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Fiona
Fiona had no intention of going to church with the Mendell women, even though she’d come to decide that Jesus was indeed having some weird supernatural effect on Tonya. That’s the only explanation Fiona could come up with as to why Tonya was okay. It had taken Fiona more than a year to stop sobbing over her divorce, and hers hadn’t even been as messy as Tonya’s. As public, yes, but there’d been no big church or daughter in the mix.
Yet, when Emma invited her at the last minute, she couldn’t quite get her mouth to form the word no. Emma stopped moving and stared at her, her young face filled with an almost obnoxious hope.
Fiona didn’t want to disappoint her. But she didn’t want to go to church, either.
Or did she?
Part of her was mightily curious about whatever transformation was taking place in Tonya.
Emma rushed toward her and hugged her from the side. “Oh please, oh please, oh please!”
Fiona tried to pull Emma’s arm down from her shoulders, but she only tightened her grip. Fiona looked at Tonya. “You’ll stay on either side of me?”
She nodded resolutely. “Absolutely!”
What was happening? What was she doing? And why was she doing it? “I’ll have to get dressed.”
The church bells started to ring.
“You look perfect the way you are,” Tonya assured her.
Fiona realized then that both Tonya and Emma were wearing jeans. So she would be better dressed than them, at least. “Should I dress down?” She’d meant it as a joke, but her voice was shaky.
“No. Don’t change at all. Come just the way you are. That’s the way Jesus likes it.” Tonya came alongside her and looped an arm through hers. Emma relaxed her hug then and took her other arm.
“Now I feel like I’m being arrested.”
Emma giggled. “Have you ever been arrested?”
“Of course not! Who do you think I am?”
Emma picked her Bible up off the table. “I don’t know. You’re some kind of a rock star from what I understand.” She started to pull her toward the door.
Despite herself, Fiona laughed. Rock star. Indeed.
Suddenly, they were out in the sunshine, and Fiona’s feet stopped moving. They felt like lead blocks on the ends of her legs. She was partly relieved by their decision and partly embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
Both women stopped pulling. The tenderness in Tonya’s eyes turned Fiona’s heart to mush.
“Don’t be sorry,” Tonya said gently. “I understand.”
“You do?” How?
She nodded. “More than you know. But I also know that you are going to feel better if you keep walking. Whether or not you decide to fall in love with Jesus today, you will feel better if you walk forward than you will if you turn around and play it safe.”
She snickered. Fall in love with Jesus? This woman had really been sniffing the Bible glue. She told her feet to move, and surprise of all surprises, one of them did. She almost gasped.
“There you go,” Tonya said, her encouragement one hundred percent sincere, without a hint of condescension.
And then Fiona’s other foot came alongside the first, and then she was walking again. Like a normal person. “You can let go of me now.”
They hesitated.
“And I think we should take the shortcut. It will give me less time to change my mind.”
The closer she grew to the big white building, the stronger her panic grew. What was she doing? How had she let these two Jesus freaks get into her head? She needed to turn around. Right now!
But she didn’t. They rounded the corner of the building, and Emma gasped.
“What?” Fiona asked, alarmed.
“The sign!”
Sure enough, right in front of them was a giant wooden sign. It looked hand-painted. Beautiful calligraphy read, New Beginnings Church. “Is that new?”
“Yes,” Tonya said. “All of this is.”
“Yoo-hoo!” someone called from ahead, and Fiona looked up to see a woman in a ridiculous hat. She looked familiar, and Fiona assumed it was one of the pie-delivering guinea hens.
“That’s the one who started the doughnut fire,” Emma whispered, and Fiona let out an inappropriately loud cackle.
Maybe she was something of a guinea hen herself.
“Is this Fiona?”
“Yes,” Tonya said.
“Well, welcome!” The woman seemed genuinely thrilled at the sight of her. This woman must not get out much either. “Come on in and make yourself at home.”
Unlikely.
With a friend on either side of her, Fiona went up the steps and then inside. Her panic was so thick she could hardly think.
And then she saw it.
It looked like more than forty pipes—three ranks of them—stretching to the ceiling. They were a beautiful silver that looked so sharp against the oak that it took her breath away.
“You okay?” Tonya asked.
She realized she had stopped walking. “Yes,” she said breathily. Then she started again, straight for the organ. It was calling to her in a way that made her eyes water. Why was such a magnificent instrument trapped in a falling-down building?
She slipped off her shoes and then slid onto the bench. It felt like home. She heard the congregation fall silent behind her and grew self-conscious. She turned around, and Emma was right there behind her.
“Sorry,” Fiona said. “I shouldn’t have presumed. It’s just so beautiful.” She turned back to the console. “I wanted to see it up close.”
“That’s cool. Nobody minds.”
Her fingers hovered over the bottom manual. “Do they have an organist?”
“No, we don’t have any musicians.”
Fiona closed her eyes and let her fingers fall. They played a few notes from a lifetime ago and then stopped.
“Don’t stop!” one of the guinea hens cried.
Tears slid down her cheek as she pushed in some of the stops. Then she started again, and her whole body, her whole being, sank into the melody as her fingers danced across the keys. Her feet found the pedals, and she was off. She thought she had forgotten.
But her body remembered. Her heart remembered.
Tears gushed out of her. She knew people were listening. She knew they would critique her and criticize her.
She didn’t care.
The organ was out of tune.
She didn’t care.
This organ needed to be played, and she knew she’d been brought there to play it. All these years, it had been so close, but it had sat all alone. All these years the musician and the instrument had been within shouting distance, but walls had kept them hidden from each other.
Not anymore.
She started a second song and let her mind go with the music. She didn’t think about anything. She let her soul ride the melody as years of pent-up art flowed out of her. All she could feel was the music. All she could hear was the music. The technically trained young woman inside of her knew that her old rusty fingers were making mistakes, but she couldn’t hear a single one of them.
She finished the second song and realized the sanctuary was still silent. Had everyone left? She stopped and turned to look, and a man sitting in the middle of the sanctuary jumped to his feet and started applauding.
Oh no. She had an audience.
She hadn’t wanted that.
Her chest tightened in shyness and panic.
But Emma was right there and placed a warm hand on her back. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. This is God’s house.”
Others followed the man’s lead, and soon everyone in the building was on their feet. She didn’t know what to do. She took Emma’s hand to steady herself and then got to her feet. “Let’s go sit down. I didn’t mean to make such a spectacle of myself.”
“Spectacle?” Emma cried. “That was a gift! A huge gift to all of us! Thank you!”
She gave her young friend a sincere smile and allowed herself to be led to a pew.
