Chapter 6 - The Part Nobody Applauded
By Monday, Mara's face was all over the internet. One headline called her a brilliant soloist in a family copyright feud. Another used a still from the backstage security video, cropped so Ray's fist appeared to strike Grant without showing Grant lunging at him.
Mara called the theater security supervisor.
“Can the complete footage be released?”
“Not without reviewing the privacy and investigation issues,” he said. “But we have preserved it and documented the witnesses. You and Ray can request the relevant information through appropriate channels.”
“Thank you for not deleting it.”
“We were never going to.”
Still, the clip was everywhere. Grant posted a photograph of his jaw and wrote about violence behind the curtain. Brooke said nothing publicly. Mara turned off notifications and went to teach.
At the library rehearsal room, only eleven students showed up. Some parents feared the program had ended; others said they didn't want their children caught in a public scandal. Mara had arranged the room and told families the session was free whether or not the foundation paid her.
She had expected the room to feel empty. Instead it sounded alive: a cello endpin scraping the floor, a zipper stuck on a case, Caleb arguing with his own metronome. One mother stayed by the door and asked, quietly, “Are you going to put my son on the news?” Mara shook her head. “Not without you asking us to. Today he gets to play.” The woman sat down. Mara made a note to ask all the families about consent before any future photographs. Their children didn't owe the internet a performance of their hardship.
Tessa arrived last, breathless from running up the stairs.
“My mom wants to know if you're getting sued.”
“Possibly. That's something adults will handle.”
“Are you quitting?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I didn't practice that awful shift for nothing.”
The students laughed. Mara gave them eight measures from a new piece she had written the night before, a simple canon in which the tune passed from one player to another. No single instrument owned it.
She passed out pencils before bows. Each student was allowed to change one note or suggest one rest. Their first suggestions clashed terribly. Then Tessa proposed letting the bass line wait while Caleb finished, and a younger girl suggested a pause that made everyone listen for the next entrance. Mara wrote their names beside the measures. She could have polished the whole thing alone in half the time; she would never have written that pause.
They stumbled through it, stopped, and tried again.
A little boy named Caleb kept coming in late. Mara knelt beside his chair.
“Want me to count for you?”
“I know the count,” he said, embarrassed. “I'm waiting because Tessa gets the tune after me, and I don't want to give it to her wrong.”
“Give it to her the way you can. She'll meet you there.”
On the third try, he did. Tessa caught it, and something loosened in Mara's chest.
After class, Diane waited on the landing carrying a paper grocery bag. She had brought Mara's favorite peach bread and the battered shoebox that used to sit under Arthur's workbench.
“I found this,” she said. “It was behind the tax records.”
Inside were drafts in three different handwritings. Arthur's long slanting letters. Brooke's careful block notes. Mara's cramped teenage scribbles. Some pages had coffee rings, others a grease mark from the workshop. The evidence was untidy, which made it feel real.
“I should have shown you years ago,” Diane said.
“You didn't know it was there?”
“I knew some drafts existed. I didn't know what was in this box until last night. That's on me.”
Mara spread them across the rehearsal piano. The earliest sheet was in Brooke's handwriting: the opening theme of THE RIVER BETWEEN US. The next belonged to Arthur, sketching a counterline. Three months later, Mara's handwriting filled the page with the melody that carried the final movement.
Diane took off her glasses. “I let you both believe the part your father loved most was the part he loved you most for.”
Mara looked at her mother. “You could have told us it wasn't a contest.”
“I tried with dinner-table speeches. I should have sat us down with the pages.”
There was no grand apology that made the years disappear. Mara believed Diane was sorry. She was angry anyway.
“Mom, did you know Brooke would put only her name on the registration?”
“I saw a draft of the filing. It was wrong. She told me the others would be added once the lawyers confirmed everything. I didn't follow up.”
“Why?”
“Because she was paying the mortgage, and because I'm ashamed to say I was relieved somebody else was handling it.”
Mara looked down. “We both left you to depend on the person who offered the most control.”
“I made choices too, Mara. Don't carry mine for me.”
At six, Ray called. Security had completed its internal review. The full footage and witness statements supported his account that he'd intervened when Grant grabbed Mara and lunged at him. The venue would allow him back, although Grant was contesting the finding.
“Did you hear?” Ray asked.
“I did. You okay?”
“I'm sixty-four. My knuckles have opinions. Otherwise fine.”
“I'm sorry you got dragged into this.”
“I stepped in because he was hurting you. I'm responsible for my own decision.”
He paused. “Your father's violin isn't a prop in their argument, either. We need to keep it safe while we decide what can be repaired.”
Mara promised she would.
That night, Helen called about the contract. The purchasing company had frozen further payments pending verification of the rights and reported enrollment figures. Nothing was settled. For the first time, though, there was room to breathe.
Mara asked whether they could perform the new student piece at a small fundraiser instead of the disputed work.
“You wrote it yourself?” Helen asked.
“I did, with the kids. We'll document everyone's contributions and permissions properly.”
“Then let's examine the plan.”
Mara put down the phone and turned back to the shoebox. At the bottom lay a blank staff-paper envelope addressed in Arthur's handwriting:
FOR THE PERSON WHO FINISHES THE LAST FOUR BARS.
It was empty.
May you like
Mara had played the ending at the gala. She had never written its last four bars.
And she suddenly realized she had no idea who had.
