The hiding place is nearly at eye level and in the light from the open door I see the small glass bird Nora gave me. The old pack of cigarettes. The photograph of a seventeen-year-old boy. I gasp when I pick up that picture and look at his face. He’s so young. This boy who will forever be linked in my mind to the worst night of my life was just a kid. Boyish. Dimpled. All these years, I’d given him—and the springhouse itself—so much power over me. He was a child, and I had been even more of a child. A lump forms in my throat. I’d been so young. So innocent and naïve. So mixed up.
I slip the picture back into the hole and stand on my tiptoes, hoping to see an envelope. Instead, I see a small paper bag, and although it’s been two and a half decades since I’ve seen one of those little white bags, I recognize it instantly as being from the pharmacy where Nora worked. I pull it out and peer inside to see a folded sheet of paper … and an amethyst palm stone.
60
Darling Molly,
By the time you find this letter, you’ll know that I’ve died. I haven’t been well for a long time and I’ve asked Mom to leave this letter for you after I’ve gone. I can’t possibly leave this world without saying good-bye to my favorite person. That’s you, sweet girl.
The day you arrived at Morrison Ridge was the day my life changed for the better. Having a child changes everything. You will find that out for yourself one of these days.
I know you’ve recently been distressed to realize that your arrival—and the relationship between your mother and Amalia—was not quite as idyllic as we’ve made it out to be. We are all human and, therefore, somewhat screwed up. The bottom line is that you are deeply loved by two mothers. You don’t ever need to doubt that fact. Trust me, darling: neither one of them is pretending when it comes to loving you.
Since I’m no longer around to give you advice in person, I will have to give it to you here. I’m not going to tell you to obey your mother; you know that. She has your welfare at heart. You may not agree with her rules and regulations, but she is looking out for your safety and happiness. Please listen to her.
Lately you’ve been testing your wings. Someday they’ll be strong enough to carry you away, but for now you need to cling to the nest a while longer. I want you to find someone who loves you as much as I do. Don’t settle for less and don’t rush it. The right guy will make you laugh, will value your opinions, will treat you as his equal, and will never ask for more than you want to give. He’s out there, Molly, but you haven’t met him yet. I’m certain of that fact.
You are a remarkable girl and I know you will become a remarkable woman. I think you will make a very fine therapist, if that’s what you decide to do. I was touched when you told me that might be the path you will choose.
I know you’ll grieve for me, darling, but don’t grieve for long, okay? I’m not afraid and I welcome this new journey. I’m looking forward to being in a place where I have no need for this old body and I’m free of pain and fear. It’s a place of total freedom in my imagination, sort of like a perpetual zip line. I like the idea that I’ll be able to look down on you from high above.
Treasure your family, Molly. Yes, they are a complex mix of personalities but they all love you. Eventually you’ll come to realize that everyone comes from a dysfunctional family. There is no other kind. Someday, you’ll create one of your own and it will be messy and crazy and full of love. I will be watching for it with great anticipation.
All my love,
Daddy
61
I sit in the springhouse for a long time, the palm stone tight in my fist. I’ve read the letter a dozen times. Maybe more. It rests on my thigh and it’s damp from my tears. I would give anything to be able to talk to my father. I’d tell him I became a lawyer and that I was beginning to think that had been a mistake. I’d tell him how, like Nora, I can have no children of my own and that a baby might soon be coming into my life. And I’d tell him how—like Nora—I will love that child with all my heart.
I’ve lost track of time, and as I make my way back through the woods, I hope Nora isn’t worried about me. I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting in the springhouse. Long enough that jet lag is catching up to me. I find the bike and begin riding down the loop road. I pedal hard and fast, wanting to get back to Nora. I want to share the letter with someone who will understand exactly how I feel.
* * *
We cry, both of us, as we sit side by side on the sofa to read the letter. We’re quiet when we finish, and I believe she’s as emotionally drained as I am.
“You didn’t stay for the whole memorial service, I remember,” she says after a while.
