It’s Phlebotomists’ Day, Kate discovers when she enters the mall-like medical center. On a table near the elevator is balanced a folded piece of oaktag, and in the fashion of a sixth-grade language arts project, gold stars, curled ribbons, and artfully cut photographs of smiling women and a few men in white coats are glued on it. “Happy Phlebotomist’s Day” is written in purple magic marker.

All the departments beckon with their doorlessness and upholstered mauve chairs: Radiology, Pharmacy, Ophthalmology. Things get more serious on the upper floors: Oncology on the fourth. But she’s not going there. Not yet. Maybe never. It’s just a lump. Probably a cyst. Just a cyst.

Her first stop, as instructed by her internist, Dr. Newman, is the lab. She has set up all her yearly appointments within a couple of weeks of each other. Gynecologist, mammogram, physical, dermatologist, dentist. And the biopsy, just added to the schedule as a result of the mammogram. She thought of cancelling the physical and focusing all her mental and medical energy on the upcoming biopsy, and now she can’t remember why she didn’t do that. She doesn’t want to be here. She’s told Rob and her daughter Jules nothing. No point in worrying them . . . if Rob would even worry -- their marriage is that far gone.

“Hi. I’m Alina,” a young woman says as she begins tapping at a shadow of blue in the crux of Kate’s arm.

"I have tricky veins," Kate warns Alina. Survivalist veins. National Geographic veins. They lie still and visible until the predatory needle punctures the skin, then at the last moment they roll out of the needle’s path. It is an impressively protective reflex, which leaves the vial empty and the phlebotomist needing to stick her again.

“Don’t worry,” Alina says with all the confidence and good will of one being celebrated. “Make a fist.” As the needle enters her arm, Kate looks over at the cheerful looking, middle-aged woman in the cubicle next to her who is being attended to by a phlebotomist even younger than Kate’s.

“Oops,” Alina says. “You’re right. Look at that.”

Kate doesn’t look; she continues to watch as the other woman’s vials fill up. When the needle is removed, the woman shoots her arm straight up in the air. The gesture reminds Kate of something.

She glances at her empty tubing, looks away again at the arm in the air, prepares for the next stick. The woman is pointing to the ceiling, not at anything in particular, it’s just the shape her fingers have taken. An image of Mr. Teller, Kate’s elementary school choir master comes to mind. Dyed (the choir members suspected) black hair, belly over his belt, his arm in the air directing them to send their voices up to God.

“Got it.”

Kate looks and sees her vial finally filling. “Good.” And then a wave of vulnerability that masks as kindheartedness comes over her as it often does when she is having blood drawn. “Happy Phlebotomists’ Day.”

Alina tosses her head as though the whole thing is silly but Kate imagines her parents taking her out to a celebratory dinner later, though they might remind her that it’s still not too late to become a doctor.

“You have a beautiful name,” Kate adds. Another irrepressible urge – the loss of blood makes her want to say something that will make her seem kind. She thinks that if she had blood drawn every day, she’d be a better person.

When Kate stands to leave, the woman’s arm is still in the air. She smiles but doesn’t explain. Kate assumes it has something to do with her blood flowing too slowly, too quickly, too thinly, too thickly.

This isn’t the only time Kate has thought of Mr. Teller. She has thought of him from time to time, most vividly years ago when she was at a performance of Handel’s Rinaldo. She was dating Rob, beginning to think she would marry him, and because he had a much treasured subscription to City Opera passed down to him from his grandparents, she was doing her best to like opera. Music played a significant role in Rob’s life and his family history — he and his parents and grandparents, as well as several aunts and uncles, had all taken piano or violin or voice lessons; one uncle played the accordion. They knew the names of composers and singers; they knew librettos and had heated arguments over whether Maria Callas or Renata Tebaldi was the better soprano. Kate knew David Bowie, The Band, The Rolling Stones. Rock and roll was integral to her life, but music had played no role in her family. No one played an instrument or took lessons. She remembered a ukulele, which of course, no one took seriously. There was a stereo console from Ethan Allen in the living room, and she could remember dusting it and the menagerie of glass animals her mother kept on it, but it wasn’t until Rob once asked her what kind of music her parents listened to that she realized she couldn’t remember music ever coming from it. Rob committed himself to putting a variety of music in her life, and she committed to appreciating it, though after two operas — a four-hour version of Le Nozze de Figaro, and an equally long Don Giovanni, she learned only that she hated Mozart. She was pretty sure she hated opera, too. Then he took her to see Handel’s Rinaldo.

