Slow Moon Rising (8 page)

“Crazy?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course. Mom's condition, the meds she was on, all of it could have led her to talk out of her head.” She seemed to study me. “Did Mom say something that confused you?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Did I? I wasn't sure. Even with Jayme-Leigh, who I was the closest to. She and I were so much alike. We looked alike. Same dark features. Nearly the same hair color. But more than that, our temperament is the same. Both quiet. Studious to what is important to us. Jayme-Leigh, medicine. Me, dance.

“Not really,” I finally said. I took a long swig of my Coke. “I'm sure she was just . . .”—I shrugged—“affected by the medicine and the timing. She was throwing up pretty bad that night.”

“What night?”

“Dad had to go to the hospital. He got called in. I don't remember why, but Mom was sleeping and he thought he'd only be gone for a short while.”

“Hospice wasn't there?”

I shook my head. “No. Just Mom and me. We . . . we didn't know how close it all was, you know.”

She didn't answer. She just drank her coffee and stared at the tabletop.

“Mom woke up, started vomiting blood again. Started talking wild stuff.”

“What did you do?”

“What Dad had shown me.”

She reached across the table, laid her hand on my arm. “Why didn't you call me, Ames?”

I shrugged. “I don't know.”

We were quiet until I added, “Lately, Jaymes, I've been . . . having some bad dreams. Forgetting things. Feeling angry about nothing. Everything. Do you think it's because of Mom dying and all?”

And all . . . like what I saw. What I heard. Not just that night but all the years before. Living with an alcoholic means living with secrets. And secrets are things I couldn't talk about. Wouldn't talk about.

“Sounds like stress, Ami.” She smiled at me—so gently—and took a sip of her coffee, keeping her hands wrapped around the mug. She rested her elbows on the table, the cup of coffee under her chin. “You've been through a lot. We all have, but especially you. You lost Mom when you needed her most and then . . . Dad bringing Anise home.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Let me ask you this,” she said. “Are you feeling guilty at all?”

“Guilty? What do I have to feel guilty about?”

“You like Anise, don't you.”

It wasn't a question, and there was no reason to lie. This, after all, was not Heather I was speaking with. “I do. She's making Dad happy and she's nice.” I met my sister's eyes with my own. “Heather is making me crazy, though. She was at the house before I left for dance.”

“I know. Dad told me.”

“What's her problem, anyway?”

Jayme-Leigh patted my arm before returning her hand to her coffee mug. “She loved Mom. I think she feels a sense of loyalty to her.”

“I loved Mom,” I said. Raw emotion took flight inside my stomach. “I'm just as loyal.”

“It's different with Heather though, Ames. She's such a busybody.” She smiled to soften the blow against our sister. “Always trying to make everyone's life perfect. This—none of this—fit in with her plans. Mom dying. Dad remarrying. You liking Anise. Any of us liking Anise, for that matter.”

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

Jayme-Leigh hunkered down toward the edge of the table. “Ami, are you experiencing any depression?”

I nodded. “Sometimes. But aren't teenage girls supposed to feel depressed?”

She didn't answer, just asked, “Worse around your period?”

“Mmmhmm.” Sometimes, in the middle of my cycle, it washed over me. Overwhelming me. Like a wall of water I could not get away from, out from under.

“Periods regular?”

“Yeah. For me.”

“Listen, I can prescribe a mild antidepressant if you'd like. Just something to take the edge off while you're going through the grieving process.”

I buried my head in my hands. “I'll think about it,” I mumbled. I looked up. “Oh, man. What am I going to tell Dad?”

She placed the coffee mug on the table, reached over, and patted my hand. “Don't worry about Dad. Let me talk to him. Daughter to father and doctor to doctor. Okay?”

“No, Jaymes. I don't want him to know that Mom said anything to me. Anything crazy.”

“Why not? He's a doctor. He understands.”

“But then he'll ask me what it was about, and I . . . I don't really want to go there.”

My sister stared at me for longer than I was comfortable with. “Was it that bad?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”

I had another dream that night, like the kind I'd been having since Mom died.

In the dream, I'm dancing in a large auditorium. I imagine I am performing with the Atlanta Ballet, which is my true dream. My
goal
would be a more accurate word.

I'd been in love with the idea of dancing with the Atlanta Ballet since I was eight. Mom and Dad had taken me to Atlanta; Dad for some pediatric association conference and to see a Braves game, Mom and me to shop and see the ballet. From the curtain's rising, when the lights reflected onto the oak slats of the floor and I saw the dancers glide onstage, I've worked toward dancing on that same stage with the company. In this dream, I am.

It is the Christmas season, so we are performing
The Nutcracker
, of course. And I am Clara. The scene is familiar to me; I should be able to perform it without any rehearsal whatsoever. I am dressed in a flowing white gown, the hemline brushing and billowing along my calves. My tights are white; my pointe ballet shoes are a satiny pale pink.

