The choir sang three songs. Then a kid played a trumpet solo that was mostly in tune. Then a group of freshmen did something with hand bells.
Then Mr. Duncan came back to the microphone.
“For our final song tonight,” he said, “we have a solo from one of our juniors. Annie Hale.”
The curtain at the side of the stage moved.
Nothing happened.
For a few seconds, nobody came out. People started murmuring. Lily grabbed my arm so hard it hurt.
Then Annie walked onto the stage.
She was wearing the blue dress. It fit her perfectly. The skirt swung when she walked, exactly like Lily said it would. And over her shoulders, she was wearing the navy blue cardigan with the tiny hole near the left cuff.
She walked all the way to the front of the stage. To the microphone. Right into the light.
Somewhere in the back of the auditorium, a boy’s voice said, loud enough for people to hear, “Nice dress, Goodwill.”
A couple of kids laughed.
Annie froze. I saw her hands start to shake.
Lily stood up.
I don’t know what she was going to do. I don’t think she knew either. She just stood up in the middle of the row, in the middle of the auditorium, and turned around and looked at the back where the voice had come from.
And then Teresa stood up next to her.
And then, before I could think about it, I stood up too.
Three of us, standing in the middle of the auditorium while everyone else sat. Staring at the back row.
The laughing stopped.
Somebody whispered, “Sit down, Trevor.”
Then it was quiet.
On the stage, Annie looked out at us. Three women standing up for her in the dark. I saw her take a breath. I saw her shoulders come down. I saw her stop shaking.
We sat back down.
Mr. Duncan nodded to the pianist.
And Annie sang.
I’m not going to try to describe her voice. I can’t. I’m not a writer and I’m not a musician. All I can tell you is that when she started singing, the whole room went still. Even the little kids running in the aisles stopped. The man in front of us lowered his phone and just listened.
It was an old song. Something slow, about coming home. I’d heard it before, but I’d never heard it like that.
Halfway through, Teresa started crying. She didn’t make any sound. She just sat there with tears running down her face, staring at her daughter.
Lily was holding my hand on one side. Without thinking about it, I reached over with my other hand and took Teresa’s.
She looked at me, startled.
I didn’t let go.
When Annie hit the last note, she held it so long and so clear that I felt it in my chest. Then she let it go, and there was a second of total silence.
Then the whole auditorium stood up and clapped.
Annie stood at the microphone in her blue dress and her father’s cardigan and looked out at all of them. She looked like she didn’t know what to do with her hands. Then she looked straight at our row. At Lily.
And she leaned into the microphone.
“That was for my dad,” she said. “And for my sister.”
Then she walked off the stage.
Lily put her face in her hands and sobbed.
After the concert, we waited in the hallway outside the music room.
Annie came out still in the dress. She ran straight to Lily, and they hugged and jumped up and down and screamed like they were twelve. A few other kids from the choir came over to tell Annie she was amazing. One girl asked her where she got the dress.
“My sister made it,” Annie said.
