“It was the night before his debut at the recital hall downtown. He was finally going to do it. He was going to play his music for the world.”
She looked at Terrence, her heart breaking all over again.
“He was in the car with you, Terrence. You were only three.”
A collective gasp went through the room.
“The accident… it took his life. And it took your sight.”
The revelation landed with devastating force. The music wasn’t just a memory of his father; it was tied to the single most traumatic event of his life.
Terrence flinched as if struck. His hands flew from the keys. He had always been told his blindness was from a sickness he’d had as a baby.
His entire life, the two central facts of his existence—his blindness and his music—had been a lie and a half-truth.
He had found the old shoebox in the attic by touch, its worn cardboard a comfort. He’d discovered the cassette player and the tapes inside. In secret, late at night, he would listen, his fingers tracing the notes in the air, then finding them on the old upright piano in their living room.
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