Every December after that my sister would call the night of the concert. “She directed the whole thing and never missed a note,” she would say. I would tell her “I do not want to hear about it” but then I would ask what songs they picked. She always told me.

Now the note is back in the drawer and I touch it every morning before I make coffee. The concerts start again in three weeks. I already know I am not going to the balcony this time. I will walk down the center aisle and sit in the seat she left open. I still have not called her. I do not know how to start after twenty years of silence.