Six months later

Vanessa Nadal stepped out of the front doors of the courthouse confidently. The February cold hit her face, though some sun shining through the clouds warmed her slightly. She let out a satisfied exhale as she looked out upon Manhattan. She'd won her first case since returning to work just a couple months after her surgery. Life had returned to Vanessa and she felt like she could conquer the world.

Her heels clicked confidently on the steps as she began to walk down to the street. She checked her phone and saw a text from Carla, anxious to hear how the case had gone. She smiled and pulled up her number to call her.

Carla picked up before the phone even rang. "Well?"

"I won!"

I loud cheer caused Vanessa to grin as she walked down the street towards the subway.

"I knew you'd do it!" She told her friend. "We have to celebrate! Lunch on me?"

"Actually I have a lunch meeting with a potential client," she said. "But I'm free for dinner."

They made plans for dinner that evening at a Puerto Rican restaurant downtown. Vanessa tucked her phone away as she descended the steps to the subway.

There were posters up for the musical Hamilton, which she kept hearing rave reviews about. Tickets were a fortune though and apparently very hard to get. She was happy to hear of Lin's success. They'd gone to high school together and while they hadn't been friends, he was always known as a good, genuine guy.

It was heartbreaking to hear of his wife's death on opening night. It must have been awful. From what she'd read, they'd gotten into a taxi cab accident on the way home from the after party. Another car ran a red light and hit the passenger side head on. Lin had suffered a broken wrist; the driver a bad cut to his head. Juliana had taken the hardest and most direct hit.

She wasn't sure how he was doing personally, but she imagined life was quite difficult. He had two kids and a hit musical, plus the media vying for his attention.

Vanessa thought about reaching out to him to let him she was sorry to hear of Juliana's death, but she didn't want to appear to be one of those fame-hungry women who went after men when they found fame and success. She was sure there were all kinds of people coming out of the woodwork since the success of Hamilton.

She took a deep breath and stepped onto her train. Unlike everyone else, she didn't like to be glued to her phone all day. She was a people watcher. Discreetly, she liked to observe people and think about their back stories. Where were they from? What family did they have? What job? She liked to wonder, and since her new lease on life, she did it as much as she could.

When she re-emerged she walked to her law office building. Her office was about 12 floors up. All her life she'd had to take the elevator, so now she took the stairs whenever she could. As the elevator door closed, she walked to the staircase and began to climb.

She reached the second floor, then smiled widely. She wondered if she could run the rest of the way. Vanessa bit her lip and went for it. She took off her heels and started to run up the remaining flights.

As she reached the twelfth floor she stopped at the landing, out of breath. Her heart pounded in her chest and it felt so freeing.

She felt so alive.

But that also meant someone else was dead.

—-

"1-2-3-4" Elana counted off her bandmates in the basement of her friend Audrey's apartment complex in Washington Heights. It was pretty much a daily after school occurrence. Elana got off school at Hunter Middle School, hopped the A train back to her neighborhood and jammed out for several hours.

She strummed her electric guitar, resting at her jean-clad hips. She wore a red Fall Out Boy t-shirt, her favorite band, and a rainbow-colored sweat band on her right wrist.

Some days they had more luck than others with the neighbors. Today would not be one of those days. Mr. Ramirez, who lived down the hall, was home today and did not appreciate the "ruckus" as he called it. He pounded on the door of the storage room they were in, yelling in Spanish.

"Cállate, gamberro, o llamo a la policía!"

Audrey rolled her eyes and grasped her drumsticks over her head with both hands in annoyance.

"Lo siento, Senor Ramirez!" She called back politely, though her tone was laced with annoyance. As a Latina, she was expected to be polite to her elders. If her Dominican mother heard about her being rude to one of her neighbors, their little group would be permanently disbanded.

Elana reluctantly set her guitar on the metal stand and checked her phone. It was only 4:30. Definitely way too early to go home.

"Guitar Hero at my place?" Asked Mikayla, who played bass.

"Sure!" Elana eagerly agreed. Anything to keep her from going home. Her house was like a storm cloud that never cleared. Since her mother died in August, her father was rarely home and they were usually left with an elderly and crabby babysitter. Mariele adored her but she and Elana had butted heads from the beginning. After another threat of the chancla, Elana steered clear as much as she could.

Ava had to go home, but the other three girls headed to Mikayla's place off of Dyckeman. Out of guilt, Lin gave his daughter a very generous allowance each week so they stopped at a bodega to get soda and snacks on the way.

The girls played for over an hour as they pigged out on junk. When it wasn't her turn, Elana doodled on her arm and hand with a Sharpie, drawing intricate patterns. She wasn't sure why she started, but it drove Senora Lopez, her babysitter, crazy. A lot of the middle schooler's habits drove her crazy and she was perfectly fine with that.

There was a knock on Mikayla's door. It was her mom, saying dinner was almost ready.

