Chapter 34 - What My Mother Owed
The amount was precise.
That made it worse.
Fees.
Advances.
Expenses.
Interest.
A total large enough to make the reopened studio feel suddenly small.
I stared at the pages in Camille’s office.
“My mother died fourteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Can someone simply keep adding numbers?”
“Someone can make a claim. Whether it is valid, enforceable, timely, or accurately calculated requires examination.”
I nodded.
Every careful distinction felt inadequate beside the figure.
Then Camille turned to the supporting schedule.
Some expenses related to genuine work.
Some lacked documentation.
Some appeared twice under different descriptions.
The accounting was not a verdict.
It was an argument.
I forced myself to read it that way.
Alexander offered to sit with me while I reviewed copies.
I said yes.
He did not offer to pay.
I noticed how difficult that restraint was for him.
After an hour, I put down the pen.
“What if she leaves me nothing?”
He looked at me.
“My mother. What if everything I thought was hers belongs to somebody else on paper?”
Alexander considered his answer.
Then he said, “Your teaching doesn’t.”
I laughed once.
“That’s not an accounting response.”
“No.”
I looked toward the studio doorway.
Ruby was practicing with Mateo.
Marisol was handling a parent’s question.
Music moved through the wall.
It was not nothing.
The next day, Camille requested the complete underlying records and challenged unsupported portions of the claim.
She also separated the estate dispute from the studio’s current property and operations.
Vivienne’s assertion did not automatically make my students’ classroom hers.
I needed to hear that more than once.
Meanwhile, Duval’s team continued negotiating.
I told them about the claim.
Not because I owed them every private fear.
Because uncertainty concerning rights affected the proposed production.
Duval requested a meeting.
I expected pressure.
Instead, he asked what could proceed safely and honestly.
Camille explained.
My original contributions.
New choreography.
Materials whose use could be clarified.
A project did not need to pretend every movement was a recovered masterpiece.
Duval looked at me.
“What would you make if nobody required you to imitate Elena?”
The question silenced me.
For months, I had been reconstructing.
Protecting.
Correcting.
Proving.
What would I make?
I thought of cleaning corridors.
A tray balanced on my hand.
My mother’s cold studio.
Anya entering an audition.
Alexander learning to ask.
I looked toward the empty stage.
“A piece about people mistaking service for absence,” I said.
Duval leaned forward.
I continued.
“About the person who remains in the room after everyone important leaves.”
He was quiet.
Then he asked, “Would your mother’s unfinished work be part of it?”
“Perhaps a conversation with it. Not a claim that I can resurrect her.”
For the first time, the project began to feel like mine.
That evening, I called Rossi.
He listened.
Then he said, “At last.”
I laughed.
“You could have mentioned I was taking too long.”
“I have. Constantly. In several languages.”
We agreed to begin developing new music alongside whatever could properly be used from the surviving score.
No shortcuts.
No pretending.
Work.
I slept well that night.
In the morning, a message arrived from Victoria.
She had found another reference among documents being supplied through counsel.
Not proof.
A lead.
A payment from a cultural organization connected to Vivienne.
The description referenced Elena’s American work.
The payment date fell years after my mother died.
I read it twice.
Then I forwarded it to Camille.
The old question had changed.
May you like
It was no longer only what my mother owed.
It was what other people might still owe her.
