With the hurricane briefly quiet in the eye of the storm, moonlight filtered through the skylight backstage at the Revelry. Jo and Sebastian (whom Jo calls Sasha) sat together at the piano, their legs touching, and silently reaffirmed their trust. Jo counted them in, and after weeks of carrying the melody in their heads, their hands found the keys with ease.

Sebastian played the chords while Jo carried the familiar melody. Their unspoken communication returned as they performed, and the surrounding chaos—storm, venue, and worries—fell away. The act of creating and sharing the song restored Jo’s sense of purpose; she realized that what she wanted was not fame, but the feeling of making something meaningful together.

They sang for their mothers: Jo for her living but ailing mother, and Sebastian for his late mother, Ami McKellen. Jo reflected that even as her mother’s memories fade, those memories live on in Jo, her family, friends, and the Revelry’s community. The music carried the weight of what they had lost and would lose, binding them through shared remembrance.

Jo noticed her mother watching, smiling through tears as if hearing the long-awaited ending to a story begun decades earlier. Jo and Sebastian’s fingers crossed and intertwined on the keys, their harmony echoing the connection they once shared in each other’s minds, now replaced by a musical bond.

Jo hoped the song would become the kind that makes memories and tells love stories—of confessions, heartbreaks, joyrides, and whispered secrets—and guides people home when they are lost. As rain battered the eaves and wind howled, candles flickered, and Jo felt at home at last.