Walking into St. Luke’s choir rehearsal room was like being shrouded by a dripping fog of nostalgia. Putting on the ringer’s gloves, scooting behind the bell tables, setting myself up at F5 F#5 G5 G#5 as instructed by a woman named Grace.
And then? Fuck me, because who turned around to direct us but that two-faced, closed-minded, above-it-all man Mr. Moore. I swear I flushed from head to toe and back again. Talk about the nightmare of Christmas Past come to haunt me with the rattling chains of every reason I’d resisted this gig from the minute Cole thrust it at me.
Mr. Moore smiled all affable, acting like there was no disconnect between the Karl at St. Luke’s Rockport who emailed with genial logistics, and the choir director who’d stood alongside the leadership of St. Pat’s when they turned my private life into a public shaming.
Not to get all dramatic about it, but when I was a teen, St. Pat’s was my sanctuary. Like a lot of people with many siblings, we tended to pick one thing and make it our defining identity. Larissa was the athlete; Jeannie was the quiet one; Sarita was the partier; Cole was the fandom nerd; Emmeline was the scholar. I was the devout one. And a big part of that, for me, was the music. I loved choir rehearsals and performances, my soul sang to sacred music, it all fed my faith. And now, on top of all the other sense-memories sucking me into my unfortunate past, I had to face that when I was in high school, I’d harbored an entirely unfortunate and, okay, inappropriate, crush on the new choir director.
I wasn’t some clueless teenager sitting around making Indiana Jones eyes at him or anything. For one thing, I’d known he was married; conductors spend a lot of time waving their be-ringed hands around in front of you. Mostly I’d been indulging in fantasies about growing up. Larissa’d been about to get married, which maybe is why I spent too long envisioning who would be my own perfect guy. Sure as hell it wouldn’t be one of the jerks I’d been in school with all my life, especially not after overhearing their juvenile jokes. Meanwhile, here was this supremely cute young man spending hours in front of me every week, being focused and engaging and grown up in a way I’d have loved to be.
At twenty-four, looking back at seventeen, it was easy to figure out I hadn’t lusted after Mr. Moore himself, never mind how fucking cute he was, with his neat beard and deep eyes and flexing arm muscles. And that one pair of jeans he sometimes wore at rehearsals, standing just high enough on his dais to let my imagination take some unwarranted leaps.
No, what I’d really craved was access to the power to make adult decisions. To live out my future in my own terms.
And then? Who sauntered past my craving heart but Garrett, the most aloof boy in youth group. It turned out he wasn’t so aloof once it was just the two of us. When we took long walks along the beach after Mass, ducking between sand dunes to kiss, and then to touch. Or when our friends, whose jokes suddenly seemed exciting instead of juvenile, covered for us sneaking off to empty rooms.
Garrett also, it turned out, was not so aloof when it came to staying quiet about my abortion. Which I found out in front of my choir and my family and our entire congregation, when Father James’s sermonizing about sin came a millimeter shy of naming me.
Damn Garrett anyway. He and the rest of our friends in the youth choir had turned to stare at me. As if to reinforce exactly who the priest was describing in all the worst Old Testament ways. And all the while, Mr. Moore stood there by his piano, hand half-raised to cue our next hymn.
I’d bolted. Choir robe flapping behind me, clear as a flag from a sinking boat, and I didn’t wait for my family to catch up. I was a mile down the road before Dad pulled over beside me and emerged to give me a long hug.
Later, after Uncle Bill and Cole helped me sit down with Dad and Mama to tell them the whole story, Dad returned my choir robe to Mr. Moore. “And that’s the last time any Dunway sets foot in St. Patrick’s,” he’d said. Even my godmother Aunt Max followed that decree.
They’d migrated to the Episcopalians, and told me all the good things about it. Uncle Bill met his partner Sam at a St. Luke’s LGBTQ+ meetup. Larissa’s old track coach spearheaded the Church Council’s beach cleanup efforts. They served decent tea and coffee after services.
And good for them for all of that, but they also hired Mr. Moore to conduct the choir. My body wanted to bolt again, but I was hemmed in by the close quarters: bell tables in front of me, the wall behind me, and all the other ringers elbow to elbow beside me. Mr. Moore—no, Karl; I might be trapped but I could respond like an adult—kept on talking, all oblivious like he wasn’t some sort of devil sucking me into his quicksand plans. My hands were sweating in my bell ringers gloves, and I didn’t know how to leave.
Fuck that. I wouldn’t run again. I didn’t deserve to feel any shame. No one who sought an abortion deserved to be shamed, which is one of the things Cole had repeated as he and the clinic escort had guided me past the gauntlet of histrionic protestors at the Planned Parenthood we’d driven over three hours to reach. It had been a too-new idea to me at the time, that rejection of shame, but I’d internalized it since. And vocalized about it—reproductive rights were too vital to stay quiet about, especially not with the way my state and my nation had destroyed what little access we’d once had. If I were seventeen and pregnant today, taking Uncle Bill’s loan and Cole’s dead name ID to pass as nineteen would only be steps one and two of a long, difficult process to obtain the medical care I needed to terminate.
