The concert began. Naomi listened with the double hearing she had developed—music and memory braided. When Isaiah's section stood for their feature, she did not cry. She had cried enough over the years for this particular story. What she felt instead was a settled fierceness, like a door locked from the inside by the person who lived there.
After the concert, in the bright lobby chaos of flowers and phones, Keisha Morrow approached her—nervous, grateful, holding a program folded into anxious quarters. She thanked Naomi for answering questions she had been afraid to ask. She said her daughter played flute and startled easily. She said she had not known adults could be told no.
"They can," Naomi said. "Especially when we say it together."
Driving home, Isaiah was quiet until the highway lights began to strobe through the windshield in steady intervals.
"Can I tell you something I've never said?" he asked.