Pretending to Dance (45 page)

*   *   *

I cancel my hotel reservations and carry my suitcase from the rental car into the house. Nora tells me that she turned my upstairs bedroom into a sewing room many years ago, so I will stay in the guest room—Russell's old room.

We order Chinese food that's delivered to the front door and sit on the porch steps to eat it from the cartons as she tells me more about the changes on Morrison Ridge.

“There's one thing I still don't get about Daddy,” I say, after we've been eating and chatting for a while.

“What's that?” she asks.

“I think that, no matter how bad things got for me, I'd want to stay alive for my child,” I say. “I'd want to see her grow into a good person. Get married. Have a family of her own. I don't understand how … if he loved me, how he could leave me the way he did.” I'm saddened by what I'm saying, yet I've moved past tears. Now I'm merely curious to understand. “Why didn't he stay alive for me?”

“He certainly wanted to, Molly,” Nora says. “It tore him apart to think of missing out on your life, and that fact kept him hanging on longer than he would have liked.” She takes a bite of broccoli and I wait for her to swallow. “He was always thinking of you, though, you can trust me about that,” she says. “Even at the end, he was thinking of you. Remember the letter? I don't recall exactly what he said in it, but it was so important to him that you'd have that to remember him by. Did you keep it?”

I frown. “What letter?” I don't remember ever getting a letter from my father.

“The letter in the springhouse,” Nora says. “In your hiding place. Remember?”

I think back. “I don't know what you're talking about,” I say.

“Oh, Molly.” Her face grows pale and she sets the carton down on the step. “Please don't tell me you never got it! He was certain you would.”

“I'd remember a letter from him,” I say. “How would he have written it, anyway?”

“I typed it for him,” she says. “The day he died, he had me type it and put it in your hiding place in the springhouse. That hole in the fieldstone, right? He knew you'd find it there. Are you sure you—”

“I never went back to the springhouse,” I say, setting down my own carton. I can't tell her how the springhouse had gotten twisted up in my mind with Chris and sex and my rebellion and Daddy's death. In the years after Daddy died, the thought of the springhouse had literally sickened me.

Nora presses her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, I feel terrible!” she says. “He told me you were always putting things in that little hiding place. He was sure you'd get it.” She catches her breath and leans toward me. “I wonder if it's still there,” she says, almost in a whisper. “Could it possibly be?”

I barely hear her. A letter from my father! I want to read it. I want to
touch
it. “Is the springhouse still there?” I ask.

“I … well, to be honest, I don't know,” she says. “But I think you need to go look.”

“What did he say in it?”

She shakes her head. “It was so long ago. I don't really remember. I just remember that it was his way of saying good-bye to you.”

“I have to see if it's still there.” I close the top of the carton and get to my feet. Twenty-four years have passed since my father's death, but I can't wait another second to find out if the letter is there. Another second would be too long.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Nora asks.

I hesitate on the top step. There's no way I can go to the springhouse with her in tow. This is something I need to do alone.

I look down at her. “If you don't mind, I think I'd like to take this trip down memory lane on my own,” I say apologetically.

“Of course.” She smiles. “Take my bike. It's around back. There's no place to park a car along the road up there.”

*   *   *

I find her bike where it leans against the back porch. Her helmet hangs from the handlebars and I slip it on and buckle the strap. When Aidan and I ride our bikes these days, I often think of how I rode all over Morrison Ridge without a helmet. I suppose I was lucky I survived. Our daughter will wear a helmet. I picture her with training wheels, excited to have her first bike.
I will love that little girl,
I think.
I will love her with the strength of a tsunami.

The thought makes me smile as I pedal up our forested lane and turn onto the loop road. For a moment, I worry that I'll stand out on the bike. My relatives might spot me and then I'd have to talk to them. But I am just one of several bikers on the loop road. I'm not going to attract anyone's attention.

Even on the bike, the Hill from Hell is no longer intimidating, and although I'm breathing hard, I don't have to walk the bike up the incline. I pedal steadily, past all the new roads and the turnoff to Uncle Trevor and Aunt Toni's, until I near my grandfather's bench. I get off the bike then and walk it along the road, hunting for the opening in the woods that will take me to the springhouse. It's clear to me that the path no longer exists, but I wheel the bike over the brush and into the woods where I think the path used to be, and I lean it against a tree. Then I set off on foot in what I hope is the right direction.

After a few minutes, I'm sure I'm lost. Is it gone? There's certainly a good chance of that and I prepare myself for disappointment. I walk a little farther and the scent of the forest is overwhelmingly familiar, touching a place deep inside my chest. Vines wrap around my ankles and I begin to think I should have marked a trail to help me get back to the loop road. I stand still for a moment, listening. I hear the spring. It's invisible beneath the wild overgrowth, but it's very close. I squint through the greenery, hunting for the fieldstone walls.
It's gone,
I tell myself. Then I realize it's right in front of me, hidden beneath a riot of kudzu on one side and choking vines of ivy on the other. The kudzu tangles with the ivy at the peak of the roof. It covers the windows and obliterates the front door. No one has been in this building for a very long time. My chest aches. I'm not sure why I'm doing this to myself.
The letter,
I think.
Please still be there.

I reach through a tangle of ivy to try the front door. The vines are like a shield I need to tear through. I'm finally able to grasp the doorknob, but the door won't budge. The hinges are rusted shut and I tug on the knob and pound the wood to try to free the door, my heartbeat quickening. Suddenly the door opens, smoothly, with barely a creak, as though it has finally decided to let me in. The dank air sweeps into the forest, filling my head and making me dizzy. I take a deep breath of it, fighting for courage, and step inside.