"Five more minutes?" Mikayla begged her as her mother played with her dark hair. Elana watched, observing how sweet and tender her mother was. She missed things like that. And it pained her to remember how she'd shooed her mother away when she did things like that as she'd gotten older. Now she'd give anything for that.

"Five more minutes," she agreed. "Elana, how's your dad?"

"He's fine," she said a bit dismissively. It was her standard answer. It was easier than saying that she barely saw him and that when she did he was usually drinking. That he showered her with money so he didn't have to help her deal with all these feelings. That it was like she'd lost both parents six months ago.

"Good," she said. "I'll send over another casserole soon. Don't forget to wash your hands, Mikayla."

Her mother left and Elana let out a small sigh. Soon it was time to leave and Audrey had to head home for dinner too. Elana pulled on her Jack Skellington hoodie and stuffed her hands in the pouch. She headed west towards the Hudson River.

It got dark early and she wasn't surprised to get a text from her father around 5:30 that she needed to get home. Mrs. Lopez had probably told him she wasn't home yet and she was supposed to be home before dark. It wasn't her fault that the sun was out less in the winter.

Reluctantly she walked towards home. She greeted the doorman and took the stairs. That way it took longer to reach her apartment.

When she got home, the place stank of Mrs. Lopez's terrible cooking. She'd thought she'd at least get some good Puerto Rican cooking out of the new arrangement but unfortunately she was quite possibly the worst cook on the island.

Most nights, Elana ended up making them chicken nuggets and Mac and cheese after Mrs. Lopez had tried and failed to shove her food down their throats. If Mariele especially didn't want to eat something it wasn't happening.

The now four year old was on the floor building some sort of tower with colorful blocks.

"Hi, Mari," she greeted her sister. Mari frowned and swiped her hand sharply through the wooden tower, causing it to clatter all over the floor. She screamed in frustration. Mrs. Lopez admonished her in Spanish but Elana walked over and sat down with her.

"What's wrong?" She gently asked her sister as she picked up one of the fallen blocks.

"It doesn't look right," she grumbled, kicking the blocks around with her foot. The heel had a hole in it.

"I thought it looked cool," Elana disagreed. "Wanna try again?"

"No!" She replied angrily, crossing her arms. Mariele collapsed in a heap on the floor. Her older sister sighed, not knowing what to do or say. Her mother had always known. Since she'd passed, Elana had tried to be a better, more patient older sister but she felt like she failed mostly. Mariele had become even more shy and withdrawn, plus now she was prone to more anger and tantrums.

Elana quietly stood and left her sister to her pouting session.

"Best to ignore her when she gets angry," Mrs. Lopez said. Elana bit her tongue, not wanting to be subjected to a shaming session from the babysitter about how she was disrespectful. Instead she grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge and disappeared to her bedroom.

Instead of getting started on homework, she logged into Schoology where most of her assignments were submitted. She opened the assignments one by one and pressed submit without typing one word. Her dad would see her assignments were submitted and he'd stay off her back. It seemed the only time he seemed to talk to her was when she did something wrong.

She opened up YouTube and started watching Nirvana videos and continued to doodle on her arm. It passed the time until the next day when she had to trudge back to school and go through the motions of life once again.

—-

Vanessa was already seated at the restaurant when Carla came scurrying over like a child. She sat down and fumbled around in her purse.

"You'll never guess what I scored!" She said excitedly.

"What?" She asked, puzzled.

"Hamilton tickets! Sixth row!" She flashed the rectangles, which were basically like Golden Tickets.

Vanessa let out a breath. She wasn't exactly a musical fan, but knew this was a cultural phenomenon. People were killing for these tickets.

"What?! How?!" She snatched the tickets to see for herself. Two tickets for tonight. Sixth row.

"One of my client's parents died and they have to leave town immediately," she told her. "Bummer I know but a win for us."

"You're totally going to hell," Vanessa joked as she picked up her wine glass.

"I'll be with friends," she said, checking her watch. "The show starts in an hour so we gotta binge and run."

She looked around for the waiter and waved him over, where she proceeded to order them five appetizers to share plus some really expensive wine.

Soon the two women were munching calamari and oysters, living the high life.

—-

"Five minutes til curtain," the loudspeaker informed the actors. Lin was lounging in his dressing room, in costume except for his boots. For some reason, they felt constricting though they were the right size. He always waited until the last minute to put them on.

He sighed heavily and reluctantly reached for his boots for the opening number. Lin pulled them on and then stood, walking over to his mirror. He gazed at the framed photo of him and his late wife, taken just weeks before the accident. She was radiant as usual. He hadn't known what he had.

He reached for his glass of Scotch and threw it down his throat to take off the edge. All the feelings were just too painful. He just wanted to be numb. He just wanted the pain to go away.

Lin let out a satisfied breath as he smoothed over his costume. He carefully wiggled off the gold band on his left finger and tucked it into his pocket.

It was show time.