Onstage, Clara's beloved nutcracker has come fully to
life, and he is dancing, before the other live toys, toward her. Toward me. He stops, extends his hands, which is my cue. Until now, I have been—like the audience—transfixed by his graceful movements.

Mine are equally flawless. I come closer to him. I arabesque. I reach the nutcracker, slip my hands into his, tilt forward for an arabesque penchée. It is time for our much-anticipated pas de deux, the dance of two. Though I dance with him, I must remain focused on something out in the distance, visible only to me.

But instead, for a reason only understood in dreams, I look out into the crowd. I cannot see the faces of those who have come to enjoy the ballet; only the crowns of their heads are illuminated. Brilliantly capped, as though they are angels and I have been summoned by God himself to perform for a heavenly audience. Perhaps, even, for
him
, I decide. I cast my gaze upward to the rounded box seats draped in red velvet curtains held back by gold and silver entwined cords.

I have a curious thought. So strange for this time and place in the performance. The curtains, I decide, should not be red. They should be purple. The deepest, most royal of purples. I run forward, as though to look for God, to seek his crown, and to right this wrong. I throw my arms out, whip my head from side to side, but I do not see him.

The audience is laughing. A giggle at first, but then raucous laughter. I turn to where the other dancers should be—and my beloved nutcracker—wanting to know where we are now in the dance. But they are all laughing too.

I look back at the audience. Now I can see their faces. Eyes tightly shut, mouths wide open, cheeks blushing as they point
and cackle. I must do something to change this. I decide I will impress them with my abilities. I will do something so spectacular they will stop in their merriment and, instead, stare in wonder. I place my feet in second position, bend my left knee, and thrust my right leg out for the fouetté en tournant. Each turn is executed en pointe and with precision. I whip around once, twice . . . five times. And the crowd, I can hear them now, they are no longer laughing. They are mesmerized.

Someone calls out, “Grand jeté!” which I know I can do. Beautifully, in fact. I've been told by Letya I perform the grand jeté as no one she has ever seen.

I attempt to leap upward and extend my legs, as though my body is elevated by wire from the rafters. But, for some unknown reason, I cannot stop the fouetté en tournant. Try hard as I may, I cannot. Eighteen, nineteen . . . like a windup ballerina on a little girl's music box. The faces of the crowd whip past me . . . again and again and again.

And the laughter resumes.

Then I hear Mom crying out, “If you want to stop turning, you must forgive him!”

I am somehow able to stop spinning. I scan the audience to find her. She is sitting front row. Center seat. She is dressed in a pale pink Kasper suit, the kind she always wore to meetings and to church.

“Mom!” I shout to her, running as far as I can without falling off the stage.

She opens her mouth to respond, but her words do not come. Instead, blood gushes from her O-shaped mouth. Her eyes roll back, her head lolls.

“Mom!” I shout again.

She straightens, as though she is now well enough to speak. Her words are direct, not haunting. Not strangled or confused. “Forgive him, Ami,” she says, looking at me. “Forgive him as I have forgiven him.”

I fall to my knees, press my face into the cupped palms of my hands. “Mom, don't tell me another word,” I beg. “I don't want to know . . . I don't want to know!”

“Ami! Sweetheart! Ami!”

I bolted upright in my bed and into my father's arms. “No!”

Dad's arms came around, squeezing. His voice was, as always, strong and protective. “I've got you. I've got you.”

I gasped as my eyes flew open. Anise stood at the doorway to my bedroom, looping the top button of a baby-blue Eileen West peignoir set. Her hair—thick and mussed—swirled around her shoulders. Even as I struggled to leave the world of sleep and enter my reality, I was struck by the thought it was understandable that my father fell in love with her. She was perfection.

“Is she all right?” Anise asked Dad. I thought it interesting that she asked him and not me.

Dad looked into my eyes. “Having a bad dream, sweetheart?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Anise turned from the doorway. “I'll get you some water, Ami.” From my bed I could see her padding down the staircase.

Dad rubbed my arms as though he thought I was cold. “You're okay now. Want to talk about it?”

I did but I didn't. I wanted to tell him about my dream. About Mom asking me to forgive him, just as she had done
that awful night. I wanted to ask him about her accusations. But I could not because . . . because what if they were true?

“I'm okay.” I smiled at him. “Silly dream brought on by too much practice, I think.” But my heart hammered beneath one of my father's oversized tees I'd turned into pajamas. Like Mom sometimes did.

He brushed hair away from my face, kissed my forehead. “Well, your old dad is here now. If there's a dragon I need to slay, you just let me know. I'll go get my sword and send him to his death.”

I giggled. “My knight in shining armor.” With a dad who said things like this, surely Mom had been wrong.

I looked past his shoulder to where Anise climbed the stairs with a tall glass of water in her hand. She glided into the room, extended the drink, which I readily took and gulped down. I hadn't realized how dry my throat had become.