I recall my desperate escape from the service on the pavilion. I remember trying to run away from the pain. “I was too upset,” I say.
“I think that’s an understatement,” she says, and I nod.
She sighs, lightly touching the letter where it rests on her thigh. “It was cathartic for those of us who stayed,” she says. “But you were in a very different place.”
“It’s over,” I say with a dismissive shrug. “It was long ago.”
Nora moves the letter to my lap and stands up. When she looks down at me, she’s smiling despite the sheen of tears in her eyes.
“Do you still dance?” she asks. “I remember how you used to dance all over the place. You couldn’t hold still.”
“Not so much anymore,” I say. My dancing stopped when Daddy died. Neither my body nor my spirit felt light enough to dance after that. “Aidan loves music, but he’s not much of a dancer,” I add.
“You wouldn’t dance at the memorial service,” she says. “I understood,” she adds quickly. “I knew you weren’t ready.”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t ready at all.”
“How about now?” she asks.
“How about now what?”
“Are you ready now?” She stands up and walks over to the built-in bookcase near the CD player. I watch her run a fingertip along the spines of the CDs. “Here we go,” she says, pulling one of them from the row. She opens it, removing a folded sheet of paper from the case. It takes me a moment to understand.
“Oh no.” I stand up and take a step backward.
“Here.” She holds the folded paper toward me and I reluctantly take it from her. I watch her remove the CD from the jewel case and insert it into the CD player. I hold the folded paper in trembling hands while she bends over to unlace her tennis shoes. She looks up at me. “Unfold it, honey,” she says.
I unfold the paper, biting my lip, afraid to see the words I’d typed so long ago.
Pretend to dance.
“Footloose” suddenly explodes from the speakers. Nora steps out of her tennis shoes, then takes the sheet of paper from me and sets it on an end table. She reaches for my hand, drawing me into the middle of the living room floor. When she smiles, I let myself smile back. But when she begins to dance, I can’t. I just can’t.
I remember my father telling me that if you don’t forgive someone, it’s like trying to dance with a lead weight on your shoulders. That’s how I feel. The lead weight still holds me down. Had Daddy known I’d one day need those words to help me forgive him? Forgive so many people I loved? Had he known I’d need them to help me forgive myself? I know it’s time to cast off that weight.
“All you have to do is pretend, Molly,” Nora says. She’s moving across the floor with a playful ease I hadn’t known she possessed.
I begin to move in time to the music, my muscles remembering how I used to sway and swirl to this song at the end of my lessons with Amalia. I feel stiff, forcing the motions as I pretend to feel the beat. Still, I keep at it, my arms in the air, dancing, dancing, dancing, and I see Nora—my mother—twirling in a circle, her blond hair coming loose from her ponytail and the ties of her hoodie flying around her shoulders. I hear her voice in my head—you’ve come home—and somewhere in the middle of the song, when my feet feel as light as my heart, I know I am no longer pretending.
* * *
An hour later, I’m hanging my clothes in the closet of Russell’s old room when I hear the high-pitched whistle that signals a text on my phone. I take the phone from my purse and touch the screen. It’s from Aidan.
Sienna’s in the hospital. They’re trying to prevent labor. Can you come home?
62
San Diego
I sit next to Aidan in the waiting room of the maternity ward. He’s been sitting in this large, relatively uncrowded room for a day and a half while I’ve only been here a few hours, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired. Finding flights between Asheville and San Diego at the last minute involved four plane changes, twenty-two hours, and a good deal of money, but I am here and Sienna is in labor, nearly four weeks early.
Sienna is more tired than you are, I tell myself. I have nothing to complain about.
Since my arrival, Ginger has come to the waiting room twice to give us a status report. Each time, Aidan gripped my hand, and each time, Ginger looked completely frazzled. The last time, she was in tears.
“She’s cussing at everyone and she nearly hit a nurse.” She sat next to Aidan, wringing her hands in her lap. “She told me to get the hell out of the room.” She pressed one tremulous hand to her temple. “She’s never talked to me that way before.”
