Dad had finished rehearsing that section—concluding a few bars after the brass section picked up the Latin theme—and as he waved for everyone to pause, the orchestra broke into applause. I glanced between Oscar and Dad, not sure which they were cheering, but Oscar was whispering in Liz’s ear, motioning to me. She looked perplexed, obviously, but waved for me to join them.

The choir scrambled for another chair.

I waved them off. “Floor is absolutely fine!”

I sat cross-legged next to the sopranos. The girl next to me scooted her ankles away. Yeppers. I closed my eyes. This would be over soon.

Oscar mounted the steps, patted Dad on the shoulder, and took the baton back. Dad clapped for Oscar, the orchestra following suit—less rapturously this time.

But then Oscar raised his hands, murmured, “From the beginning,” scanned the orchestra, found me on the floor, and smiled with such gratitude that his eyes crinkled.

Then he struck the downbeat and the orchestra began to play. Four bars till the choir and . . .

It was fine. Not as scary as I’d expected. I knew the soprano line, when to come in. And I reveled in the feeling of the orchestration—everything we’d imagined taking form now, bursting joyfully into the real world. Sitting up here, physically immersed in the music, sound swirled around me the way it had that day in the Cloisters. It seemed to reverberate inside my body, my nerve endings, down to the molecular level. Was this the God thing Oscar was talking about? Dad’s “ineffable”? If not this, then what?

He continued past the point where the chorus ran out, but his eyes kept dancing back to me every few bars, life returning note by note.

As we finished up, I scanned the house and noticed fewer onlookers tonight, thank goodness. But I did see a flash of red hair as Nora Visser slid out the back door, glancing back one more time. Right at me.

“That was helpful,” Oscar said as we waved good-bye to the musicians and made our way through the night-lit plaza. “Having you up there . . . yeah. Thank you.”

“It really helped?”

“It did,” he said, with a sideways grin. “You’re my cannon blast.”

Our arms swung together in counter-time to our steps.

Across the plaza, a camera flashed. I pulled Oscar so his back was turned. Was Nora seriously going to keep siccing paparazzi on us? Oscar looked behind him, and only then did I realize it was a group of tourists taking a selfie by the fountain.

I linked arms with him, pretending that I was being playful, that I was not, in fact, the most conceited person in the world.