Could I Have This Dance?

by Harry Kraus

  She was being a thorn in Dr. Smuland’s side; it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that. She sighed and rested her head in her hands. But this was her father he was dealing with here. And her ideas may seem out in left field to Dr. Smuland, but they were important to her.

  Claire shook her head and stared at the floor. She’d better have her ducks in a row before she asked for a university consultant. He would think she was crazy too, if she didn’t do her homework.

  She yawned and leaned her head against the squeaky maroon vinyl. Tomorrow, she’d visit Mr. Knitter at Fisher’s Café and ask him about the Stoney Creek curse. She had nothing to lose.

  Except her future.

  Oh, God, I hope Dr. Smuland is right.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Claire opened her eyes and unfolded her slender frame from the cramped couch which had served as her bed. She had a searing discomfort in her neck from resting her head against her call bag pillow.

  It was five in the morning, too early for anything except strong coffee, but too late to spend another minute trying to rest in a public waiting room. The experience had been enlightening, to say the least. Around her were people with loved ones in crisis, people thrown into circumstances and pain not of their asking. These people endured a marathon of inadequate sleep, insufficient hygiene, and vending machine nutrition at its finest: chips, sodas, and candy if only you have the right change. Claire rose and stretched, massaged her neck, and sidestepped around the bodies of those who arrived after the couches were taken.

  She found a women’s room nearby, washed her face, and put on a new, slightly wrinkled blouse. After lipstick and mascara, she felt a notch closer to human. After her first cup of vending machine coffee, she actually thought she might be capable of rational communication.

  With her call bag over her shoulder, she slipped into the ICU and into her father’s cubicle. His heart rate was eighty-eight, his last blood pressure normal, and his oxygen saturation was hovering at ninety-one percent. She looked at his sallow complexion and his sunken cheeks. He’d been losing weight; the thin sheet stretched over his body couldn’t hide that. He was unmoving, except for the rise and fall of his bony chest, forced to accept the air which the ventilator thrust into him.

  She gazed upon him in awkward silence, father and daughter alone. She hadn’t spoken to him in meaningful conversation since high school. Oh sure, she’d visited home since then, but infrequently, and their talk had been the polite conversation of strangers. She’d blamed his drinking, his irritable disposition, or any number of reasonable excuses for staying away. Her favorite scapegoat was the pursuit of her dream. She needed to study. She had a calling. She couldn’t become a surgeon by staying close to her father in Stoney Creek.

  In her mind, she thought there would always be time to reconcile later. She would bring him a grandchild or two, and she would gather the wisdom that he’d gained the hard way through life battles. Later, after her training, she’d return as a surgeon, and the daughter would have her father’s approval at last.

  But now, with his form appearing so lifeless in front of her, the sober realization grew: a cozy reunion with her father was only a fantasy. Her father was a drunk, and her idea of a relationship with him was a daydream.

  She stroked the back of his hand, then slipped her fingers over the radial artery at his wrist, to assess the strength of his pulse.

  What am I doing?

  Why was it so difficult for her just to be his daughter for a minute? Why couldn’t she shed the white coat and just be Claire, Wally’s little girl?

  Why did she care what his heart rate was?

  Dr. Smuland was right. His words pierced the thick protection she’d laced tightly around her heart. “You’re Wally’s daughter. That’s why you’re here.”

  She hadn’t been close to her father for years. So why did she carry on this charade and rush back to his side when he was on his deathbed?

  Because she loved him?

  Or because I’m worried about me?

  Claire took her fingers from her father’s pulse and simply held his hand. It was time to be his daughter again.

  She sat in the cubicle at his bedside for an hour, trying to sort out the confusion of her emotions. She needed to find out the truth. Not just for herself. But also for her father. If he’d really had HD all along, it would put his life in perspective again. It would help to explain so much that they had all blamed on his drinking problems.

  It’s not just for me, God. I need to find out for my father.

  The soft voice of a nurse interrupted Claire’s silent prayer. “I need to give your father an antibiotic.” She lifted a small plastic bag with a clear solution. “I really shouldn’t let you stay. It’s not visiting hours until ten.” She smiled. “But you were being so quiet.”

