The Girl in the Choir Loft

Tolu had a system.

After every Sunday service, once the ushers had swept the last of the offering envelopes and Mama Nkechi had locked up the Sunday school store, Tolu would climb back up to the choir loft alone, sit in the third chair from the left — her chair — and write.

Not a real letter. Never a real letter. Just her small leather diary, the one Blessing had bought her two Christmases ago with “T.A.” embossed in gold that had since worn to a whisper, and inside it, one line, every single week, always starting the same way:

Dear Pastor Emmanuel (who will never read this),

Today she wrote: You preached on Ruth again and I nearly laughed out loud in the choir stand because you always preach on Ruth when you think nobody is watching you think about Rita. God rest her. But I was watching. I am always watching. That is my sin, not yours.

She closed the diary the way she always did — fast, guilty, like the paper itself might report her to the deacons — and nearly walked straight into Blessing, who was leaning against the loft door with her arms crossed and a look that said she’d been standing there longer than Tolu would like.

“Ehen. So this thing don pass ordinary crush,” Blessing said.

“Abeg, no start.”

“I no start anything o. Na you dey start am, every Sunday, climbing up here like say na confession booth.” Blessing dropped into the chair beside her. “Tolu, I’m your best friend since secondary school. I know when you dey lie to yourself, and right now your face be like person wey just see accident.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine,” Blessing repeated flatly. “That’s why your mama don already tell Debo make him come Sunday lunch next week, and you never even blink.”

Tolu’s stomach dropped. “Debo? Which Debo?”

“The bank Debo. Your colleague. The one wey get sense small and dress well.” Blessing raised an eyebrow. “Na your mama’s project. She don move to phase two.”

Before Tolu could respond, the loft door creaked, and both women turned — Pastor Emmanuel Osaretin stood in the doorway, Bible still under one arm, tie loosened from the heat, the particular tiredness of a man who had just preached three services back to back written plainly on his face.

“Tolu,” he said, and something in his voice made Blessing suddenly very interested in her phone. “Do you have a minute? Something important I want to discuss with you.”

Tolu’s diary was still warm in her hands, the ink barely dry on a confession he would never see, and here he was, standing in the doorway, asking for a minute like her whole carefully built system hadn’t just cracked down the middle.

“Yes, Pastor,” she managed. “Of course.”

Blessing squeezed her arm on the way out, mouthing call me with wide, delighted eyes, and then it was just the two of them, the empty choir loft, and whatever “important” meant.

To be continued…