Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn (29 page)

Meggie kisses Mrs. J and then she puts the ring into her jeans pocket and she rushes across the street without looking back, because she knows her mother is waiting. She knows.

Bob has disappeared.

Pieces of his life have been removing themselves one by one from our house for weeks now. Shoes, golf clubs, entire sections of his closet, piles of junk I may never have noticed until I went looking for him have vanished, fallen through the ice into the depths of a lake the size of the moon.

Maybe Katie knows. I catch her flying through the kitchen on the way to who knows where. She has that “I'm always late” look oozing from every ounce of her flesh and from one end of the house to the other—grabbing cookies, changing socks, checking her phone messages, throwing me a kiss.

“Honey, when was the last time you saw your father?”

She has to stop and think, which is a good thing, because she may not have stopped for anything else in a very long time for more than five seconds.

“What day is it?”

“Monday.”

She's thinking, moving her foot, afraid to stand still, it seems, and what comes to her mind makes her stop everything, which is a rare occurrence.

“Shit, Mom, it's been days.”

“How many days, do you think?”

She thinks again.

“Saturday, maybe. Mom, don't you speak to him?”

A million memories flash in front of my eyes. Don't I speak to my husband? Did I ever speak to my husband? Years ago, when we lay awake all night on a bed the size of an air mattress, did we speak or did I just listen? Did I speak to him when I wanted to quit teaching and when the kids were little and I thought I should stay home more? Did I speak to him when I wanted sex and he didn't? Did I speak to him when I noticed he never came home anymore? Did I speak to him when I felt as if the center of who I was supposed to be had been stolen? Did I speak to him when I felt such a surge of sorrow after my aunt died that I could barely walk? Did I speak to him when our son fled from this house because he was being suffocated by all the unsaid words? Did I ever
really
speak to my husband?

Katie stops me by grabbing my hands and shaking them.

“Mom, where did you go?”

“Thinking.”

“About?”

“Speaking to your father.”

“How long has it been?”

When I look at Katie, really look at her, I see that she is no longer a girl. This is no news, but this time it registers in a place in my brain that makes my heart start-stop for just a second. Behind her wild eye makeup, shades of orange and black, I see the hint of my baby girl, but beyond that, everything else I see—full lips, the way she carries herself, the swaggering lilt of young beauty, her self-assurance, smell, the way she holds my hands, the fullness of her breasts and the glow of strength pouring out from her skin—she reeks of womanhood. My daughter takes my breath away, and in that same breathless instant I know I cannot lose her like I lost her brother. I cannot go through the wondering and the missing and the guilt and the loss, and so in one second, the second when I remember how I promised myself I would never hold on to my children when they were ready to fly, I decide to tell her something I have rarely told anyone. I must tell her the truth, and then I can let her go. I cannot at that moment think of anything more courageous that I have ever done in my entire life.

“Katie, we have to talk.”

I grip her hands so tight, she lets out a small moan. If I let up she may move away. I cannot let her go. Not just yet.

“Mom?”

“Where are you going right now?”

“Just to pick up Colleen.”

“Stay, okay? I have to tell you something really important. Can you stay with me?”

Katie does not hesitate, which brings me to the edge of a place that I see as a valley so wide and beautiful that I wonder if I can ever walk through it with my eyes open and not faint. I need her. She sees it and she puts her arm around my shoulder and walks me to the saggy couch out on the back porch. She knows this is my favorite place in the house because from there I can see the unbroken line of the horizon to the west and I can place my mind right there on that thin line and rest in silence. I have been unable to do that anywhere else in the entire world.

“Mom, I'm here. Tell me.”

She sits on an old wooden box, feet placed alongside mine, her beautiful hair pushed behind ears that are delicate anchors on each side of her head, and she stops her world—like a friend, like a woman—and enters mine.

And I begin.

I tell her everything. Mexico. Aunt Marcia. How unhappy I am. How this desire to be alone, maybe live alone, has risen up inside of me in such a fierce manner that I cannot stop it. I tell her I am afraid and I talk on through my embarrassment about how I have always—almost always—done whatever everyone else wanted me to do.

“Why, Mom? Why did you do it?”

“I guess I was scared. I never wanted to disappoint anyone. My mother. Your grandfather. The people at school who took a chance on me. Your father. It was one thing after another, and I never bothered to get out of the stream long enough to decide if I even wanted to be in the water.”

“So why now? What happened?”

I tell her even that. I tell her how I came home and how I heard a rolling thunder from the bedroom and how I watched her father and the flower woman. And she smiles.

“Awesome.”

“Awesome?”

“Well,” she says, quickly patting my hand, “sad but awesome that it was the moment that took you to where you needed to go.”

Is this my daughter? Is this the brat who pounded through the house five years ago and who told me she hated me when I wouldn't let her have a sleepover homecoming night with boys? Is this the girl who begged me to let her drop out of school in eighth grade so she could ride her bike to California? The teenager who threw the telephone down the hall and whacked her brother upside the head when he looked at her—simply looked at her? Who is this grown woman who has my nose and hips and shining eyes and long, tapered fingers? Who is she?