  Claire stood. “I can go. Thanks for allowing me to be here with my daddy.”

  She walked away and made a silent vow. Let him live, God, and I’ll try to be a daughter to him again.

  Della met Claire at nine with hot cinnamon rolls and a thermos of coffee. Claire visited with her, giving her an update on Wally and her plans to contact the university neurologist, Dr. V. After an hour, Claire left Della to continue the ICU vigil, and drove her car to Fisher’s Retreat, stopping at the café as the last of the breakfast crowd sat with the morning paper unfolded, separated into sections. The sports page was on one table in front of a gray-haired gentleman with a corn-seed emblem embroidered on a baseball cap. A man in a business suit drank coffee over the comics page, and the front page was being ignored completely, apparently discarded on the edge of the back counter. Claire glanced at the headlines while waiting for Mr. Knitter to turn his attention away from the grill.

  “Well, looky here,” he exclaimed, turning to pour her a cup of coffee. “Claire, what brings you back?”

  She shrugged. “Couldn’t stay away from your coffee, Ralph.” She slid an empty cup on the counter toward him. He complied and filled it to the brim.

  “Seriously,” she began, “I came to talk to you.”

  He raised his eyebrows and winked at the man in the business suit. “It’s not every day a man gets to talk to a pretty woman.” He walked around the counter and sat on a bar stool beside her.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Stoney Creek curse.”

  Claire studied him. He hadn’t flinched. “You seemed to think it was all plumb foolishness if I remember correctly,” he said.

  “Well, now I want to know what you know.” She took a sip of coffee, then paused, counting the cups she’d had since she awoke. One from the vending machine, one with her mom. Okay, one more, and then she’d quit.

  Her eyes bore in on Mr. Knitter’s. “You mentioned you believed in the curse. Do you know of people rumored to be affected by this curse? People other than Harold Morris, the man reputed to have built and rebuilt the still Stoney Creek has been so famous for.”

  He squinted. “Why are you so interested now?”

  She smiled. “I have a theory to test, that’s all. I want to know if this curse is inherited.”

  “Maybe it is. Harold Morris started it, as far as I know. Harold went crazy, killed himself after the preacher cursed him.”

  “Who else? Harold’s kids? How about his children?”

  “Leroy’s the only one I heard of. People say he went crazy too. I think he committed suicide, just like his father, and that revived the whole story of the curse affecting the Morris family.”

  “Did Leroy have kids?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “What about a sister? Harold also had a daughter, Evangeline. She supposedly married a Hudson, and had a son, Steve.”

  “Steve Hudson was Harold’s grandson?”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No, but I heard the stories. He killed himself too, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. That’s three generations of suicide.” He nodded like an authority. “I’d s
ay the answer to your question is yes. Sounds like the curse can be inherited.”

  “But what about others? Do you know anyone else with funny movement problems, slurred speech, people rumored to be affected by this curse?

  Mr. Knitter scratched his chin. “Peter Garret is one. I don’t really know him, but his son Tony was telling me about his problems.” He lifted his head and slowly and noisily blew his breath through pursed lips. “People do that to me, you know? They tell me their problems, just because I stand behind the counter and listen. I probably hear more problems than a doctor, eh, Claire? And I solve more of them, too.” He laughed.

  Claire wanted to keep him focused. “Who were Peter’s parents?”

  “Can’t help you there. I have no idea.”

  “Any more people reported with similar trouble?”

  “A cousin of mine, Bill Wampler III. My mother heard about his trouble in a Christmas letter. Bill’s family moved down to Mississippi or somewhere. Bill was said to have problems with controlling his arms and legs, maybe his temper, and they are taking him to a specialist for help.”

  “Who were Bill’s parents?”

  He stood up. “Can you wait a minute? Let me call Lois; she’s got the family tree in my mother’s family Bible.”

