Chapter 3 - Richard Had One Good Reason
Richard did not apologize.
Not then.
Instead he asked Helen to describe exactly what Beatrice had said.
Helen remembered because the call had been unusual.
Beatrice was weak.
Impatient.
Still funny.
“She told me the coda finally sounded like two people arguing their way toward the same door.”
Mara smiled despite herself.
“That sounds like her.”
Helen continued.
“She wanted Mara credited.”
Claire asked:
“Why change her mind?”
Helen looked at Mara.
“You tell her.”
Mara sat.
“Your mother heard Richard introduce the piece at a private donor dinner.”
Richard frowned.
“I don’t remember that.”
“I do.”
He had called it:
Beatrice’s final solitary composition.
That word bothered Beatrice.
Solitary.
Because it wasn’t.
Later that night she told Mara:
“I’m protecting your future by erasing your present.”
Mara did not repeat the entire conversation.
She didn’t need to.
Claire understood enough.
“What did Dad say when she changed the credit?”
Richard answered.
“I said it was a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother was dying.”
Claire flinched.
He continued before she could stop him.
“She was exhausted. Medicated. Angry at being treated like she was disappearing before she was dead.”
Mara said:
“She was still making decisions.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Richard stood.
“Yes.”
For the first time, his anger sounded less arrogant than frightened.
“I spent three years watching journalists turn every tremor into an obituary.”
Nobody spoke.
“They stopped asking Beatrice what she was making. They asked how long she could still play.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“She hated it.”
Claire looked down.
She remembered.
Richard continued.
“When she said put Mara’s name on the piece, I knew exactly what the articles would say.”
Mara finished for him.
“Famous composer too sick to finish own work.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t what happened.”
“I know that.”
“Then why would you let them say it?”
“Because they would.”
This was Richard’s good reason.
Not greed.
Not jealousy.
Fear.
He had spent the last years of his wife’s life trying to keep her from being reduced to her illness.
The problem was what he did after.
Claire asked:
“So you ignored her.”
Richard’s face tightened.
“I delayed.”
Helen looked at him.
“For twenty years?”
He turned away.
Mara asked:
“When did delay become no?”
Richard did not answer.
Claire looked at Helen.
“Did Mom leave anything else?”
“No grand confession, if that’s what you mean.”
Good.
No convenient letter.
Helen had a publishing note.
A scheduled revision.
A phone memo.
Enough to establish Beatrice intended the credit changed.
Nothing more.
Claire looked at Mara.
“Why didn’t you force the issue?”
Richard answered for her.
“She took the scholarship.”
Mara’s eyes hardened.
Claire turned.
“What scholarship?”
Mara said:
“He paid my last two years at conservatory.”
Richard corrected:
“Beatrice did.”
“Through your foundation.”
“Yes.”
Claire stared at Mara.
“Was that connected to the credit?”
Mara hesitated.
Not legally.
Not on paper.
Emotionally?
Absolutely.
Richard never said:
Take the money and disappear.
He said:
Finish school. Give this family a year. Let Claire grieve. Let the press lose interest.
Mara agreed.
She was nineteen.
Her mother earned hourly wages in Richard’s house.
Her tuition was due.
Beatrice had just died.
And Mara genuinely believed one year might be kinder.
Claire asked:
“What happened after the year?”
Mara looked at Richard.
“I came back.”
Richard said:
“You came demanding changes.”
“I came asking you to do what Beatrice asked.”
“You threatened to go to a reporter.”
“After you refused to see me four times.”
Claire looked at Mara.
“You threatened him?”
“Yes.”
Another inconvenient fact.
Mara had not remained pure.
She had been twenty-one, angry, grieving, and humiliated.
She told Richard that if he would not correct the published score, she would tell a music columnist exactly how the ending had been written.
Richard reacted badly.
He called it blackmail.
Mara called it leverage.
Both words had survived longer than the conversation.
Claire asked:
“What did you do, Dad?”
Richard looked at her.
“I told her if she wanted a public fight, she could have one.”
“What does that mean?”
“I told her I would release Beatrice’s original journals.”
Mara’s mouth tightened.
Claire knew those journals contained private accounts of her mother’s illness.
“You used Mom’s medical privacy against her?”
“No.”
Mara said:
“Yes.”
Richard turned.
“I was protecting Beatrice.”
“You told me if I made the authorship public, every newspaper in New York would be asking how much she could still write in her final months.”
“That was true.”
“And you knew I would never do that to her.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
That was the leverage.
Not legal.
Personal.
Richard knew Mara loved Beatrice too much to win at that price.
So Mara walked away.
Claire was quiet for a long time.
Then:
“Why did you tell me Mara tried to steal the piece?”
Richard looked at her.
“You were seventeen.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You adored your mother.”
“Still not an answer.”
“You were angry.”
“At who?”
Richard did not speak.
Claire understood before anyone told her.
“At you?”
His face changed.
After Beatrice died, Claire had become unbearable with grief.
Richard tried to keep the house moving.
Claire wanted someone who could talk about her mother without lowering their voice every time.
That person was Mara.
Mara had known which keys Beatrice hated.
Which phrases she rewrote twenty times.
Which songs she played badly on purpose to make Claire laugh.
Claire had started calling Mara.
Richard had hated those calls.
Not because Mara was dangerous.
Because Claire became calmer after talking to her than after talking to him.
Claire’s voice dropped.
“You didn’t just keep her name off the piece.”
Richard looked away.
“You kept her away from me.”
Mara closed her eyes.
Claire asked:
“Did she stop calling?”
Richard answered:
“No.”
One word.
Enough.
Claire’s face went white.
“What did you do?”
Richard looked at his daughter.
“I told her you needed distance.”
Claire whispered:
“I never said that.”
“I know.”
That was the first decision in the room Richard could no longer dress as protecting Beatrice.
May you like
He had started by protecting his wife’s dignity.
Somewhere along the way, he had begun protecting his place in his daughter’s grief.
