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Speaker 1: Us studious the choir at midnight. Grace had worked late again,

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the kind of late that made the walk home feel

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longer than it was. The office building on Fourteenth Street

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was empty when she locked the door behind her, and

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the streets were nearly deserted except for the occasional taxi

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drifting past with its light on. It was just past midnight,

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and the air was cool, and the city had that

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particular quality of quiet that only happens in the deep hours,

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when even the loudest places have finally settled down to

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a low murmur. She had walked half a block when

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she heard it, music somewhere ahead of her, drifting out

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into the night from a doorway she could not yet see.

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It was not loud. It was not the kind of

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music that called attention to itself. It was the kind

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of music that you could easily walk past without noticing,

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except that Grace had grown up in a house where

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music was always playing, and she had trained herself to

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listen for it. She followed the sound for two blocks,

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past a closed bakery and a closed book shop, until

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she came to a small stone church with a wooden

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door propped open, a strip of warm yellow light fell

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across the sidewalk from inside, and the music was coming

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from there. It was voices, she realized, many voices, singing

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together in a harmony so perfectly blended that it sounded

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like a single instrument. She stopped at the door and

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looked inside. The church was small, with wooden pews arranged

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in two sections facing a central aisle, and at the

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front there was a modest altar and a small organ,

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and a poire of perhaps twenty people standing in two rows.

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They were singing something old, a hymn she half remembered

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from her childhood, something with the word mourning in it.

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Their eyes were mostly closed, and their faces were tilted

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slightly upward, and they swayed very gently in time with

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the music. Grace stood at the door for a long moment,

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unsure whether she should go in. The church was not

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her church, and the choir was not her choir, and

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the music was not for her. But the music was

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so beautiful, and the night was so long, and she

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had not slept well in days, and the door was open,

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so she slipped inside and sat down in the last pew,

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near the back, where the shadows were deepest. She did

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not know how long she sat there. The first hymn ended,

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and there was a moment of quiet while the choir

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members looked at their music and the organist adjusted a page.

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Then they began again, a different piece, something slower and

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more melancholy that Grace did not recognize at all. The

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notes hung in the air like the smell of incense,

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subtle and pervasive, and the small church seemed to vibrate

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gently with each chord. She closed her eyes and listened.

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The voices rose and fell around her, sometimes in unison,

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sometimes in parts that wove together in ways that should

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have been complicated, but were actually simple, the kind of

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simple that only comes from long practice and deep familiarity.

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She could hear individual voices within the larger sound, a

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soprano with a clear, bright tone, a bass that anchored

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the harmony, an alto that floated somewhere in between. The

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music moved her in a way she had not expected.

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She had come to the church tired and distracted, thinking

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about the e mail she had forgotten to send, and

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the breakfast she had skipped, and the apartment she would

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return to empty. But the music swept all of that aside.

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It filled the space where her worries had been replacing

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them with something quieter and more patient, something that did

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not demand anything of her except that she listen. After

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a while, she stopped trying to identify individual songs and

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simply let the sound wash over her. The harmonies built

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and resolved and built again. The organ provided a soft

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foundation beneath the voices. The wooden pews were cool beneath

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her hands. The night outside the open door continued its

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slow passage, but inside the church time had become a

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different thing, soft and unhurried and without edges. She thought

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about all then night she had walked home late and

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not stopped. All the time, she had been too tired

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or too distracted to pay attention to the sounds around her.

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The city was full of music if you knew how

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to listen for it, But most of the time she

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did not know how, or did not have the patience,

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or was simply too caught up in her own small

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concerns to notice. Tonight, she had noticed, and the noticing

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had brought her here. The choir sang for perhaps another

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half hour. Grace did not count the songs or mark

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the time. She sat in the back pew with her

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eyes closed and listened to every note, and when the

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music finally stopped and the choir members began quietly putting

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away their folders and gathering their coats, she stood up

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slowly and slipped out the way she had come in.

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No one stopped her, No one asked who she was

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or why she had been there. She was simply a visitor,

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a tired woman who had walked into a small church

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at midnight and had sat in the back pew and

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had listened. The church did not need to know more

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than that, and she did not need to give more

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than that. Outside, the air was cooler than it had

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been when she arrived. The rain had stopped, and the

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clouds had thinned, and a few stars were visible between

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the buildings. Grace stood on the sidewalk for a moment,

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breathing deeply, feeling the music still echoing somewhere inside her.

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Then she turned and began the walk home slower, now

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less distracted, taking the time to notice the small sounds

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of the night, the hum of a street light, the

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distant bark of a dog, the soft click of her

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own shoes on the wet pavement. When she reached her

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building and climbed the stairs to her floor. She unlocked

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her door and stepped into her quiet apartment. The kitchen

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light was on a timer. The kettle sat on the

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counter where she had left it. Everything was exactly as

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she had left it, but she felt different, as if

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she had brought something home with her from the church,

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something she could not name but did not want to

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let go of. She put the kettle on, even though

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it was past one in the morning, and sat at

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her kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a warm mug,

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and let the music in her head play on. She

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knew she would sleep well to night. She knew she

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would dream of harmonies and warm yellow light and the simple,

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beautiful sound of people singing together in a small church

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at midnight. She knew these things with a quiet certainty

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that asked nothing of her except that she close her

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eyes and rest