Chapter 15: Home
The bus ride home seemed longer than the ride that morning, though the streets were the same. Althea sat by the window with her folder on her lap, watching Philadelphia slide past in the evening light: the shops closing, the people hurrying home, the church steeple of New Hope rising above the rooftops as the bus turned into her neighbourhood. Professor Adler had told her the decision herself, backstage, in the quiet corridor where Althea had waited for what felt like hours. A probationary place. No scholarship yet. Weekly reviews. Restrained repertoire. No improvisation in class. Adler had said the words carefully, as if each one mattered, and Althea had listened carefully, because each one did.
When she turned the key in the front door of the little house in East Philadelphia, the smell of cooking greeted her first. Esther was in the kitchen, moving slowly but steadily, stirring a pot with one hand. Jerome was at the table, doing his homework, though he looked up the instant the door opened.
"Well?" Jerome said, before she had even taken off her coat. "Tell us. Did they —"
Althea set her folder down on the table. She looked at her grandmother, at her brother, at the familiar kitchen with its chipped tiles and warm light, and suddenly the whole day rose up in her, the waiting room and the simple piece and the one more minute and the standing ovation and the long silence afterwards, and she could not keep it in any longer.
"I got in," she said, and her voice broke on the last word. "Probation. Not a scholarship yet. But I got in."
Esther put the spoon down very carefully, as if she were afraid of dropping it. Then she crossed the kitchen in three steps and wrapped Althea in her arms, holding her the way she had held her when she was small and frightened, the way she had held her the night Lorraine died. Esther's hands were stiff with arthritis, but her embrace was strong, and Althea felt herself shaking again, not from the stage this time but from relief, from the simple fact of being home and being held.
"You played your piece, didn't you?" Esther whispered. "The River. I knew you would. I could feel it."
"I played it," Althea said. "And they stood up, Grandma. The whole hall stood up."
Jerome whooped so loudly that the neighbour's dog started barking next door. He jumped up from the table and hugged them both, laughing, and for a few minutes the kitchen was full of noise and tears and questions, all tangled together. What did the hall look like? What did the judges say? Did Celeste hear it? Althea answered what she could, and laughed when she could not, and the story came out in pieces, the way the best stories do, with everyone talking at once.
"Probation means fees," she said, not unkindly, just plainly. "And no scholarship means we must find the money somewhere. And the Alden will want your days, Althea. What about the cleaning job?"
Althea nodded. She had been thinking about this on the bus. "I will talk to my supervisor," she said. "Maybe I can switch to fewer nights, or weekends. If not, I will find something else. I will not give up the place, Grandma. I worked too hard for it."
"We will manage," Jerome said firmly, in the voice he used when he was trying to sound older than sixteen. "I can pick up more shifts at the grocery. And we can ask at the church. Someone there might know about a grant, or a fund. People love you at New Hope, Althea. They will want to help."
Esther reached across the table and took Althea's hand. Her fingers were knotted and warm. "Listen to me," she said. "Your mother sang that hymn because she believed music belonged to everyone, not just to people who could pay for it. You played it today in a grand hall, and people stood up. That is not a small thing. The money, the hours, the job — we will work those out, one at a time, the way we always have. But do not let the conditions make you small again. The Alden gave you probation. You give them everything you have, and let them learn what probation means when it meets a girl like you."
After supper, when the dishes were done and Jerome had gone to bed, Althea sat at the battered keyboard in her room and played the river melody once, very softly, for no one but herself. It sounded different now, not smaller, but steadier, as if it knew where it was going. She let the last note fade, closed the keyboard lid, and went to sleep with the sound still in her ears, dreaming of a hall with tall windows and a door that had opened, just a little, and was waiting for her to walk through it.