“It's your father.
Your
father who was screwing around! How does this make you feel?”

“Mom, it's okay. He's been kind of a jerk for a long time. He's never here. Heck, we can't even find him today, and neither one of us has seen him since—what did we decide—last Saturday? He's just, well, Bob, my dad.”

She's thinking serious thoughts again. When did this happen?

“Mom, he's obviously been unhappy too. Shit—people, even my parents, they shouldn't be miserable. And I can't stop seeing you sneaking up the steps and them making love and that old bed squeaking and . . . well, it's not a pretty picture.”

I feel a pang of guilt. “Is this too much for you?”

“Mom, I'm almost eighteen. I know stuff, you know?”

That sounds better. I feel like I did when her brother called everyone “hey dude.”

“Katie, don't do things just for me.”

“Like what?”

“College, although that's kind of important, marriage . . .”

“Mom, that was your life. I know your marriage was a mess—I watched it, for crying out loud—but you've done things. Look at your research and what you've done with your students. You've done things other moms haven't. This other junk, it's just taken you a while to get it out of the way.”

I say it so fast, I don't even realize it's coming. “I was trying to find your father so I could let him know I'm going to file divorce papers tomorrow.”

“No shit, Mom.”

“I hate it when you talk like that.”

She laughs. Where have I heard that laugh? It's a mixture of lovely, honest-to-goodness hilarity and something deeper—like she knows more than I do.

“Katie.”

“What?”

“You laugh like your Aunt Marcia. Oh my God. That's it. It must have skipped a generation.”

“What skipped?”

“That, well, that ability to live like she did.”

“It hasn't skipped, Mom. You are just one slow-ass learner.”

I can't stop now.

“So you don't mind?”

“That it took you almost fifty years to figure out who you wanted to be when you grew up?”

“Katie . . . No, that I am getting a divorce.”

“It's a pisser, but it's not like I need a mommie and daddie anymore. Dad will help me if I need it. He's just a little bit of a jerk. Besides, I won't even be around much longer.”

“What?”

“You have been
gone.”

She says it as if she is drawing out a journey on paper.
Gone
as in a very long journey that has finally come to an end.

I remember. I suddenly remember. She's going to Mexico.

“Katie.”

Mexico.

Something snaps. There can't be much left to unsnap. I completely forgot. Six months in Mexico before she starts college in early winter.

Mexico.

She gets it faster than I do. The house on the beach. Aunt Marcia. Some kind of cosmic, fairly bizarre moment has just passed the test of time, and my daughter falls into my arms as if a gentle wave has crashed against her back. She is crying so softly, it takes me a while to notice, and I rub my hands across her shoulders, remembering, the way mothers do, how tiny she was when she was a baby, white as snow, how I kissed her over and over, never quite believing that a part of me had made her.

“Oh, Katie.” I cry myself into her right shoulder, the one I kissed the most when she nestled against my breasts and reached her hand toward my face to play with my hair. “Everything is changing. Everything. I don't want you to hate me or feel bad, I just don't think I could stand it now.”

Katie pulls away. She holds me at arm's length and she moves her hand through my hair. Her fingers are a massage of total love.

“Oh, Mommie,” she says, she calls me “Mommie” and I cannot stop my tears. “I have a terrific life. I do. It could have been easier, especially when I figured out that you were so unhappy, but hell, I've been wrapped up in my own stuff—you know, school and friends—and, well, I've actually felt bad that I couldn't help you more.”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“You know, like this, told you it was okay to leave him and let you know I wouldn't die if it happened.”

Oh, Katie. Oh.

“Your brother . . . was it all this stuff? Is that part of it?”

“Mom, don't you know?”

She can tell then by looking at me, my eyes as colorless as a February morning, that I have no clue.

“Tell me. Please.”

“Mom, Shaun's gay. You know, GAY.”

I'm so relieved, I could fall to the floor. Katie must feel me slip a bit and she pushes against me.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“I thought it was because he knew I was living this lie, this here-we-are-all-one-big-happy-family bullshit and he hated me for it.”

She laughs richly and again I hear Aunt Marcia's laughter in it. An echo of my eternity.

“No, no, no. He thought Dad would kill him and he didn't want to bother you. He knew you were really unhappy but he just didn't know what to do about it. Oh, Mom, Shaun loves you so much. When you get through this, go to him. Everything will be fine.”

I am torn between being pissed at being so stupid and wanting to hurl myself off the top of the steps near the couch. What did I miss? How could a world have passed in front of my eyes and how could I have missed something so damn important?

“Hey, if it makes you feel better I never knew either. He really didn't figure it out until he left. There wasn't anyone to talk to, Mom, don't slap yourself about this.”

“I tried so hard, you know, I did. I could feel him slipping through my fingers every day. It was terrible and I was, well, I was frozen.”

Katie's hands move across my shoulders, pushing and rubbing, that comfortable push of hands, an instinctual feminine move that wants to knead a muscle and unknot a problem. She sees me smile and I tell her how I'm realizing touch is such an important part of everything we seem to do and she tells me to think about what I am saying.