Chapter 21 - The Pages Between the Steps
Camille would not let me carry every notebook into court without preparation.
I found that unreasonable for half a minute.
Then she explained why.
Originals needed protection.
The sequence mattered.
The dates mattered.
My handwriting had entered some pages when I was a child.
Later notes were mine.
A reader should be able to tell the difference.
I sat beside the studio window while we documented what existed.
My mother’s markings.
My childish counts.
Corrections in red pencil.
A stain where tea had spilled during a rehearsal.
The notebooks were not a perfect record.
They were evidence of work.
Alive.
Messy.
Human.
Rossi supplied what he could concerning the score.
He did not claim to remember contracts he had never read.
He identified the music Elena gave him and the conversations he recalled.
Vivienne supplied more agreements.
At last.
Some supported limited claims concerning specific recordings.
Others concerned management periods long past.
The broad story she told did not fit neatly around the actual pages.
That did not mean every question disappeared.
It meant the questions became precise.
I preferred that to being told I either owned everything or nothing.
Alexander stayed outside the legal decisions unless Camille requested information concerning the foundation.
He hated it.
I could tell.
One evening, he stood in the studio doorway while I reviewed copies.
“Do you want help?”
“Yes.”
His face brightened.
“Put the chairs away.”
He stared at me.
Then he laughed.
“Understood.”
For twenty minutes, he stacked chairs.
No empire moved.
No rival fell.
The work still helped.
At the hearing, I wore a dark dress and shoes my clinician would not argue with.
Alexander sat behind me.
Not at counsel’s table.
Not positioned where everyone could mistake his wealth for my authority.
Camille presented the documents.
Vivienne’s attorney described valuable rights, unresolved obligations, and the danger of public confusion.
Camille distinguished recordings from choreography, draft reconstruction from completed performance, and assertion from demonstrated authority.
The judge asked questions.
Careful ones.
Not theatrical ones.
No one announced that my mother had been a saint.
No one needed to.
The request for broad immediate restrictions did not succeed in the form Vivienne sought.
Further proceedings would address the disputed rights.
The parties were directed to preserve materials and clarify their claims.
Certain uses remained subject to review.
I did not walk out owning every fragment of my mother’s past.
I walked out without being told to stop examining it.
That was enough to make my knees weak.
Outside, Alexander offered his arm.
I took it.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Tired.”
“And?”
“Like I’m allowed to continue.”
He kissed my temple.
“You were allowed before.”
“I know.”
But hearing a room with authority decline to erase you could still matter.
Back at the school, the children had made a banner.
WELCOME BACK, MISS LENA.
Ruby had added a drawing of an enormous slipper.
Marisol explained that she had vetoed several attempts to write something about lawyers.
I laughed until I cried.
Then I sat with the class and helped them work through the opening phrase of a new piece.
Not my mother’s choreography.
Theirs.
Small choices.
A turn.
A reach.
A funny pause Mateo insisted belonged in the music.
For months, I had been trying to recover what Elena left.
I had almost forgotten that teaching meant making room for what came after her.
That evening, we decided the spring studio presentation would proceed.
A modest event.
Students.
Live music if we could afford it.
No reconstruction presented as complete when it was not.
No promise that I would dance beyond my current clearance.
I would direct.
I would teach.
I would be present without making my body the price of admission.
Then the production coordinator called.
The scenery supplier had withdrawn.
The portable platform reservation had been canceled.
The sponsor listed on the old order was Vivienne’s cultural foundation.
May you like
I stared at the message.
Apparently, losing control of the music did not prevent someone from trying to remove the stage.
