Pretending to Dance (29 page)

“So now you speak for everybody?” Uncle Trevor towered over my father. His face was bright red, and in the overhead lights I saw spit fly from his mouth when he shouted. “No one else gets an opinion? You always have to have your own fucking way!”

I stood there frozen. One of the big speakers and the base of a floodlight were between my father and me, but I could see him perfectly. He sat immobilized while Uncle Trevor bobbed and weaved around him like a boxer, moving in and out of my vision. My heart ached at how skinny and frail Daddy looked in his chair.

“You think I give a shit about the goddamned ‘family land'?” Uncle Trevor made quote marks with his fingers around the words. “This so-called family's dwindling to nothing, anyhow. There's nobody left to carry on with the Ridge, anyway.”

I hoped Nanny wasn't close enough to hear him talk about Morrison Ridge that way. I searched the people circled around Uncle Trevor and Daddy, but didn't see her.

Aunt Toni suddenly shot out of the crowd, trying to grab Uncle Trevor's shoulder. She said something I couldn't hear, and I gasped when he pushed her roughly away, nearly knocking her over. She let out a yelp and someone yanked her back into the press of people.

“Damn it, Trevor!” my father was shouting. It was his furious voice, the voice I so rarely heard, and yet it was no match for Uncle Trevor's threatening physical presence. I gripped the corner of the pavilion, frightened. “Go home and sober up!” Daddy shouted.

Stacy was suddenly next to me, her hands circling my arm so hard they hurt. “He's totally drunk,” she said, and I felt her shudder. “God,” she added, “he reminds me of my fa—”

“I'm developing my land no matter what the rest of you assholes choose to do!” Trevor barked at my father.

“Only if you're a selfish son of a bitch,” Daddy shouted. “Don't you care that you'll break your mother's—”

“You call
me
selfish?” Trevor took a step toward him and I could swear I felt the whole pavilion tremble beneath my fingers where they rested on the wood. “I've never known anyone as selfish as—”

“Shut up!” Daddy yelled. “Just cool it, will you? You're too drunk to talk rationally. And you're wrecking the—”

“And you're always the rational one, right?” Spit flew out of Uncle Trevor's mouth. “The fucking golden boy. Off to college while I bust my back helping Daddy and you get your string of degrees. You were so special, weren't you?”

Daddy went quiet, but only for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was very calm. “There's still a hurt little kid inside you, Trev,” he said.

“Shut the fuck up!” Uncle Trevor took another menacing step toward my father and my whole body tensed. The older man Amalia had been dancing with—the doctor?—suddenly grabbed my uncle's arm, holding him back. “I don't need you psychoanalyzing me!” Uncle Trevor shouted at Daddy.

“You're forty-six years old,” my father said. “It's time you let go of your adolescent grudges and grew up.”

Uncle Trevor seemed to run out of words. He pulled out of the man's grasp, his eyes wide with fury, and I could tell he was about to explode.

“Uncle Trevor!” I called, hoping to get his attention on me and off my father, but I didn't think he even heard me. He grabbed the armrests of Daddy's wheelchair and gave it a forceful shove, all of his weight and bulk behind it. In the darkness, maybe he couldn't tell how close the chair was to the edge of the pavilion, but from my vantage point, I saw the catastrophe about to unfold in front of me.

“Stop!” I shouted, waving my arms helplessly in the air.
“No!”

“Uncle Graham!” Dani screamed as she ran past me, reaching her arms out in front of her as though she could somehow prevent the chair from tumbling off the pavilion, but Uncle Trevor had pushed it with so much force that the chair shot off the platform like a bullet. It seemed to be suspended in midair for a split second before tipping backward and landing on the ground with a terrible thud.

I screamed, standing there in horror, unable to make my legs move until Stacy grabbed my arm and propelled me forward.

Dani reached my father first. “Uncle Graham!” she cried, dropping to the ground next to him. “Oh my God!”

I reached the chair and saw that Daddy had spilled out of it and lay a couple of feet away on the ground. Horrified, I knelt down on the opposite side of him from Dani.

