They shook hands.
Then Jonathan said:
“I’ve told that story many times.”
Malik’s smile tightened slightly.
“How?”
Jonathan noticed.
“Probably badly.”
“Tell me.”
Jonathan took a breath.
“I usually say I underestimated a kid at a station piano and then he proved me wrong.”
Malik nodded.
“That’s the easy version.”
“What’s the harder one?”
Malik looked toward children waiting for beginner workshops.
“The part where I shouldn’t have needed to prove you wrong before you treated me seriously.”
Jonathan became quiet.
“Yes.”
Malik continued.
“Also, you weren’t wrong because I became a composer.”
“You were wrong before you knew what happened to me.”
“Yes.”
Jonathan nodded.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I think I do now.”
Good.
They watched an eight-year-old girl play three notes badly.
Her mother applauded as if she had performed Beethoven.
Jonathan smiled.
“Is she good?”
Malik looked at him.
He laughed immediately.
“Right.”
Progress.
At thirty-five, Malik became a father.
His daughter, Olivia, showed no interest in piano.
For four years.
Then suddenly wanted lessons because her friend played.
Malik became unbearable.
He researched teachers.
Practice systems.
Keyboards.
Darius watched.
“Careful.”
Malik stared.
“You are not allowed to use my childhood against me.”
“I am your father.”
“That is exactly who uses childhood against people.”
Olivia practiced twice.
Then refused for a week.
Malik panicked.
His wife, Danielle, looked at him.
“She is six.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He stopped.
Different child.
Different story.
He backed off.
Olivia eventually played casually.
Never competed.
Good.
His son Aaron loved piano.
Also good.
Malik treated them differently because they were different.
That took work.
At forty-one, Malik received a larger commission than any before.
Music for a public television documentary series about American transportation systems.
Full orchestra.
Rail sounds.
Industrial rhythm.
People joked he had been rehearsing since thirteen.
He hated the joke.
Then admitted it was funny.
The final episode premiered in Philadelphia.
Darius sat in the audience.
Nadine too, now using a cane.
Afterward a reporter asked Malik:
“Did your station-piano experience make this inevitable?”
Malik laughed.
“No.”
“Nothing was inevitable.”
The reporter looked disappointed.
“What did it do?”
He thought.
“It made me aware of how quickly people create stories about what they see.”
“Music helped with that?”
“Maybe.”
He looked toward the old station visible through the window.
“Composition is partly refusing the first obvious answer.”
That quote made the article.
Nadine called.
“Pretentious.”
“You taught me.”
“I taught harmony.”
“Same thing.”
She laughed.
Nadine died two years later.
Malik played at her memorial.
Not Southbound.
She had specifically banned it.
“I taught you thirty years and you are not playing the train song at my funeral.”
He obeyed.
Mostly because he feared she would return to criticize voicing.
Her death affected him more than he expected.
Teachers occupy strange emotional territory.
Not parents.
Not friends.
Witnesses to versions of you other people never saw.
Nadine knew the boy before the station applause.
Before the video.
Before awards.
She knew the wrong notes.
The lazy weeks.
The arrogant months.