In January the work turned heavy. School, bus, Eastbridge on Tuesdays because Nia refused to abandon Alvarez, Meridian on Saturdays, the loan harp at night with the neighbor downstairs knocking a broom handle if she went past eight-thirty. She was always a little tired. A theory quiz went badly. A pedal diagram made her want to lie down on the cream floor and become a rug. One Saturday she missed an entrance in orchestra and Brenner stopped the room, not unkindly, and the not-unkindly still burned. She went home and told June she wanted to quit.
June was in her work shoes, halfway to a shift. She put her bag down.
"Do you want to quit," she said, "or do you want to rest and be perfect, which is not available?"
"I don't know."
"Then we don't decide tonight." June sat. The harp loomed, golden and demanding, in the corner. "Your mother did not survive in you so you could be miserable on command. If the building is eating you, we change the schedule. We talk to Shah. We talk to Alvarez. We do not light the whole thing on fire because January is long. And if, after we change what can be changed, you still want to stop, I will help you stop without calling you a failure. Quitting to save your life is different from quitting because a woman in a blazer lives in your head rent-free. Which one is this?"
Nia cried, messy, eleven, furious. "Both. And I missed the entrance. Everybody heard."
"Everybody misses things in hospitals," June said. "The good ones turn around, wash their hands, and go back in. The bad ones pretend it didn't happen and the patient pays. You are not a bad one. Go wash your face. I will be late and I will blame you lovingly. Tomorrow we email Dr. Shah and we ask for a lighter week. Asking is allowed. Your mother asked. The rental company said no. Dr. Shah is not a rental company."
Dr. Shah said yes to a lighter week and no to self-pity, a combination that felt, in Nia's body, like a correct fingering. Alvarez, told of the missed entrance, said, "Good. Now you know you are human in a group. Welcome. Play the entrance at home twenty times and then eat dinner." The winter did not become easy. It became survivable, which is the unsung key signature of most real lives.
In February, after a Saturday lesson, Mr. Carter asked if she had ten minutes. His office was as narrow as promised. The air shaft window showed a slice of brick. He set a folder on the desk and did not open it at first.