He gestured grandly to the piano. “And afterward, if you somehow manage not to embarrass yourselves completely, I’ll ensure you receive… a grand banquet. Perhaps even cheese. If you’re very, very good.”
The audience laughed again, pleased with their own cruelty.
Christine trembled so hard Catherine thought she might collapse.
Catherine stared at the piano. The keys gleamed white beneath stage lights, too clean for hands like hers. She felt the weight of every person in that room staring at her like she was a mistake.
“What song?” Christine whispered, voice cracking.
Catherine didn’t have to think long.
“Mama’s lullaby,” she whispered back.
Christine’s eyes filled again. She nodded.
Catherine sat on the piano bench. It was smooth beneath her, a luxury her body didn’t trust. She placed her hands above the keys.
In the audience, someone yelled, “Hurry up! Let’s see the disaster!”
Catherine drew a deep breath and closed her eyes.
She pictured Mama’s face, tired but smiling. Mama’s fingers guiding theirs. Mama’s voice humming low in a freezing alley, turning fear into something you could hold.
Then Catherine pressed the first key.
But before the note could fully bloom, a plastic bottle flew through the air.
It hit Catherine in the chest.
Water exploded across her already soaked clothes, splashed onto Christine, and sprayed over the piano keys.
The audience erupted in the loudest laughter yet.
“Bullseye!” someone shouted.
Jackson threw his head back laughing. “Oh, this is better than I expected. The street children are getting a bath.”
Madame Esther cackled. “They look like drowned rats.”
Catherine froze, water dripping from her hair, her face, her chin. The impact had hurt. The humiliation hurt more.
She looked down at the wet keys, at the water pooling on the perfect white surface, and something deep inside her snapped, not loudly, but cleanly, like a string breaking.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered, so quiet no one heard. “I tried.”