Someone gutted the springhouse in the last twenty-four years and it is a shell of the place I knew. The furniture is gone except for two old kitchen chairs parked neatly against one of the stone walls. The twin beds and small dresser are gone. The microwave and table, gone. The counter with the little sink is still there, but when I try the faucet, it's dry. The stone walls are bare and I wonder who took down my posters. Someone who knew me or a stranger? My gaze is drawn to the wall that would have been above one of the beds. The fake stone is still in place. My heart thuds as I drag one of the chairs over to the wall and test it to be sure it will hold me before I climb onto it. I reach for the plaster stone and it unsnaps easily from the wall.

The hiding place is nearly at eye level and in the light from the open door I see the small glass bird Nora gave me. The old pack of cigarettes. The photograph of a seventeen-year-old boy. I gasp when I pick up that picture and look at his face. He's so young. This boy who will forever be linked in my mind to the worst night of my life was just a kid. Boyish. Dimpled. All these years, I'd given him—and the springhouse itself—so much power over me. He was a child, and I had been even more of a child. A lump forms in my throat. I'd been so young. So innocent and naïve. So mixed up.

I slip the picture back into the hole and stand on my tiptoes, hoping to see an envelope. Instead, I see a small paper bag, and although it's been two and a half decades since I've seen one of those little white bags, I recognize it instantly as being from the pharmacy where Nora worked. I pull it out and peer inside to see a folded sheet of paper … and an amethyst palm stone.

 

60

 

Darling Molly,

By the time you find this letter, you'll know that I've died. I haven't been well for a long time and I've asked Mom to leave this letter for you after I've gone. I can't possibly leave this world without saying good-bye to my favorite person. That's you, sweet girl.

The day you arrived at Morrison Ridge was the day my life changed for the better. Having a child changes everything. You will find that out for yourself one of these days.

I know you've recently been distressed to realize that your arrival—and the relationship between your mother and Amalia—was not quite as idyllic as we've made it out to be. We are all human and, therefore, somewhat screwed up. The bottom line is that you are deeply loved by two mothers. You don't ever need to doubt that fact. Trust me, darling: neither one of them is pretending when it comes to loving you.

Since I'm no longer around to give you advice in person, I will have to give it to you here. I'm not going to tell you to obey your mother; you know that. She has your welfare at heart. You may not agree with her rules and regulations, but she is looking out for your safety and happiness. Please listen to her.

Lately you've been testing your wings. Someday they'll be strong enough to carry you away, but for now you need to cling to the nest a while longer. I want you to find someone who loves you as much as I do. Don't settle for less and don't rush it. The right guy will make you laugh, will value your opinions, will treat you as his equal, and will never ask for more than you want to give. He's out there, Molly, but you haven't met him yet. I'm certain of that fact.

You are a remarkable girl and I know you will become a remarkable woman. I think you will make a very fine therapist, if that's what you decide to do. I was touched when you told me that might be the path you will choose.

I know you'll grieve for me, darling, but don't grieve for long, okay? I'm not afraid and I welcome this new journey. I'm looking forward to being in a place where I have no need for this old body and I'm free of pain and fear. It's a place of total freedom in my imagination, sort of like a perpetual zip line. I like the idea that I'll be able to look down on you from high above.

Treasure your family, Molly. Yes, they are a complex mix of personalities but they all love you. Eventually you'll come to realize that everyone comes from a dysfunctional family. There is no other kind. Someday, you'll create one of your own and it will be messy and crazy and full of love. I will be watching for it with great anticipation.

All my love,

Daddy

 

61

 

I sit in the springhouse for a long time, the palm stone tight in my fist. I've read the letter a dozen times. Maybe more. It rests on my thigh and it's damp from my tears. I would give anything to be able to talk to my father. I'd tell him I became a lawyer and that I was beginning to think that had been a mistake. I'd tell him how, like Nora, I can have no children of my own and that a baby might soon be coming into my life. And I'd tell him how—like Nora—I will love that child with all my heart.

I've lost track of time, and as I make my way back through the woods, I hope Nora isn't worried about me. I have no idea how long I've been sitting in the springhouse. Long enough that jet lag is catching up to me. I find the bike and begin riding down the loop road. I pedal hard and fast, wanting to get back to Nora. I want to share the letter with someone who will understand exactly how I feel.

*   *   *

We cry, both of us, as we sit side by side on the sofa to read the letter. We're quiet when we finish, and I believe she's as emotionally drained as I am.

“You didn't stay for the whole memorial service, I remember,” she says after a while.

I recall my desperate escape from the service on the pavilion. I remember trying to run away from the pain. “I was too upset,” I say.

“I think that's an understatement,” she says, and I nod.

She sighs, lightly touching the letter where it rests on her thigh. “It was cathartic for those of us who stayed,” she says. “But you were in a very different place.”

“It's over,” I say with a dismissive shrug. “It was long ago.”

Nora moves the letter to my lap and stands up. When she looks down at me, she's smiling despite the sheen of tears in her eyes.

“Do you still dance?” she asks. “I remember how you used to dance all over the place. You couldn't hold still.”

“Not so much anymore,” I say. My dancing stopped when Daddy died. Neither my body nor my spirit felt light enough to dance after that. “Aidan loves music, but he's not much of a dancer,” I add.

“You wouldn't dance at the memorial service,” she says. “I understood,” she adds quickly. “I knew you weren't ready.”

I shake my head. “I wasn't ready at all.”

“How about now?” she asks.

“How about now what?”

“Are you ready now?” She stands up and walks over to the built-in bookcase near the CD player. I watch her run a fingertip along the spines of the CDs. “Here we go,” she says, pulling one of them from the row. She opens it, removing a folded sheet of paper from the case. It takes me a moment to understand.

“Oh no.” I stand up and take a step backward.