“Ready?” she says. She doesn’t say hello. She doesn’t need to.
We’re in a different room today. This one’s larger, almost studio-like, with a battered upright piano, a portable mirror on wheels, and a whiteboard already loaded with diagrams in blue and green marker. On a side table: a box of tissues and a basket of stress balls shaped like various fruits. I don’t even sit before she starts.
“Show me what you’ve got.”
I stand in the center of the room, the mirror catching every bit of my posture and pinning me like a bug on display. “Start with an ‘mmm’ hum. Gentle, lips together, breathe in from the belly.”
I nod. Inhale. The air is cold, burning a path down my windpipe. I press my lips and try to hum.
It’s worse than before. The sound fizzles out in a breathy, almost apologetic whimper. My face flushes. I try again, pushing a little harder, and it comes out as a strangled squeak. I clamp down, mortified.
Shapiro doesn’t blink. “Too much tension in the jaw. Think ‘lazy lips.’ Don’t press, just let it vibrate.”
I unclench, relax my face, and hum again. This time there’s something there—a resonance, faint but real, like a mosquito stuck in a mason jar. It still sounds pathetic. I feel the vibrations, though, a weird tickle high in my nose, and almost none in my chest. The disconnect is jarring. It doesn’t feel like my voice at all.
“Better,” she says. “Now, match me.” She sits at the piano, plays a middle C, and hums, her own voice perfectly steady and bright. I copy the pitch, or try to. Mine lands flat, sinks lower, refuses to soar.
She motions me over. “You’re used to belting. That’s not an option right now. Think whisper, but with pitch.”
I close my eyes, try again, keeping it as light as possible. The note holds for half a second, then warbles off, dying. My throat aches, not from exertion but from humiliation. I open my eyesand see her watching me—not with pity, but with a kind of impersonal, scientist’s focus.
“Sit,” she says, patting the bench beside her.
When I do, she places one hand on the small of my back, the other just below my ribcage. “Breathe. Low. There’s no voice without air.”
I inhale. She nods approval. “Now, push out a gentle ‘ooo’ on the next exhale. Just the air. No more.”
I do as told. The “ooo” is thin, weak, but not a total disaster. She keeps her hand on my ribs, feeling for movement.
“Again.” We repeat it, over and over, until I’m nearly lightheaded with oxygen. Each time, the sound gets marginally steadier, the pitch less wobbly.
Finally, she says, “Let’s go up the scale. Just one octave, half-steps.”
I know the drill. I sing the scale, but at the first sign of strain—third or fourth note—the sound collapses, breaking into a cough. My face burns. I clench the edge of the bench to keep from shaking.
I try to hide it, but tears prick at my eyes, blurring the piano keys. She grabs a tissue and hands it to me, like it’s a baton in a relay race.
“You’re grieving,” she says. “It’s normal.”
I choke out a laugh, the sound so alien I almost don’t recognize it. “I sound like a duck.”
“I’ve heard worse.” She shrugs. “You’re here to build, not to perform.”
We go back to basics, a punishing sequence of lip trills, straw-in-water bubbling, and silent breathing drills. Each exercise strips away a little more of my illusion of control, but after a while, my body catches on. I find a rhythm. I manage a few seconds of consistent hum, even as it wobbles.
When she pushes me to try a gentle “ah,” my voice surprises me. It’s soft, unsteady, but it holds—a far cry from my old belt, but there’s a tone there, something I might one day shape into a melody. I hold the note as long as I can, and when it cracks, I bite my lip and look away.
Shapiro softens a fraction. “It’s okay to be mad,” she says. “But don’t let the anger freeze you up. You have to let it move through.”
I nod, swallowing the words I want to say. I want to scream. I want to throw something. Instead, I keep humming, keep breathing, even as my chest shakes with suppressed sobs.
We spend the next fifteen minutes in silence, save for the weird sounds I make. I record them all, as instructed, my thumb trembling on the phone’s mic button. By the end of the session, I can almost see the shape of a future voice—muted, maybe, but alive.
Shapiro writes a new prescription of drills, more intense, more focused. “Same schedule,” she says. “Three to four times a day, ten minutes each. Don’t overdo it. Recovery is a marathon, not a sprint. Text me if anything feels off.”
I nod, stand, and wipe my face with the back of my hand. I’m spent—physically, emotionally, spiritually.
When Keaton and I get to the house, I take a moment before going inside. I close my eyes and imagine the sound of my voice, the real one, as it might one day be. Not the old me, not the perfect me, but something new. Something mine.
