“My husband,” she whispered before Mateo could speak. “He used to play for me every afternoon. He passed two weeks ago.”

The notes floated from Señora Alvarez’s window like doves taking flight. They were not perfect—a note here would hang a second too long, a phrase there would stumble and recover—but they were alive. They carried the weight of a lifetime.

A whisper at first. Then a trickle. Then a waterfall.

Across the street lived a young man named Mateo. He was a mechanic with grease permanently etched into the lines of his hands, a man who spoke with wrenches and understood the poetry of engines. But every afternoon, as he wiped the oil from his arms, he heard it.