"That was always the rule," Reynolds said. "He has gotten better at rules that cost him."
Harper arrived without an entourage, which retirement had made easier. He looked more like seventy than like the fifty-six he had been, though the arithmetic was only eight years. His jacket was the same species of gray. He saw Elijah by the piano and stopped at a distance that asked permission to be closed. Elijah closed it.
"Mr. Brooks."
"Mr. Harper."
They shook hands. The handshake was ordinary, which felt like a victory neither of them announced. Up close Harper's eyes were the eyes of a man who had practiced not beginning sentences with charm.
"I won't keep you," Harper said. "June said the room isn't mine to narrate. I wanted to hear you, and I wanted you to know I'm here as a guest, not as a lesson. What I said when you were eleven was wrong. I've tried not to improve it in the retelling. I'm not sure I've always succeeded. When I catch myself, I go back to the words."
"Toy," Elijah said, not cruelly. He wanted the accuracy in the air, once, so it would not have to haunt the concert. "Pretending. Son. And the concert question."