So, no. The world was noticeably worse than when I was a teenager, but that didn’t mean I had to be petulant about it. I flexed my fingers to settle my gloves, and grabbed the F and G bells. I had the right to take up space with my presence, and with the pealing of the bells.
Karl bloody Moore ran us through warmups, settling us all into the rhythm of ring and damp, ring and damp, gesturing to us each in turn as if his limbs weren’t the least weighed down by his complicity.
And damn it all, because before my mind caught up to the blanketing feeling of peace, my body was reacting like everything around was charming and familiar. Never mind the past, never mind the reappearance of the choir director who should be the one owning his shame, never mind the running list of complaints I was already preparing for Cole.
Apparently all that mattered to my ridiculous soul was the sound ringing through the room. One of the Graces beside me sent me an approving little nod, and the bell handles fit easy as ever in my hand, and the longer we played, the more I was tempted to forget every grievance and to just enjoy making music.
I’d shaken off that blanket of peace by the time I got home and cornered Cole in the kitchen. “Did you know?”
“Know what?” He handed me his dish of flan, which only mollified me somewhat.
“That it’s the same choir director.”
Cole straightened. “Wait, what? No way.”
“Way.”
My deadpan tone didn’t wither Cole’s smile one bit. I reached across the island and snagged his beer. I found myself gripping the bottle like I was tempted to lob it hard at a concrete wall. Like shattering it into tiny shards would have any rebounding effect on my delighted brother.
I finished the drink and narrowed my eyes. “Is that why you made me promise to do the handbells?”
“So you’d run into Cutie McChoirface again? You think I’m that diabolical?”
“You want me to run that question past the sibling chat?”
He waved that off. “A bunch of biased sisters, that’s my curse in life.”
“Look, Cole. You and your story slam philosophy may not get worked up about it, but for all y’alls feel-good tidbits about St. Luke’s, it’s always going to be a product of the people in charge.”
“Sure. And?”
“And no place that puts Karl Moore in charge is a place I want to be.”
Cole, quiet for a moment, cut us each more flan. He sighed. “I hear you, but answer me this. Why didn’t you leave as soon as you saw McChoirface today?”
“You made me promise.”
“Sure, but what was the real reason? Did you hate ringing again like you swore was inevitable?”
I got water for me and another beer for Cole, trusting my silence to answer him.
“Did Cutie McChoirface beg you to stay?”
I snorted. “I left before he could say a word to me.”
“So, in summary, you had fun playing and no one was mean to you and you are beginning to finally accept that big brother knows best and this genius idea of mine might give you back something—I don’t know whether that’s faith or just a bunch of other nerds to ring bells with—you might be missing?”
I shoved my empty plate towards him, took my drink, and left.
On Sunday morning, I drove to St. Luke’s earlier than the rest of the family, so I could get ready with the other ringers for service. I almost felt an annoying sense of community, just from entering the sanctuary with everyone. The space was filled with that omnipresent dusty church light, and the wood and wood polish smells, and all kinds of greenery as if we lived in some alpine place rather than smack in the middle of the Gulf Coast. The chorister robes and performance gloves and some ineffable Christmas vibe brought my younger, more faithful and trusting self too much to the fore. I kept trying to catalogue anything new or different. My fellow ringers. The yellow-pale wood of the pews instead of the dark oak of St. Pat’s. The sprig of holly pinned to Karl’s robes, which was a flair no one could have gotten away with back then.
Speaking of something not new or different: Karl.
Never mind my reluctance, or my irritation, or my desire to not get mired in the past. I still had to pay attention to my conductor. The instrument wasn’t new to me, but this music was. I couldn’t avoid focusing on him.
And damn me to hell and back, because now I wasn’t thinking about Karl’s currently bare ring finger, or the Advent homily, or even Cole’s smirking told-you-so face. Because he did tell me so. I threw my ‘I want to follow my own passions’ wish out into the universe and what it tossed back was an intense memory of a time when my tightly held desire was to be exactly at this point.
I had my marketing degree, and some cash, and a car. And no obligations after the migratory birds left town. Back at seventeen, that was the entire list of what I’d wanted for my next adventure. There wasn’t a thing pending on my take-care-of-this list. No person relying on my presence.
For the first time in my life, I was free. No responsibilities to hold me in place, no greater needs tugging me away from exploring wherever I chose.
As our Hyfrydol came to a close and Karl did that thing where he rested back on his heels and closed his eyes while the last beat of music echoed down the nave, I made myself a promise. Before the end of this commitment to the handbells, I’d concoct plans for the next part of my journey.
During the sermon, while the priest was interpreting gospel, Cole caught my eye from the pew overflowing with my family. And the smirk was in full force, which probably meant my face was full of some kind of message that echoed the liturgy’s message of making preparations and being ready for travel.
Then his eyes went comic-wide and he bounced his gaze between me and, it turned out, Karl, who was watching our interaction.
Right. The guy who I was supposed to pay attention to, no matter how many personal flaws he harbored. I smirked right back at Cole and rose with the rest of the ringers to perform Prepare the Royal Highway. One more song to go for this first Sunday of Advent, and I’d be down to only six more days I was obliged to listen to, of all people, Karl Moore.