Dad played guitar almost every evening, usually sitting on the living room couch while Mom sang along from the kitchen.

Sometimes she’d grab a wooden spoon and use it as a microphone, making me laugh so hard I couldn’t remember the words.

“Come on, buddy,” Dad would say, patting the cushion beside him.

“Your turn.”

I’d climb up with my little toy guitar and pretend I was performing in front of thousands of people.

Then Mom died when I was nine, and the music stopped.

On my eighteenth birthday the scrap of paper sat beside a ninety-nine-cent cupcake I had bought myself.