The house was dark, upstairs and down. Dad must have been out being Dad and who knew where Oscar Bell was. Probably getting to know the other Amberley geniuses—sparks swirling, earth cracking beneath their feet.

But none of it happened without people like Nora. People to make the river flow.

The house was so still I could hear a clock ticking on the third-floor landing. I climbed the stairs, running my fingers along the built-in bookshelves crammed with first-edition novels and fraying scores and bric-a-brac ceramics, past Alice’s old room that still smelled like her hand lotion, Dad’s study, messier than it should be, Win’s old room, now crammed with empty luggage, all of it quiet, quiet, quiet, until I got to my tidy little bedroom at the top.

The sunset clinging to my skin had faded by the time I changed into pajamas, but I still went to sleep feeling like there was gold in my veins.

Then, at one in the morning—music.

Faint, a trickle of a melody, loud enough to have invaded my sleep. I swung my feet out from the covers, held on to the cracked windowsill, and listened.

The tune was sweet, lyrical. Sad, spiked with hope, straining upward. Like it wanted so badly to be heard.

It couldn’t have been Dad. He was a nine-to-five creative and slave to his sleep schedule. Besides, this was coming from outside. The instrument was tinny . . . a synthesizer? I leaned my head out the window far enough to see a light on in the basement apartment.

The music stopped mid-phrase. The light in the basement turned off.

I slunk back into bed. The house was quiet again, the city broadcasting its usual midnight programming. But that melody wouldn’t leave me alone.

And I dreamed about his stupid YouTube video.

4.

my body felt wired from the second I woke up, but it took sitting and stretching to remember why.

Tea parties. Possibilities.

A boy downstairs.

As I got out of bed, my grandparents smiled from the digital picture frame, sitting on the dock with their terrier who’d died two years ago. Every time Grandma Jean called, we sketched out plans to visit—Christmas, spring break—but time had flown by until April, when my days ground to a screeching halt, and I still hadn’t made it.

Maybe I could visit this summer. I had a life span of free time now.

Dad was in the kitchen, whistling Don Giovanni. He’d conducted it at the Met last season and I’d watched it twice from the pit. The ovation orchestrated itself in my head as I plodded downstairs.

“Morning,” I croaked, drowning it out.

“Coffee?” Dad offered.

I nodded, sliding past him to make it myself—black, one sugar, in one of our glass mugs so I could see the steam swirl and settle—then poured him a refill too.

“What do you think of Alban Berg?”