Pretending to Dance

by Diane Chamberlain

  Worst of all, I felt alone, like a tiny little speck of a girl in a cold stone springhouse. I was fourteen but felt four. I didn’t want to go back to Nanny’s. I wanted to be with my parents, the people who I knew loved me. Would always love me, no matter what. I needed them at that moment worse than I’d ever needed anyone in my life.

  I dressed in the darkness, slowly, crying quietly. My soft sobs seemed to bounce off the fieldstone walls. I sounded pathetic. I was pathetic. I stumbled out of the springhouse and felt my way down the path to the loop road, the beam of my flashlight flickering against the trunks of the trees.

  I was still crying by the time I turned onto our road. The meeting would long be over by now, I thought, and my parents would be in bed. That was all right. That was good. I didn’t want to see them; if they saw my face, I’d have too much explaining to do. I only wanted to be close to them, that was all. I wanted to feel the security in that house. I wanted to feel the love.

  55

  It was eleven-thirty by the time I climbed the steps to the front porch. I slipped quietly into the living room, which was eerily still and deserted, lit only by a table lamp in the corner. Someone must have left that light on after the meeting broke up. I didn’t take the time to turn it off, but headed for the stairs, trying to prevent my Doc Martens from squeaking on the hardwood floor.

  “Molly?” Russell’s voice came from the hallway behind me.

  I’d reached the stairs and I froze on the bottom step, my hand on the railing. I had to offer some explanation for being there. I turned around slowly to face him.

  “Why aren’t you at your grandmother’s?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t get to sleep,” I said. “I wanted to come home to my own bed.”

  He took a step closer to me and I was afraid he could see my horrible night written on my face, but it was his face that told me something was terribly wrong. Despite the dim light in the room, I could see that his eyes were red, his cheeks drawn.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  He hesitated, looking uncertain. I’d never seen him so unsure of himself. So sad.

  “It’s your father,” he said finally. “He’s very ill, Molly.”

  I sucked in my breath, looking past him down the hall. I started walking in the direction of my parents’ room, but he caught my arm.

  “You can’t go in there,” he said.

  “I need to see him.” I tried to wrench my arm free but he held it fast.

  “Molly … it’s better if you don’t.” His fingers bit into the flesh of my arm.

  “Why?” I tried to stare him down.

  He hesitated again, studying my face as if he could see through my eyes to my soul, and I saw the exact moment he gave in. He let go of my arm. “Come with me,” he said, and with a hand on my back, he started walking me down the hall toward my parents’ bedroom.

  My heart pounded as we neared the bedroom. The way Russell was acting, I was afraid of what I would find inside. I pushed open the door and stood there paralyzed as I took in the scene. In the dim lighting, I saw Daddy lying on the bed. He was propped up slightly on some pillows, his eyes shut. My mother lay next to him, her cheek against his shoulder, an arm across his chest. She lifted her head when I opened the door, her eyes wide. I thought she looked terrified. “Molly!” she said, jerking me out of my paralysis. I ran toward the bed.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I said, reaching for my father’s arm. He was very still. Too still. I needed to shake him awake. “Is he breathing?” I asked.

  “I explained that he wasn’t feeling well,” Russell said to my mother.

  I saw Daddy’s chest rise and fall. He was alive! “Did you call the ambulance?” I asked.

  My mother looked up at Russell. “Please take her to her room, Russ,” she said. She sounded exhausted.

  “Is the ambulance on its way?” I shook off Russell’s hand as he tried to take my arm again.

  “I didn’t call an ambulance,” my mother said.

  “Why not? Are you crazy?” I reached for the phone on the night table, but Russell leaned past me, his hand holding down the receiver.

  “He wouldn’t want that,” he said.

  “But he’s really sick!” I didn’t understand them. What was going on?

