After the Divorce, I Became His First Love's Sister-in-Law novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Spot

Hazel auditions for the conservatory board while Delphine's donor letter tries to block her. She plays, wins, and sees Colin clapping alone in the back row.

The Ashford Conservatory gave me one hour and three judges.

They sat in the front row of an empty recital hall on Thursday morning, and none of them smiled.

The dean in the middle had a letter in her hand.

"Before you play, Mrs. Rutherford, I have to read you something that arrived yesterday."

"It's Fincham," I said. "I use my own name again."

"Of course."

She unfolded the page and read it aloud, in a dry voice.

"'I am writing as a friend of the family and a patron of this school. Hazel is a lovely person, but she has not played seriously in three years. A hard audition could hurt her. I would hate to see a place wasted when so many young people are waiting. With love, Delphine Marchand.'"

The violinist on the dean's left nodded slowly.

The man on her right looked at the ceiling.

The letter was very kind, and it was meant to end my audition before it started.

"Three years is a long time to be a society wife," the violinist said. "Why should we hold a seat for you?"

"You shouldn't hold it," I said. "You should hear it."

Etienne sat in the back of the hall with his coat on his knee.

He was a trustee, and he had told me in the car he would not vote and would not speak.

"Your vote is yours," he had said. "I'll take your word that the music is."

He did not look at me now.

I walked to the piano and sat down and put my hands on my knees.

For three years I had practiced at night in the laundry room of the Rutherford house, on a keyboard with no sound.

I played it with the lights off while Colin slept upstairs.

I had never told anyone, because he laughed at things like that.

I lifted my hands.

The first piece was the G minor Ballade, because it is loud and hard and it does not forgive anyone.

I played the first page carefully, so my fingers could remember where they lived.

By the second page they did.

By the climax I had stopped thinking about the judges, or the letter, or the man in the back row with his coat.

I played all of it.

When I finished, the hall rang with the last chord, and then it was quiet.

The man on the dean's right was no longer looking at the ceiling.

The violinist took her pen out of her mouth.

"Play something slow," the dean said.

"What would you like?"

"Anything you have not played for him."

I felt the question land and I did not ask who she meant.

I played a short Brahms intermezzo, the one my mother used to hum while the kettle boiled.

I played it quietly, and I did not close my eyes.

Nobody in the hall moved until it was over.

The dean took off her glasses and cleaned them on her sleeve.

"Mrs. Fincham, I have sat on this panel for twenty-two years. I've been asked to turn down a great many pianists as a favor to a great many patrons."

She put the glasses back on.

"I do not enjoy favors."

She held the letter by one corner and dropped it in the bin beside her chair.

"The seat is yours. Rehearsals start Monday at eight."

I stood up from the bench and my knees almost failed.

The violinist was already writing my name on the list.

"One more thing," she said, without looking up. "If a donor writes again, I'll read the letter in public."

From the back row, one person began to clap.

It was slow, and it was alone.

I turned.

Etienne was not the one clapping.

He was standing with his coat gripped in one fist, looking toward the doors.

At the top of the aisle, under the exit sign, stood Colin.

He wore the same charcoal suit as the night he left me in the rain, and he had not shaved.

His hands came together over and over, each clap a little slower than the one before.

"That was good, Hazel," he said, and his voice carried all the way down the aisle. "That was really very good."

He was not smiling.

He looked at me for a long moment, and for once he did not look sure.

"Come home now," he said. "You've proved it."

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