that followed she searched for something else I could do, something
Dad wouldn’t forbid. She’d noticed the hours I spent in my room with
Tyler’s old boom box, listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so
she began looking for a voice teacher. It took a few weeks to find one,
and another few weeks to persuade the teacher to take me. The lessons
were much more expensive than the dance class had been, but Mother
paid for them with the money she made selling oils.
The teacher was tall and thin, with long fingernails that clicked as
they flew across the piano keys. She straightened my posture by pulling
the hair at the base of my neck until I’d tucked in my chin, then she
stretched me out on the floor and stepped on my stomach to
strengthen my diaphragm. She was 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.