The Dancers: An Artist Story

by M.L. Cameron

blue and black shirt. I helped him pull it over his head, even though we both knew he could do it all by himself. “Is school scary?” he asked when I took the comb from the top of his dresser and began combing through his long black hair.

  “You know how you thought that the teleporting thing would be scary?” He nodded, hell, I still thought it was freaky. “It’s sort of like that, it feels a little funny the first few times you do it and then as you go more and more often it feels normal… Honey, you know that at school you can’t tell anyone that you aren’t really six years old… right?”

  He nodded and sat to pull his tennis shoes on. “Daddy told me,” he said. I nodded, of course Luke told him before I could. Luke was so proud of Infinity, no matter what the child did and he adored spending time with him. “Mommy, I have a question…”

  I sat down in his high backed grey chair and pulled him onto my lap. Fish meowed from the floor, crawling out from under the bed. “What do you want to know?” I asked while Fish jumped up on Infinity’s bed and laid down.

  “Who’s Scarlett?”

  “Your father’s sister.”

  “But Charlie said daddy doesn’t have any sisters… Mommy?” I looked in to his endless blue eyes. “Do you always tell the truth?”

  I shook my head and smiled. “Not all the time, no.”

  “Does daddy always tell the truth?”

  “No… Sometimes there are times when we have to lie.”

  “Like when I tell you I need help getting dressed?” I laughed and nodded. “It makes you happy though, doesn’t it?” I nodded again. “So then all lies aren’t bad?”

  “No, not all lies are bad. Some lies are very bad though, like if I told your daddy that I didn’t love him. Or if I told you that you weren’t completely gorgeous. Some day you’ll understand about Scarlett and everyone your father ignores.” I ran my hand over his hair and hugged him.

  Infinity

  I threw my arm over my eyes and rolled over in bed. “Infinity,” I heard my father call, he yelled again and then I heard two sets of feet on the stairs.

  “Infinity, Infinity,” two voices chorused at my door. “Daddy says you have to come downstairs for breakfast,” Perpetual said in her sing-song voice.

  I couldn’t throw anything at them, like I could my younger brother so I had to settle for ignoring them. “Infinity,” Eternity said and walked over to me. I yanked the blanket over my head and held it there. “Please, daddy said.”

  Then they started jumping on the bed. I knew exactly how they would look with their blonde hair flying up in their faces. “All right, all right,” I sat up and grabbed them both by the waist. I laid back down and pulled their giggling bodies to my sides. “Much better, now let’s all go back to sleep.” They squirmed and giggled until they got tired and then they threw their arms around my neck. “Let me get ready and I’ll go downstairs.”

  I let them go and they both jumped off my bed and ran out of the room, calling for our father. I was tired but I knew they would come up and attack me again so I went to get dressed. My bathroom looked like I had walked into a portal of space, it had been that way since before I could remember. The toothpaste, floss and mouthwash were all cinnamon flavored but that hadn’t been there for long. I was obsessed with blue bubble gum flavored stuff for a long time before that.

  Downstairs my entire family, minus my mother, was in the kitchen. I took a deep breath and stepped into the chaos. “Good morning Infinity,” my younger brother, Everlasting, said from the table where he was setting out plates and silverware.

  “Where’s mom?” I asked, looking at my father. Everyone in the house knew she had been going through something, even though she wouldn’t tell anyone what it was.

  “I think she’s still asleep,” he said and I nodded. I turned from the kitchen and went upstairs to find my mother. “Don’t wake her up if she is!” he called and I rolled my eyes. So it was okay for the twins to wake me up but not okay for me to wake up my mother? Double standard much?

  I opened the door to their room and saw my mother sitting at her desk, reading what looked like a journal. “Mom?” I whispered and she turned to look at me. I saw myself reflected back in her own endless blue eyes. “Do you want to come downstairs and eat breakfast with us?”

  “We’re eating breakfast?” I nodded. “No one came to tell me… I would love to go and help but I suppose your father had already done all of that… And then I would set the table but your brother has already done that… Do you know why their all acting like I’m incompetent?”

  So nothing was wrong with her? What was wrong with my father then…? “A week or two ago dad said you were going through a phase and that we should just leave you alone and let you get over it. We didn’t know anything different… Are you okay mom?” She nodded and ran her hands through her long blonde hair. My sisters looked exactly like her and my brother looked exactly like my father, I liked being a mix of them both.

  “Of course I’m all right. I did find out that…” She groaned. “Your father’s an idiot. He doesn’t like reading my mind because he thinks it’s an invasion of privacy. I found out two weeks ago that I’m going to be pregnant again. Your grandfather told me. So I was waiting for when I would actually be pregnant. I found out yesterday. Don’t tell your father,” she warned and I didn’t respond.

  “Do you want to be pregnant?”

  “Of course I do, but I already have four absolutely perfect children. But then again, you’ll be going to college in a couple of years and Everlasting will be following soon after. Another baby would be nice… if we had a bigger house. But to get a bigger house we would have to move and I don’t want to move you kids away from your schools when we could just as easily stay here.”

