Educated

obsessed with balance and often slapped my knees to remind me to stand
powerfully, to take up my own space.
After a few lessons, she announced that I was ready to sing in church. It
was arranged, she said. I would sing a hymn in front of the congregation that
Sunday.
The days slipped away quickly, as days do when you’re dreading
something. On Sunday morning, I stood at the pulpit and stared into the faces
of the people below. There was Myrna and Papa Jay, and behind them Mary
and Caroline. They looked sorry for me, like they thought I might humiliate
myself.
Mother played the introduction. The music paused; it was time to sing. I
might have had any number of thoughts at that moment. I might have thought
of my teacher and her techniques—square stance, straight back, dropped jaw.
Instead I thought of Tyler, and of lying on the carpet next to his desk, staring
at his woolen-socked feet while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir chanted and
trilled. He’d filled my head with their voices, which to me were more
beautiful than anything except Buck’s Peak.
Mother’s fingers hovered over the keys. The pause had become awkward;
the congregation shifted uncomfortably. I thought of the voices, of their
strange contradictions—of the way they made sound float on air, of how that
sound was soft like a warm wind, but so sharp it pierced. I reached for those
voices, reached into my mind—and there they were. Nothing had ever felt so
natural; it was as if I thought the sound, and by thinking it brought it into
being. But reality had never yielded to my thoughts before.
The song finished and I returned to our pew. A prayer was offered to close
the service, then the crowd rushed me. Women in floral prints smiled and
clasped my hand, men in square black suits clapped my shoulder. The choir
director invited me to join the choir, Brother Davis asked me to sing for the
Rotary Club, and the bishop—the Mormon equivalent of a pastor—said he’d
like me to sing my song at a funeral. I said yes to all of them.
Dad smiled at everyone. There was scarcely a person in the church that
Dad hadn’t called a gentile—for visiting a doctor or for sending their kids to
the public school—but that day he seemed to forget about California
socialism and the Illuminati. He stood next to me, a hand on my shoulder,
graciously collecting compliments. “We’re very blessed,” he kept saying.
“Very blessed.” Papa Jay crossed the chapel and paused in front of our pew.
He said I sang like one of God’s own angels. Dad looked at him for a