Dancing on Broken Glass

by Ka Hancock

  My heart was pounding, and for a moment I could not find my voice. “Lily, no. You’re wrong.”

  “I would love, love to be wrong, Mickey. But I’m not.” Lily reached down in the side of the car seat and pulled out a piece of paper that had been torn in half. “This is for you,” she said, tearing it in half again before she handed it to me.

  It was the last page of our lengthy adoption agreement, the page that held all the necessary signatures. I looked at Lily. “You’re serious.”

  She nodded, indicating the papers. “That was about ownership, but Abby was always yours. She belongs with you. Ron and I are less than two minutes away and we will always—always—have your back.”

  “But what if I get sick?”

  Lily put her arms around me then and I thought my heart would pound its way out of my chest. “Mickey, I’m available twenty-four hours a day for the rest of my life, and between us, Abby will be just fine. We’ll make this work.”

  “Lily . . .”

  She stood up and walked to where she’d dropped the bag. “These are just some of her things. There are about a dozen diapers in here—I’ll bring more tomorrow. And here are three bottles all ready for you, just add the water. And there’s formula in here. I just fed her so she’s good until about two thirty.” Lily got quiet as she lifted something from the bag and pulled it to her chest. It was the ancient Christmas stocking she’d shown me earlier. She walked to the mantel and ran her fingers underneath it, feeling for the hooks her father had placed there when she was a little girl. When she’d found the one she wanted, Lily hung the stocking and stood back. “That’s exactly where it belongs,” she said quietly. Then she pulled an envelope from inside her coat. She kissed it and slid it into the stocking. “After you’ve read that about a hundred times, I’d like it back.” Lily then walked over to where I was still sitting on the couch and pressed her lips to my forehead. Fresh tears were in her eyes, but not the anguish I had seen so many times lately. She bent down and lifted Abby from her seat and held her close for a moment. Then she kissed her tiny head and gently placed her in my arms. “Call me if you need me, Mic. But you won’t need me.”

  “Lily . . .”

  “You’ll be fine,” she said at the door. Then she was gone.

  I was stunned, as if I’d been dreaming and woken up too fast; disoriented and uncertain. I looked around. The same silence greeted me, except I could hear my heart beating. The furniture was the same except for the baby luggage and an empty car seat, and an utterly limp baby girl in my arms. She stirred but did not cry.

  This was wrong. This wasn’t the plan.

  Yet, I pulled her closer and laid my cheek against her soft head. My daughter. My Abby. I thought of the man I had just seen step out of the shower. Ruined, possibly beyond repair. But I was still standing, wasn’t I? Tears filled my throat and I hung my head at the impossibility of what had been handed to me.

  I stared down at the baby in my arms. Her head full of black hair, that flawless little body. Lucy’s baby girl. Her gift to me. I remembered the letter Lily had put in Abby’s stocking and walked over to the mantel. As I unfolded the pages, sudden tears filled my eyes and I had to sit down. The letter was in Lucy’s handwriting.

  Dearest Lilianne,

  I love you. God was surely watching over me when he made us sisters. You are my heart and I am yours, and I want you to remember that as you read this letter.

  My body is a crumbling mess, but I’m still here and my mind’s still working, like a chandelier swinging from the ceiling of a condemned building. My point is, my time is up but I am thinking clearly. Just last night Harry—sweet Harry—provided all the legalese to make you and Ron the parents of my daughter, and I am 99 percent sure that this is the way things were meant to be.

  But, my darling sister, there is that one percent I so need you to understand. There is a slim chance—the slimmest of chances—that Mickey will change his mind. He does that sometimes. It is no secret that this would be my fondest wish, but it is not my decision. Mic is adamant that he’s not capable of being a father. But that’s just a wicked voice that whispers lies in his ear. I know, because this same voice once insisted that he was incapable of being my husband. Well, that voice was wrong then, and it’s wrong again now.

