She laughed. “I am! Just takes practice. When I started, I barely made a peep. But you have to think about the cause. It really is everything.”

She beamed around us, like she had an ownership stake in the park, knew every tree by name.

•   •   •

We rode home as the light dimmed over the park, casting boughs and benches and bicyclists in the same golden glimmer. I was catching the sunset through the open window, feeling like maybe I was starting to own it too.

“You really are a natural.” Nora patted my knee. “If you’re interested, start thinking about what your passions are. Where you can have the most impact.”

She couldn’t have meant it, nobody even knew about it, but my mind immediately landed on my trust. I’d always planned to use that money as a down payment on an apartment once my piano career ignited. Now that that future lay dead in the ground, I could find something else to take its place.

I could have an impact.

Hope dug into me, but my hair blew gently in the hot breeze, softening its edges.

“Do you know of any organizations that could use volunteers over the summer? Anything with a teen council, or . . . I don’t even know what you’d call it.”

“Absolutely!” Nora perked up even more. “Well, of course—there’s Amberley.”

My shoulders clenched against the feeling of an elevator plummeting.

“We’re having an event at Wing Club in a few weeks, a young donors’ gala. Everyone there would love to meet the youngest Chertok, all grown up.”

They’d be sorely disappointed. “I think maybe . . . not music.”

Nora’s face fell. “No?”

“Just . . .” I stared at my locked fingers. “Anything else. I’m open.”

“You’ve really given it up.”

“Taking a break,” I lied.

“I understand,” she said quietly. “I do.”

She’d been entwined with my family since before I was born. She’d been privy to everything that happened with Amberley. She had to understand.

“So how do you feel about the environment? Art?”

“Um, yes!”

“I know everybody at the Met.” She winked. “Museum, not opera, don’t worry. Let me think . . .” She scrolled through her phone, then her head jolted up. “Aha! There’s an event, Monday, early evening, nothing fancy—are you free? Please say you’re free.”

She put her hands together, pleading. I couldn’t nod fast enough.

“Nora,” I sputtered as I stepped onto the sidewalk. “This has been so—”

Nora shushed me through the window. “Thank you for coming. Nice to have some company for a change!”

I watched her roll away. She’d known everyone at that party, kept chatting with them about dinner plans.

She misses Mom.

I crumpled that thought and left it on the sidewalk as I stepped onto the stoop.