“Is that new?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“That’s nice.”
Noah almost walked past her.
Then he stopped.
“Dad says Mom’s guitar can be repaired.”
Emily looked up.
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“He told me yesterday.”
Noah stared at her.
Emily folded her hands.
“I got a job.”
“What?”
“At Franklin’s Bakery.”
Noah blinked.
“You hate mornings.”
“They need someone at five-thirty.”
“You really hate mornings.”
“I know.”
Despite everything, Noah almost laughed.
Emily continued.
“I gave Dad my savings.”
“He told me.”
“I’m paying the rest.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
Noah looked at her for a long moment.
Emily’s eyes filled again.
“I’m sorry.”
“You already said that.”
“I know.”
She exhaled.
“I’m going to keep saying it until it doesn’t sound cheap.”
Noah shifted the guitar case in his hand.
“I’m still angry.”
“You should be.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
That time, Noah actually smiled a little.
Emily noticed but did not push.
He opened the front door.
Before going inside, he looked back.
“When Mom’s guitar comes back…”
Emily waited.
“I’ll teach you the song.”
Her face changed.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Noah went upstairs.
Three weeks later, the repaired guitar returned.
The scar remained visible.
The luthier had reinforced the split neck and repaired the body crack, but he had not tried to hide everything.
“You could refinish it,” he told Daniel. “But personally, I wouldn’t.”
Daniel agreed.
When Noah first saw the repair, he was disappointed.
Then he ran his fingers across the line where the wood had broken.
It was still there.
A pale seam across the sunburst finish.
Permanent.
Real.
Noah understood something then.
Repair was not erasure.
The guitar had been broken.
Nothing could make that untrue.
But broken and finished were not the same thing.
Emily paid the entire repair bill over the next five months.
She worked Saturday mornings at the bakery and several evenings after school.
She complained exactly twice.
Both times Daniel reminded her she was free to complain while tying her apron.
Slowly, the tension between the siblings changed.
Noah did teach Emily the song.
She was terrible at first.
Her fingers refused to form a clean C chord.
She muted strings accidentally.
Her rhythm wandered.
Noah laughed.
Emily threatened to throw a pillow at him.
Then both of them went quiet because of what that joke almost meant.
Emily looked down at the guitar.
“I’d never touch it like that again.”
“I know.”
This time, when Noah said it, the words meant something different.
At spring arts night, Noah walked onto the auditorium stage carrying the new Fender.
Daniel sat in the third row.
Emily sat beside him.
There were nearly four hundred people in the room.
Noah adjusted the microphone.