  Lily, I know Mickey’s heart and it’s a very good heart, and my daughter is blessed already that he is her father. More than that, she needs him. She needs him as much as he needs her, and all that need is what God grants us imperfect people. It is a daily chance to live for someone else and to best our yesterdays. You watch. Mickey will prove me right.

  Lily, I know that swollen tender place in your soul where your son still lives. And I know what I am asking will hurt you all over again. But, my sweet sister, surely you know that you will always be the mother in my baby’s life. You will be the soft kiss on her bruises; you will be the vault that will hold her secrets. The love I have for this little angel will shine in your eyes. I know this, you know this, and Mickey’s role in her world will never diminish your place there. So the bottom line is, if Mickey rises to this occasion, I need you to let it happen, Lil.

  Mickey is wonderful in ways you cannot begin to know. Yes, he is broken in places, but because of that, other places in him have built bridges to compensate. I promise you, Lily, Mickey will never hurt our baby, even though he probably thinks he will. If I know him, he’s convinced himself of it. But he won’t. He will, however, need enormous help because he will fall. He won’t be able to do this without his world huddling close around him. He’ll need you, Ron, Harry and Jan, Charlotte, and Priss. Make no mistake, it will take a village because Mickey will fall, that is the nature of his disorder. But he will always get up again because that is the nature of the man.

  Lily, we are twins four years apart—we share one soul—so I know you are not surprised by any of this. You know what I want, and only you will know if it’s possible, and I trust you like I have always trusted you.

  I’m tired, Lily, so I will leave all this (unfairly, I know) in your tender hands. I love you, my precious sister. I love your Ron like the brother he has forever been to me, and I know the two of you will be fabulous parents if the 99 rules the day.

  No matter what your title turns out to be—mom or aunt—Lily, please tell my daughter about me. Tell her that even as the rest of me failed and what little I could offer grew smaller every day, my love for her filled the universe. Tell her I will love her forever and not to be afraid. Not of life. Not of death. Tell her if I never got the chance to hold her or kiss her face, I know I will someday. Tell her, Lil, that she is my amazing little miracle. And tell her every day how much I loved her father.

  Lily, I have adored Mickey since I laid eyes on him, but I chose him because I never knew another man who could swim through concrete. He is extraordinarily strong. Don’t ever let him forget that. And when he drifts to that thick, dark, terrible place, remind him to start kicking and to not stop until he’s reached the other side, where it’s warm and safe and there is peace and light . . . and his daughter.

  Michael Chandler was always my hero. And now you must let him be hers.

  All my love, to all my loves,

  Lucy

  I read the letter so many times I could hear Lucy’s voice lifting off the page. God, I loved her. God only knows what would have become of me if she had not turned twenty-one in my path. But Lucy found me and believed in me. She loved me. She loved me into a man she knew was strong enough to raise our daughter, even if I didn’t yet know it myself.

  Abby stretched in my arms. This littlest of angels was Lucy’s priceless gift to me. Her faith in me was another. I looked down at my daughter, into her perfect face. She was staring at me through eyes that looked much like her mother’s. “I love you, little one,” I croaked. “And if love was enough, we’d have it made.” I pulled her to my neck, knowing I had never spoken truer words.

  epilogue

  I left Damian’s, where I’d me
t Gleason for lunch, and took the sidewalk along Brinley Loop to Cemetery Road. I was feeling pretty good because my labs had all come back within normal limits. I was Stable Guy, and Gleason was happy about that. But he didn’t really need my blood work to verify this. I’d been stable for more than a year, which pretty much coincided with the last time I’d tweaked—as Lucy would have said—my meds. I had also been seeing Gleason twice a week, once for therapy and once for dinner (or lunch), sometimes a basketball game and a burger. He was semiretired, but he’d told me more than once, he was retiring from psychiatry, not from me. I’d promised him that I wouldn’t turn into a What About Bob? poster child, and I hadn’t. But even with Gleason’s unfailing support, it had taken some time to get here.

