The first piece she had written herself began with four notes from a sound Camille made on her way through the kitchen after a night shift. Not a song exactly, just a rising and falling hum that meant the front door was shut, the kettle was going on, and her mother was safely home. Nia had heard that little pattern since she was a baby. When she began composing, she took it apart, built a melody around it, and named the result Between Departures because every homecoming, she decided, had a departure hidden somewhere behind it.
On the airplane journey she had promised herself one thing: she would not be ashamed of how hard she had worked. Sitting now in the quiet lounge, she looked at the piano across the carpet and felt that promise shrinking. Margaret Voss was straightening a row of magazines near the counter. The man with the newspaper glanced up again, this time at Nia's music, and offered a small, apologetic smile.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Camille murmured.
"She thought I would break it."
"She doesn't know you."
Nia watched Margaret arrange the magazines into a perfect fan. "That's what bothers me," she said. "She decided before she knew me."
They pretended to study the departures screen. Camille answered a hospital message about Monday's shift while Nia tapped difficult fingerings against her knees. She could hear the lounge as a musician hears a room: cup against saucer, luggage wheels on tile, the electric murmur of overhead lighting.
Then a voice spoke from the chair opposite them. "Is that a score you've written?"
The man who had been reading the newspaper was about seventy, with a close-trimmed gray beard and a brown leather case resting at his feet. He had taken off his coat, revealing a plain dark sweater and a small pin shaped like a treble clef. He seemed more interested in the pencil marks on Nia's music than in the people passing behind her.
"Yes, sir," Nia said. "Part of it. The other part is from my audition list."
"Do you mind if I look?"
She hesitated, then handed him the first page. His eyes moved slowly down the notation. He tapped a rhythm against one knee and smiled at something only he could hear. "That's an interesting turn in the bass line. You've kept the first phrase open when most people would try to resolve it."
"Because the person hasn't come home yet," Nia explained.
"The person in the music?"
"My mom. Not because she's missing. Because she works nights, and sometimes I'm awake before she gets back. I wanted the sound to feel like waiting, but not like being afraid."
The man studied her, then returned the score with great care. "That's a more difficult distinction than it sounds. My name is Arthur Greene. I used to repair pianos for a living. Now I mostly repair the bad decisions I make with crossword puzzles."
Nia smiled despite herself. Arthur nodded toward the grand piano. "That instrument has been loved. You can tell by the way the cabinet has been polished around the places people touch most. I expect you're hoping to find out whether the sound is as fine as the wood."