The third time she comes into the room, she wears a huge smile and I immediately jump to my feet.
“The baby?” I ask.
Ginger shakes her head. “No,” she says. “The epidural. She’s like her sweet old self now.” She stands next to my chair instead of taking a seat. “She’s resting,” she says. “I’m going to run to the cafeteria and get a snack. And she’d like you to come in.” She looks from me to Aidan. “Both of you.”
I wonder if she heard Sienna correctly.
“She said she’d rather we not be in the delivery room,” I say. I’m so afraid of stepping on Sienna’s toes.
“She wants you to come in,” Ginger assures us. The smile is still on her face. “Don’t worry,” she adds. “She knows what she’s saying.”
* * *
We find Sienna calm and smiling, the head of her bed raised, an open People magazine resting against her belly. “It was so awful!” she says as Aidan and I stand awkwardly next to her bed. “I felt like killing people.” She shudders. “It’s good I didn’t have a weapon.” Then she laughs. She seems a little giddy from the miraculous relief of her pain. “I’m going to have to write apology letters to everybody who came into this room.”
“I’m sure they’re used to it,” I say.
“Look at my stomach,” she says, moving the magazine so we can see the mound of her belly beneath the thin gown she’s wearing. “You can watch the contractions.”
I can. I can see them both on the monitor and in the tightening of her belly beneath the gown, and yet it is clear she feels none of them. “Wow,” I say. I’d planned to skip the epidural when I gave birth to Sara, but I’m glad Sienna chose to have it. I don’t want her to suffer any more than she has to.
“I can’t feel it at all, now,” she says. “Before, I was going crazy it was so bad.”
“I’m glad you’ve got some relief,” I say, touching her arm.
We sit with her for about an hour. Aidan goes to the gift shop in the hospital and buys her a couple more magazines. I fetch ice chips and feel helpless to do more. Ginger comes back and nervously paces the room.
“I had an epidural with Sienna,” she tells us, “but it only numbed one side of my body. That was fun,” she adds sarcastically.
After a while, a nurse comes in and examines Sienna, while Aidan steps out of the room.
“You’re ready,” the nurse says simply.
“Ready?” Sienna turns to me, as if I know about these things. “Ready for what?”
The nurse pokes her head out the door and I hear her tell someone to “get Dr. Singh.” She returns to Sienna’s bed. “Do you feel any pressure?” she asks.
“No,” Sienna says. “I don’t feel anything.” The monitor is going crazy with her contractions. I hope she’ll feel the urge to push. I know an epidural can slow things down.
Dr. Singh comes in. “I hear your baby wants out.” She smiles at Sienna. “Are you ready to start pushing?”
We should leave, I think. Aidan has returned, but he’s nearly backed himself into the corner of the delivery room. I don’t know if it’s to give Sienna privacy or if it’s stark terror. Either way, I think it’s time for us to go. I rest my hand on Sienna’s shoulder. “Aidan and I will be in the waiting room,” I say, but she grips my hand.
“No!” she says. “I want you guys to stay!”
I glance across her at Ginger, who smiles and shrugs her shoulders. “She’s the boss,” she says.
Sienna’s numb legs are out of her control and there are no stirrups. Ginger holds one of her legs and a nurse holds the other and I feel extraordinarily honored to be the only person near Sienna’s head. Dr. Singh asks her for three pushes with every contraction, and she grips my hand as she struggles to push. I can tell it’s hard for her, almost perplexing without that natural urge to push, but she hangs in there. Ginger, the nurse, and I egg her on, and the room fills with the chant of Push! Push! Push! Aidan wisely continues to hold up the wall in the rear of the room. I glance at him every once in a while and he gives me a pale but encouraging smile.
“Great job. Great job,” Dr. Singh coos, and then, finally, “You’re crowning.”
“Omigod, omigod!” Sienna says, then she looks directly into my eyes. “What’s happening, Molly? Go look and tell me what’s happening!”
