A Song for the Road by Kathleen Basi (classic literature books txt) 📕

In recent years, she’d sort of forgotten. When church became a place of work, Miriam started bringing outside worries in with her. Even so, she would often go into choir practice ready to bite the head off the next person who looked at her wrong, and by the end of the night she’d be laughing again.

Miriam scanned the church, a modern building with pews radiating outward from the raised sanctuary. The light seemed to come from everywhere, streaks of color slanting across the brick wall, as if stained glass were embedded in the roof behind the altar. She spotted the sanctuary lamp burning in the corner and headed in that direction, running her hands along the backs of pews, her footsteps muffled by the carpet.

She paused at the door of the chapel to genuflect and say a quick prayer, then made her way to the grand piano perched to the left of the altar.

The moment Miriam’s fingers touched the keys, something inside her relaxed. It felt right. Like coming home after a long absence.

Which was silly. It had only been six days since the congressman’s funeral. Then again, a lot had happened since then.

She let her fingers explore, filling the church with songs and hymns: “Draw Near” and “In Every Age,” “Taste and See” and “Lord of All Hopefulness.” With every new song, her heart opened a little more. This expansiveness, this sense of connectedness with a larger reality, was what had drawn her to church music as a profession. Well, this and Teo. She closed her eyes, remembering how his fingers caressed the guitar strings, picking chords and melodies. Over the years, playing Spanish-language songs had become a well-rehearsed dance. She provided enough structural support for the congregation to feel comfortable singing, but Teo took the lead.

At its best, liturgical music drew invisible threads between hearts gathered for worship. At its best. But Miriam hadn’t been at her best for a long time.

“I just want you to be happy,” Teo said one night after choir practice as they turned off the lights. “We have a beautiful life.”

Out in the church, a pew creaked, the sound echoing in the open space. Miriam looked up but saw no one. She’d forgotten the comfort of phantom creaks in a church, as if the spirit of some saintly former worshiper was taking a seat. Maybe, in this case, her husband. Or one of her children.

“We did have a beautiful life,” she said aloud, and the air around her seemed to breathe a little more freely.

She pulled out Blaise’s notebook and played the first two measures for the millionth time. Now she was certain of what she’d heard back in Cincinnati. There were hints of Gus’s compositional style in her son’s music.

Miriam flipped to the music she’d transcribed at the monastery. Maybe if she made some headway on a third movement, she could get some momentum going to finish the troublesome second. She played it and started improvising. There. That had promise. She scribbled the notes and moved on.

“Derivative,” Gus’s voice whispered.

“Go away,” she said aloud, but she changed one note in the chord anyway. Ah yes. It still sounded slightly church-y, but if Guillaume Dufay could make a ninety-minute Mass setting out of “L’Homme Armé”—a Renaissance tavern song—it ought to be possible to go the other way too. If she could just get something on paper, she could start experimenting.

Colored beams of light crept across the brick wall, then faded altogether. The back pews shrank into shadows. Five cross-outs or erasures for every three measures worth keeping. Things that seemed to work when she played them but felt cliché when she committed them to paper. Was she remembering them wrong? But even so, forward progress.

“Do you have a phone?”

Miriam nearly fell off the bench, so startled was she by the unexpected voice. A priest stood next to her. A baby priest, Becky would have called him. She stared at him, confused. She’d never met a person in his demographic who didn’t have a handheld device at the ready every moment. Why would he need hers? “I—I’m sorry?”

He gestured to the music. “If you have a phone, you can record a voice memo. Then if you get something that works, you don’t have to stop. And you don’t have to trust your memory. You can come back to it later.”

Oh. That made sense. But Miriam’s forehead furrowed. How did he know what she’d been thinking?

Then she realized, and her face flamed. “Was I … talking to myself?” It had been known to happen when she got lost in the music.

The young priest smiled a knockout smile. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was entertaining.” Baby priest, nothing. Talia would have called him Father What-a-Waste. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

“I’m just passing through. Needed a piano.”

“Ah. Well, that’s too bad. I’d have offered you a job.”

Miriam smiled. “Thanks.”

In the deepening shadows, a door creaked. Both of them turned to see a young couple walk in, pushing a stroller. “That’s my cue,” said the priest. “A group of us get together for prayer on Tuesday evenings.”

“Oh. I’ll just pack up, then, and get out of your way.”

He waved her off. “No, no. We’ll be in the chapel. You won’t bother us. Although you’re welcome to join us, if you’d like.”

Miriam hesitated, torn. She didn’t want to be rude, but her fingers itched to be on the keys. She hadn’t felt so awake in a long time; her soul craved more. “I think I’d better work.”

“Of course. Good luck!” He strode down the aisle with a spring in his step as a middle-aged woman entered the church and held the door for an elderly man using a cane.

Miriam returned to work. It was close to full dark in the church now. She flipped on the gooseneck light clipped to the music stand and tried to ignore the rise and fall of voices in the chapel. But writing was a solitary venture, and no