The Music He Carried

"See you around, Preston," Darius said.

"Yeah," Preston said quietly. "See you around."

Chapter Eighteen

The Audition

The morning of the audition, Darius woke before his alarm and lay in the dark listening to the house breathe.

It was still January, and the cold pressed against the windows of the little house on Alder Street. Down the hall his mother moved in the kitchen — the clink of a mug, the low murmur of the radio — up early though her shift didn't start until noon, because she had decided that no son of hers was walking into an audition on an empty stomach. Darius stared at the ceiling and tried to feel his fingers. They felt very far away, like they belonged to somebody else.

He had practiced the classical piece until it lived in his hands. The plan: play the required piece clean, then "Song for June." Whatever happened after that was out of his hands.

"You nervous?" Banks had asked the night before, home from the hospital and under strict orders to rest.

"Terrified," Darius admitted.

"Good. Means you care. Now listen — when you get in that room, you play for one person. Not the panel. You play for June. You hear me?"

"I hear you."

"And Darius — whatever happens with those fingers of yours, you breathe, and you find the melody again. The music's patient. It'll wait for you."

Darius had hung up and practiced another hour, until his mother came in and turned off the lamp. "Bed," she said. "The song will still be there in the morning."

Now the morning was here, gray and cold, and the song felt very far away.

Tanya drove him to Harrington herself — she'd traded shifts — and Caleb rode along in the back seat in his good church jacket. At a red light, Tanya reached over and squeezed Darius's hand, and her palm was warm, and that was enough.

The audition was in the recital hall, a smaller room off Founders Hall — dark wood, tall windows. The same Steinway grand waited at the center of the stage, its lid raised like a wing. Darius's stomach did a slow roll when he saw it — the last time he'd touched those keys, a whole room had stood up.

"Mr. Cole?" A kind-faced woman with a clipboard appeared. "I'm Ms. Hart. We'll call you in shortly."

The waiting room was a small lounge with a couch that sighed when you sat on it. Two other auditionees were already there — a violinist who smiled at him nervously, and a cellist who didn't smile at all.

Harper texted: YOU'VE GOT THIS. PLAY LIKE NOBODY'S WATCHING. Then: (except me, I'm watching in spirit).

Darius smiled despite himself.

"Mr. Cole?" Ms. Hart again. "We're ready."

The walk from the lounge to the stage felt a mile long. The panel sat in the third row — Dr. Pierce in the middle, a bearded man taking notes, a silver-haired woman. The hall was dim except for the pool of light around the piano. Darius sat on the bench — the same bench — adjusted it twice, laughed a small startled laugh, and the silver-haired woman smiled, which helped.

He began with the classical piece, a Bach prelude he had drilled until the counterpoint ran like water. His fingers found it immediately — clean, even, precise. He could hear Banks in the back of his mind: don't rush the left hand, son. He didn't rush, shaping the phrases the way Banks had taught him, breathing where the music breathed. When the last chord faded, the bearded man set down his pen, and Darius allowed himself one breath of relief.

Then: the original composition.

He had written "Song for June" on the community center's upright, but somehow it had always belonged to this piano — the Steinway that held the low notes without muddying them and let the high ones ring like struck glass. He started the way Nana June used to start her humming — soft, unhurried, like there was all the time in the world. The gospel-tinged chords unfolded beneath the melody. He was inside it now, past nerves, past the panel — on the porch with his grandmother, the screen door creaking, peas snapping in a metal bowl.

And then, halfway through the middle section — the fast part, where the melody climbs and the left hand runs to keep up — his fingers stumbled.

A wrong note. Then another. His left hand tangled, and the rhythm broke, and for one terrible second the music fell apart in his hands like something dropped.

The panel didn't move. The hall was so quiet he could hear the heating vents.

Darius stopped. He lifted his hands off the keys. He breathed — one slow breath, the way Banks had taught him — thinking of the hospital room, the borrowed keyboard, Banks's pale grin. The music's patient. It'll wait for you.

He found the melody again — not where he'd left it, but further back, at the lullaby. He started there, soft, and built it again, and this time when he reached the middle section he didn't fight it, he rode it, and the notes came pouring out like they'd been waiting behind a door. He finished stronger than he'd started — the final chords luminous, the last high note hanging in the air like light through a window.

Silence. Then Dr. Pierce leaned forward, and Darius saw the silver-haired woman pressing her fingers to her eyes, the bearded man having forgotten his pen entirely.

"Thank you, Darius," Dr. Pierce said quietly. "That was — thank you."

Darius stood on unsteady legs, managed his thank-you, and walked off the stage, where Ms. Hart waited with water his shaking hands could barely hold.

In the car, his mother didn't ask how it went. She just drove, and Caleb talked about nothing — teachers, cafeteria food — and Darius leaned his head against the cold window and watched Fairview slide past, and let the waiting begin.

They said two weeks. Darius counted every day.