  They say the first year after a major loss is the hardest. That’s an understatement; loss is its own brand of insanity and there is no relief from it. There are no shortcuts and the only way through grief is through it. You just have to get up every day and wait to go to bed every night, then wake up and do it all again. Until one day you land. Gleason was right; a floor did eventually take shape beneath me. I stopped falling through the sadness and landed on it. That was a rough year. But I was able to stay out of the hospital except for four days in November when Abby turned one, and Lucy had been gone that long. Abby saved me, though. Or I guess it’s more accurate to say being Abby’s father saved me. Just as Lucy knew it would.

  I turned into River’s Peace—an apt name today with the gentle breeze, the quiet, the sea of blue sky. After that Christmas Eve when Lily brought me here, I didn’t come back for almost two years. Not until Muriel Piper died. After her service, it took all I had and Ron’s promise to wait at the curb, but I finally made it to Lucy’s gravesite by myself. And it was like she was waiting for me. Where I’d expected the pain to overwhelm me, I found quiet comfort, a warmth that almost felt like her hand in mine again. Not quite, of course, but it did feel like she was nearby, and it felt good.

  It’s been easier now to drop by, and I come on special occasions, or whenever I can invent one. Such as today. Today’s date on the three-year-old calendar in my kitchen is circled in pink and blue ink. It was when I met my daughter for the first time, the day of our ultrasound. It was the day Lucy and I bought the pink paint that will always be the color of the walls in Abby’s room. When I come here remembering times like this, I tell myself that Lucy is remembering them as well.

  I made my way up the hill, and when I stopped at my wife’s grave, I kissed my fingertips and pressed them to her name. “Hey, baby,” I said without crying.

  I could tell by the white roses that Priscilla had been here this week. She always left white roses. Lily usually left daisies or sometimes daylilies. Abby left an assortment of tokens—a stuffed monkey, a key, a completely indecipherable drawing she swore was a mommy and a daddy and an Abby.

  I leave broken glass.

  I placed my latest offering on top of Lucy’s headstone with the other pieces that had accumulated there. Pink, topaz, milky turquoise, and today a deep-red shard, probably from an old fishing float. Broken glass. It was symbolic of our marriage, but to me it was even more symbolic of our love. Lucy used to tell me she loved me so much she’d dance on broken glass with me forever if she could.

  I was counting on it.

  I was lost in the idea, so I didn’t notice Lily pull up to the curb and park. I didn’t notice until she had opened the rear door and freed her little passenger. Abby’s giggle pulled me from my reverie. My daughter is a two-and-a-half-year-old miniature of her mother, except she has my eyes. She has a mop top of dark curls that I’m lucky to get a comb through, and a perpetual smile, except when I make her eat peas.

  Today she was wearing a little white dress and pink flip-flops, which she struggled to keep on her feet as she navigated the gravel path. But when she got on level ground, she made a beeline for me and I scooped her up. I never get tired of the feel of her solid little body in my arms. Lily had painted her toes, and Abby was explaining the process, complete with a blowing demonstration that required some serious contortion on her part. I laughed as Lily made her way up the path with a pot of Shasta daisies.

  She set them down. “Looks like Priss has been here.”

  “Looks that way.” I smiled. Lily had had it rough, too. But we’d shared our grief and it seemed to help us to help each other.

  I sat down on the marble bench and Abby wriggled off my lap and went to stand by her aunt. “Mama?”

  Lily nodded. “Mama.” She stooped to pull a daisy from her pot and slipped it behind Abby’s ear. Then Lily came to sit by my side. “How’re you doing?”

  “I’m good, Lil.”

  We were quiet for a minute, both watching Abby hunkered down and tracing her mother’s name with her finger. “So how was the commander in chief?” I said.

  “Delightful as always.”

  “Are you still good with tonight?”

  Lily nodded. “Just drop her off at Ghosts on your way. She can help me lock up.”

  “It’ll be around six,” I said, checking my watch. I sighed. “C’mon, Abs. Let’s go to Mosely’s.”

  “Treat?”

  “If you’re good.”

  Abby scampered past me to bestow a kiss on her aunt.

  “Bye-bye, munchkin,” Lily called after her. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Are you coming, Lil?”

