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Fiona
The crazy-hat lady stepped up to the pulpit and made a bunch of announcements, but Fiona had trouble focusing on them. Her whole body trembled. How good it had been to play again! Maybe she could ask the guinea hens if she could come here and play sometimes, when no one was there. She couldn’t believe she’d given an impromptu concert, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. It was as if some supernatural force had pulled her to the building, then to the bench. And how glorious it had been! She felt a little self-conscious, but it was impossible to regret what had just happened.
The hat lady told them all to greet one another, and Fiona groaned. Oh no.
“That’s weird,” Emma said. “They never do this. There are only like twenty of us, and we’ve already greeted each other.”
“I think I know why,” Tonya said, but she didn’t elaborate.
Suddenly, the hat lady was standing right in front of Fiona. “Absolutely no pressure,” she said, holding up two white-gloved hands. “We usually sing a few hymns now, and we usually do it a capella, because we don’t have a piano player.” She hesitated. “Again, no pressure, but would you be interested in playing the hymns for us?”
Fiona froze. How had she not seen this coming? “Uh ...”
“I don’t think she’s up for that,” Emma tried, but Tonya shushed her.
“Let Mrs. Patterson decide. I think she might surprise you.”
Tonya was right. What was happening in Fiona’s head right then was surprising even her. She nodded. “Sure.” She couldn’t believe it, but her body wanted to play the hymns.
“Do you read music?” the woman asked.
Fiona snorted. “I can read music with my eyes closed.”
“She went to Juilliard,” Emma explained, sounding amusingly proud.
“Oh good. We have hymnals, but I know some people play by ear. Hard to do that with a song you don’t know.” She tittered. “Come back to your organ, Fiona.” She started to walk away, and Fiona followed her, leaving her safety net of friends behind. The woman looked at her. “You can’t even imagine how blessed we are to have you here today. We’ve been praying for you.”
This admission stunned and terrified Fiona, and she stopped walking. She stopped breathing.
The woman read her body language perfectly. “Don’t be scared off by that. If God only sent you for one day, then we’ll enjoy that one day. As I said, absolutely no pressure. And I mean it. God wants people doing things because they want to, not because some crazy lady pushed them into it.” She cackled.
Fiona forced a smile and started walking again. Soon she was back on the bench with an ancient hymnal in front of her. The cover was sun-faded, and the edges were threadbare. She tried to imagine how many hands had held the book, how many lips had sung the words.
“Thank you again,” her escort said. “You are a miracle.”
No one had ever called her a miracle before. A prodigy, yes. Gifted, yes. Talented, of course. But never a miracle. At first she didn’t like the idea. It seemed to give God the credit for all the hard work she’d done.
Then she looked down at her gnarled fingers. She’d worked hard, yes. Incredibly hard in those early years. But if God was real, then he’d given her those fingers. And if God was real, he’d given her her ear. And when she was almost mummified by loneliness and immobility, he’d sent her friends.
Her soul had been immobile. Frozen. Dead.
And now it felt like she was coming back to life.
She’d never heard the first song they sang, but the congregation was sure fired up about it. They kept shouting, “Victory!” and though she couldn’t see them, she imagined they each had one fist shot into the air.
The next song was much calmer, and the words washed over her like a gentle ocean wave: “As I come so weak and weary ...” She was the epitome of weary. “All my life is sad and dreary; let me enter by the door.” The door? What door? Should she be trying to find this door? This thought scared her, and she focused on the melody instead of the lyrics.
But then the next song started, and these lyrics were impossible to ignore: “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling ... see on the portals he’s waiting and watching ...” These Christians were as obsessed with doors as they were with pies. But it was the chorus that made her throat swell shut. The melody alone was mesmerizing. Even without the lyrics, it beckoned to her, made her feel wanted and loved. And the words pushed her over the edge: “Come home, come home. Ye who are weary, come home.”
She almost stopped playing but willed her fingers and feet to keep going.
Come home. What a concept. She’d already been home. She’d already been safe within her walls. What home was this song talking about? It crossed her mind that the song meant heaven, but she didn’t think these people would be inviting one another to die. So that meant there was another home, one she didn’t know about, and she could feel someone calling her there.
The woman with the hat spoke above the music. “I believe there is someone here today who wants to come home.”
Fiona’s breath caught, and her chest tightened in panic. She kept her eyes on the music and hoped against hope no one was looking at her.
“If it’s you, come on down so we can help.”
There was a rustling, and Fiona fought the urge to look. Someone was going down front, and it wasn’t her, thank goodness.
No one sang, but she kept on playing, as she hadn’t been told not to. The mood in the place had shifted, and she followed accordingly, softening the music and taking liberty with grace notes. She was being blessed by her own music. How long it had been!
Whatever was happening at the front of the church went on and on, and eventually, Fiona sneaked a peek. A young man stood in front of the hat lady. His shoulders shook with his tears. The man who had originally stood to clap for her was there with a hand on the younger man’s back. All the heads were bowed—
Wait. Was that the DeGrave boy? What on earth was he doing here? And why was he in the front of the church making a spectacle of himself? Fiona turned to look at Emma, and she was crying too.
These Christians were an emotional bunch.
She turned back to her music, trying to dismiss their behavior as unfounded emotional fervor—but the lyrics wouldn’t leave her mind alone. Come home, come home. Ye who are weary, come home.
