If There Be Thorns

  The Last Dance

  .

  "Jory," called Mom in relief when she saw me come in, "thank God you're back. Did you enjoy your lunch?"

  Sure, I said, fine lunch, and she didn't pay much attention if I didn't elaborate, for she was much too busy with last-minute details. This was the way it went on performance days; class in the morning, rehearsal in the afternoon and the performance at night. Rush, rush, rush, all the while making yourself believe the world would stop turning if you didn't dance your role to the best of your ability. When the world wouldn't stop . . .

  "You know, Jory," gushed Mom happily in the dressing room we were sharing--she was behind a screen, and we really couldn't see one another--"all my life the ballet has thrilled me. But this night will be the grandest of them all because I will be dancing with my own son! I know you and I have danced many times together, but this night is special. Now you're good enough to dance solo. Please, please, do your best so Julian in heaven can be proud of his only son."

  Sure, I'd do my best, always did. The foots went on, the overture ended; the curtain lifted. There was a moment of silence before the first-act music began. Mom's kind of music and mine--taking us both to that happy never-never land where anything could happen, even happy endings.

  "Mom, you look wonderful--prettier than any of the other dancers!" She did too. She laughed joyfully and told me I certainly knew how to please a woman, and if I kept it up I'd be the Don Juan of the century. "Now listen carefully to the music, Jory. Don't get so absorbed in counting that you forget the music-- that's the best way to catch the magic, by feeling the music!"

  I was so keyed up and tense I'd likely burst in another second or two. "Mom, I hope the father I love best will be sitting front row center."

  That's when she ran to where she could peek out and see the audience. In certain places the foots didn't blind my eyes. "He's not there," she said dismally, "nor Bart either . . ."

  No time for me to answer. I heard my musical cue and danced out with the other members of the corps. Everything went just fine, with Mom up on the balcony as the beautiful doll Coppelia, lifelike enough to inspire love from afar.

  But when the first act was over she was left gasping and panting for breath. She hadn't told Dad she was also dancing the role of the village girl, Swanhilda, who loved Franze even as he fell foolishly in love with a mechanical doll. Two roles for Mom-- difficult roles too as she had choreographed them. Dad certainly would have forbidden her to dance if he had known the full truth about her last dance. Had I been wrong to help her deceive him?

  "Mom, how's your knee feeling?" I asked when I saw her grimace once or twice between acts.

  "Jory, my knee is fine!" she said sharply, once more trying to see Dad and Bart in their seats. "Why aren't they out there? If Chris doesn't show up to see me dance for the last time, I'll never forgive him!"

  I saw Dad and Bart just before the second act started. They sat in the second row, and I could tell Bart had been brought along forcibly. His lower lip pouted sullenly as he glared at the curtain that would lift and display beauty and grace--and he'd frown more. Beauty and grace did not light up Bart's life as they did mine.

  Third act time. Mom and I danced together, dolls wound up by huge keys attached to our backs. Woodenly we began, limbering up our squeaky joints. The huge room where Dr. Coppelius kept his inventions was mysteriously dim, and made more dramatic by blue lights. I could tell Mom was having trouble, but she didn't miss a step as we both kept time to the music and turned on all the other mechanical toys that came alive to dance with us. "Mom, are you okay?" I asked in a whisper when we were close enough. "Sure," she said, still smiling, never doing anything but smiling, for it was supposed to be painted on.

  I felt scared for her even as I admired her courage. I knew out in the audience Bart was looking at us, thinking us stupid fools and feeling jealous of our grace.

  Suddenly I could tell from Mom's tight smile that she was in terrible pain. I tried to dance closer, but one of the clown dolls kept getting in my way. It was going to happen. I knew it would--just what Dad feared.

  Next came a series of whirling pirouettes which would take her in a circle around the stage. To do these she had to know precisely where everyone else was located, and all the props too. When she spun near me I reached out to keep her on balance before she whirled on by. Oh, golly, I couldn't stand to watch. Then I saw she was going to make it; pain or not, she'd dance without falling. Joyfully now, I bounded into the air and landed on one knee as I playfully proposed marriage to the doll of my dreams. Then my heart jumped. One of the ribbons of her points had come undone!

