That was the part that hurt Nia most. Her mother had not agreed with the woman, but she knew how quickly a small disagreement could become a long one when the person holding the rules did not have to worry about missing a flight. Nia could recognize that look on Camille's face. She had seen it at school offices, hospital billing counters, and the rental agency where her mother once spent three hours proving she had paid a deposit on time.
"I'm sorry," Nia told the attendant, although she was not sure what she was apologizing for.
Margaret's expression softened just enough to become formal. "Thank you for understanding."
Camille guided her toward a pair of seats beside the window. Nia kept the folded pages in her lap, smoothing their corners until the paper was nearly flat. On the first page, above the opening bars, her own careful handwriting read BETWEEN DEPARTURES, composed by Nia Lawson. Below the title, in blue ink, was a note from her teacher: Remember the silence after the fourth note. That's where the story begins.
Three months earlier, Nia had never boarded an airplane. Then the Bellwether Young Musicians Program selected twelve finalists from hundreds of recorded auditions, including hers. Four would receive a year of private coaching, travel support, and a summer residency at a Boston university. Every finalist was expected to perform before a panel at eleven the following morning.
Getting this far had required the whole family to rearrange itself. Camille worked nights transporting patients through hospital corridors and took extra weekend shifts to save for the tickets. Nia's uncle repaired Camille's car without payment, and their church choir director covered the entry fee. Bellwether offered partial travel assistance; Camille still checked the airfare three times before purchasing it.
Nia had earned her finalist place on an upright piano in a neighborhood community center, a broad-shouldered old thing with chipped ivory-colored keys and a pedal that occasionally stuck. Mrs. Mae Whitaker, her teacher, had recorded the audition on a borrowed phone propped between two dictionaries. Halfway through the second movement of a Beethoven sonatina, a radiator clicked in the background. Nia had worried that the noise would disqualify her, but Mrs. Whitaker told her that a good musician learns to play the room she is given.
The center closed at six each evening. When Nia was not there, she practiced on a small electric keyboard with one speaker that crackled and three keys that registered only when pressed from the left. She was not a miracle who had sat down one day and played as if music had poured naturally through her fingers. She had repeated four-bar phrases hundreds of times, watched her hands until she learned not to watch them, and cried when a passage refused to become clear. Then she had gone back the next morning and tried again.