He was smiling at her with an affability Audrey found disconcerting though she couldn’t understand why. And then it dawned on her. Ben wanted her to do well. He was quietly urging her to succeed. And hard as she tried to remember as she waited for her cue to begin, Audrey couldn’t recall the last time anyone had encouraged her to do well at anything.

Audrey filled her lungs and waited for the introduction to end.

Her first phrase was perfect, even a gentle vibrato that hadn’t been distorted by nerves. But as she reached the middle of the second phrase, as she stretched up toward a minor third, her voice wavered, then split, and then dissolved altogether.

Ben’s fingers halted across the keys, the room silent but for the thumping of Audrey’s heart. As she stood next to the piano, staring at the floor and wishing it would open up and swallow her, she thought that perhaps there were simply too many miles between the dreams she’d had as a teenager and the person she was now. Perhaps the end of your life was just that: an ending. Not a chance to right wrongs, rectify mistakes or fulfill unspent ambitions. Maybe this wasn’t the beginning of the final chapter of her life. Maybe she’d already reached the epilogue without even realizing.

“That too high, huh? No problem, my mistake. Let’s try a tone lower, OK? Deep breaths. You can do it, I know you can.”

The piano introduction began again and Audrey closed her eyes, allowing the music to envelop her. And this time when she sang, her voice didn’t waver or fracture or dissolve. This time the notes rang out confidently as though there had never been any doubt that they would. And for three minutes, Audrey completely forgot herself. She forgot Ben at the piano and his assistant at the back of the room and the paint peeling on the walls. She forgot her cancer and the clock ticking loudly in her ears and the deep ruptures in her family. For the first time in years, Audrey managed not to think about her guilt and her disappointments and her catalogue of losses. She sang and all that existed was her and the music and the flood of memories that would forever be associated with that song.

When the music came to an end, Audrey opened her eyes to discover that she wasn’t curled up with her daughters on the sofa, blinking back her tears, or standing at the front of a congregation in mourning, fixing her gaze firmly forward. Instead she was in an audition room in west London having sung a solo in front of strangers for the first time in her life.

Ben was staring at her and Audrey felt heat bleed into her cheeks.

I’m sorry, she wanted to say, I shouldn’t have come. It was all a dreadful mistake. I’m sorry to have wasted your time. But her voice cowered inside her embarrassment and she couldn’t coax it out.