For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then she asked, “Did you read it?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Ms. Delgado did.”
Mrs. Parker looked toward the piano.
Ms. Delgado rose slowly.
“I only read the outside,” she said. “There was a note attached asking that the enclosed pages be given to the school music teacher if they were ever found.”
Mrs. Parker stared at her.
“That note was still there?”
“Yes.”
Something passed across Mrs. Parker’s face.
Memory.
Regret.
Perhaps both.
Owen crouched beside her.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Mrs. Parker looked at him for a long moment.
Then she reached out and straightened the crooked felt stem on top of his pumpkin costume.
“No,” she said.
Her voice trembled.
“No. If you’ve come this far, we might as well open the door.”
Ms. Delgado sat at the piano.
She played four notes.
Mrs. Parker inhaled sharply.
The melody that followed was simple.