It was too dark to clearly see his face, but I thought he was looking up at me. “I think I'm all right,” he said, his voice a whisper. Hearing him speak reassured me. Someone on the pavilion yelled to call an ambulance and I looked up to see Uncle Trevor backing away from the edge of the platform, hands over his face, as if afraid to see any damage he'd caused. “I'm sorry!” he shouted. “
Fuck
. I'm sorry!”

Aunt Toni suddenly appeared in front of him and she smacked him across the face like she was trying to snap him back to reality. “Go home, you big bully!” she shouted, but he stood there crying into his hands like an overgrown little boy. I turned away from him, my attention back on my father—and on Dani, who had gently lifted his head to her lap. Someone had turned one of the floodlights so it illuminated Daddy and the rest of us on the ground. I saw Stacy sitting with her back against the pavilion, her hands at the sides of her head as though she couldn't believe what she was seeing. And I saw that Dani's thick black eyeliner and mascara was smeared, the skin wet around her eyes. Ralph had disappeared, but Dani didn't seem to care.
This is my real cousin,
I thought
. Beneath the hard edges, beneath the bitchiness, she's a good person.

I was aware of the hushed crowd above us on the pavilion, but not who was in it. All I knew was that there were women with hands to their mouths and men unsure what to do to help. My mother pushed through the clot of people and jumped to the ground next to me, dropping quickly to her knees at my father's side. His head still rested in Dani's lap.

“Oh, Graham,”
my mother said, almost in a whisper. She smoothed a hand over his hair and leaned over to press her lips to his forehead. “Where are you hurt?” I knew she had to see what I was seeing: tears welling up in Daddy's eyes. I'd never seen him cry.

“I don't want that ambulance,” Daddy said quietly to her. “Just get me up.”

“All right.” She turned to look above us at the crowd. “Where's Russell?” she called to no one in particular.

“I'll look for him!” Stacy got to her feet and climbed onto the pavilion, disappearing into the crowd.

“I can help get him up,” Dani said.

“Me, too,” I said, though I knew how hard it was to move my father's body even an inch, much less back into his chair.

Amalia suddenly appeared next to me, as if she'd materialized out of thin air. She bent down to touch Daddy's shoulder, her hair brushing my cheek as it fell forward, and my mother suddenly snapped at her.

“I've
got
him, Amalia!” she said.

Amalia's eyes widened in surprise, but then she nodded. “I'll help find Russell,” she said, backing away, and I watched her disappear into the darkness as quickly as she'd appeared.

Peter walked around the corner of the pavilion. “How can I help?” he asked my mother.

She looked behind me, and I knew she was searching for Russell. “We can't do it without—”

“I'm here!” Russell appeared on the pavilion above us.

“Thank God,” Mom said under her breath.

In a moment, Russell was on the ground with us. He knelt next to Dani, attempting to check the back of Daddy's head with a small flashlight. “Good thing we changed out that head support on your chair,” he said quietly to my father. “The old one could have snapped your neck.”

No one said anything and I guessed we were all thinking the same thing: Daddy was already essentially paralyzed from the neck down. How could it have been any worse?

“Any pain, Graham?” Russell asked him.

“I'm
fine,
” Daddy insisted. “Just get me up, Russ, all right?”

Russell looked at my mother. “I'll move him back into the chair,” he said. “Then I'll need some help to lift the chair upright.”

“No ambulance.” Daddy said again. “The last thing I want is a damn hospital.”

Russell looked at someone above us on the pavilion—I couldn't see who. “Stop the ambulance!” he shouted.

“Are you sure?” my mother asked Daddy, worry in her voice.

“
Yes,
I'm sure.” He sounded impatient and I knew he wanted this whole ordeal over with.

We all drew back a little, letting Russell and Peter move Daddy's legs and arms and body into the toppled chair, while Dani still cradled his head carefully—almost expertly, as though she worked every day with disabled people.

