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.
Whispers in the Robing Room
The following week, the chill in the choir room had little to do with the ancient air conditioner rattling in the window. Corin’s focus was now lasered in on Amelia. He’d position her in the front, praise her diction, and invent new, floating descants for her to sing over perfectly good arrangements. The rest of us were becoming a backup band for the Amelia and Corin show.
“Lena, from the top of page three,” he’d call out, his tone already laced with impatience.
I’d sing my part.
“Again,” he’d command. “You’re dragging the tempo. This isn’t a funeral dirge.”
The irony was so thick I could have choked on it. My hands would clench the hymnal, my knuckles white. I was a landscape architect; I spent my days creating order and beauty from dirt and chaos, designing spaces for quiet growth. I knew about patience. I knew about foundations. And I knew that what Corin was doing was pulling up a healthy, established garden to plant a single, flashy orchid.
After rehearsal, while shedding our robes, the whispers started.
“Can you believe that?” Susan, a tenor with a sharp wit, muttered as she hung up her burgundy garment. “He had her sing half of my line in the intro. Said it needed more ‘punch.’ I’ve been singing that intro since his precious Amelia was in diapers.”
Eleanor patted my arm, her touch a small, steady comfort. “Don’t you mind him, dear. He’s got new-toy syndrome. Your solo is going to be beautiful.”
“If he lets me sing it,” I said, my voice low. I folded my robe, the worn polyester cool beneath my fingers. “Last week it was too somber. Today, he told me my phrasing was ‘too traditional.’”
“What does that even mean?” Bill, our most reliable bass, grumbled from the men’s side of the room. “It’s a nineteenth-century hymn. Is she supposed to rap it?”
A few nervous titters went around the room. We were church folk. We weren’t built for confrontation. We were built for quiet resentment and potluck casseroles. But the simmering discontent was palpable. Corin wasn’t just “invigorating” the music; he was erasing us. He was taking the familiar, comforting thing we had built together over years and was trying to make it all about him, and by extension, his new girlfriend.
I saw Amelia by the water fountain, scrolling through her phone, completely oblivious—or indifferent—to the atmosphere she’d helped create. She wasn’t part of the post-rehearsal commiseration. She wasn’t one of us. She was a guest star, and we were the aging cast members being written out of the show.
“He just wants to impress her,” Susan added, zipping her purse with a vicious tug. “It’s pathetic.”
The word hung in the air. Pathetic. It was the right word. All this disruption, all this casual cruelty, all for the sake of a shiny new romance. And my tribute to my father was caught in the crossfire. The memorial was less than two weeks away, and the simple, sacred act of singing his favorite hymn was becoming a source of deep, grinding anxiety. I felt a knot of anger tightening in my chest, a feeling so foreign in this space that it felt like a sacrilege.
The Seed of Doubt
The tension finally came to a head in a brief, brutal exchange a few days later. I’d arrived early for a one-on-one session with Corin to work on the solo, my stomach in a tight, acidic knot. I found him and Amelia in the empty sanctuary, heads bent close together over the grand piano, laughing at something on her phone. They didn’t notice me for a full minute.
“Oh, Lena,” Corin said, looking up, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “You’re here.” It sounded like an accusation.
“We have a rehearsal,” I stated, keeping my voice level.
“Right, right. The solo.” He gestured vaguely toward the piano. Amelia slid off the bench but didn’t leave. She stood nearby, arms crossed, watching. An audience of one.
I put my sheet music on the stand. My hands were clammy.
“Let’s just run the second verse,” Corin said, his fingers dancing over the keys in a needlessly complex flourish. “Try to give it that lift we discussed. Think… inspiration, not introspection.”
I sang. I focused on my dad, on the memory of him humming this tune, covered in sawdust in his workshop. I tried to pour that love, that ache, into the music. When I finished, the silence in the vast, empty church was deafening.
Corin sighed, a long, dramatic exhalation of artistic suffering. “It’s just not landing, is it?” He didn’t look at me. He looked at Amelia. “What do you hear, Ams?”
Ams?
“The emotional core is there,” she said, her tone that of a surgeon diagnosing a terminal patient. “But the vessel is… fragile. The voice just doesn’t have the power to carry the theological weight of the lyrics. Especially on ‘my sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought.’ It needs to soar there. Hers is more… grounded.”
Grounded. She said it like it was a disease. Fragile. My voice, my grief, my tribute.
