Contents
CHAPTER 38
Overview
Simone, frustrated by a demanding passage, resets by playing Summertime and discovers Kendrick quietly singing along in the hallway. Their brief, warm exchange over music leads Kendrick to show Simone a camera feed of his hospitalized daughter, Lamisha, watched over by Theo. The scene intertwines Simone with Kendrick’s family and affirms Theo’s discreet guardianship.
Summary
Late at night, Simone wrestles with a thorny passage of a toccata capricciosa. To recover confidence, he closes the score and plays Summertime from memory, drawing out a bluesy, reflective tone.
From the hallway, a soft voice finishes the lyric. Simone finds a stocky custodian at a cart: Kendrick Whitaker. Expecting reprimand, Kendrick apologizes, but Simone quickly praises the on-pitch, feeling-rich singing and introduces himself. They chat about the song’s history and versions; both favor Ella Fitzgerald. Kendrick shares that he mostly sings for fun and at church.
After mutual encouragement—Simone to Kendrick to keep singing, Kendrick to Simone to keep playing—they part. Later, outside, Simone sees Kendrick on break checking a camera in his daughter Lamisha’s hospital room and sits beside him.
Kendrick explains Lamisha’s accident, the painful but corrective apparatus on her leg, and the hopeful prognosis under pediatric orthopedist Dr. Goodson Ikande. He shows Simone the live feed: the sleeping child with a vivid blue cast and, entering the frame, Theo seated beside her bed.
Recognizing Theo, Simone learns how Theo befriended the family through a portrait bestowal and now visits Lamisha, especially at night when he cannot sleep. Kendrick says Theo’s presence seems to bring better care; his grandmother calls Theo an angel. They part again—Kendrick back to Symphony Hall, Simone into the misty Promenade—each buoyed by the encounter and Theo’s quiet watch.