After Rico left, I remained in the basement studio, letting the weight of two timelines settle around me like studio dust. My mother's footsteps descended the stairs, each step carrying the particular rhythm of her concern. She appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the stairwell light, holding a mug of the same chamomile tea she'd used to calm my nerves before performances in both timelines.
"Baby," she said, using the tone that had always preceded her most important conversations, "we need to talk about what's happening."
In my original timeline, this conversation had come years later, after my first major success. But this version of my mother—sharper, younger, closer to her own dreams—saw things the first version had missed. She sat in Rico's abandoned chair, the steam from her tea curling like question marks in the studio air.
"You're different," she said simply. "Not just talented different. Different different. Ever since last spring, it's like..." She paused, searching for words. "Like you're carrying years I didn't see you live."
My hands froze over the mixing board. In the monitors, I could see our reflections: her timeless beauty and concern, my young face with its old eyes. The last track I'd played—our wedding song that might never be—hung in the air like perfume in an empty room.
*Time flows backward through our veins
Yesterday comes back again
Every moment that we lose
Finds another path to choose*
"Ma," I started, but she raised her hand—the same gesture she'd use years from now (or had used years ago) when accepting my Grammy dedication.
"I'm not asking for explanations I might not understand," she said. "But I remember every song you've ever written, Marcus. Every melody you've played since you were old enough to reach the keys. And lately..." She touched the console, her fingers finding the faders that shouldn't have been able to create what they had. "Lately you're playing songs that feel like memories I haven't had yet."
The city hummed beyond our basement walls—trains and traffic and time itself, all moving in their prescribed directions while we sat in our bubble of temporal complexity. I thought of the legal pad in my pocket, its two columns of possibility growing more entangled with each passing day.
"Do you remember," she said, "what you told me when your father left? You were five. You said, 'Don't worry, Mama. One day I'm gonna make music so beautiful, it'll change everything that happened.'"
I remembered. In both timelines, those words had shaped decades.
"The thing is, Marcus," she continued, her eyes finding mine in the monitor's reflection, "lately it feels like that's exactly what you're doing. But not just with music. With everything."
The moment stretched between us like a sustained note. Outside, a passing car's stereo played the opening bars of "Crazy in Love"—my remix version—as if the universe itself was underlining the conversation.
"The Knowles family," she said finally. "This studio. The way you look at Rico like you know exactly where he's going to end up. The songs you're writing that sound like..." She gestured at the air around us, at frequencies still hanging in it. "Like they're coming from somewhere else. Some other time."
I turned to face her directly, this woman who'd raised me twice now, who'd sacrificed everything in two different timelines to give me my shot at destiny.
"Music is time," I said carefully, offering her a truth wrapped in metaphor. "Every song that's ever been written already exists somewhere, waiting to be heard. Sometimes..." I touched the console, feeling the phantom vibrations of futures and pasts. "Sometimes we just have to be ready to hear them when they come."
She studied me for a long moment, her eyes carrying the wisdom of a mother's love and a survivor's instinct. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper—my timeline notes, which must have fallen from my pocket earlier.
"Your future memories," she said softly, holding them out but not unfolding them. "Keep them safer. Whatever they are, whatever this is..." She gestured around the studio, at the equipment pushing past its time, at the flash drive that held tomorrow's sound. "Make sure it all happens the way it needs to."
I took the paper, my hands trembling slightly. In my original timeline, I'd never been able to give my mother the life she deserved until it was almost too late. Now, watching her rise from the producer's chair with the grace she'd passed down through generations, I saw the chance to remix more than just music.
"Ma," I called as she reached the doorway. She turned, backlit again, timeless. "Everything's about to change."
"Baby," she smiled, "it already has."
After she left, I sat in the studio silence, feeling the weight of both timelines pressing against my consciousness. Tomorrow, I'd take the flash drive to the session that would reshape industry history. Tomorrow, I'd see Beyoncé again, would begin the careful dance of destiny and choice that might lead us back to each other—or somewhere entirely new.
But tonight, in this basement studio in the Bronx, surrounded by equipment that sang futures into the present, I let myself float in the space between what was and what would be. Through the small window, stars flickered like distant memories, each one a possible tomorrow waiting to be written.
I pressed play on one last track—a composition that belonged to neither timeline, something entirely new born from the collision of past and future. The frequencies filled the room like hope, like destiny, like time itself bending toward possibility.
Tomorrow would come soon enough. Tonight belonged to the music.