The Narrow Path

by Gail Sattler

  "Yes, I would have liked her in a lead part, but it looks as if I was right about her being too shy."

  "Yet she was not shy to sing with Brian. Maybe we can ask Brian to help her."

  Miranda tried not to giggle. "I'm sure that would help her a lot, but not so much with her singing."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Don't tell me you haven't noticed the way they look at each other?"

  He didn't answer, but his blank expression told her that he didn't have a clue.

  "Never mind. I think this is going to be interesting."

  "Interesting?"

  "If I'm not mistaken, you're going to be seeing a lot more of Sarah." She looked up at the clock on the wall. "It's getting late and you've got to get up early for work. I think it's time you took me home."

  14

  Miranda sat behind the newly tuned church piano. Alone.

  She didn't know which hurt worse, the shock that no one had come to audition, or the sinking in her gut that her entire project, the reason she had left her home for a year, and the way she had tried so hard to integrate into their community, had been rejected.

  In the past week everyone who had expressed any interest —those who had joined the choir and a few who hadn't—had been invited to come to audition tonight.

  At home, aside from the first performance, audition night was always the most exciting time of any project. Enthusiasm was contagious because everyone's hopes were so high. This was the night that the top roles were wide open, and each person arrived pumped with the hope that they could reach for their own personal star.

  Blindly staring at a blank spot on the wall, Miranda pressed the sustain pedal and played one perfectly harmonious chord.The piano was ready for a lineup of enthusiastic singers. The strings echoed their rich tones around her like a melodious waterfall, then faded . . . to complete silence. The only sound in the room was her breathing.

  She had set the entire evening aside rather than making specifi c appointments. In this Mennonite community, the clock did not have much meaning. People opened their businesses to the public on time each day, and they were on time for church and Bible study, but otherwise, time concerns were more like the women's cooking. Everything simmered for hours, and the longer it sat, the better it would be.

  In the complete silence, the squeak of the main door opening jolted her like the whistle of an oncoming train. Footsteps approached. Her heart pounded. Male or female? She couldn't tell. All the women wore practical flat- soled shoes with heels that didn't click. It didn't matter. One individual didn't make for an extravaganza, but it was a start.

  Miranda suppressed the urge to jump up and embrace the visitor. A shadow approached the door.

  Miranda held her breath.

  "Miranda?" A male voice echoed from around the corner.A boot appeared in the doorway. "Where are you?"

  Her heart sank.

  "Ted." She dropped herself on the piano bench with a thud."It's you."

  He removed his hat and pressed it to his chest. "I came to see how you were doing and to take you home if you were done."

  Home.

  She might as well go home. To her real home, not the bedroom she had borrowed from Len and Lois.

  "Yeah, I'm done." More than done. She was truly finished.Miranda sighed, unable to keep the defeat out of her voice.She couldn't believe how wrong she had been. Despite her good intentions and best efforts, she had failed. "I'm definitely done." Her throat tightened. The backs of her eyes began that burning sensation. "I just have a few things to pack up.Let's go."

  She turned her back so he wouldn't see her swipe her nose with the back of her hand, then picked up the notes she'd made and the beginnings of the melody lines she had prepared.For nothing. A sniffle escaped.

  "Miranda? Are you crying?"

  She swiped her nose again, then turned to him. "You're as diplomatic as always."

  "What is wrong?"

  She swished one arm through the air, her palm open. "Look around you. No one came."

  He turned and scanned the pages laid out on the nearby table and the few sheets of music arranged on the piano. "Not even Frank?"

  She plopped back down on the piano bench, facing outward, not toward the piano. "No."

  "You knew that we have never done such a thing here before, did you not?"

  "Of course I knew that." She turned to that familiar blank spot on the wall. "That's why I made sure I told everyone that tonight was auditions. I thought there was a thread of excitement in the crowd, especially those who joined the choir. But nothing. No one was interested enough to want to participate, only to watch from a distance."

  Ted slowly lowered himself onto the bench beside her. "That is not true. There is much interest. But this is not our way."

  "I don't understand."

  "We have been raised since childhood to do God's will, and to trust in God for our many blessings. For those who would be blessed to use their talents for God's glory, we wait for God's timing. We would never compete with our friends for this.This is not God's way."

  Miranda's thoughts stalled in her brain. "But I do believe this is God's way to open up the doors to your church to the surrounding communities. That's why I came. I don't know how we all could have been so wrong."

  "This is not wrong. Do you have your cell phone with you?" Miranda pulled her purse out from under the piano bench beneath her. She didn't know why he asked. She always had her phone with her, and he teased her about it mercilessly.Except she hardly used it as a phone anymore. Instead of paying expensive roaming and long distance charges, she e-mailed her friends and her father or used the webcam. Since she arrived here, she'd used it as a phone exactly once—to call Ted from the parking lot. Her main use now for her cell phone was as her Bible with all her notes and a full concordance available at a tap of her fingertip.

  She handed the cell phone to him. "Here. Did you forget your Bible somewhere again?"

  He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and dialed a number.

