"Yes."
"Rosin?"
"Yes."
"And you will not apologize if a note slips. You will continue. Apologies make people think the slip was larger than it was."
Claire nodded. She agreed with that particular sentence. She had learned it from her teacher, a thin man who smelled like peppermint and never raised his voice, only his standards. What she did not say was that her stomach hurt. Auditions turned her body into a question. She loved the violin when the room was empty. She loved it less when her mother stood against the wall with that listening face, the one that translated sound into future.
In the car, Catherine talked about the scholarship as if it were a door that should, by logic, open for a child who had done everything right. Claire watched the city change outside the window, the wide streets narrowing into the downtown grid, the plaza appearing with its pale stone and its flags. She thought, not for the first time, that her mother was afraid. The thought was new enough to be uncomfortable. Catherine did not look like fear. She looked like certainty. But Claire had begun to notice that certainty could be fear wearing an ironed blouse.
"There will be all kinds of children," Catherine said, as if continuing a conversation they had already finished. "That's fine. Diversity is fine. The playing is what matters. You just do what you've prepared. Don't compare in the hallway. Comparison in the hallway makes people play safe."
"Okay."
"And if you see someone about to mishandle an instrument, you may speak up. Those harps cost more than cars. Care is not unkindness."