The walk home from Rico's studio traced the same cracked sidewalks I'd known in two lives, past the bodega where Mr. Ramirez would—or wouldn't, depending on what I did next year—lose his lease to a corporate chain. Mother's hand rested in the crook of my arm, a habit she'd developed since my father's departure that felt both ancient and new.
"That boy, Devon," she said, her voice carrying the particular tone that preceded her most careful observations, "he reminds me of you. Before all this." She gestured vaguely at the studio behind us, at the future stretching before us like a road simultaneously travelled and new.
The comparison struck closer than she knew. In my first life, Devon had burned out by twenty-three, another casualty of an industry that consumed talent like kindling. The weight of that knowledge pressed against my tongue, wanting to spill out in warnings and preparations. Instead, I said, "He's got a good head on his shoulders. Better with you watching out for him."
Mother's laugh scattered across the evening air like loose change. "Watching out for him? Marcus Johnson, if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black. Since when does a seventeen-year-old boy need to worry about other people's contracts?"
Since I lived through twenty years of industry evolution and watched talented kids like Devon get chewed up by fine print and false promises. Since I learned that success without protection was just failure in expensive clothes. Since I woke up with a second chance to make it right.
"Someone has to," I said instead, guiding us around a gathering of teenagers who, in my other memory, would have been absorbed in phones that hadn't been invented yet. Their laughter echoed off brick walls that still held their original colors, not yet painted over with the murals I remembered.
Mother stopped at the corner where Rodriguez Street met Jerome Avenue, her hand tightening on my arm. The setting sun caught the silver threading through her hair—less than before, or rather, less than it would have been. "You know what Rico said to me today? Said you remind him of my father. A young man with old eyes, he said."
The comparison to my grandfather, dead five years in both timelines, made my chest tight. He'd been the one to first put my hands on piano keys, to teach me that music was mathematics with soul. In my first life, I'd been too young to ask him the questions that mattered. Now, armed with hindsight, I couldn't ask them at all.
"Rico talks too much," I deflected, but Mother wasn't letting go—of my arm or the conversation.
"He's right though. Sometimes I look at you and it's like..." she paused, and I held my breath, wondering if she'd somehow seen through the impossible truth. "Like you grew up when I wasn't looking. Like you know things you shouldn't have to know yet."
The irony nearly made me laugh. If she only knew how right she was, how many years of knowledge pressed against the inside of my skull, how carefully I had to measure every word to avoid revealing too much. The temptation to tell her everything rose like a tide—about the struggles we'd avoid this time, about the foundation she'd establish in my name, about the lives we'd touch.
Instead, I guided us across the street, past the vacant lot that would become a community recording studio in 2012—or sooner, if I could leverage Devon's upcoming success the way I planned. "Maybe I just learned from watching you," I said softly. "Working two jobs, keeping everything together. You think I didn't notice how you handled things?"
Her eyes misted over, but she blinked it away with the practiced ease of a woman who'd raised a son alone in the Bronx. "There's watching, Marcus, and there's knowing. What you did today, with those contract terms..." She shook her head. "Promise me something?"
"Anything," I said, meaning it across all timelines.
"Whatever's making you so... careful, so grown up before your time—don't let it steal all your tomorrows. Some things you need to learn by living them."
The words hit me like a physical force. In my desperate attempt to protect everyone's future, had I forgotten to live in the present? The question echoed in my mind as we climbed the stairs to our apartment, each step a reminder of paths both taken and yet to come.
At the door, Mother paused, keys in hand. "Your grandfather used to say that music isn't just about knowing the notes—it's about feeling them in the moment they're played. Maybe life's like that too."
I watched her unlock the door, this woman who'd raised me twice now, and felt the truth of it resonate through both my lives. The future was a song I'd heard before, but that didn't mean it couldn't be played differently this time around. The trick would be finding the balance between the notes I remembered and the ones I was yet to discover.