Lila supplied the score Celeste had given her.
The arrangement included an extra section of ornamentation not found in Sophie’s early draft, but the central melody and harmonies were identical.
Dr. Patel would not comment while the review was underway.
Instead she asked each girl to describe how the piece developed.
Sophie talked about raindrops on the north-facing bedroom window and the sound of her mother’s old wind chime.
Lila explained how she had received the finished pages from Celeste three weeks before the donor party.
Neither girl tried to make the other look foolish.
For one afternoon they sat in separate rooms and told the truth as they remembered it.
That evening Sophie told me she had been more frightened of performing honesty than performing music.
“The music does what I tell it,” she said.
“People don’t.”
Then Celeste produced a recording that appeared to predate Sophie’s work.
The trust called us back to Boston, and Dr. Shaw played a short excerpt through the conference room speakers.
The recording sounded like The Blue Room, but performed on a piano with a slower tempo.
A date displayed in the accompanying document placed it three years before Sophie began composing.
I watched my daughter’s face change.
“I’ve never heard that before,” she said.
“Neither have I,” Mrs. Paredes answered.
Dr. Shaw did not ask us to accept the date as authentic.
She explained that the file’s origin, storage history, and creation details still needed review.
Celeste claimed it was a rehearsal recording made by a former student, now living abroad.
She had provided a name and a signed statement.
“Why would she wait until now?” I asked.
“That’s one of the questions,” Dr. Shaw said.
We left the building without knowing whether the award would survive.
At the train station, Sophie finally spoke.
“Dad, what if she can make anything look older than it is?”
I wanted to tell her she couldn’t.
I had no basis for that promise.
At home I listened to the recording with headphones while Sophie slept.
The piano notes were technically clean, but there was a faint click beneath the third measure.
It sounded like a mechanical metronome, though the beat did not match the music.
Then I heard a low voice at the end of the file.
The voice was almost buried under the scrape of a chair.
It said, “Let’s do the blue room again.”
I played the last seconds repeatedly and felt my pulse quicken.