  "Hello, Theresa, this is Ted. I am calling from the church.Miranda and I have decided that we would like you to have the part of Mary in the play we will be doing at Christmas. Can you do that?"

  Miranda's breath caught. He hadn't asked if she would like to do it. Only if she could.

  He nodded as he listened to Theresa's response. "Yes, of course we are sure." He nodded again. "Certainly we will pray for you." He smiled. "You are welcome."

  He flipped the phone shut. "There. You said you wanted Theresa to take the part of Mary. It is done. I remember that you wanted William to play Joseph. I will inform him at the office tomorrow. If you give me your list, as I recall you had conceived the same number of parts as the number of people you thought would want to participate. Assign the parts as you deem best. No one will turn this down; they will be honored and humbled to be chosen. I will phone the men and you can phone the rest of the ladies."

  "That's it? That's all there is to it?"

  "Ja. That is all."

  "Really? I don't know what to say."

  Ted smiled ear to ear. Little crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. "There is nothing to say. It is done."

  Miranda couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled at her like that. Or if he ever had. She also couldn't remember ever being so close to him. She'd always sat beside him when teaching him piano lessons, but the other times they'd been side by side on the bench, they both faced the piano, and she never looked at his face, only his hands. Now, with the piano keyboard at her back, all she could do was stare up into his eyes.

  They were brown. Like her favorite chocolate bar. Dark and rich. Except his eyes had little flecks of gold and a dark olive green. His eyes were beautiful. And kind.

  She tried to smile back, but it came out wobbly. Along with a quivering smile, a telltale tear leaked out of the corner of her eye.

  Ted's smile wavered and dropped. "I do not understand this. When I talked to Theresa, she began to cry. Now
you are crying. I thought this would make you happy. It did not make Theresa happy either."

  Another tear escaped. "You really don't get it, do you?"

  His clueless expression was all the reply she needed.

  She turned sideways on the bench to reach and take his hands in hers. "I'm not sad. You've made me very happy. It's just like one of those television shows with a sappy ending that makes all the women in the room weepy."

  "Women do not come to my house, and I do not have a television."

  Another tear leaked out. "Of course you don't." The only rooms of his house that she had been in were his living room, his kitchen, and the room where he'd put her electric piano, but she knew he didn't own a television. No one here did. The only person who might have had one would have been Ted, only because he was the most contemporary person here, but he would have considered it an act of rebellion, and that wasn't in his nature. He had a significant pile of books in his living room, so she knew what he did with his spare time. She had even borrowed a few, with his permission.

  She gave his hands a gentle squeeze. "Thank you."

  He smiled again. At the sight of those adorable little crinkles, despite her efforts, her tears welled up again. She didn't want to cry in front of Ted, of all people, but the harder she tried to fight it, the more her eyes watered.

  The right thing to do would have been to let go of Ted's hands, stand up, wipe her eyes, and leave. Except she didn't want to lose the contact. Again, his smile faltered. She could only guess at how awkward he felt. She felt awkward too.

  "It's okay," she sniffled. "These are happy tears."

  "I do not understand how tears could be happy. I must admit that I do not know what to do. Would you like to borrow my handkerchief?"

  Her lower lip quivered. "I would like a hug." She snif- fled again, released his hands, and leaned her face into his shoulder.

  Ted was trapped. In slow motion, one of his hands settled at her waist, the other at the small of her back. The warmth of being enclosed made her feel both better and worse. She probably shouldn't have, but she leaned closer to him and raised her hands to his shoulder blades and held on. When his hands pressed her closer, she lost it.

  To her credit, she didn't sob outright, but she created a sizeable wet spot on the front of his shirt.

  The wetter his shirt became, the tighter he held her.

  Telling him that she was PMSing probably wouldn't help.But this felt so good. This was Ted.

  Miranda pushed herself away and stood. "I feel much better now," she mumbled without looking at him. "Let me pack up my papers. I'll finish this up later. I think it's time for me to go home."

  15

  Ted left the busy group to find a quiet spot in the middle of the sanctuary, where he spread the photocopies on the pew beside him to look for the right piece of music.

  Halfway through the pile, he still hadn't found the right song when Len's voice came from behind him.

  "Ted, can we speak now, while we are away from the rest of the group?"

  Ted raised his head. Len's mouth was set in a thin line, his brows drawn close together.

  Ted remembered this expression well from his high school days, and it never meant good. At times like this it was difficult not to address Len as "Principal Toews" or even "Sir." But Ted reminded himself that since high school, not just the principal but the entire community looked at him differently. In the cities, he would have been called "geeky." Here, they had simply considered him odd for preferring to read a book rather than go swimming or fishing with the other boys.

  Now, a decade later, as the biggest employer in town, he was one of the most prestigious members of the community.Not that he deserved this honor; the business had already been a success when Onkel Bart had given him the position as general manager. He had simply used what he learned at college to help the company grow. Yet people looked up to him, and he could not insult them by reminding them that he was no different in God's sight than the sick and the widowed.

