The Front Pew and the Choir

The Hymn

The prelude started. Dad turned toward the organ as if somebody had called his name again. He watched Marla’s hands on the keys, and I watched his face follow every note.

Marla Pieper has directed the choir at Zion for twenty years and played organ for longer.

After the first reading, the choir stood up behind the low wooden rail beside the altar, black folders open in their hands. Nine of them, in their maroon robes. On the little altar table stood the brass cross and the open Bible. Two of the basses were men Dad had sung beside for thirty years.

Marla gave them the opening chord on the organ, then stepped out to the front and lifted her hands. After that it was only voices, the way Zion has always sung that hymn.

They sang “Beautiful Savior.”

It was Mom’s hymn. She had asked for it at every anniversary and every birthday.

I do not know if Marla chose it on purpose. I never asked her. Some things you don’t want to know the answer to, because the not knowing is part of the gift.

The first verse started soft, just the sopranos and altos, and I felt Dad go stiff beside me. His chin started to shake.

Then the men came in underneath on the second line, the basses low and steady, and Dad’s mouth opened a little, and he made a sound I had never heard him make.

Tears ran down both of his cheeks. He did not wipe them. He sat with one hand on his knee and his face up toward the choir and let them fall onto his good tweed coat.

I kept my hands folded in my lap. I could not have moved if I had wanted to.

In the middle of the second verse, the back door creaked. Our back door has creaked as long as I have been alive. The trustees oil it every spring and it starts again by June.

I did not turn around. I did not need to. I already knew who it was.

The choir sang all four verses. On the last one, Marla brought them down soft, and the nine of them sang the end bare, just voices in a white wooden room.

When the last amen ended, the whole church went still. Nobody coughed. Nobody shifted. I could hear a tractor somewhere a mile off, and I knew Dad could hear it too.

What Dad Asked

Dad stood up, slow, one hand on the end of the pew. He does not stand up fast anymore, and the church waited for him without anyone deciding to.

He turned to face the choir. His face was wet and his tie was crooked and he did not care about either one.

Marla lowered her hands. She looked at him over the choir rail, and I saw her chin start to go too.

Behind us, I heard footsteps start up the center aisle. Slow ones. A woman’s shoes on the old floorboards.

Dad cleared his throat. His voice came out rough, too loud, the way it does now because he is still learning how loud he is.

“Marla,” he said. “Folks. I haven’t heard that hymn since Ellen’s funeral.”

He stopped. He swallowed.

“Would you sing it one more time? Just the once. I’d like to hear the basses again.”

There was a little sound from the choir, half a laugh and half a sob, and the tall bass on the end, a retired mail carrier named Gene, wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe.

Marla looked at Pastor Ben. Pastor Ben just opened his hand, palm up, like saying the church is yours.

“Of course we will, Harold,” Marla said. And she went back to the organ, and she played the opening chord again.