He looked pointedly at his new girlfriend and announced to the entire choir, “Amelia, you have the lead.”
Just like that, the solo for my father’s memorial service was gone.
The song he hummed in his workshop, the last piece of him I had left to give, was now just a cheap showcase for a soprano the director was sleeping with. I watched the smug satisfaction on his face, the casual cruelty of a man who believed he had all the power, a man who saw me as nothing more than a timid alto he could easily discard.
He thought my voice was the fragile thing in the room, but he failed to account for the secret audio file on my phone, a recording of his own condescending words that would turn his entire congregation of so-called simpletons into a jury for his very public, professional execution.
The Promise and the Poison: The Weight of a Hymn
The first Sunday in May always smells like lilies and grief. They arrive by the bucketful, pristine white trumpets of remembrance, their cloying perfume settling over the pews like a sweet, heavy dust. For most of my forty-six years, that scent was just part of the furniture of faith at St. Jude’s. This year, it was the smell of my father.
Mark squeezed my hand, his thumb rubbing a slow circle over my knuckles. Our daughter, Maya, fifteen and perpetually unimpressed, was actually paying attention, her gaze fixed on the altar where a single, massive arrangement of lilies stood in Dad’s honor. He’d been the church treasurer for thirty years, a quiet pillar who counted the offering with the same reverence he took communion. His heart had just… stopped. One Tuesday afternoon while weeding his petunias.
After the service, in the controlled chaos of the robing room, Corin found me. He moved through the sea of burgundy polyester with the practiced grace of a talk show host, his smile a little too bright, his salt-and-pepper hair artfully tousled. He was new, hired six months ago to “invigorate” the music program. To me, he mostly felt like a beautifully tailored suit with nothing inside.
“Lena, darling,” he began, his voice a low, theatrical hum. He placed a hand on my arm, a gesture that was meant to be comforting but felt proprietary. “That was a beautiful tribute. Your father was a giant in this parish.”
I offered a weak smile. “He loved this place.”
“And it loved him,” Corin said, his eyes glittering with what I was supposed to interpret as sincerity. “Which is why I wanted to talk to you. The memorial service is in three weeks. We’ll be closing with ‘It Is Well with My Soul.’ It was his favorite, wasn’t it?”
A lump formed in my throat. It was. He’d hum it in his workshop, whistle it in the garden. It was the soundtrack of my childhood. “Yes. It was.”
“I want you to sing the solo, Lena.”
The air left my lungs. I’d been an alto in this choir since I was sixteen. I was reliable, I was on-key, but I was never the star. I was the harmony, the foundation. Solos were for the soaring sopranos who could hit notes that made the stained-glass saints weep.
“Corin, I… I don’t know. That’s a soprano piece, traditionally.”
“Nonsense,” he waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll arrange it for your range. Your voice has such a rich, authentic quality. A storyteller’s voice. It’s what the piece needs. It’s what he would have wanted.” He leaned in closer, his cologne a sharp, citrusy counterpoint to the musty robes. “This is for him, Lena. From you.”
Tears pricked my eyes. He was right. It felt right. It felt like the only thing I could do, the only offering I had left to give. “Okay,” I whispered. “Thank you, Corin. Yes.”
He beamed, his job done. “Wonderful! We’ll start working on it next week.”
As he turned, a flash of red at the doorway caught my eye. A woman I didn’t recognize, with hair the color of a fire engine and a tight, black dress, gave Corin a small, knowing smile. He nodded back, a flicker of something private and charged passing between them. A prickle of unease, sharp and unwelcome, ran up my spine. It was a dissonant note in an otherwise perfect, sorrowful chord.
A Different Kind of Harmony
The following Wednesday, the looming issue from the narthex walked right into the choir room.
“Everyone, I’d like to introduce Amelia,” Corin announced, his arm draped possessively around the woman with the fire-engine hair. She was younger than I’d thought, maybe late twenties, with the kind of aggressive confidence that makes you feel dowdy just by proximity. “Amelia is a truly gifted vocalist who has just moved to town, and I’ve convinced her to grace us with her talents.”
A smattering of polite “hellos” rippled through the room. Amelia smiled, a quick, dismissive flash of white teeth. She was a soprano. Of course, she was.
We started with the warmups, and it was immediately clear that Amelia was, as advertised, gifted. Her voice was crystalline, powerful, and technically flawless. It was also, to my ear, completely sterile. It was the voice of someone who sang the notes, not the meaning.
When we moved on to the week’s anthem, Corin stopped us after the first eight bars. “Hold on, hold on. Altos, you’re getting buried. Lena, project more. Let’s not be timid.”
I felt a flush of heat creep up my neck. I’d been singing this part for a decade. I wasn’t being timid. But I took a deeper breath and sang out, my voice joining the others.
He stopped us again. “Better. But it’s still a bit… heavy. The texture is too dense.” His eyes scanned the choir, then landed, predictably, on his new prize. “Amelia, would you mind? Just for a moment, float a harmony line over the altos. Something ethereal.”
Amelia stepped forward, a picture of obliging talent. As we sang the section again, her voice soared effortlessly above ours, a silvery thread embroidering our sturdy wool. It was beautiful, I couldn’t deny it. But it wasn’t the written part. It wasn’t our harmony. It was a performance.
“See?” Corin exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “That’s it! It lifts the whole piece. It gives it a modern brightness.”
Eleanor, a retired music teacher who had been the choir’s anchor since the Nixon administration, leaned over and whispered to me, her voice dry as old parchment. “Modern brightness? It sounds like a car commercial.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
We finally got to my solo. I stood, sheet music trembling slightly in my hand. The familiar piano intro began, and I took a breath, ready to pour every ounce of my grief and love for my father into the notes.
“When peace like a river, attendeth my way…”
My voice was clear, if a little shaky. It felt honest. Raw.
Corin let me sing the entire first verse before cutting me off with a raised hand. “Good, good. A very heartfelt start, Lena.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “But I’m wondering if we’re missing an opportunity. The tone is very… somber.”
“It’s a song about finding peace in sorrow,” I said, my voice tighter than I intended. “It’s supposed to be somber.”
“Of course, of course,” he said placatingly. “But it’s also about triumph. About grace. It needs a little more… shimmer.” He looked at Amelia again. That little electric current passed between them. “Amelia, what do you think? Do you hear that brighter tone I’m talking about?”
She nodded, her expression a careful mask of professional consideration. “I do. It needs to ascend. To really capture the ‘well with my soul’ idea, it needs to feel like it’s reaching for heaven.”
I felt like I was being workshopped out of my own grief. My father’s hymn was being turned into a vocal showcase. Corin was no longer looking at me; he was looking at Amelia, the two of them speaking a language of musical ambition I didn’t understand and didn’t want to. My solo, the one solid thing I could do for my dad, was suddenly feeling fragile, breakable.
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