Something cold and hard settled in my stomach. This wasn’t about the music anymore. This was a calculated dismantling.
“Corin,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet. “You asked me to sing this. You told me my voice was what it needed.”
“And I thought it was,” he said, finally turning to face me, his expression a mask of strained patience. “But a director has to evolve, Lena. We have to serve the music first. We have to be willing to make difficult choices for the sake of the overall sound.”
The sanctimonious jargon was a smokescreen, and we all knew it. He was laying the groundwork to replace me. He was going to steal my father’s song and give it to her.
Walking to my car, my mind was racing. My husband, Mark, always says I’m too trusting. That I assume the best in people long after they’ve shown me their worst. For the first time, I saw the wisdom in his gentle cynicism. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. This was a hostile takeover.
I got in the car and sat there, the engine off, the quiet buzzing in my ears. I pulled out my phone. My finger hovered over the voice memo app. It felt sneaky. It felt underhanded. It felt distinctly un-Christian. But then I pictured Corin’s smug face, Amelia’s clinical assessment of my voice. The vessel is fragile.
My grief wasn’t fragile. It was the strongest thing I owned.
I pressed the red button. I wouldn’t use it unless I had to. It was insurance. A small, secret seed of doubt planted in the face of his overwhelming certainty. It was a way to protect the one thing I had left of my dad: his song.
The Unraveling: The Recorded Word
“Just one more time, Corin, for my own peace of mind,” I said, standing by the piano two days later, my phone tucked into the side pocket of my purse, the recording app active. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. “We’re still set? For the memorial? Me, singing the solo?”
He was sorting through a stack of sheet music, the picture of a busy, important man. He didn’t look up. “Lena, we’ve discussed this. My focus right now is on getting the blend right for this Sunday’s anthem. The memorial is still over a week away. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
It was the perfect non-answer. A politician’s pivot.
“I’m not trying to get ahead of myself,” I pushed, my voice steadier than I felt. “This is… it’s important to my family. To me. You promised me.”
That got his attention. He finally looked at me, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. He lowered his voice, leaning in conspiratorially. “And you’ll get your moment. Of course. But you have to trust my process. This congregation, bless their hearts, they have a very… unsophisticated ear.”
I held my breath. He was saying it. He was actually saying it.
“They hear what they expect to hear,” he continued, warming to his subject, the arrogant professor lecturing a dull student. “They hear ‘alto’ and they think harmony, support. They hear ‘soprano’ and they think glory, transcendence. It’s a simple, Pavlovian response. I have to manage that expectation. I have to build the entire service to a crescendo that makes emotional, not just musical, sense.”
He gestured vaguely toward the pews. “They wouldn’t understand the nuance of an alto lead on a piece like this unless it’s framed perfectly. They’d just think it sounded… thin.”
He smiled, a tight, condescending little twitch of the lips. “So, yes. You are singing the solo. But trust me to present it—and you—in the best possible light. Okay?”
I nodded, unable to form words. The phone in my pocket felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. He had just called the people he worked for—the people who paid his salary, who filled the pews and the offering plates—Pavlovian simpletons with unsophisticated ears. And he’d confirmed his promise while simultaneously laying the groundwork to break it, blaming the potential failure on me and the ignorant congregation.
“Okay,” I finally managed to whisper.
“Good.” He patted my arm, the same dismissive gesture as before. “Now, let’s go work on that blend.”
He walked away, leaving me standing there, my blood roaring in my ears. He thought he was so clever, so much smarter than all of us. He thought he could manage me, manage the choir, manage the entire church with his slick words and artistic posturing. He had no idea what he had just handed me. He had handed me the truth, preserved in digital amber. And it was ugly.
A Brighter Shade of Betrayal
The final week of rehearsals was a masterclass in psychological warfare. Corin never said, “You’re not singing the solo.” Instead, he systematically erased me from it, note by painful note.
“Let’s try something,” he announced at Wednesday’s practice, his eyes gleaming with fake creative passion. “The second verse, where it builds? It feels like it needs to open up. Amelia, could you take the melody there? Lena, you harmonize below her. Let’s see what that does to the texture.”
We sang it. Her voice, bright and piercing, took the lead. My harmony, the part I was supposed to be singing, felt weak and secondary beneath it. It sounded wrong. It felt like a violation.
“Brilliant!” Corin declared. “A wonderful layering of voices. It adds so much depth.”