  Ted sat straight, keeping his fingers in the stack of paper so as not to lose his place, and met the eyes of his former principal. "Do not worry, Len. The song I need is probably at the bottom of the pile, so this is a good time. What is your question?"

  Len jerked his head in the direction of Miranda and the group of people at the piano. "Miranda has been so busy like this every day, only taking the Sabbath to rest. In the month since you have decided who will sing, every day she is either at the piano or with different people from the time she wakes, until late in the evening, teaching and coaching them both here and at our home. In the middle of the night I have seen her sneaking through the house in her nightclothes to go to the piano. She looks at it but does not play, then writes music.Lois tells me that in the morning as soon as Miranda knows we are awake, she runs to the piano to play what she has written at night."

  Ted let out a sigh. This was not a surprise.

  He turned to watch Miranda, listening as she played a few phrases of one her songs for Bess. The short melody rang out, clear and unique in its beauty. This was probably one of the songs she had heard in her head and wrote down before she actually played out the notes the next day.

  "She does this because her electric piano is at my house so she can teach her lessons back in Seattle by using the Internet.I think it is time for me to go to the cities to buy my own piano so she can use her own for what she had intended, which was to do her composing at night with headphones."

  Len nodded. "I would not mind if she played piano in the middle of the night, except at night she should be sleeping.Look at her. She has circles under her eyes. She is so tired that many times in the evening she falls asleep on the couch with the dog on her lap."

  Ted nodded. "Miranda is very fond of Fidette. She tells me she has always wanted a dog but could not have one at her father's home. Many times she has brought Fidette to my house on lesson day." In fact, Len's dog was at his house so often he had purchased a dog bowl and a blanket for Fidette. "So I think that having the dog in her lap is something she enjoys. It is probably not bad that she falls asleep."

  "But she has also stopped knitting in the evenings. Lois tells me that she knits to relax, but Miranda has stopped."

  Ted smiled. "The last time I took Miranda to the store for knitting supplies, I heard her telling Bess that it was the last thing she was going to make. It seems she must stop because she has too much to take home."

  "But Lois is worried about her, and so am I. When we talked about this, the committee members did not mean for her to do nothing else for the time she is here. We can understand this taking all her time in the fall, but it is not yet even summer."

  Ted shook his head as he continued to pick through the pile of music. "Do not forget that she is also doing work for the accounting firm in Seattle while she is here. I suspect that some of the time you think she is doing our play, she is doing her job."

  "Then she is doing too much."

  "Miranda has told me that she likes to keep busy. If there is one thing she hates, it is being bored."

  Len crossed his arms over his chest. "She has been so busy that often Lois takes Miranda's dinner to her so she may eat in her room as she is working. Even so, Lois tells me that Miranda is losing weight."

  Ted's hand stilled. "Daut's schlajcht." he muttered. That was bad. In the cities, so many women were as thin as Miranda because they were always on a diet, eating so little he didn't know how they stayed alive. He knew she ate well on Thursdays when she cooked supper for him and Brian. With Lois feeding her the other days, and Lois never skimping on portions, that wasn't the problem.

  "She is probably not eating lunch then."

  Ted turned his head at the sound of her laughter and watched the group. They had all moved so Miranda sat at the piano with everyone else standing around her in a circle. He pulled his finger out of the pile of music and stood, watching her from the distance.

  She was thin, for sure. The day he held her as s
he cried, at the small of her back his outstretched hand had spanned her entire width.

  Ted's thoughts stalled in his brain. Thinking of that moment made his heart beat faster. As she'd cried, he'd never felt so helpless in his life. The only thing he could think of was to hold her until it was over, which was what he did. Yet, at the same time, in her moment of weakness, the way she had pressed herself into him had made him feel stronger, empowered. He'd never been big or muscular like the men who did physical labor on the farms for their daily jobs, but as he cradled her in his arms, he'd felt he could have protected her against a grizzly bear attack.

  "You are right. She is too skinny. I will speak to her."

  "Thank you. Then you will bring her home tonight?"

  Ted nodded, and Len returned to the front to take his place in the circle he had left. As soon as Miranda noticed Len, she turned to Ted and motioned at him with both hands in the air.

  "Don't worry about that song," she called out across the large room. "We'll pick something else."

  As Ted rejoined the group, she handed him a photocopy of a new piece of music. "We'll be doing this one. I wrote all the guitar chords out for you on this copy, so don't lose it.This is what we're going to do when the townspeople meet up with the nativity people. We're going to try to keep the contrast between the old ways and . . . uh . . ." her voice faltered and she looked up at everyone in the circle around her. "More old ways, I guess." Most of the people around her smiled, but Ted did not.

  This was their main point of disagreement in the presentation.What she considered the old ways of the townspeople, he considered new. Between the two of them, they agreed on very little of the interaction in the play between the townspeople and the people from the nativity scene. The only thing they agreed on was that both groups were to be on stage at the same time.

  Even though he hadn't practiced this particular song, Ted managed to play through it at a satisfactory level. From what he'd seen so far, the group songs were fairly simple because she'd written them to be easy enough for everyone to memorize.