She laughs and spins once, checks the boards like she can hear the ghosts. “I brought coffee and kolaches in the car. Go get them, baby.”
I jog out, grab two boxes and a carrier, and come back to the sound of Mom telling Lou about her first tour. “I thought I wanted chaos,” she says. “Then I had three little men and decided the road could survive without me for a few years. Studio gigs paid. No one threw bottles. By the time Knox was old enough for the first hair on his chin, Troy was on the way, so I was glad I’d settled down. I could get home for dinner and make sure homework got done.”
“You did more than that,” I say.
“I did exactly that. We kept the lights on. You boys kept the music going. Now we’re all here again, which makes me think the universe likes symmetry.”
Lou touches her locket. “Yeah, maybe it does.”
Mom sees it. Of course she does. “What have you got there?”
“It’s the only thing I had when I was found,” Lou says. “Back of it says Navarro.” She shrugs. “So, that’s my last name.”
Mom’s face softens. “Baby.” Then she snaps her fingers like a bandleader. “You want to work? Go dig. The archival logs are in the back office. Session sheets, marker scribbles, receipts, my gross gum in envelopes. You’ll find something that sparks.”
Lou blinks. “Can I really?”
“You better,” Mom says. “Inspiration grows best in dusty folders.”
Lou disappears down the hall with a half smile. Mom watches her go and nods like a coach. “She’s got it.”
“Got what?”
“The look. Steady hands. Ear already on. Don’t ruin it by talking too much.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, and sit at the piano. The wood is a little out. The felt smells the same. I play a scale, then a chord that lives in my hands whether I want it to or not.
I think about the locket, the unknown faces, the way Lou said the wordfound,when speaking about herself. A melody shows uplike it’s been waiting by the door. I catch it and move slow so I don’t scare it off.
Three notes, then five. A climb that isn’t dramatic, a turn that lands where it started with something new inside it. I play it twice, then reach for a better voicing, then pick up the guitar to see if it holds in a different skin. It does.
“Pretty,” Mom says, perched on the amp like Betty Boop at a mic check.
“Locket.”
“Call itLost and Found,” she says, then waves it off. “Forget it. Don’t let me name your art.”
I stand and patch a ribbon on the guitar, then a small diaphragm on the piano so the hammer noise stays polite. The old preamp in the rack still has a sweet spot two clicks past noon. I set it there.
Mom hums along to nothing and somehow finds the key anyway. That’s her gift. One of many. I arm two tracks and step into the live room to test the bleed.
Lou returns with a box of paper and a stack of old Polaroids. She sets them on the piano and looks at my hands. “What’s that?”
“Something new.”
She hums like she’s answering a question I didn’t ask. Not words. A line over mine that fits too well to be random. I stop and look at her. She blushes and shakes her head.
“That was good. Keep going.”
She hums it again. I play under it, shifting my left hand to give her more room. She follows without thinking, then stops, startled by herself. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I hit record. “Again.”
She does it, softer now, eyes on the locket like she’s reading from it. I add a second guitar voice to sit under both our lines and let the loop spin.
“You sing?” I ask.
She laughs. “No.”