  “Honey, listen to me.” My mother lightly rubbed Daddy’s shoulder with her hand as she spoke to me. Her voice was soft and controlled. “Listen, please,” she said. “He knew he was getting very sick over the last few weeks and months. He knew he would die soon and he didn’t want to go to the hospital when the time came. He didn’t want … heroic measures to save his life. He wanted to be allowed to die peacefully. And that’s what’s happening, honey. He’s—”

  “He’s dying?” I stared at her, incredulous.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I started to cry. I reached across her to grab my father’s hand and shake his arm. “Daddy! Please!” I begged. “Don’t die! I need you!”

  I felt Russell’s hands on my shoulders and my mother held on to my wrist. “Sweetheart, stop,” she said, her voice firm.

  “But we can’t just let him die!” I sobbed.

  “Sh, Molly. You have to stop.” She let go of my wrist, cautiously, as though she didn’t trust what I might do. “Let him have these last moments in peace,” she said.

  I pressed my hands to my face. I couldn’t believe what was happening. “Please,” I begged her from behind my fingers. “Please.” I wasn’t even sure what I was pleading for any longer.

  “Molly.” Russell’s voice was unbearably calm. His hands were still on my shoulders. “There’s nothing to do,” he said. “It’s all good. He’s right where he wanted to be.”

  I felt beaten down. I lowered my hands from my face and looked at my father and knew that Russell was right. Daddy looked peaceful. There was nothing to do.

  My mother lightly touched my hand with her fingertips. “If you’re okay … if you can sit quietly … you can stay here with him and me. You can help me let him go.”

  I hesitated. “Okay,” I said, so quietly I barely heard myself.

  She wrapped her hand around mine, squeezing gently. “Come around the other side of the bed, honey.” Her voice was gentle. “It’s okay.” I saw her look up at Russell. “We’re all right,” she said to him.

  “Okay.” Russell sounded uncertain. “Call if you need me.”

  I didn’t hear him leave the room as I walked around to the other side of the bed. I climbed onto the bed and sat next to my father, my back against the headboard. I was still crying quietly, my throat tight with tears. Daddy’s breathing was irregular. It seemed to stop, then suddenly start again, but his face was almost serene. He looked like he was simply asleep. Was this really, truly what he wanted? I remembered the night of the party, when he didn’t want the ambulance to come. Yes, I thought, my heart full of sorrow. He probably would want us to simply let him go.

  “Do you want to hold his hand?” Mom asked.

  I looked down to where Daddy’s hand rested on the bed. I nodded, lifting his still warm hand into mine. I remembered the last time I’d lain with him on this bed. We sang “Lyin’ Eyes” together. He’d been so alive that night. So happy.

  “He was fine at dinner tonight,” I looked across his chest at my mother. “He ate all that meat loaf, remember? He was fine.”

  “I know he seemed fine,” she said. “But he’s been up and down for a while.”

  “Did it start during the meeting?”

  She hesitated. “We cut the meeting short because he wasn’t feeling well,” she said. “He was exhausted.” She looked past me, toward the dark windows. “Let’s not talk about it, Molly,” she said. “Let’s just be with him right now. It’s his time. He knew it was coming and I promised I’d be here for him.”

  She rested her head on Daddy’s shoulder again and closed her eyes. She’s so brave, I thought. I’d try to be brave myself. I rested my cheek against his other shoulder and shut my own eyes
. Immediately, though, I was back in the springhouse. I remembered the stupid, reckless thing I’d done with a boy who didn’t care about me at all. Daddy would have been so ashamed of me. This is the worst night of my life, I thought. The worst night ever.

  * * *

  I wasn’t sure exactly when he died.

  I woke up in Russell’s arms as he carried me up the stairs to my bedroom. I felt tired and confused and let him put me on my bed without a fight. I was still in my clothes and he covered me with a blanket.

  I jerked awake as the sun began streaming into my room. Daddy. Instantly, I was on my feet and racing down the stairs. I ran into my parents’ room to find it empty and felt an insane sliver of hope that Daddy had recovered. I would find him in the kitchen, wolfing down his pancakes. I started to turn toward the door, but something on the night table caught my eye. I took a step closer to see the stained-glass pencil case, partially hidden by the phone. Next to it was my father’s water bottle, an inch of water in the bottom.

