Every night, Simmons has been reading them a chapter of Matilda before bed. She reads with conviction—her voice sweet for Miss Honey and gruff for Miss Trunchbull. I listen with my eyes closed, smiling at how much Simmons sounds like a mom. Not my mom, just . . . a mom, that kind of loving effort, the comfort of a familiar voice as you drift off.
I use the bathroom and tame my flyaways in the mirror. I’m not sure what’ll be going on in the Bunker tonight, but I figure a swipe of mascara can’t hurt. I shimmy into my bathing suit, just in case they go swimming at night. It’s good to be prepared.
When I duck out of the bathroom, the girls don’t even look away from Garcia, who is making Matilda’s parents sound thoroughly horrible. Simmons has a backpack on her shoulder, ready to head out the door.
“You going into town?” she asks.
“Oh,” I say. I mean, if that’s what people are doing, I’m totally in. “Yeah! I guess so.”
“Cool. Have a good night.” With that, she’s gone. The screen door snaps behind her.
Wait. Does that mean she’s not going into town? Is that not what people are doing? I’m frozen in place as I consider what just happened.
I step outside, hoping to find more information, and I do. I can barely make out, in the distance, four people disappearing down the path toward the woods—Anna’s blond hair bright against the trees, a red tartan blanket thrown over Tambe’s shoulder, the stark difference in height between Jones and Simmons.
Part of me expects Anna to turn around, to realize she’d forgotten me. But why would she? I told Simmons I was going into town. Besides, they’ve probably had this four-person routine for years. And so I’m alone, black-lashed, feeling a type of excluded that I thought I had left behind on the middle school playground.
I could go to bed—I do need the sleep—but it just seems too pathetic. So I head to the piano in the rec room. After a quick warm-up, I dance my fingers across my last-ever recital piece. It comes right back, like it was stored in my fingers this whole time. I play the full thing, with emotion, with passion, and when I hit the last chord, it resounds, echoing off the wooden floors and into the vast room.
I used to practice alone all the time, no audience but the portrait of Jesus above our piano.
But here, in this empty room, the keys’ lingering hum sounds mournful. And I’m not sure why I feel lonely instead of just alone.
CHAPTER NINE
Sunday morning, I walk a bit over a mile around the lake, finally straight toward Holyoke. The sun lifts over the horizon, and it feels metaphorical.
My family’s little cabin is set away from the rest of camp, farther up the hill and nestled into trees. It looks like a kid’s drawing of a house—a square with a triangle roof. Inside isn’t much more than that, actually: a sink, oven, and refrigerator all crammed in a row; a pantry; and a three-person table against the wall. Then a cozy living room, one bathroom, and two bedrooms. If you call mine a bedroom. It might have originally been a closet. But it’s mine.
I burst in the front door, expecting the teakettle to be squealing on the stovetop to my left and my mom reading devotions at the tiny table to my right. But it’s quiet. They must already be setting up for the service.
“There she is!” my dad says when he spots me just inside the chapel doors. It feels too dramatic to run toward his wide-open arms, so I just hurry. My mom turns the corner behind him, happy but hesitant. As I wrap my arms around her, it takes all I have not to weep pitifully in relief, in the comfort of seeing her looking the same.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she whispers into my hair.
“How are you feeling?” As I hear my words, they strike me as oddly formal—a doctor’s query instead of a daughter’s. “Was the first treatment okay?”
“It was fine.” Her hand runs over my curls. “I’m just fine.”
My dad gives us a few moments of hanging on before he clears his throat. “Luce, I wanted to ask you. Would you play something to start the service?”
“Sure. Which hymn?”
“Oh, anything you feel like. Just something to wake people up.”
My mind leafs through the pages of the red Methodist hymnal I know so well. “Come, Thou Fount.”
He nods.
I breathe the chapel in like it’s a candle scent. Wood polish and dust, altar candles, and crisp leaves outside. My camp. The campers from Bethel Methodist in Ohio start to file in, and I wave at a few familiar faces from years past. They’re sleepy-eyed in rumpled T-shirts and swishy athletic shorts. It’s always felt so scandalous, to attend camp chapel in casual clothes.
My mom squeezes my arm before I take my spot at the piano. It’s old, a little more pang to the keys than I’d prefer, but I love that it gives each song a specific, Holyoke tenor.
“Good morning, Bethel campers and counselors!” my dad says from the platform. “Please turn to number 265 in the red hymnal in front of you.”
I play an intro and the first chords, nodding to cue the congregation. The chords are straightforward, but they sound too plodding to me. Too stale for such beautiful words. Tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing. The bass clef chords should be triads, but I break them on the second verse, pulling my fingers long across the keys. I coax my right hand into sixteenth notes like trotting footfalls—into a staccato, and then, next verse, fluid as violin bow strings. Every pounding chord is a plea, since I can’t seem to find the words or will to pray the way I should.
When I finally slam my hands into full chords, I press it all into the piano. The notes widen through the chapel. There’s a drama to it, a weight that resounds. I’m moving my shoulders, my head swaying, forcing out my sadness and frustration through my fingers. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. This is a fugue state; I’m not even fully here.
And when I sit back, music still ringing off the strings, my cheeks burn. I only play like that when I’m alone. Not when there are rows full of random Ohioans.
Someone in the pews sneezes. No one says, “Bless you.”
“Thank you, Lucy,” my dad says, looking back at me from the pulpit, “for that passionate rendition of an old favorite. That was . . . something.”
He’s smiling, but his eyes are unblinking, searching for why I almost went full-on Holy Ghost this early in the morning. I don’t know, Dad. I’m losing it. But, God help me—God literally help me—that’s the closest I’ve felt to faith in weeks.
I sit beside my mom in a back pew, too embarrassed to look at her. I don’t want to know what she’ll see.
“That was beautiful, Luce,” she whispers. She takes a sip from the big water bottle she has by her side. This is a new addition, and I file it away in my mind. I already hate being out of the loop on her treatment and side effects.