A pause. A television in his background, a life. "Not this month. I can send a little for the teacher. I want to. If that's allowed."
Aaliyah looked at Ruth, who was pretending not to listen and was listening with her whole spine. Ruth nodded once. "It's allowed," Aaliyah said. "Miss Anita doesn't let it be nothing, and she doesn't let it be a punishment. You can send it to Ruth. And if you come at Christmas, I can play you the second page if I have it by then. You don't have to clap like the video."
"I'd rather hear it in a room," he said. "I'm sorry the room isn't mine more often."
"I know," she said. "Both can be true."
After she hung up she sat with the strange light feeling of having been a person to her father and not only a event. Ruth put a hand on her head. "You handled that like a woman with a calendar," she said. "Don't make a habit of being older than you are. Let him do some of the carrying if he remembers how. And if he doesn't, you will still have a Wednesday. That is not a consolation prize. That is a life."
The money came, not a fortune, enough for a month of the amount Ruth and Miss Anita had named. Aaliyah wrote a thank-you on paper, not in an app, and Ruth mailed it. Andre did not come at Christmas. He called, and he listened to eight bars over the phone, and the connection turned the gray song into weather. He said he was proud. Aaliyah said thank you. She meant both the love and the limit. Ruth hung up the extension and said nothing unkind, which was its own discipline, and they ate pie the church had sent home. The keyboard got its minutes even on Christmas, because the bar, Ruth said, did not observe the holiday as faithfully as the post office.
Winter arranged itself.