  Before Claire could protest, Ralph was on the phone to his wife, and no sooner had Claire finished her cup of coffee than Lois came in and opened the book to the family tree. She slid it in front of Claire and stood back, her hands mounted on her generous hips in a defensive pose. Her eyes bulged. “Ralph tells me you’re interested in the curse. It’s about time a medical professional did a proper analysis of this situation. Old Dr. Jenkins certainly hasn’t helped.”

  Claire put on a sweet smile and tried not to look at the large protuberant mole on the end of Lois’s nose. “Thanks so much for your help.”

  “Where were we?” Ralph pointed a pudgy finger at William Wampler III. “William’s dad is here, William Wampler Jr. It says he died in a farm accident. By the date he’d have only been twenty-five.”

  Claire started taking notes on a paper napkin.

  He traced his finger up the chart. “Here’s his father, William Wampler Sr. He was my grandfather, too. You see, Sarah Wampler is William Sr.’s daughter after his second marriage to Gloria Shifflett. William Jr. was his son by his first wife, Rachel Morris.”

  Claire’s ears perked up. “Morris? Any relation to Harold?”

  “Don’t know. We’ve just got the Wamplers recorded here.”

  “Did she have any signs of a weird illness?”

  “Hmm. Looks like she died young in a car accident.”

  Claire studied the note and the tree diagram she was drawing on the napkin.

  So Rachel could have been a carrier of HD, but died too young to show any symptoms, and passed the gene to her son William Wampler Jr., who in turn died in a farm accident, also too young to show symptoms. Junior passed the gene to his son, William Wampler III, who was now possibly showing symptoms.

  Now she just needed to find out who Rachel Morris’s father was, and check out this Peter Garret to see if he was related too.

  “Any idea where I can find out about Rachel Morris’s genealogy, or this fellow, Peter Garret?”

  Lois nodded. “Amy Stewart over at the county clerk’s office could help you. They’ve been working for months to update their computer records in preparation for the bicentennial celebration over in Carlisle. She has all the birth records of people that were born in the county.” She winked. “And that boy she has working for her in there is so cute. He’s the spitting image of Brad Pitt and—”

  Lois was silenced by a look from her husband. “Easy, Lois. The woman’s engaged, if you haven’t noticed the rock on her finger.”

  “My, oh, my,” Lois gasped. “A doctor, and you’re getting married?” She shook her head. “Pity the man that has a pretty wife who’s never home. You’ll drive him insane.”

  “Lois!” Ralph snapped. “Pity the man whose wife is always home, more like it,” he mumbled.

  She giggled. “Oh, I’m just teasin’ her, Ralph. She knows that.”

  Claire looked at the mole on the end of Lois’s nose. It was even in color, with a sharply demarcated edge, and had three hairs sprouting from its center. All signs of a benign lesion, Lois. You won’t need to have it surgically removed. She diverted her eyes after her examination and picked up her napkin. “I’ve got to run,” she said, laying a dollar on the counter. “Thanks for the information.”

  Claire freshened her makeup in the car before going in to meet Brad Pitt at the county clerk’s office. And, surprisingly, Lois’s judgment was strikingly accurate. In fact, Claire liked this one better than the movie star. She judiciously kept her ring finger below the counter and cleared her throat.

  She introduced herself as Dr. McCall, explaining that she was doing some genetics research and needed to trace some local genealogies. Mr. Pitt was obviously impressed and practically stumbled over himself to promise full cooperation. He took down the names she gave him, along with approximate dates of their births, and promised to get back to her. He stood and stared at her for a moment before diverting his eyes to the floor.

  “I’m only in town for a short while,” she said, writing the number of her cell phone down on a small card. “Remember, I need parents, grandparents, and their parents if possible, with dates of births and causes of death if available.”

  “Sure thing.” He glanced over his shoulder at a desk stacked with large manila folders. “This may take me a while. If we don’t have the records on file, I’ll have to fax down to Richmond to get them. Our records are pretty complete, but the state’s are better.”

  “What’s ‘a while’? Are you talking hours, days, weeks?”

