Years later, a young man named Will, who had once been Elias’s tenant and liked to practice piano at odd hours, knocked on Maren’s door one rainy evening. He had found a notebook in Walter's thrift-store office — a different one from the box — and the pages were filled with versions of his mother’s voice. He had no idea what to do. Maren gave him bread, listened, and then said what she had learned: "Keep the versions you need. Let the rest go."