When He Finally Chose Me I Was Gone novel · Chapter 17 of 32

Chapter 17: The Church

I called him on a Tuesday in May, from the bench in the church nursery, with Wren asleep on my shoulder.

It was the first time I had dialed his number since the planks.

He picked up on the first ring again.

"Linnea."

"I'm playing on Saturday," I said. "Four o'clock, at the Lutheran church on Fourth Street. The Bach, the Sixth Suite. It's free. There are folding chairs."

He did not say anything.

"You can come," I said. "You sit in the back row. You leave when I'm done. You do not talk to me before, and you do not bring flowers."

"I'll sit in the back."

"I'll know if you leave at the interval."

There was a short, rough sound that might have been a laugh.

"I left at the interval both times," he said. "I remember every one."

"There's no interval at a church recital, Soren."

"Then I'll stay," he said.

On Saturday the church was warm and half full.

It smelled of floor wax and old hymnals, and the afternoon light came in through the yellow window and lay on the floor.

Elin sat in the second pew with Wren in her arms and a muslin cloth over her shoulder.

I sat on the folding chair at the front with the cello between my knees, and I did not look at the back row.

I tuned.

My left hand ached a little, as it always did when the weather was damp.

It held.

Then I set the bow on the string and began the prelude, which opens on a long, rising line of notes.

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