  “Oh, not weeks, Dr. McCall. It depends on if someone put this data in the computer or not. We’re trying to get a lot of this information updated on a database for Carlisle’s bicentennial celebration. I may have the information in a few minutes. Or it might take a few days.” His smile revealed a row of even white teeth. A dentist’s child couldn’t have looked nicer. He put a thumb in his belt and pulled his shoulders back an inch.

  I’ll bet he’s practiced that pose a thousand times in front of his bathroom mirror.

  “Call me Claire.” She scribbled her name on the paper above her phone number and pushed it into his palm. “Call me anytime.” She smiled. “I want to hear from you.”

  “Sure, Doc—eh, Claire. I’ll call.” He hesitated and spoke again. “I’ll call soon.”

  She turned and walked out into the bright sunshine and looked up at a sky so blue it should have been on a postcard.

  What was it with the Y chromosome, anyway? That guy was almost slobbering.

  Wally McCall hadn’t changed all day, so Claire pried her mother from the waiting room, drove to Stoney Creek for her grandmother, and took them to Chico’s for dinner. Chico’s restaurant was a quaint little place situated halfway between Fisher’s Retreat and North Mountain, an Apple Valley fixture where the bread was homemade and the lasagna was fabulous.

  Over dinner, the three most important women in Wally’s life ate in awkward silence. Grandma Elizabeth had shared her secret with Claire, who had shared it in confidence with Dr. Jenkins, who in turn, blabbed it to Della. Now they all knew, but Elizabeth still didn’t know that Della had found out.

  Claire buttered a hot roll. “Confession time.”

  Elizabeth put down her fork. Della looked away.

  Claire put her hand on her grandmother’s. “Look, it’s time we got some things in the open. Mom knows your secret, Grandma.”

  “Claire, you promised to keep—”

  “Grandma, I kept your secret. I shared it with Dr. Jenkins. I told him in confidence because I had concerns over Daddy’s health, over his family medical history.” She paused, praying her grandmother would understand. “Dr. Jenkins is the one who broke a confidence by telling Mom.”

  Grandma McC
all pushed her plate away and picked up a glass of tea. “So you know. Wally may never have been a blood McCall.” She cleared her throat. “And you know I wasn’t such a good Christian girl all my life.”

  Della sighed. “This doesn’t change anything for us, Elizabeth. Blood certainly doesn’t change fatherhood. Maybe at some biological level, but not in the real world, where it counts. John McCall was the only father Wally ever knew. And John treated him with the same love he gave Leon. It’s that simple.”

  Claire looked at her mother with admiration and a bit of surprise. This from the woman who staked her whole reputation just on being beautiful? How could Claire have considered her to be a dumb blond? Had she changed since Claire left at age sixteen? Or was she just too stupid to look below the surface?

  Della made eye contact with Claire before turning back to Elizabeth. “And what is this idea that you’ve not been a good girl. The way I understood it, you were raped. That wasn’t your fault.”

  Elizabeth stared at her half-eaten plate of lasagna. “You weren’t there, Della.”

  “Tell us. We’re family. You can talk to us. You won’t find any judgment coming from me, that’s for sure.” Della looked away. “I’ve never qualified for sainthood myself.”

  With the secret out, it seemed as if a well had been uncapped. Elizabeth began to vent the story which had been concealed for so long.

  “Steve Hudson was my first love, before I met John McCall. He was a wild horse, not a safe catch like my John. His family was trouble, and my mother knew it. So when the McCalls came to town, and John started showing interest, she was eventually able to convince me to forsake my feelings for Steve.”

  She pushed a wide noodle into a dab of tomato sauce and looked over at Claire. “You know what young love is like.” She blushed. “Steve used to kiss me in the hayloft. He’d come to my window at night and throw pebbles, just like in an old movie.” Elizabeth’s eyes seemed to sparkle when she talked. “I’d meet him in the barn and talk until the early hours of the morning. Oh, he’d kiss me, but I would never let him go further. But we allowed ourselves to talk about what marriage would be like, what it would be like to be together as a man and wife in the same bed. I promised him he would be the first to know me in that way.” Her hand went to her mouth. “I can hardly imagine talking with him like that. It was so improper for an unmarried woman.