Her itinerant musician gig wasn’t exactly typical, but most of her friends walked the same road without her advantages. And some things were universal. “Getting called for three months’ session work in Vancouver while your cousin’s twins are teething is a godsend.” In more ways than one. She’d even managed to slip away before Jack could beg to go with her. Deciding to drive rather than drag half a dozen instruments through the Wood had meant she hadn’t been able to use her inability to shift his scaled size as an excuse to leave him behind.

“Uh . . . Teething’s not really an option. Anything a little less specific?”

Charlie waited for her phone to ring with one of Auntie Carmen’s random bits of advice about clean underwear. When it didn’t, although Auntie Carmen seldom missed so obvious a cue, she said, “Like anything else, music can be as much who you know as what. You’ll have to work your contacts.”

“Contacts? He was an engineer until two weeks ago,” Sheryl laughed. The theme from Jaws ran under her words.

Ever since that summer in Cape Breton, Charlie had picked up a personal, albeit intermittent, soundtrack. Background music for the inside of her head. It had started as fiddle music, specifically Cape Breton fiddle music, but had branched out into multiple instruments and genres. Usually, although sometimes obliquely, pertinent to the matter at hand. Movie themes were new. “So you’re thinking you might need a bigger boat?”

“I guess . . .”

Charlie could hear the worry behind Sheryl’s confusion and suspected Gary could hear it, too.

“It’s just,” he began without prompting, “that this . . .” He patted his bouzouki case with his free hand. “. . . is something I’ve always wanted to do. I finally realized I had no good reason not to do it. This is my chance, my one chance to let music have its place in my life, and I’m taking it.”

There was the joy.

Only the secret left.

“Fortunately,” he bent and kissed the top of Sheryl’s head, “my wife loves me enough to give up heated tile floors in the bathroom.”

“I gave up the entire bathroom,” Sheryl reminded him with a laugh.