Then Mason admitted he wanted to quit because he was the worst player on the team and heard Tom laugh at Eli for trying something serious. “You said kids should just go play,” Mason said. “So why do I have to keep doing soccer if I’m bad?” Tom sat back with his coffee untouched.
There are moments when parenting offers adults a mirror before they have chosen a face. Tom saw in that instant that his train-station joke had not taught Mason to relax. It had taught him that effort becomes embarrassing when success is uncertain. Tom apologized to his son first, then asked whether Mason wanted to quit soccer or wanted help getting better.
The answer turned out to be the second. Aisha’s reaction was quieter. She worked as a nurse practitioner at a pediatric clinic, which made her comment about children and big dreams feel especially stupid in retrospect. Her daughter Zoe asked to start dance lessons two weeks after the station.
Aisha’s first instinct was to say the schedule was too busy and six years old was too young to take dance seriously. She heard her own train-station sentence before it left her mouth. Instead she said they could try one beginner class and see whether Zoe liked the work as much as the idea. None of these changes reached Eli directly.
He had no reason to know that the adults who mocked him had carried the moment home. He also did not need to. His task was the audition. Evelyn advised him to prepare three contrasting pieces: the Mozart sonata movement, the “Shenandoah” arrangement, and one piece that challenged him technically without exceeding his musical maturity.
Mrs. Alvarez chose Burgmüller’s “Ballade” after rejecting Eli’s request to attempt a Chopin nocturne. “Auditions are not costume parties,” she said. “Do not dress like an eighteen-year-old pianist when you are ten.”
Eli practiced four days a week at the Lutheran church. The sanctuary was usually empty except for afternoon light through amber windows and the faint building noises of heating pipes. He learned the piano’s unevenness, the way the bass responded more slowly, the soft pedal that squeaked, the middle register that rewarded gentler attack. He made mistakes.
He repeated passages. He got angry enough once to slap his own thigh and then looked around guiltily as if God might report him to Mrs. Alvarez. Sarah watched from the back pew when work allowed.