Pretending to Dance

  “We need to really talk, Molly,” she says. Her eyes burn into mine. “We need to talk about far more than how Morrison Ridge has changed. I’m terribly upset that Russell told you what really happened.”

  “I’m not,” I say, involuntarily pulling my hand away from hers. “Nora, he had to. I was still so furious with you. I’m still … I’m having trouble letting go of the … the shock of it all. And the anger,” I add.

  She nods. “Of course you are.”

  “I wish I’d known the truth.”

  “You couldn’t have handled it, honey,” she says. “It wouldn’t have been fair for us to lay it on you. To expect you to keep it to yourself. You were very young, even for fourteen. Very … overprotected.” She stares at me intently. “I’m not even sure you can handle it now,” she says. “Can you?”

  I look into the mug I’m clutching between my hands on the table. “Yes,” I say. “At least I’m trying to.”

  “You were never to know,” she says. “You were … perhaps you still are”—she waits for me to look at her and when I do she finishes her sentence—“a loose cannon.”

  I shake my head. “I considered turning you in,” I say. “Just you. I didn’t know about the others. So many times when I was a teenager, I’d sit in my room at Virginia Dare and I missed Daddy so much and I blamed you and…” I shake my head. “Oh, how I blamed you!” I say. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pick up the phone and call the police. Because even though I hated you, I guess in some way I still loved you.”

  She nods. “I knew how torn you were,” she says. “How torn you had to be.” She takes a sip of her coffee, then lets out a long sigh. “It was so hard for us, Molly.” Her expression is a plea for me to understand. “He begged. He never asked for much, but he needed our help. He said he would stop eating and drinking if we didn’t help him. He was completely serious, and that sort of death … starving to death, no hydration at all…” She shook her head. “It can be agonizing and takes so long. It’s cruel. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to watch him go through that. He was suffering in a way you and I can’t even imagine. How could we turn our backs on him?”

  “The thing I don’t get,” I say slowly, “is why he felt so desperate to die. He never seemed to be in terrible pain. That wasn’t part of the MS.”

  “Oh, yes he was in pain, honey,” Nora says. “He just never let you see it. But it wasn’t the physical pain that was unbearable to him. That he could tolerate. The pain that tortured him most went far beyond the physical.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She rubs her arms through the sleeves of her hoodie as if she feels a chill. “He felt trapped inside his body,” she says. “He kept a lot of it from you. He was already having serious vision problems and he woke up a couple of mornings unable to speak. He’d have episodes where he was so short of breath, he’d panic. On a couple of occasions, he choked while he was eating and he was terrified of dying that way. Of choking to death. He was so afraid of what he would lose next. Would it be the ability to swallow? To communicate? The unknown terrified him. He felt as though the essence of who he was was slipping away and all he’d be left with would be his suffering. He didn’t want to waste away like that. He wanted to die on his own terms.”

  I hate thinking about the anguish my father must have been in. I’d been blind to it. I imagine what it would have been like, watching him fade away. Unable to see, perhaps, or speak, or control any part of his body. How afraid he must have been to want to end his life. It was a fear that no amount of “pretending to be brave” could counter. A fear so strong that death seemed like a welcome release. My heart cracks in two at the thought of him being that frightened.

  I look at Nora and realize she’s not the person I thought she was when I was growing up. I remember her as harried. Worried. But this Nora is a vibrant woman with a full life. This Nora is unencumbered.

  “Sometimes,” I say slowly, “I thought you killed him so you could be free. It had to be hard on you, taking care of him the way you did. You were so tied down.”

  She doesn’t seem shocked by my words. Instead, she nods in understanding. “Do you still think that?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “No.”

  She leans back in her chair. “Graham and I talked about that a lot,” she says. “I wanted to be absolutely certain that setting me free wasn’t part of his motivation.” She looks toward the window, and for the first time since my arrival, I see tears in her eyes. “I loved him so much, Molly,” she says, looking at me again. “I didn’t want to lose him, no matter how difficult the disease became to manage. He convinced me that giving me my freedom wasn’t what he was after.” She swirls her coffee gently in her cup.

  I think back to that summer. “I was trying to make Daddy happy that summer,” I say. “I thought it worked, too. He seemed really content most of the time.”

  “You always made him happy, Molly.” Nora smiles. “You were the best thing that ever happened to him and he adored you. But honestly?” she adds. “The joy you saw in him that summer was primarily because people told him they would help him. He was happy because he finally had a way out.”

  “Oh God,” I say. “Really?”

  She nods. “Really.” She stands up and reaches for the coffeepot on the counter, then pours more into my cup. “So,” she says with a complete change of tone. “I know nothing about your life. Almost nothing, at any rate. I know you’re occasionally in touch with Dani, but I guess you told her not to tell us anything and she’s guarded your privacy completely. But I want to know everything.” She sits down again. “What sort of work do you do? Are you married? Do you have children?”