He was stealing the song from me in plain sight, piece by piece, and dressing it up as artistic choice. The rest of the choir shifted uncomfortably. Eleanor shot me a look of pure fury on my behalf. Susan looked like she wanted to throw her hymnal at his head. But no one said anything. We were conditioned to follow the director.
That night, I brought the stress home with me. I was snapping at Mark, sighing dramatically over the dishwasher.
“Okay, what’s going on?” he finally asked, cornering me in the kitchen. Mark is an engineer. He deals in facts and load-bearing walls. He has little patience for ambiguity.
I finally told him everything. The promise, Amelia, the condescending comments, the slow-motion theft of the solo, the recording sitting on my phone.
He listened, his expression growing more grim with every detail. “He called the congregation ‘unsophisticated’?”
“And Pavlovian,” I added, the word tasting like poison.
Mark leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. “Okay. So this guy is an arrogant fool who is trying to screw you over to impress his girlfriend. That much is clear. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “He’s the director. If I complain, I’m the difficult, emotional woman who can’t handle criticism. He’ll just say it was an ‘artistic decision.’”
“And the recording?”
“What about it?” I paced the length of our small kitchen. “I play it for the board? It feels so… aggressive. So vengeful. I’d be airing the church’s dirty laundry. And what if they side with him anyway? Then I’m not just out of a solo, I’m out of the choir. St. Jude’s has been my home my whole life.”
Maya drifted into the kitchen, drawn by the sound of conflict. “What’s wrong with Mom?”
“The choir director is being a jerk,” Mark said simply.
Maya shrugged, grabbing a yogurt from the fridge. “So, post the recording on the church Facebook page. He’ll get flamed.”
Her generation’s solution to everything: public shaming. As horrifying as the idea was, a tiny, dark part of me felt a flicker of satisfaction at the thought.
“We’re not doing that,” Mark said, giving her a look. He turned back to me. “Lena, this isn’t just about a solo anymore. This guy insulted you, he insulted your father’s memory, and he insulted the entire community that you love. Your dad was the treasurer. He believed in integrity. He wouldn’t want you to just roll over and let this happen.”
He was right. Dad never backed down from a fight when he knew he was right. He’d once spent six months arguing with the city council over a four-foot zoning variance for the church parking lot. Not because it mattered, but because it was the principle of the thing.
The principle of the thing. My father’s hymn. My promise. Corin’s betrayal. It was all becoming clearer, the pieces locking into place. This wasn’t just my fight anymore.
The Unspoken Ultimatum
The final rehearsal, the Thursday night before the memorial service, felt like a wake. The air was thick with unspoken tension. Corin was brittle and overly cheerful, a man trying desperately to pretend everything was normal.
We ran through the other service music in a perfunctory daze. Everyone’s minds were on the final number. The elephant in the room.
“Alright,” Corin said, clapping his hands together with forced enthusiasm. “Let’s run ‘It Is Well.’ From the top.” He looked pointedly at Amelia. “Amelia, you have the lead.”
It was the first time he’d said it so baldly. No more talk of texture or layers. Just a direct command.
A collective intake of breath seemed to suck the air out of the room. I stood frozen, my music held in a death grip. Every eye was on me. They were waiting to see what I would do. Would I cry? Would I storm out?
I did neither. I simply looked at Corin, my expression a blank mask. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
Amelia stepped forward, a flicker of something—triumph? unease?—in her eyes. The piano intro began.
She opened her mouth to sing the first line. “When peace like a river…”
Her voice was perfect. Crystalline. And completely, utterly empty. It had no history. It held no grief. She wasn’t singing about her father. She was singing to get a job, to impress her boyfriend, to be the star. The notes were beautiful, but the song was dead.
I didn’t join in on the harmony. I couldn’t. I just stood there, silent, letting her soulless perfection echo in the room. When she got to the second verse, the part he’d given her last week, she faltered for a moment, her eyes darting to Corin for reassurance. He gave her a sharp, encouraging nod.
No one else sang with much conviction either. The choir, my choir, my friends, were quietly protesting. The harmonies were thin, the energy gone. We were a body that had rejected its new head. The entire performance was a hollow shell.
When it was over, an awkward silence fell.
“Well,” Corin said, clearing his throat. “A little shaky. We’ll need to be much stronger on Sunday. Much more confident.” He refused to look at me, but his words were clearly a barb meant for the entire choir. Get in line, he was saying. Or else.
