Without waiting, Nola began to sing. Grave. Slowly, solemnly, she directed herself. The sad melody tore out from deep inside her, but the pain suddenly dissolved in a sea of calm.

“There is a place where babies live,

With no hope for tomorrow.

A place where flower babies die,

Filled with only grief and sorrow.”

And then she heard the flute. Under the circumstances, she hadn’t expected her flutist to join. She turned to nod her thanks, and realized it was not her regular American flutist but one of the locally hired musicians who had trained with Jean-Claude.

“Flower babies bloom unseen,

Flower babies die unloved.

Flower babies, petals plucked, the color’s gone

Morning dew has dried before the day’s begun.”

Her heart strumming with the enormity of the moment, Nola played the visuals for their dramatic impact. The single beam of muted light on her face poured down her upper body, where she held Lulu. With an outer eye she saw her own silhouette against the red glow from behind. The Chinese flutist—brave and unflinching—stood several feet back, awash in a ray of light projecting from below. Daniel remained half-hidden in the dark.

In the red shadows behind her, she heard the soft whisking of a drummer’s brush. Another Chinese musician who risked more than she did.

“Would you translate the lyrics?” she asked Daniel while she conducted the flutist, gesturing to him to keep on with his accompaniment. Grazioso, gracefully. Obbligato.

Daniel stepped into her coin of light. There was not a rustle or cough from the audience. Lulu seemed shocked into silence as her dark eyes observed everything.

“Lost in the cold of the night,

In a place with no heat or light.

Flower babies die unloved

Reach heaven on the wings of doves.”

With the flute mellifluently carrying the melody in the background, Daniel spoke the words of the refrain, a bit awkwardly. Before he retreated, Nola handed Lulu to him, then picked up the song where she had left it. She tilted her head upward as though in a prayer. Unencumbered by the concern of frightening Lulu with the volume of her projection, she gave the music her all.

“Flower babies, forever in our hearts you’ll glow,

You shine down on a world you’ll never know.

Each little dead flower now a star,

Your wails strum the strings of my guitar.”

Her voice soared as she sang her fortissimo finale. The world would finally hear of the Dying Rooms. The truth about millions of murdered babies would never again be silenced.

She bowed. No more intimidation. No separation from Lulu.

A long hush. Absolute stillness. Her second—and now last—concert in China had just ended, and the rest of her life had begun.