At dinner, he barely touched his food.
“Mom.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“There’s something weird.”
That phrase coming from a twelve-year-old normally meant very little.
This time his expression made me put down my fork.
“What happened?”
“I asked Ms. Delgado about the old concert programs.”
“And?”
“The school keeps them.”
He pulled a folded photocopy from his backpack.
Across the top was printed:
AUTUMN MUSIC EVENING — OCTOBER 2002.
Owen pointed to the list of performances.
Near the bottom was an entry:
Original Composition — “The Road Home”
Composer: Thomas Mercer.
Performed by the fifth-grade ensemble.
I stared at him.
“Mrs. Parker said Thomas never performed the finished song.”
“I know.”
“Maybe this was a different piece.”
Owen shook his head.
“Ms. Delgado checked the archive.”
He flipped the page.
“The sheet music from that concert is still there.”
At the top was the title.
The Road Home.
Four measures were identical to the melody we’d heard the previous night.
