The acceptance email arrived eleven days later while Sarah was changing sheets in an empty hospital room. Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her scrub pants. She ignored it at first because the unit was short-staffed and room 412 needed to be turned over before transport brought up another patient. Ten minutes later, while washing her hands, she saw HARTWELL CONSERVATORY in the subject line and had to grip the sink.
She opened the message with wet fingers. Eli had been offered one of the twelve fellowships. The email was formal. It congratulated him, listed orientation dates, explained the transportation stipend, practice-room access, weekly theory class, and private lesson placement.
It also said that a weighted digital piano would be delivered to the Carter home within two weeks for the duration of his enrollment. Sarah read that sentence three times. Then she locked herself in the staff restroom and cried so hard she laughed at herself. She called Eli after school, but he did not answer because phones were not allowed on the bus.
So she waited outside their apartment complex in scrubs and a winter coat with the acceptance email printed on hospital paper in her hand. When the bus pulled up, Eli got off carrying the same frayed backpack he had dropped beside the station piano. He saw her standing there and immediately looked alarmed. “What happened?”
Sarah handed him the paper. He read it standing on the cracked sidewalk. Halfway through, he stopped. His eyes went back to the first paragraph.
Then to the line about the piano. Then to his mother. “Is this real?” he whispered. “It’s real.”
Eli looked down at the paper again. For several seconds he did not react in the way Sarah expected. Then he sat directly on the curb and put his face in both hands. She crouched beside him.
“Good crying or bad crying?” His answer came muffled through his fingers. “I don’t know.” That was honest too.