I couldn’t take it anymore. The silence was too loud, even with everyone talking. I just blurted it out. I started at the beginning. I told them about 1996. I told them about the choir loft and the door.

I told them exactly what I said to the director. I told them why I said it. I didn’t hold back a single bit.

I looked at her and waited for her to scream. I waited for her to leave. She just set her fork down on the china. The clink of the metal was the only sound in the room. She looked at me, and her eyes were so tired.

“I spent years wondering what was wrong with me.”

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t even sound angry. She just sounded like she was telling a fact. My son looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. He was horrified. I could see it in the way he pulled his hand away from hers on the table.

“I just wanted to sing,” she said.

That was all. She didn’t yell. She didn’t make a scene. She just stood up and walked out of the room. I sat there in my chair, and I realized I had been wrong about everything. I thought I was protecting the church, but I was just protecting my own pride. I had stolen something from her that she loved.

I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t think I can. My son doesn’t talk to me much anymore. I spend my holidays alone now, listening to the silence in the house. I still have all the old choir records, but I can’t bring myself to play them. Every time I think about the music, I just think about her standing behind that door.

I go to church, but I sit in the back. I don’t look at the choir loft. I don’t want to see who is standing up there. I know better now. I know that the person you think is unworthy is usually the one who has the most to give.

I think about her a lot. I wonder if she ever sings in the shower or in her car when she thinks nobody is listening. I hope she does. I hope she found her voice again, even if it is far away from me. I deserve this loneliness, I guess. I ruined something beautiful because I was scared of a name.

Sometimes I pick up the phone to call her. I want to tell her I am sorry. I want to say that I was a bitter, small-minded woman. But then I stop. I don’t think she wants to hear my voice. My voice is the one that told her she didn’t belong.