Work Text:
When Bruno imagines, he dreams of songs and melodies, counterpoints and harmonies and arpeggios, not the past or the future or what the present could be if things had worked out differently.
But during Alumnus Week, looking across the room at Doris as she cuddles her six week old daughter to her chest, he can’t help but think back of a night just after his father had died, a night spent riding the Staten Island ferry with Doris pressed against his side, a night where he’d wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her, only stopped by the knowledge that neither of them were in the right headspace for that.
But for that knowledge, the baby she’s holding could be his and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t wish she was - and when Doris lifts her head, when her eyes meet his, soft and far away, he knows her well enough to know that she’s thinking the same thing.