  I sat down on the bed and reached for the pencil case, holding my breath. I lifted it to my lap and raised the lid, but I already knew what I would find inside. Nothing.

  I remembered seeing my mother reach into the pocket of her pharmacy coat the night after the book tour. I remembered watching her as she slipped pills into the case, hidden away in the kitchen cabinet.

  Jumping to my feet, I threw the case to the floor with such force that I heard it crack. I stomped on it, flattening the glass to the floor beneath my Doc Martens. I ran out of the room and down the hall to the kitchen, where Russell was folding up Daddy’s wheelchair near the back door, and my mother was taking a bowl of something from the microwave. They both looked up when I burst into the room.

  “You killed him!” I shouted at my mother as I rushed toward her, my arms outstretched, and she dropped the bowl to the floor, a look of alarm on her face. I wanted to push her into the wall, but Russell grabbed me from behind.

  “Hey, hey,” he said. “Cool it, Molly.”

  My mother stared at me. “Why on earth would you say that?” she asked. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her hair was a mess and she was still in the same khaki pants and shirt she’d had on the night before when she’d sat next to Daddy on the bed.

  “I found the pencil case on the night table!” I said, struggling to free my arms from Russell’s grasp. “You gave him all those pills. How could you do that?”

  “Honey!” She frowned at me, then stepped over the broken bowl on the floor to reach the counter near the phone. She picked up a sheet of paper and held it out to me. Russell let go of me so I could take the paper from her. “We called the doctor right after Daddy died,” she said. “He came over and this is the death certificate. See?” She pointed to the line that read cause of death and I saw that the doctor had written natural causes and signed his name.

  I looked up at her. “Where did all those pills go?” I asked.

  “I flushed them this morning,” she said. She was crying, trying to wipe the tears away with her fingertips, but they kept on coming. “They were for his pain and he wasn’t going to need them any longer,” she said.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  “Why on earth would I kill him?” There was anguish in her eyes.

  “I don’t know!” I said. “Maybe he was too much trouble. Maybe you wanted to get him out of the way.”

  She slapped me. I gasped, my face stinging and my eyes instantly full of tears. I watched her turn away from me and head for the hallway. I heard her footsteps on the hardwood and the slamming of the bedroom door. I looked at Russell.

  “I think she’s been taking pills from the pharmacy,” I said. “Saving them up to kill him.”

  “Molly,” he said patiently, “the doctor examined him and determined he had complications from the MS. I don’t know why you’d think anything else. Why would you want to hurt your mother like that?”

  I hated him at that moment. I hated both of them. I stormed out of the house and climbed onto my bike, heading for Amalia’s. I found her sitting on the carved chair in her front yard. She stood up when I turned into her driveway and she stretched her arms out at her sides. I jumped off my bike and ran into her embrace. She clung to me and I knew she was crying as hard as I was.

  “How did you know?” I finally managed to whisper.

  “Russell called me this morning,” she said.

  I pulled away from her, looking into her tear-streaked face. “Amalia,” I said, trying to make my voice very calm. I needed her to take me seriously. “Mom did it,” I said. “She was keeping these pills in that stained-glass pencil case you gave Daddy. And I found it by their bed this morning. Empty. She killed him.”

  Amalia stared at me with such a stunned look on her face that I thought she actually believed me. “Oh baby,” she said after a moment, “that’s nonsense.”

  “It’s not!” I said. “I think we should call the police.”

  “No, we should not.” She ran her hands over my hair. “You’re grieving, baby. Grief can make you crazy. You aren’t thinking straight.”

  “I’m the only person who is thinking straight!” I said.

  She put her arm around my shoulders. “Come with me,” she said, and she led me inside her house. From the living room, I could see the phone in her kitchen and I thought of running to it. Dialing the police before she had a chance to stop me. But almost as if she knew my plan, she turned me firmly in the direction of the floor pillows in front of the windows. “Let’s sit here,” she said, tugging me down to the pillows next to her.