Anise ran a slender hand along the back of Dad's shoulders, allowed it to come to rest over the right forearm. Her other hand reached for the now-empty glass. The wedding rings Dad had picked for her shimmered in the room's faint light like broken glass in full sunlight. No wonder Heather was in a tailspin over Anise. Those rings alone must have cost Dad a fortune and—even though he can afford it, but knowing my sister—she must be counting all the money coming out of her inheritance and into Anise's life.

Heather being the one who thinks family is like a business and must be managed as such.

“How do you feel, Ami?” Anise asked as she took the glass.

I swallowed. “I'm okay.” I looked at Dad. “I'll be fine now. I think I can sleep.”

Dad kissed my forehead one more time, stood, and made a show of tucking me in like he'd done when I was a kid. “Daddy, you are so funny,” I said, as though it were true.

“Only the best for my little girl,” he said with a wink.

Anise had already made it to the doorway. “Good night, Ami. Give a shout if you need us.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I said as she continued on into the hallway.

Dad followed behind her, stopping at the door to look over his shoulder at me. “Want me to leave the door open or close it?”

“Close it. I'm fine. Really.” Beneath the taut covers, my feet had begun to wiggle but not enough so he'd notice.

The room grew dark by inches as my father faded from view. As soon as the door clicked shut, I allowed my feet to move with wild abandon. I listened for Dad's footsteps receding toward the master suite. As soon as their door closed, I slid up, pushing the cover off me. I turned the bedside lamp on—the cute retro one my sister Kimberly had bought for the big sixteen-year-old-bedroom-revamping Mom insisted on with each daughter—swung my legs out of bed, and darted across the room to the desk where my laptop was plugged in. I unhooked it, scampered across the floor, and got back into bed. I pushed the top up, booted up, and typed the dreaded words that had haunted me for weeks. Maybe months.

Stages of grief.

The first of the thousands of websites that appeared defined the five stages of grief. The second was listed as “Understanding the Seven Stages of Grief.” I decided that understanding five would be difficult enough. I clicked on that link.

I read aloud, something I've always done when reading alone. “Grief is something we all go through at some point in our lives. We all, at one time or another, lose something or someone dear to us. A parent. A sibling. A child. A friend, a family pet, or even a job.”

I tumbled out of bed again, lightly treading over the hardwood floorboards of my bedroom, and to the desk for a composition notebook and a pen. I returned, flipped the notebook open to a clean sheet, and wrote “What are the five stages of grief?” I returned my attention to the computer and took notes.

1. 1. Denial and isolation
   
2. 2. Anger
   
3. 3. Bargaining
   
4. 4. Depression
   
5. 5. Acceptance
   

I scanned down the page to read about stress and grief, about what happens when people deny themselves the right to grieve. I took notes furiously, first on the five stages, then on the additional stress that can follow.

On a whim, I clicked out of the website and went to the one featuring the two extra steps of grieving. The pages were similar but different. I flipped a page in the notebook and wrote the seven stages on a clean sheet.

My eyes were starting to burn; I realized I didn't know the time. I looked at the little box at the bottom right-hand corner of the laptop screen. It read 2:47. I'd made it home by 1:00. Dad had opened the door for me and said “We'll
talk about it later” as he locked up behind me. I'd rushed up the stairs without saying anything more than “I'm sorry.” I'd gone to bed around 1:45. Which meant I'd only slept—and dreamed—for an hour. An hour?

It had felt like days.

I rubbed my eyes. I wanted to keep reading. I wanted to know more about where I stood in this grieving process, if that was what I was dealing with at all. Maybe I was just fine. Maybe I was just feeling sad.

And why shouldn't I? My mother had just died. My father had left me to go on vacation and come back with a wife. A nice wife, but nonetheless, she wasn't my mother. In a few months I would graduate from high school, and Mom wouldn't be there. I'd give my final performance for the studio, and she wouldn't be there. I'd go off to college, and she wouldn't ride alongside Dad in the car behind me, bags from Pier One and Crate and Barrel stacked in the backseat. I wouldn't see her dashing up the stairs of the dorm ahead of me, talking nonstop as she always did, saying things like, “Oh, Ami! Look at
this
! You're going to love
that
. Oh, how adorable
this
is.”

She would not be there on my wedding day or when I gave birth to my children.

If I ever had them.

No, I probably wouldn't. I wasn't even sure I wanted to get married. I'd never even had a date, really. Just burgers and Cokes with my friends, all from the studio. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in boys; between school and the studio and Mom being sick, I hadn't had time for them. A thought came to me—in just a few months, I'd be expected to attend the senior prom.
The prom.
Another thing Mom would miss.

I looked at the computer screen one more time, willing myself to shut it after I read one tiny part, the part about anger.

Anger. Was I angry with Mom? Angry that she'd left me? Furious with her, perhaps, that she'd left me with these final words of accusation even in the middle of admonishment to forgive?

I pressed the point of my pen against the page and printed:

Why did you have to tell me these things?

I went over the words—over and over—until they appeared as angry as I felt. I raked my teeth over my bottom lip before penning in script:

But how can I know for sure? Maybe it was all just a lie.

Only one way to know: ask Dad.

But I was smart enough to know I never would.