  “I think that we’ll all understand if that’s what you want to do mom. It’s not like we can just make another room appear. My room is too small to be sharing with an eight year old. Eternity and Perpetual wouldn’t share a room again if you begged them too and Everlasting lives in the attic as it is.”

  “Your father lived in the attic when he was younger. And I know all of those things, but I also know that you guys won’t like changing school in the middle of the year.”

  I laughed. “If it means we get to keep our rooms I don’t think any of us care. The girls won’t mind, they make friends everywhere. I don’t care, I don’t have friends anyway and hockey won’t start for another three or four weeks. Everlasting might be annoyed but if you put him in a science school I bet he wouldn’t argue.”

  She nodded. “I know… Maybe we will move. But I don’t know. I’d have to find another studio to teach at and the girls would need a new place for lessons…”

  “You could build a studio in the new house, that way you or dad or me, even, could work with them.”

  “It would be wonderful…” she sighed and we both heard the phone ringing downstairs.

  “See, it would be good for us, for all of us. Maybe a change is what we need.”

  Suddenly everything downstairs was dead silent… “Ana!” my father called and she looked at me with a sudden sense of terror in her eyes…

  ♪♪♪

  There was silence throughout the entire chapel. My mother barely moved throughout the entire service. People walked up to her and expressed their sympathy, just like they had at the visitation the night before. “Mom?” I asked and took her hand at the grave side. My father had her other hand, we both just wanted her to say something.

  When everyone started walking away she turned from both of us and walked further into the cemetery. Instead of leaving her alone we followed and stood, waiting. “He left me everything,” she whispered. “Everything.”

  “Okay…” dad said and rolled his eyes. “Ana, you helped him write his will. You knew that he was leaving you everything.”

  “No. I mean everything. The houses, the yachts, the private jet, the cars and the business. His entire business. And I have to run it… Everyone wants me to do stuff. Everyon
e is calling and telling me that I have to go to these meetings and show up to conferences. I didn’t go to school to be an insurance provider.” My father went and wrapped her arms around her.

  He just held her, not saying a word. “I can’t do it Luke. I don’t want to do it.” He kissed her hair and I turned to find the three kids who were no doubt playing tag or something in the cemetery.

  I opened my mind to my siblings and found them playing hide and seek. Once I found all of them I heard my father in my mind, Take the car, bring them to the house. We’ll be there soon.

  “Perpetual!” I called and she ran over to me, her long blonde hair coming loose from its twist on the top of her head. “Come on, go get in the car, we’re going to be leaving in a few minutes.” She nodded and Eternity ran behind her to the car. Everlasting came to my side, he was fourteen, two years younger than myself.

  “What’s wrong with mom?”

  “She’s pregnant again.”

  “But… Luke you’ll be gone to college in two years.”

  I nodded and we started walking to the car. I knew that my black pants were probably getting grass stained. “I know. And that doesn’t matter. You’ll all be just fine.”

  “But you’ve always been here…”

  “I know…”

  “Always. What’s going to happen when you leave?”

  There was a moment of silence. “Nothing. You three will be just fine. There will be a new child to take care of. They won’t be a baby for long but they’ll still be there. And I don’t even know where I’m going to school. We’re going to be okay.”

  In the car everyone was quiet.

  Luke

  We sat the kids down at the table and told them we were having a family meeting. They all took their usual seat and waited until Ana got to the table. She sat across from me and everyone waited. “All right, we’re going to have a vote. Soon there will be five or maybe six of you and we need to make a decision, as a family.” The girls nodded and Infinity turned a page in his book.

  “There are a few options and everyone gets a choice. We can stay in this house, right here on the east coast, but that means Perpetual and Eternity have to share a room again. Or the boys share a room and the girls take the smallest rooms.”

  “Daddy!” Perpetual whined.

  Ana took a deep breath… “Or we could move to a bigger house near the mountains in North Carolina,” she said. “You would all move schools and your father would have to find a new job. I could open a home studio and teach from the house.”

  “I don’t want to live next to mountains,” Everlasting said, he was always our practical little genius. “It’s not safe.”

  “Okay,” I said and Infinity took a pad of sticky notes from his pocket, he stuck one in the book and I continued. “There is a third option. Your grandfather left us his house in California. It’s where your mother and I grew up. We could move there, you would all have to move schools and make new friends but there would be no job searching and we would have a full studio in the house.”

  Ana suddenly jumped in, “No one say anything. I want you all to write your vote on a piece of paper. All right? If it comes out as a tie then we’ll ask Jack where we would be happier. Infinity? Could you give everyone a sticky note?”

  He nodded and handed out the little blue pieces of paper. Everyone took their turn writing with his pen and passed the papers to me. “All right, do you want to know now or tomorrow?”

  “Now,” Perpetual whispered.

  I opened the papers one by one. “California, west coast, California, dibs on mom’s old room,” I said and Ana smiled. “So we’re going to California. And the only thing I have to say is that your mother and I already have dibs on her old room, so you’ll have a whole house to fight over.”

  “I suppose we should