  “I want you to listen to me,” she said, holding my hand firmly in her lap. “First, you need to get it out of your head that Nora had anything to do with Graham’s death. That’s crazy talk, all right? She loved him. You know that.”

  “But those pills!” I said.

  “I don’t know anything about ‘those pills.’” She sighed. “He took so many pills, they’re probably lying all over the house,” she said. “You’re reading too much into them. But there’s something you need to understand.”

  She looked through the window into her yard, and I could see dozens of crisscrossed fine red lines in the whites of her eyes.

  “What?” I asked.

  “He wanted to die, baby,” she said. “I know that’s hard to hear, but if he could talk to you right now, he’d say how relieved he is that it finally happened.”

  “But why?” I was almost shouting.

  “Sh,” she said.

  “His life was fine,” I argued. “He had us. He had his … ramps and special bathroom and everything.” Even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were simple and weak. “He had us,” I repeated. “Why wasn’t that enough for him?”

  “You weren’t inside his skin,” she said. “He hid it well from you. The bit-by-bit losses. The indignities. He was afraid of how bad it would get. He was afraid of being a burden. He wanted to be released from it.”

  “He wasn’t afraid of anything!” I argued.

  “Of course he was,” she said. “He was human. But you know the one thing he wasn’t afraid of, not even a little bit?”

  “What?”

  “Dying.”

  “I would have taken care of him forever,” I said.

  “He didn’t want that. He didn’t want anyone to have to take care of him forever.”

  “So she helped him die,” I said, my anger at Nora boiling up again. “It doesn’t matter if he wanted to die or not. She shouldn’t have—”

  “Molly!” Amalia said sharply, and she squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt. “She would never do that. It’s cruel of you to think that of her.”

  I jerked my hand away from hers. “Why won’t you believe me?” I asked. “Those pills were—”

  “The pills don’t matter!” She got to her feet and looked down at me, and for the first time in my entire life, I felt as though she was fed up with me. I felt as though she was sick of me. “I don’t understand why you’re f
ixated on this,” she said.

  “You just don’t want to believe it,” I argued.

  “Because it’s not believable. How could you think Nora would do something like that?”

  “She’s happy he’s dead. She went on and on about letting him die in peace. She was glad—”

  “Stop it!” She began to cry again, raising her hand to her eyes. “She can be relieved he’s finally at peace, Molly,” she said through her tears. “That doesn’t mean she had anything to do with helping him get there.”

  I didn’t know what to say. She was never going to believe me.

  “I don’t want to hear you say another word about this,” she said. “It’s ugly, what you’re saying. How do you think your father would feel, hearing you accuse Nora of something like that?”

  I stared at her. Who was this woman? This was the day no one seemed like themselves. Nora. Russell. Amalia. Maybe I didn’t seem like myself, either. Grief can make you crazy.

  “I need to lie down for a while,” Amalia said suddenly, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “You can stay here if you want or…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but she waved a hand through the air as if she didn’t care what I did.

  At the entrance to the hallway, she turned to look at me. “You want him back,” she said, more calmly now. “I understand that. And I understand that being angry at Nora is a way to keep from feeling the loss. But you need to feel it, Molly,” she said. “Just feel it.”

  She walked down the hall, but I stayed on the floor pillows, my back against the glass wall. I hated the way she’d talked to me just now. I could always count on her to listen to me, to love me no matter what. Today, she shut me out.

  I closed my eyes and tried to do what she said. Feel the loss. But my emotions were jumbled together with the crushed pencil case on the bedroom floor and my mother reaching into her pharmacy coat pocket and the way she told me to stay with Daddy the night before: You can help me let him go.

  And sitting there, I began to wonder. If I hadn’t gone to the springhouse, if I’d been home where I belonged, could I have saved him? Could I have called the ambulance in time?