“Molly and Nora,” Russell said, “stand up and stay right in front of him so he doesn't fall out of the chair when Peter and I set it upright.”

I stood up and was instantly hit by that spacey feeling from the marijuana. I wished I hadn't smoked it now. I braced myself, my feet wide apart, hands forward, ready to help. I watched Russell and Peter lift the chair and my father into an upright position. They seemed to be moving in slow motion. Mom leaned forward to hold on to Daddy's shoulders, and I placed my hands against his chest in case he slid forward. His ribs felt like twigs beneath my palms. His head was close to mine and only then did I realize I was sobbing.

“I'm fine, Moll,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Utterly humiliated, but that's the worst of it.”

I couldn't speak. I wished I could hug him right then. What must it have felt like to fall backward off the pavilion? My stomach lurched thinking about it. I could imagine the fear. I thought of how I'd been trying to make him happy these past few weeks. I'd tried to make his life fun and worth living. I felt as though all that effort had been snuffed out in one single second.

Russell bent over to speak in my father's ear. “Carry you home?” he asked.

“And miss the fireworks?” Daddy asked. “No way.”

But he did go home. My mother insisted and he didn't put up much of a fight. Some other people left as well—Uncle Trevor and Aunt Toni among them—and I couldn't find my grandmother anywhere. I didn't know if she was even aware of what had happened. I hoped not.

Stacy and I sat side by side on one of the speakers again to watch the fireworks and she kept saying she was worried about me and asking if I was all right and I felt touched by how protective and caring she was. The fireworks were lost on me, though. Lost on most of us, I thought. Our oohs and ahhs sounded forced, and I knew that something precious had been stolen from the night.

 

36

 

Stacy and I walked the zigzagging eastern half of the loop road home from the pavilion, dodging the cars that were leaving the party. I knew I should have stayed to help clean up, but I would come back in the morning. Right now, I wanted to see my father. I needed to know he was all right.

As we walked, Stacy talked nonstop about how crazy the night had been. “Your family might be as screwed up as mine after all,” she said. “Alcohol makes people do insane things. My father drank like a fish. He punched my brother so hard one time he had to go to the hospital. Child Protective Services came to the house and everything. I'm going to stick with weed myself.”

I couldn't think of anything to say back to her. I kept walking, shining my flashlight ahead of us on the dirt road, too overwhelmed with my own family's problems to think about hers.

*   *   *

Once we reached the house, Stacy went upstairs while I walked down the hall to Daddy's room. The door was open and Russell was arranging the pillows behind his head, though Daddy appeared to be asleep. The light in the room was dim, most of the illumination coming from the open bathroom door.

I walked into the room and stood at the end of the bed. “Hi,” I said to Russell.

Russell straightened up from arranging the pillows. “Did you see the fireworks?” he asked.

I nodded. “They were okay, but I was worried about Daddy.” I looked at my father, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully. There was a definite bruise forming on his temple. Possibly another on his chin. “Are you sure he doesn't have a concussion, Russell?” I asked. I knew you weren't supposed to sleep if you had a concussion.

“No concussion,” Russell said. “He's very lucky. I don't think he's going to feel that great tomorrow, but I've checked him out from stem to stern and there's no broken bones. So he's okay. Physically, at least.”

“What do you mean, he's okay physically?”

Russell shrugged. “I think it shook him up,” he said. “It would shake anybody up, don't you think?”

I nodded. “It was terrible.”

Russell stepped closer to me, turning my head toward the bathroom light with two fingers on my chin. “Those big blue eyes of yours have some mighty dilated pupils,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He took his fingers from my chin. “You're a great girl, Molly, but you're just fourteen. Don't mess yourself up, all right? You need to stay strong and healthy.”

I turned my head away from the light. “I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, “and I'm going to bed.” I left the room and headed for the stairs, trembling a little at being caught. What right did he have, judging me that way? I should have resented that parental tone he took with me, but I was having trouble working up a righteous indignation. Just then, I didn't feel as though I
had
a parent, and I couldn't help it: I felt glad that someone cared.

*   *   *