My grandmother gave me an everyday smile, covered my hand with hers, and mouthed, “Weren’t they good!” My grandfather had removed his glasses and was peering at his program; music had never been his thing. Oh well. I was alone with it. I did not mind. I did not feel alone. I felt the opposite of alone.

The rest of the service passed me by. The final hymn I didn’t even attempt to sing. I was thinking about my mother and Robin, kissing at the dim sum. That miserable girl in the car seemed like someone I used to know, who I felt sorry for but no longer agreed with. I thought about the keys and tuning pegs and strings, and the tender, practical way the musicians treated their instruments, like a kind of second body.

As the minister delivered the benediction, head down, one arm stretched out, I thought about the concentration of the musicians when they played. It was not like what happened during the silent prayer. They were practicing a different form of privacy. This is completely personal, they seemed to say, but we’re all in it together. We urgently need to tell you something, and we are going to keep on telling you and telling you and trying to convince you that all of these sad, hopeful things we’re saying are true, even though you won’t understand it any more than we do.

I left my palm frond on the seat and led the way up the center aisle. What were the true things? One of them was this: Music can break free from the instruments and live a life of its own.

Right in front of us, in her father’s arms, was the cartwheel girl. She stared at me from her small strange eyes. “Hey!” she yelled as if hailing me from a great distance. “What happened to you?”

My grandmother took my elbow from behind to steer me away, but I was smiling at the girl, my first real smile of the day. Let everyone look at me, or pretend not to. It didn’t matter. It did not matter in the least.

•  •  •

Back home I found my mother curled up on the sofa, reading, her head tipped down so the cords of her neck were exposed. She looked at me with peaceful eyes. That’s what a Sunday away from your sick kid will do for you. I laid my legs across her lap, wiggled my stocking feet to get her to massage them, and told her church had been awesome.

“What was so awesome about it?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“The music was out of this world. Epic.”

She smiled, kneading my toes in her hands. What made me happy made her happy, even if it went against her atheistic principles.