. We’re practicing.”
So I did.
And from the hallway I listened as my son began the song again—not from the beginning his father had given him, but from the part he had written himself.