He dismissed us quickly after that. As I packed my music, Eleanor came and stood beside me. She didn’t say anything. She just placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. It was all she needed to do.
Walking to my car in the cool May night, the unspoken ultimatum hung in the air. He had made his move. The board was set. Now, it was my turn. The question of whether or not to use the recording was no longer a question. He had made the choice for me.
The Night Before the Storm
Sleep was a foreign country I couldn’t find my passport for. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, while Mark breathed the slow, even breaths of the untroubled. The digital clock on the nightstand clicked over to 1:17 AM. Then 1:32.
I finally gave up, slipping out of bed and padding downstairs to the kitchen. I sat at the table in the dark, the cool glow of the microwave’s clock my only company. I pulled out my phone and my headphones, and for the tenth time, I listened.
“This congregation, bless their hearts, they have a very… unsophisticated ear.”
The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of it still stunned me. He wasn’t just a jerk. He was a fraud. He held the very people he was supposed to be serving in utter contempt.
“They wouldn’t understand the nuance… They’d just think it sounded… thin.”
He was pre-blaming me for a failure he was engineering. He was salting the earth so nothing could grow after he left.
Was playing this recording the Christian thing to do? The question circled endlessly in my head. Turn the other cheek. Forgive seventy times seven. Love thy neighbor. I’d learned those lessons in this very church. My father had lived by them.
But there were other lessons, too. The ones about flipping the tables of the money-changers in the temple. The ones about speaking truth to power. Justice. Integrity. My father had lived by those, too. Which lesson applied here?
I thought about the faces in the choir room. Eleanor’s quiet dignity. Susan’s righteous anger. Bill’s grumbling loyalty. They were being disrespected, too. This wasn’t just about me and my solo. It was about the soul of our little community. Corin was a sickness, and if left unchecked, he would poison the well for everyone.
Mark appeared in the doorway, a silhouette in the dim light. “You okay?”
“No,” I whispered, pulling off the headphones. “I feel like I’m about to do something terrible.”
He came and sat across from me, his hand covering mine on the smooth oak of the table. “You’re not. You’re about to do something necessary. Think of it like this,” he said, falling back on his engineer’s logic. “You’re a landscape architect. You see a beautiful, mature tree with a parasitic vine wrapped around it. The vine has pretty flowers, but it’s slowly strangling the tree. Do you leave it be because the flowers are nice, or do you cut the vine off at the root to save the tree?”
It was a perfect metaphor. Corin, with his flashy arrangements and his starlet soprano, was the parasitic vine. St. Jude’s was the tree.
“I cut the vine,” I said, my voice gaining strength.
“You cut the vine,” he confirmed. “It’s not an act of vengeance, Lena. It’s an act of preservation. You’re protecting the garden.”
A fragile sense of peace settled over me. He was right. This wasn’t about revenge. It wasn’t about humiliating Corin for my own satisfaction. It was about defending my home. It was about honoring my father, a man who tended his garden—both the one in his backyard and the one at his church—with quiet, unwavering devotion.
I would do it. Tomorrow morning, in the narthex, before the first note was sung. I would let everyone hear the truth in the liar’s own voice. The storm was coming, and I was no longer afraid of it. I was the storm.
The Sunday Service Showdown: The Final Cut
I arrived at the church in a state of preternatural calm. The nervous energy of the night had burned away, leaving behind a cold, hard certainty. I dressed in my best black dress, the one I’d worn to my father’s funeral. It felt appropriate. A day of mourning, one way or another.
The robing room was a morgue. No one was making small talk. People moved with a quiet, heavy purpose, zipping up their burgundy robes, their faces grim. They knew what today was. It was the day we’d see if our silent protest had meant anything, or if we would be forced to stand by and watch a stranger sing my father’s song.
Corin swept in, Amelia in his wake, both of them radiating a tense, defiant energy. He clapped his hands, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. “Alright, people, let’s focus. Big day. Let’s make some beautiful music.” His eyes slid past me as if I were a piece of furniture.
He wanted to talk to me. I knew he would. He needed to deliver the official coup de grâce. I made him wait, taking my time hanging up my coat, adjusting my robe, fiddling with my music folder.
Finally, he cornered me by the hymn board. “Lena, a word.”
“Corin,” I said, my voice neutral.