  "Your ribbons, Mom, watch out for your left shoe ribbon!" I called above the music, but she didn't hear. The dragging ribbon was stepped on by another dancer. Mom was thrown off balance. She put out her arms to steady herself and might have succeeded in doing this--but I saw her painted-on smile turn into a silent shriek of pain as her knee gave way and down she went. Right in the center of the stage.

  People in the audience screamed. Some stood up to see better. We on the stage went right on dancing as the manager came out and carried Mom backstage. Her back-up whirled onto the stage, and the ballet went on.

  At last the curtain descended. I didn't wait to take any bows. I couldn't get to Mom fast enough. Terribly afraid, I raced up to where Dad held her in his arms while ambulance men in white suits were feeling her legs to find out if one or both might be broken.

  "Chris, did I do all right?" she was asking, though pain had made her face very pale. "I didn't really louse up the show, did I? You did see Jory and I in our pas de deux?"

  "Yes, yes," he said, kissing her face all over and looking so tender as he helped lift her onto a stretcher. "You and Jory were magnificent. I've never seen you dance better--and Jory was brilliant."

  "And this time I didn't have to bleed on my feet," she whispered before she closed her eyes wearily, "I only had to break a leg."

  What she said didn't make much sense. I turned my thoughts to the look on Bart's face as he stared at her. He seemed to be glad, almost gloating. Was I being unfair to him? Or was it guilt I saw in his eyes?

  I sobbed as Mom was lifted onto a stretcher and put in an ambulance that would drive her and Dad to the nearest hospital. Melodie's father promised he'd drop me off at the hospital, then drive Bart home safely. "Though I'm sure Melodie wishes it was Jory who'd go home, and Bart who'd insist on staying with his mother in the hospital."

  Much later Mom awakened from the sedatives given her to stare at the flowers filling her room. "Why, it looks like a garden," she breathed. She smiled weakly at Dad, stretching out her arms to embrace him and then me. "I know you're going to say I told you so, Chris. But until I fell, I did dance well, didn't I?"

  "It was your slipper ribbon," I said, anxious to protect her from his anger. "If it hadn't loosened you wouldn't have fallen."

  "My leg isn't broken, is it?" she asked Dad.

  "No, darling, just torn ligaments and some broken cartilage that was repaired during the operation." Then he sat on the edge of her bed and gravely told her every detail of her injury, which wasn't as minor as she wanted to believe.

  Mom reflected aloud: "I really can't understand how that ribbon could come loose. I always carefully sew on the ribbons myself, not trusting anyone else . . ." she paused, staring into space.

  "Where are you hurting now?"

  "Nowhere," she flared as if annoyed. "Where's Bart? Why didn't he come with you?"

  "You know how Bart is. He hates hospitals and sick people, just as much as he hates everything else. Emma's taking good care of him and Cindy. But we want you home soon, so do what your doctor and nurses tell you--and don't be so damned stubborn you won't listen or obey."

  "What's wrong with me?" she asked, alerted as I was. I sat up straighter, feeling something was about to slam down on all of us.

  "Your knee is in bad shape, Cathy. Without going into specifics, you are going to
have to sit in a wheelchair until some torn ligaments heal."

  "A wheelchair?" Stunned looking, she said that like it was an electric chair! "What's really wrong? You're not telling me everything. You're trying to protect me!"

  "When your doctors are sure, you will know. But one thing is certain, you can never dance again. And they have told me, too, that you cannot even demonstrate to your pupils. No dancing whatsoever, not even waltzing." He said it so firmly, but compassion and pain were in his eyes.

  She looked stunned, not believing that such a small fall could have done so much harm. "No dancing . . . ? None at all?"

  "None at all," he repeated. "I'm sorry, Cathy, but I warned you. Think back and count the times you have fallen and hurt that knee. How much damage do you think it can take? Even walking won't be as effortless as it used to be. So cry your heart out now. Get it out of your system."

