What the Church Pianist Knew

She played piano at First Baptist for forty-two years and never missed a Sunday, not once, not even the year her son went to prison.

People said she had the patience of Job and the memory of an elephant. Every hymn. Every solo. Every funeral she’d ever played for, going back decades.

What they didn’t know was she remembered other things too.

Who sat where. Who left early. Whose truck was parked behind the Feed and Seed on a Wednesday night it had no business being there.

When the detective came around asking about the Pruitt fire, she didn’t volunteer a thing. Just kept polishing her glasses with that yellow cloth she always carried.

Three days later, an anonymous note showed up at the station. Typed. No return address. No fingerprints.

She had never learned to type.

A year later, her granddaughter asked her, point blank.

The pianist just smiled and said: “The Lord sees everything, dear. And so do I. Don’t mean I have to tell.”