“Look,” he started, dropping the pretense of cheerfulness. His voice was low and clipped. “I’ve made an executive decision. Amelia will be handling the solo this morning. Her voice simply has the brightness the piece demands for a celebratory memorial. It’s a better fit for the overall tonal palette I’m creating for the service.”
Tonal palette. The jargon was back, his shield against any accusation of simple, grubby favoritism.
“A celebratory memorial?” I repeated, my eyebrows rising. “My father just died, Corin.”
“A celebration of his life,” he corrected, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “And this is what’s best for the music. My decision is final.”
He said it with such dismissive authority, such utter conviction in his own power. He had no idea he was a dead man walking. He thought he was delivering the final cut, the killing blow. He was really just handing me the knife.
“I see,” I said. The calm was still there, a frozen lake in the center of my being. “Thank you for letting me know.”
I turned and walked away before he could say another word. I didn’t go to my seat in the choir stalls. I pushed open the door of the robing room and walked out into the narthex, the bustling entrance hall of the church. My phone was in my hand, my thumb resting on the play button of the audio file I had named, simply, “Truth.”
The Narthex Gambit
The narthex was buzzing. It was the ten-minute window before the service when the energy was highest. People greeted each other with handshakes and hugs, the scent of coffee from the fellowship hall mingling with the ever-present lilies. Ushers handed out bulletins. Children squirmed. It was the sound of our community, a weekly symphony of familiar voices.
I saw Reverend Michael standing near the main doors, his warm smile making everyone feel welcome. I saw Martha, the head of the church board, talking with my dad’s old friend from the finance committee. All the key players were here. The entire congregation was my audience.
My heart began to beat a little faster now. This was real. I took a deep breath, the air thick with perfume and anticipation. This wasn’t just my plan; it was my one and only shot. A gambit. I was sacrificing my peace, my desire to avoid conflict, for a chance to win something more important: justice.
Corin and Amelia emerged from the robing room a few minutes later. He was laughing, his hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd. They looked like a power couple arriving at a premiere. He was basking in his victory, ready to present his brilliant new star. He saw me standing alone near the memorial flower arrangement and his smile tightened. He likely thought I was there to cry or make a scene. He had no idea what kind of scene I was about to make.
He steered Amelia in my direction, a predator drawn to a wounded animal.
“Lena,” he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “I know you’re disappointed. It was a tough call, but art is all about tough calls.”
Amelia stood beside him, her expression a careful blank. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Was it a tough call, Corin?” I asked, my voice clear and carrying just enough to make a few nearby people turn their heads. “Or was it an easy one?”
He stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.” I held up my phone. “You made your reasoning crystal clear to me the other day. I just thought everyone else should understand your artistic process as well as I do.”
His eyes narrowed, flicking down to the phone and back up to my face. The first flicker of fear. He didn’t know what I had, but he knew he was a man with secrets.
“This isn’t the time or the place, Lena,” he hissed, trying to take my arm.
I stepped back, out of his reach. “Oh, I think it’s the perfect time. And it’s the perfect place.”
Reverend Michael had started to drift over, his brow furrowed with concern. Martha was watching us now, her conversation forgotten. The buzz in the narthex was quieting. People were turning. They smelled drama.
It was now or never. I took one last, deep breath, and I hit play.
The Sound of Truth
My own voice, tinny and small, came out of the phone’s speaker first. “Just one more time, Corin, for my own peace of mind… You promised me.”
Then came his. Smooth, condescending, and damningly clear.
“And you’ll get your moment. Of course. But you have to trust my process. This congregation, bless their hearts, they have a very… unsophisticated ear.”
A collective gasp went through the narthex. People who had been chatting moments before were now frozen, their heads cocked, listening. Ushers stood with bulletins in their hands, forgotten. Corin’s face went from tanned and confident to a sickly, mottled gray. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Amelia looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her whole.
The recording continued, his voice echoing in the suddenly silent hall.
They hear what they expect to hear… It’s a simple, Pavlovian response. I have to manage that expectation.”
I saw Martha’s eyes, wide with disbelief and fury. I saw old Mr. Henderson, who had sat in the same pew for sixty years, shake his head slowly, his expression one of deep, personal offense. Pavlovian. Unsophisticated. The words hung in the air like poison gas.
“They wouldn’t understand the nuance of an alto lead on a piece like this… They’d just think it sounded… thin.”