Whether intentionally or not, she’s inviting me to watch her baby—my baby?—come into the world. Ginger is right there, holding her leg, seeing everything. She could be the one to tell Sienna what’s happening. But Sienna has asked for me to do it.
Ginger smiles at me, although she’s starting to cry. “Come see,” she says.
I move to the foot of the bed and stand near the doctor as she tells Sienna to push again. And although I knew what I would see, I still gasp at the miracle in front of me as the baby’s head slips from Sienna’s body. “Her head is out, Sienna!” I say. My voice can’t contain my excitement. “She has tons of hair!”
Dr. Singh suctions the baby’s nose and mouth. The baby turns and I can see her tiny features, her wrinkled forehead. Her shoulders appear and then, suddenly, she’s wailing in Dr. Singh’s hands.
“Good job,” Dr. Singh says to Sienna. Then she lifts her head to look around the room. “Does someone here want to cut the cord?” she asks.
“Her daddy,” Sienna says quickly. She’s shivering violently, and for a moment, I worry that she’s lost it, imagining that Dillon is in the room. Then I understand, and I look to where Aidan stands against the back wall. His expression is one of utter shock, but he seems to gather courage as he walks forward and I’m proud of him that he thinks to touch Sienna’s shoulder as he passes the head of her bed. He walks to where the baby now squirms in Dr. Singh’s grasp. Aidan’s hands are steady as he takes the scissors from the nurse. He cuts the cord and a nurse gives the baby a quick wipe with a cloth, then rests her on Sienna’s chest and I see something I know I will never, ever forget: a look of pure love from Sienna to her child. I see a bond that can never be broken. Not by me. Not by anyone. I’m moved and frightened and sad all at once. Aidan looks at me and I think he must feel it, too. Ginger doesn’t look at us at all. Her gaze is on her daughter and her granddaughter. She bends over to embrace them both. Aidan and I are not a part of this.
When Ginger straightens up, I rest my hand on Sienna’s arm. “We’re going to go to the waiting room,” I say. I try not to look at the baby. I’m afraid I’ll start sobbing. “You should have some private time with your baby.”
Sienna looks up at me. She has aged in the last two days and suddenly she looks like a woman instead of a girl. Her face shows a maturity that finally fits her voice.
She
clutches my hand. She’s still shivering. “You need to hold her,” she says. “As soon as they’ll let you, hold her, all right? I want her to know who her mother is.”
My eyes fill with tears. “You are remarkable,” I say.
The nurse appears at Sienna’s side. “We need to check the baby’s vitals now and get her cleaned up,” she says. “So we’re taking her to the nursery, but if she checks out all right, you can have her back once you get to your room.” The nurse places the baby in a bassinette, then smiles at Sienna. “She’ll be just down the hall in the nursery,” she says.
Sienna looks from my face to Aidan’s. “Go with her, all right?” she says to us. “Please don’t leave her alone. Don’t ever leave her alone.” And then she starts to cry.
EPILOGUE
One Year Later
Sienna and I sit on my living room floor, surrounded by a sea of wrapping paper and ribbons and birthday cards and we begin folding the paper and stacking it in grocery bags. If it were up to me, I would be tossing the paper in the trash, but Sienna was appalled when she realized that was my plan. She is a recycling maniac. “Don’t you want the planet to be in good shape for when Natalie grows up?” she asked me. So we started folding the paper and slipping it into the bags. It is going to take us forever, because Natalie Echo James is one spoiled little toddler and wrapping paper is everywhere.
Natalie sits on the floor nearby, playing with the ribbon. She doesn’t have a clue this day was for her, although surely she must have sensed that she was the star of the show. In the last week, she’s started walking without holding onto furniture or our hands. She walks mostly on her toes, clearly proud of her accomplishment, and everyone at the party loved watching her totter around the room. She also knows how to clap her hands and shout “Yay!” which she did constantly during that afternoon, and she was rewarded by all of us clapping our hands and shouting “Yay!” in return.
Pretending to Dance Page 35