  She cried in his arms, and I sat in a chair and sobbed inwardly, feeling as bereft as if it had been me who had lost the use of my legs for dancing.

  "It's all right, Jory," she said when she had dried her tears and put on a faltering smile. "If I can't dance, I'll find something better to do--though Lord knows what it will be."

  Another Grandmother

  . In a few days Mom was feeling much better, and that's when Dad brought to the hospital a portable typewriter, a thick stack of yellow legal pads and other writing utensils. He stacked everything on the table that rolled over Mom's bed and gave her one of his big, charming smiles. "This is a fine time to finish that book you began so long ago," he said. "Look at your old journals, and let it all loose--and be damned to those you might hurt! Hurt them as you've been hurt, as I've been hurt. Stab a few times for Cory and Carrie too. And while you're at it, throw in a few blows for me, Jory and Bart, for they too are affected."

  What was he talking about?

  They looked at each other for long moments, then unhappily she took an old memorandum book from his hands and opened it so I could see her large girlish handwriting. "I don't know if I should," she murmured with a strange look in her eyes. "It would be like living it all over again. All the pain would come back."

  Dad shook his head. "Cathy, do what you think you must. There must have been a good reason for you to have started those books in the first place. Who knows, perhaps you'll be on your way to a new career more satisfying than the last."

  It didn't seem possible to me that writing could ever replace dancing, but when I visited her in the hospital the next day, she was scribbling away like crazy. On her face I saw a strange intense look, and in a way, I felt envious.

  "How much longer?" she asked Dad, who had driven me to see her.

  We were all there waiting, Emma with Cindy in her arms, and me holding fast to Bart's hand. Dad lifted Mom out of the front seat and put her in the folding chair he'd rented. Bart stared at that rolling chair with repulsion, while Cindy called out

  "Mommy, Mommy!" She didn't care how Mom came home, as long as she did, but Bart hung back and eyed Mom up and down, as if he were looking at a stranger he didn't like.

  Next Bart turned and headed for the house. He hadn't even said hello. An expression of hurt passed over Mom's face before she called, "Bart! Don't go away before I've had a chance to say hello to you. Aren't you glad to see me? You just don't know how much I've missed you. I know you don't like hospitals, but I wish you had come just the same. I know, too, that you don't like this chair, but I won't be using it forever. A lady in the physical therapy class showed me how much can be done while sitting in this kind of chair . . ." She faltered because his dark, ugly look didn't encourage her to go on.

  "You look funny sitting in that chair," he said with his brows knitted together. "Don't like you in that chair!"

  Nervously Mom laughed. "Well, to be honest, it's not my favorite throne either, but remember it's not a permanent part of my life, only until my knee heals. Come, Bart, be friendly to your mother. I forgive you for not visiting me in the hospital, but I won't forgive you if you can't show me a little affection."

  Still frowning, he backed away as she wheeled forward. "No! Don't touch me!" he cried out in a loud voice. "You didn't have to dance and fall! You fell because you didn't want to come home and see me again! You hate me now for cutting off Cindy's hair! And now you want to punish me by sitting in that chair when you don't need to!"

  Wheeling around, he raced for the backyard, using the stepping stones. He'd covered two when he tripped and fell. Picking himself up, he ran on again, bumping into a tree and crying out. I could see his nose was bleeding. Boy, talk about awkward!

  Dad made light of Bart's rebellion as he pushed Mom into the house, with Cindy delighted to ride on her lap. "Don't worry about Bart . . . he'll come back and be contrite . . he's missed you very much, Cathy. I've heard him crying in the night. And his new psychiatrist, Dr. Hermes, thinks he's getting better, working out some of his hostility."

  She didn't say anything, just kept running her hand over the smooth cap of Cindy's short-short hair. She looked more like a boy in her coveralls, though Emma had tried to tie a ribbon in a short tuft of her hair. I guessed Dad had told Mom what Bart had done to Cindy, for she didn't ask questions.