Thin. The final insult, meant for me, now laid bare for everyone to hear. He wasn’t just a bully; he was a coward, insulting me behind my back while pretending to be a supportive director.
I let the recording play to the end, to his final, slimy confirmation. “So, yes. You are singing the solo. But trust me to present it—and you—in the best possible light. Okay?”
The silence that followed was absolute. A hundred pairs of eyes were fixed on Corin. No one was looking at me anymore. I had made myself the conduit for the truth, and now the truth had a life of its own. He was utterly, completely exposed. The parishioners, flowers in hand to honor my father, just stopped and stared, their faces a mixture of shock, disgust, and rage.
Corin looked around wildly, like a trapped animal. He saw the judgment in every face. He saw his career at St. Jude’s, his carefully constructed persona, disintegrating in real time.
He finally found his voice, a desperate, strangled whisper. “That’s… that’s taken out of context.”
No one bought it. The context was perfectly, horribly clear.
A Different Kind of Sanctuary
Reverend Michael stepped forward, his usual gentle demeanor replaced by a steely calm. He didn’t look at Corin. He looked at me. His eyes weren’t angry or judgmental. They were sad, but firm. He understood.
“Lena,” he said, his voice quiet but resonant in the charged silence. “Thank you for your courage.”
He then turned his gaze to Corin, and the temperature in the narthex dropped another ten degrees. “Corin. You and I will be speaking at length after the service. With the board.” It wasn’t a request. It was a summons. “For now, I believe you’ve done enough.”
Corin flinched as if he’d been struck. Amelia, her face pale and blotchy, began to inch away from him, trying to disassociate herself from the train wreck.
Then Reverend Michael did something that solidified his place in my heart forever. He turned back to me, and to the silent, waiting congregation.
“The memorial solo for John Miller,” he announced, his voice ringing with authority, “is ‘It Is Well with My Soul.’ It will be sung, as was originally planned and promised, by his daughter, Lena.”
He looked directly at me. “Lena. Will you sing for us? Now?”
The breath I’d been holding escaped in a ragged sob. Tears I hadn’t allowed myself to cry now streamed down my face. But they were tears of relief, of vindication. Through the blur, I saw the faces in the crowd. They were nodding. Smiling at me. Some of the older women were dabbing their own eyes with tissues. This wasn’t a place of judgment. This was my sanctuary. They were my people. And they had my back.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion. “Yes, I will.”
I turned and walked away from the wreckage of Corin and Amelia. I walked past the stunned faces of my fellow choir members, who were now emerging from the robing room to see the aftermath. Eleanor gave me a fierce, proud nod. I walked into the sanctuary, toward the choir loft, my footsteps echoing in the holy silence. I was going to sing my father’s song.
The Reckoning and the Grace: A Voice, Unbroken
The walk to the choir loft felt a mile long. Every step was heavy with the weight of the last few minutes, the last few weeks. The organist, a kind woman named Carol who had played at my wedding, looked at me with wide, questioning eyes. I just nodded, and a look of profound understanding passed between us. She knew. The whole church knew.
I found my place in the alto section. My friends, my choir family, made space for me, their hands briefly touching my arm, my shoulder, their silent support a balm on my raw nerves. I didn’t look for Corin or Amelia. They were ghosts now, specters from a battle that had already been won.
Reverend Michael took his place at the pulpit. He looked out over the congregation, his expression somber. “We will begin our service a little differently this morning,” he said, his voice steady. “We will begin with a song of remembrance, peace, and integrity.”
Carol’s hands moved to the organ, and the first, familiar chords of the introduction swelled, filling the sanctuary. This was it. There was no more hiding. No more fighting. There was only the music.
I took a breath, not a shaky, nervous breath, but a deep, grounding one. I thought of my dad, of his quiet strength, his unwavering sense of right and wrong. This was for him.
“When peace like a river, attendeth my way…”
My voice came out, and it wasn’t the fragile, thin thing Corin had tried to make it. It was rich with sorrow, yes, but it was also layered with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. It was the voice of a daughter who loved her father. It was the voice of a woman who had fought for her own dignity.
The tears came, silently tracking down my cheeks as I sang. They weren’t tears of weakness. They were tears of release. I sang through them, my voice steady, unbroken.
“When sorrows like sea billows roll…”
I poured all the pain of the last month into that line—the grief of losing Dad, the sting of Corin’s betrayal, the anxiety of the fight. I let the music hold it, transform it.
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