  “Not just yet.” She smiled. “I think I’ll hang out with my sister for a while.”

  For a minute Lily and I just looked at each other. Losing Lucy had made us kindred spirits.

  I nodded. “I think she would like that.” Then I swung my daughter onto my shoulders and walked down the gravel path.

  GALLERY READERS GROUP GUIDE

  Dancing on

  Broken Glass

  KA HANCOCK

  Introduction

  In her lyrical debut novel, Ka Hancock has written a story about the enduring power of love and the devastation of loss, a story about fighting for a happiness that’s often shadowed by the cruelties of fate.

  Lucy Houston and Mickey Chandler are far from an ideal match. With her destructive family history of cancer and Mickey’s bipolar disorder, it would seem a blissful union is impossible for them. But despite the risks, despite unstable highs and the guaranteed lows, they cannot imagine living without each other.

  Geared up for a life of romance and excitement, albeit with some serious pain mixed in, Lucy and Mickey promise to keep each other grounded. Being confident that they can make each other happy is one thing, but with so much stacked against them, they make the most difficult promise of all—not to have children. After nearly eleven years of marriage, they’re very accustomed to their life with just the two of them. But when Lucy gets some unexpected news at a routine check-up everything changes. Everything.

  An engrossing story that explores the depths of fear and grief and what it really means to love someone, Dancing on Broken Glass is an emotional journey for both the characters and the reader.

  Discussion Questions

  1. The story opens with Death, a character who continues to visit throughout the novel. Lucy’s father tells her that there are three things she needs to know about death: “It’s not the end. . . . And it doesn’t hurt. And finally, if you’re not afraid of death . . . you can watch for it and be ready.” (p. 3) How does this wisdom affect Lucy throughout her life? How can you relate to it?

  2. How does reading Mickey’s perspective at the beginning of each chapter affect the story? What would the ending have been like if that were the first time you got to hear Mickey’s voice?

  3. Brinley Township is as much a character in this novel as any of the people. How important do you think the setting is to the story? How does this small town help shape the main characters?

  4. How does each of the Houston sisters fulfill her role as oldest, middle, and youngest, respectively? In what ways do they go against those stereotypes?

  5. Lucy and M
ickey are each damaged in their own way and yet their ability to love each other is limitless. What positive characteristics do they each have that help them overcome the challenges to their relationship, and remain devoted to each other throughout the darkest hours? Do you think you could trust a love so risky?

  6. At Celia Nash’s memorial service, Jessica asks Lucy which she thinks is worse, to have lost someone suddenly or after a long illness (p. 68). Do you think one is worse than the other, or are they just equally terrible in different ways?

  7. Lucy and Mickey both have people in their lives serving as surrogate parents. How do these characters fill the roles of mom and dad? Who would take on this position in your life?

  8. There’s a lot of hardship in these pages, and many of the characters can be called real fighters. What are they each fighting for? Against? Who’s the biggest fighter?

  9. How do the flashbacks to earlier moments in Lucy’s life and her relationship with Mickey help move the story forward? What do you think the story would have been like if it had been told completely in chronological order?

  10. Lucy has a very different relationship with Lily than she does with Priscilla. Discuss these sisterly bonds—how do each of Lucy’s sisters take care of her? How do they relate to Mickey? How do these relationships change throughout the course of the book?

  11. Gleason tells Lucy that every marriage is a dance, and there will be times with Mickey that are like dancing on broken glass (p. 113). Discuss this as a metaphor for their relationship. What kind of meaning does that imagery conjure up for you?

  12. Because of their unfortunate medical histories, Mickey and Lucy had written into their contract that they agreed not to have kids. Do you agree with their initial decision? Is it fair to bring a child into the world when you might not be there for them? Or worse, when the child might inherit a life-altering illness?

  13. There comes a time when Lucy knows in her bones that she’s not going to survive the cancer this time around. Do you think she was really capable of knowing this? Do you think she should’ve fought for her own life harder, or do you agree with her decision?