  Later on in the evening when Bart was in bed, I ran for a book I'd left in the family room and heard Mom's voice coming from "her" room. "Chris, what am I going to do about Bart? I tried to show love and affection for him, and he rejected me. Look what he did to Cindy, a helpless child who trusts that no one will hurt her. Did you spank him? Did you do anything to punish him? Does he show respect to any of us? A few weeks in the attic might teach him a thing or two about obedience."

  Hearing Mom talk like this made me feel depressed. So sad I had to hurry away and hurl myself onto my bed and stare at the walls with the posters of Julian Marquet dancing with Catherine Dahl. This wasn't the first time I'd wondered what my real father had been like. Had he loved my mother very much? Had she loved him? Would my life have been happier if he hadn't died before I was born?

  Then there was Daddy Paul, who came after that tall man with the dark hair and eyes. Was Bart really Dr. Paul's son--or was he . . . ? I couldn't even finish the question, it made me feel so disloyal for doubting.

  I closed my eyes, feeling in the air around me a dreadful tension, as if an invisible sword were held, ready to hack all of us down.

  Early the next evening, I cornered Dad in his study and burst out with all I'd held back until now.

  "Dad, you've just got to do something about Bart. He frightens me. I don't see how we can go on living with him in the house, when it seems he is going mad--if he isn't already there."

  My dad bowed his head into his hands. "Jory, I don't know what to do. It would kill your mother if we had to send Bart away. You don't know all she's been through. I don't think she can take too much more . . another child gone would destroy her."

  "We'll save her!" I cried passionately. "But we have to prevent Bart from going to visit those people next door who tell him lies. He goes over there all the time, Dad, and that old lady holds him on her lap and tells him stories that make him come home acting queer, like he's old, like he hates women. It's all her fault, Dad, that old woman in black. When she leaves Bart alone he'll go back to where he was before she came."

  He stared at me in the strangest way, as if something I'd said had triggered thoughts in his head. As always he had places to go and patients to see, but this time he called his hospital and told them he had an emergency at home. And he did, you bet he did!

  I often looked at my mother's third husband and wished he were my own blood father, but at that moment when he canceled his appointments to save Bart--and Mom--I ktew in all the ways that counted that he was my true father.

  That evening, shortly after dinner, Mom went to her room to work on her book. Cindy was in bed and Bart was out in the yard when Dad and I donned warm sweaters and slipped out the front door.

  It was murky with fog, cold with damp as we strod
e side by side toward the huge shadowy mansion with its impressive black iron gates. "Dr. Christopher Sheffield," said Dad into the black box attached to the side of the gates. "I want to see the lady of the house." As the gates swung silently open, he asked why I'd never learned the woman's name. I shrugged, as if she didn't have a name, and as far as I was concerned, didn't need one. Bart had never called her anything but Grandmother.

  At the front door Dad banged the brass knocker. Finally we heard shuffling noises in the hall, and John Amos Jackson admitted us.

  "Our lady tires easily," said John Amos Jackson, his thin, long face hollow-cheeked, gaunteyed, his hands trembling, his narrow back bent. "Don't say anything to upset her."

  I stared at the way Dad looked at him, frowning and perplexed as the bald-headed man shuffled away, leaving us to enter a room whose door he'd opened.

  The lady in black was seated in her rocking chair.

  "I'm sorry to interrupt," said Dad, staring at her intensely. "My name is Dr. Christopher Sheffield and I live next door. This is my eldest son, Jory, whom you have met before."

  She seemed excited and nervous as she gestured us in and indicated the chairs we were to use. We perched tentatively, not intending to stay very long. Seconds stretched by that seemed like hours before Dad leaned forward to speak: "You have a lovely home." He glanced around again at all the elaborate chairs and other fine furnishings, and he stared at the paintings too. "I have the strangest sense of deja vu," he murmured almost to himself.

  Her black-veiled head bowed low. Her hands spread expansively, supplicating, it seemed, for his understanding for her lack of words. I knew she spoke English perfectly well. Why was she faking?

  Except for those aristocratic hands with all the glittering rings she sat so still, but her hands fluttered, knotted the pearls I knew she wore beneath her black dress. His eyes shot her way, and quickly she sat on her hands.