Dr. Newman asks about her sister.

Kate steadies herself. “She’s back on chemo.”

“I'm sorry.”

She has bad veins, too. They’ve put a port in her chest to administer the chemo so they don’t have to keep puncturing her. It’s not supposed to hurt but it does, and she has nightmares of things crawling in and out of it.

“Are you having regular mammograms?”

“I have a lump,” she bursts, though she hadn’t planned on telling him. There’s nothing he can do about it.

“Oh. Do you have a biopsy scheduled?”

“Yes.”

Now he wants details—where, when. Does she want him to feel it?

No, she doesn’t and she’d like to stop talking about it now. When he says, “Good luck,” she thanks him, though she doesn’t want to need luck.

At the end of Act One of Rinaldo, Almirena, Rinaldo’s beloved, is abducted by a sorceress. Grief stricken, Rinaldo beseeches her to return: Cara sposa, amante cara, dove sei? Deh! Ritorna a’ pianti miei! Del vostr’Erebo sull’ara colla face del mio sdegno io vi sfido, o spirit rei. My dear betrothed, my dear love, where are you? Come back at my tears. Evil spirits, I defy you with the fire of my wrath on your infernal altar.

As she listened for the first time, she remembered Mr. Teller. Rinaldo’s was the type of voice Mr. Teller had, the voice he used in short bursts at choir practice, the voice he showcased at the school’s annual talent show, the voice Kate and her classmates mocked mercilessly. They would form their mouths into wide Os, flutter their eyes and shriek silently in deprecating imitation. To them, he had the voice of a woman — high, sweet, feminine. Then someone would start with “Maybe he is a woman. A he/she.” But Kate also remembered the parents at the talent show, the mothers and fathers who would close their eyes and let their heads gently sway as though they were floating on his voice. Even Kate’s mother, who knew nothing about music, closed her eyes and was moved. And when Kate closed her eyes at Rinaldo, the voice became what she had always imagined a soul to be, a soft mist rising toward the ceiling of the opera house, passing through the roof to the night sky, flying to heaven, sure of the way.

“Reach to heaven,” Mr. Teller would encourage the choir at the high notes as he pointed, arm exaggeratedly upstretched. Kate could never hit the highest notes; she mouthed them, afraid that if she tried, the sound she emitted would get her excused from choir. That was how it worked; anyone could join but some would be excused. Usually, it was because of blatant misbehavior (she and her friends were discrete in their mockery) but sometimes it was because of the persistent flatness or tunelessness of a voice. Even though they all pretended to hate choir, it was a humiliation to be excused.

Kate was in her mid-twenties, years away from choir when Mr. Teller was murdered on his way home from the church one evening. It was vicious. A group of four teenage boys hit him, kicked him, all the while demanding that he say, “I am a fucking faggot.” When he finally did, one of the boys knifed him. They were caught — one confessed and gave the names of the others. The confessed had gone to Kate’s school for a short time before being expelled. There were rumors that he had been excused from choir, but Kate couldn’t imagine someone who could be a party to that act ever singing hymns.

At Mr. Teller’s funeral — many of those who had mocked him, including Kate, went — an elderly nun spoke, remembering his pointing and saying that she liked to think that at the moment of his death he let his voice out, not in a scream but as a note on which to send his soul to heaven. It was his melodious soul that Kate thought of years later when she closed her eyes at Rinaldo.

Counter tenor. That was the classification for Mr. Teller’s and Rinaldo’s voice. Rob bought her CDs of the opera that Christmas and asked her to be his cara sposa that spring.

The EKG is fine. Her weight, lungs, reflexes, ears are all fine. She can call the office in a week for blood results.

“Good luck,” Dr. Newman says again.

As she leaves the medical center, it occurs to her that Mr. Teller knew the limitations of her voice all along. But he also knew that at some point, she would need to send her voice and soul out pleadingly toward heaven.

That evening at home, she puts on the CD of Rinaldo. She sings quietly, flatly, hoping her voice knows the way.