My father had the most amazing operatic voice, so I have a soft

Host: The sunset spilled through the windows of a quiet music hall, turning the empty seats into waves of amber velvet. The stage — wide, timeless — was scattered with sheet music, a lonely microphone, and the faint echo of something long gone but still somehow breathing.

The air held that faint perfume of dust, wood, and ghosts — the scent of songs that once filled the room, of applause that had long since dissolved into silence.

At the edge of the stage, Jeeny sat with her knees drawn up, holding a small old vinyl record between her hands. Jack stood in the aisle, gazing up at the chandelier, its crystals trembling with the last light of the day.

Jeeny: “Olivia Newton-John once said, ‘My father had the most amazing operatic voice, so I have a soft spot for that.’”

Jack: “An operatic voice, huh? I can almost hear it. The kind that shakes the air when it hits the right note.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The kind that fills a room — not with volume, but with feeling. The kind that makes silence jealous.”

Host: The record player clicked faintly as Jeeny set the vinyl down. A scratch, then a note, pure and old — a tenor, perhaps, something Italian, something with vibrato that lingered like longing.

The sound rose, soft, then soared, and for a moment, it was as if the walls remembered how to breathe again.

Jack: “That’s beautiful. Who is it?”

Jeeny: “Doesn’t matter. It could be anyone’s father. Anyone who sang before microphones, before fame, before filters. Just a human voice — raw, alive.”

Jack: “I don’t know. Opera always felt… too big to me. Like people trying to make emotions sound grander than they really are.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Opera doesn’t make emotion bigger — it reminds you how big it already was.”

Host: The light shifted, bathing them both in gold and shadow, the kind of light that feels like memory itself — half dream, half truth.

Jack: “You think that’s what she meant? That her father’s voice made her fall in love with sound?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe she meant something more intimate. That hearing him sing made her understand love itself. Because a parent’s voice — when it’s full of music — becomes something you carry long after the notes stop.”

Jack: “You’re talking about nostalgia.”

Jeeny: “No, I’m talking about inheritance. Not the kind you spend — the kind you live with. We inherit music from those who teach us how to listen.”

Jack: “You make it sound like music is genetic.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Not in blood — in silence. We carry the pauses between their songs, the breaths they took before the next verse.”

Host: The record skipped, a faint crackle in the air. Jack sat down beside her, elbows on his knees, listening.

Jack: “My mother used to hum when she cooked. Always the same tune. I never knew what it was. I used to tease her about it. Then one day, she stopped humming. I didn’t even notice until months later. That’s how quiet life gets when you take sound for granted.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I hum it sometimes without realizing it. Maybe that’s my inheritance.”

Jeeny: “See? You understand it too.”

Host: The voice on the record swelled — a final note, long and trembling, like a heart refusing to let go. The sound filled the hall, vibrating through the floor, through their bones, through the dust of forgotten applause.

Jeeny: “Opera does that. It breaks your heart in a language you don’t even speak.”

Jack: “Because it’s not language. It’s emotion wearing formality. Discipline turned into ache.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what made her father’s voice special — not the perfection, but the humanity. The way it carried feeling like a cathedral carries prayer.”

Jack: “You think Olivia saw herself in that?”

Jeeny: “Of course. Every artist is haunted by the sound that raised them. She found her softness where he found his strength. That’s why she called it a ‘soft spot.’ It’s not weakness — it’s reverence.”

Host: The hall grew darker, the lights fading to the muted blue of early evening. Jeeny leaned back, resting her head against the stage wall, her eyes half-closed, her face calm.

Jack: “It’s strange, isn’t it? The voices we remember most aren’t always the loudest.”

Jeeny: “No. They’re the ones that reach us when we stop pretending to listen. The ones that remind us where we came from.”

Jack: “You think we all have a song like that? Hidden somewhere?”

Jeeny: “Yes. And sometimes it’s not even music. It’s a laugh, a story, a sigh — something that connects you to someone who made you possible.”

Host: The record slowed, the notes warping, melting into silence. The needle lifted, and the world was still again.

For a long moment, they said nothing — the kind of silence that hums.

Jack: “You know… I envy her. Olivia. To have grown up with that kind of beauty inside her home — to have that memory.”

Jeeny: “You don’t need to envy it, Jack. You can build your own. The voice doesn’t have to be inherited — it can be found.”

Jack: “Where?”

Jeeny: “In the quiet things that make you feel alive. Maybe not opera — maybe rain on glass, or wind through trees. Maybe the sound of your own forgiveness.”

Host: The camera moved slowly, pulling back from the stage — the two of them sitting together, surrounded by stillness, the air alive with echoes of things once sung.

Jeeny looked at him, smiling softly.

Jeeny: “You see, Jack, her father’s voice wasn’t just amazing because it was powerful. It was amazing because it lived. Because it filled a room and still left space for others to breathe.”

Jack: “So the music didn’t end when he stopped singing.”

Jeeny: “No. It never does.”

Host: The final shot lingered on the empty microphone, catching the faint shimmer of light against its silver rim.

The sound of the sea whispered through the walls of the hall — or maybe it was the ghost of that operatic note, still moving somewhere beyond hearing.

And as the light dimmed, Olivia Newton-John’s words resonated softly through the silence — a truth wrapped in gratitude:

That the voices which raise us — whether sung or spoken,
never really fade.

They become the music of our memory,
and the soft spot in our soul
where love first learned how to sound.