OK, I've gotta make a decision, and I need advice quick.

Do I scrub the mildew off the shower walls, or do I go to church?

This isn't a rhetorical question, I really have to decide. Actually, I just need to decide if I am going to church. The mildew will always be there for me.

Now, first notice I didn't call it going to "Mass". It is a mass, but I wouldn't be attending. I'm not Catholic, not even christian. I would just sneak into the apse through the front doors and listen. Listen to the voice of an angel. She'll be there, I know. I'm married to her.

I've known she had a beautiful singing voice almost from the time we met. It is clear, and both cutting cold and soothing warm at the same time. But the boys were more than half grown before someone in the congregation noticed, and asked her to join the choir. She loved the idea, but was nervous and unsure. She'd never had training, never been in a choir. She couldn't read music. But the boys were finally old enough they could be trusted to behave themselves alone below (I don't attend), so she did it.

Now this winter they asked her to go solo. To sing the offertory hymns, the responses, the hallelujahs. She said yes. She and the organist practiced several nights for two weeks before her solo Mass.

When she and the boys were running around trying to get ready for mass, late as usual, I commented I might run into town and listen from outside the church. She thought I was joking, but then invited me inside. Everyone's welcome you know.

But that isn't really true. I've tried to get exposure to most of the religions I can, and while they may all welcome repentant sinners or lost souls, I don't think they really want the company of confirmed agnostics. I'm not looking for God or redemption or guidance in my life. Gettin' along quite fine, thank you. I just want to hear my wife sing.

So 20 minutes after they left, I jumped in the truck and followed. It was a warm, sunny day, melting the slush off the roads. I slipped in through the front doors just in time to catch the sermon. I listened while I watched the sun glow through the stained glass window donated by one of our pioneer families so many years ago.

It was a good sermon, the priest giving an explanation as to why two of the gospels were written so differently. One was written when the young church consisted mainly of Jewish recruits. Many things were left unsaid, because all the pupils already knew them. The other was written when the church was expanding around the Mediterranean, recruiting mostly us gentiles. The author knew they were unfamiliar with Jewish traditions and history that had carried into the new religion, and so he wrote for a different audience. That is one thing I have come to admire about Roman Catholicism. While a little slow sometimes, they are willing to recognize a fact when it slaps them in the face, whether it is the orbits of the planets, the cosmic radiation that puts the age of the universe in the billions of years, or DNA and its proof that all life has evolved from something simpler.

Then came communion, and I could hear my angel's voice from just above me. She rang strong and true. It was wonderful. Ooohhh, those hallelujahs!

When the mass neared its end, a young mother and her two youngsters came slipping out the doors. Then another woman, someone I knew. She was more embarrassed about being caught leaving mass early than surprised to find me there. Time to go.

Before I left, I got into the wife's SUV, changed the channel on the radio and pumped the music up loud. As soon as she turned the key, she would know I had been there.

I've done that before. I think the town cops are starting to wonder about this guy that shoves his truck into a parking space and runs across the street to jump into the white SUV. Then jumps back out again and drives away. They've never pulled me over to ask, but they have seen it. But it's a small town. If the SUV owner ever reports anything missing, they'll know where to find me. We once ended up having lunch in the same restaurant. She was in the banquet room with her meeting, and never knew I was there with some friends/co-workers. Rather than tinking with the radio, I moved the car three parking spaces up the hill. She never noticed.

Once, when I knew she would be leaving work soon, I put the two heeler sisters in the car. She noticed that.

Its been a tough winter, with lots of colds, bronchitis and stopped up ears. But all are healthy now, and she's going to sing again in about an hour. She's rehearsing now as she dries her hair.

Do I go?