CHAPTER NINE B — WREN AND THE MUSIC ROOM

Wren had stopped eating lunch with the other musicians by the time I learned about Dev’s appeal.
She waited in the music room until the school bell rang and took her clarinet to the library during breaks.
The students were not cruel to her, but their kindness had become formal.
They asked whether she needed a chair instead of inviting her to sit beside them.
They said good morning and then returned to conversations they no longer wanted her to hear.
I found her practicing a difficult passage at half speed after school.
Her breathing was controlled, but the notes sounded painfully cautious.
“You’re playing like someone might accuse you of taking up too much room,” I said.
She lowered the clarinet.


“Maybe somebody should.”
I sat at the piano and played the opening chord of a familiar folk tune.
Wren did not join me.
“I know Dev lost something because of my mother,” she said.
“You didn’t take the letter,” I answered.
“But I listened when she told me he wasn’t serious enough to audition alone.”
I let the admission settle.
“What did you think then?”
“I thought she knew the rules.”
“What do you think now?”
“I think I wanted her to know the rules because it meant I didn’t have to ask questions.”
That was a difficult truth for someone her age to reach.
I asked whether she wanted to speak to Dev about it.
She shook her head.
“He said he needed space, and I don’t want to use an apology to make him comfort me.

”
I nodded.
We returned to the passage, and I asked her to play the first four measures at full volume.
She did, but the fifth note cracked.
Wren lowered the instrument in frustration.
“I can’t even do that right.”
“Then we know what to practice,” I said.
She looked furious at the simplicity of the answer.
Then she laughed in spite of herself.
We worked for twenty minutes until the notes stopped trembling.
When she packed up, Wren asked whether I had ever trusted someone who made a terrible choice.
I thought of my father, whose last years had been full of mistakes he could no longer correct.
“Yes,” I said.
“Did you stop loving them?”
“No, but I stopped letting love decide what was true.”
Wren held her clarinet case against her chest.
“I still love Mom,” she said.
“You’re allowed to,” I answered.
“I’m also angry.”
“You’re allowed to be angry.”
She considered both statements as though they were notes that belonged in the same chord.
On her way out, she stopped beside the classroom noticeboard.
A flyer advertised the Milwaukee conservatory’s winter open day.
She read it carefully, then took down the application website on her phone.