Through the French Quarter's wrought-iron lace, half notes scatter like whispers of truth, echoing the space between melody and memory.¹ Each note drifts past weathered balconies, dissolving into the air where time pools like summer heat. At the corner of Royal and St. Peter, Doreen Ketchens sits, as she has for decades, breathing testimony into silence. The music rises above cracked sidewalks, carrying the weight of water that rose and receded, of homes emptied and rebuilt, of a city that refuses to be written in past tense.