  I tell her I live in San Diego. I tell her about Aidan and about my work. And then I tell her something I believe she’ll be able to understand in a way no one else in my life can.

  “I had a hysterectomy and can’t have children,” I say.

  Her expression is full of sympathy. “Oh honey,” she says.

  “So we’re in the process of adopting and I’m frankly terrified.”

  She studies my face, taking that in. “What’s terrifying you?” she asks.

  “Everything,” I say. “The baby’s due in about a month. The girl—her name’s Sienna and she’s very sweet, but she could change her mind at any time before the adoption’s final. So I’m afraid of that. And I’m afraid … it’ll be an open adoption, so Sienna will still have a role in our child’s life, and I…” My voice trails off and I look up to see Nora smiling at me.

  “Well,” she says, “I have a little experience with this.”

  “I know.” I smile back.

  “I assume, though, that your husband … Aidan, right?”

  I nod.

  “I assume Aidan is not the baby’s father and Sienna is not his former lover.”

  I wince. “That must have been so hard for you.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” she admits.

  “No,” I say, “Aidan is not the baby’s father.” I lean forward and it’s my turn to rest my hand on hers. “How did you do it, Nora? How did you stand it? How were you able to share me the way you did, especially with a woman your husband had once loved?”

  She covers my hand with hers and it’s warm from being wrapped around her mug. “Oh, Molly,” she says, and for the first time I see lines in her face. In her forehead. Between her eyebrows. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

  “What was it like?” I ask.

  She sits back, looking at me as though truly seeing me for the first time since I arrived in the house. She smiles. “I loved you,” she says. “I adored you. But I was your mother. My role in your life was very clear to me. I had to be the one to discipline you and lay down the law. Amalia didn’t have to worry about any of that. She didn’t have to worry about keeping you clothed and making you three meals a day. She didn’t have to worry about keeping you safe or teaching you to make good choices or help you grow into a responsible, cap
able adult.”

  “She was very … mellow,” I say, not sure that’s the right word.

  “I was jealous of her,” Nora says. “I admit it. I knew your father loved me and was faithful to me, but I also knew that Amalia would always have a place in his heart. And then as you grew up, it was clear she had a place in your heart as well.”

  I hear the crack in her voice. I feel her hurt.

  “I even wondered,” she continues, “once you cut me out of your life, if you were still in touch with her. If she’d become your—”

  “No,” I say. “No. Not at all.”

  “I know that now,” she says. “Dani told me you’d cut ties with everyone.”

  I nod.

  “I knew Amalia was a lot more fun than me,” she says with a half smile, “but Graham would say ‘it’s not a popularity contest, Nora,’ and eventually I accepted that. I knew that I had to be your mother, not your friend. If that cost me some of your affection, so be it.”

  “I sometimes felt as though you didn’t love me very much.” I feel awkward saying that to her, but it’s clear we are finally baring our souls to one another. Finally telling the truth. I remember all the times my father said that I needed to learn to talk to Nora. He wanted me to have deep, meaningful conversations with her. It’s happening now, Daddy, I think. At last. “I worried it was because I wasn’t yours—biologically—” I say, “and that I might feel the same way about the baby we’re—”

  “Really?” She looks wounded. “Oh, Molly. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way. I know I don’t have the warmest personality.” Her smile is rueful. “But in my own defense, I was under a lot of stress, working full-time and taking care of you and your father.”

  I nod. I can see that now, how much she’d had on her plate. I can imagine how hard it had been to keep our household running smoothly back then.

  “I’ll tell you how it’s going to be.” She wears a genuine smile now. “You are going to hold that baby in your arms and fill up with more love than you ever thought was possible. You’ll instantly be her protector and her nurturer. You’ll instantly be her mother.”

  “Is that how you felt about me?” I ask.

  “Yes, honey,” she says. “And to be honest? I didn’t want to feel that way. I was so shocked that you existed and so mortified by the way you came into our lives, that … well, I wasn’t happy about it, as you can imagine.” She shakes her head. “But I distinctly remember rocking you one summer night on the porch. I was holding you on my lap and trying to get you to fall asleep. And suddenly it happened. The love came over me. It felt like a wave. Like a tsunami. It absolutely took my breath away. And then you were mine, from that minute forward.”

  She stands up and leans over to hug me. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she says. “I love you so much, Molly. I always have and always will.”

  I hold on to her and feel something uncoil inside my chest. It’s as though, for the first time in twenty-four years, I can take in a full breath. I’d hurt myself when I escaped from Morrison Ridge, I can see that now. By cutting myself off from everyone I’d ever cared about, I’d cut myself off from the love.

  * * *

  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 a
nd 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.