“That music…” Christine murmured, voice thin. “It sounds like… like when Mama used to sing.”
The name hit Catherine like a stone dropped into water, and every memory rippled out.
Mama. Helen Harper. Black hair. Brown eyes. A voice that didn’t fix their problems but made them feel survivable. A lullaby that turned alleys into bedrooms and hunger into something you could outlast.
“She said we had special voices,” Catherine said, mostly to herself. She swallowed, tasting rain and yesterday. “She said music could make people feel things.”
Christine turned her face up, rainwater sliding off her chin. “Do you really think they’ll listen?”
Catherine watched a woman step from a car wrapped in fur so thick it looked like a cloud had been taught to behave. Diamonds winked at her throat. She laughed at something the doorman said, and the laugh was light, the way laughter is when it has never had to negotiate with hunger.
Catherine’s stomach growled so loudly she felt embarrassed, as if her body was betraying her.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, because lies had never kept them warm. “But if we don’t try, we don’t make it through the night.”
That was the truth. It stood between them like a third sister, blunt and unblinking.
Christine’s eyes filled. “What if they laugh at us again?”
“Then we leave,” Catherine said, though her chest tightened because leaving meant cold. “But at least we’ll know we tried.”
She squeezed Christine’s hand, as if warmth could be passed like a secret through skin.
“Ready?” Catherine asked.
Christine drew a shaky breath. “Ready.”
They stepped off the curb.
A car honked. Its headlights cut through rain and hit them like accusation. They stumbled back, hearts jolting. Then they ran, feet splashing, crossing the wet street in a half-sprint that felt like running through a dream where your legs won’t obey.
When they reached the red carpet, it was absurdly dry under their shoes. That small dryness felt like a different universe.
A security guard stood at the entrance, wide-shouldered, arms crossed, jaw set in the kind of hardness that made empathy look like weakness.
Catherine didn’t give him time to decide what she was. She lifted her chin, a gesture she remembered from a thousand imaginary performances in front of their broken warehouse piano.
“Please, sir,” she said, voice trembling but clear. “If we sing and play the piano for you… will you give us some food? Even just leftover bread.”
The guard blinked as if he’d heard a joke he didn’t understand.
Then his face twisted.
“Are you kidding me?” he snapped. “Look at you. You think people in there want that? This is the Williams Theater, not a soup kitchen. Get off the carpet.”
Christine flinched like the words had hands.
Catherine tried again, voice cracking. “We haven’t eaten in two days. Please. We can sing. We—”
“Street rats,” the guard muttered, loud enough for the insult to land. He grabbed Catherine’s shoulder and shoved her backward.
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