Pretending to Dance (44 page)

She smiles from where she stands in the middle of the living room, her hands on her hips. “You've been gone a very long time,” she says, tapping into my guilt. She's studying me. I'm studying her as well and I'm surprised at what I see. She wears black yoga pants, tennis shoes, and a blue top beneath a gray hoodie. Her fair skin is smooth, barely lined, and she has lively blue eyes. She still wears her hair in the short, low ponytail, and it's the same pale blond it has always been. I remember her as old and a bit stodgy, but she looks younger and more vibrant to me now than she did when I was a teenager. If Grace Kelly had lived to be sixty-five, this is what she would have looked like.

“You look beautiful, Molly,” she says, “but I bet you're tired from the flight. Do you want some iced tea? Or maybe some coffee? I still have a pot going.”

“Coffee, please,” I say. “I barely slept on the plane.”

I follow her into the kitchen. The room has been remodeled and I would never have recognized it as the kitchen of my childhood. That frankly relieves me. I don't want to think about all those meals at the big table, Daddy in his wheelchair, someone feeding him. The cabinetry is now white, the countertops quartz, the appliances stainless steel. Even the layout is different.

“Are you still a pharmacist?” I ask as I watch her pour coffee into mugs.

She shakes her head. “I retired last year,” she says, taking a small bottle of milk from the refrigerator and setting it on the table. “I thought I'd miss it, but I've gotten involved in so many things. Tennis. Yoga. Book clubs. Zumba.” She smiles at me. “There's so much to do here now, Molly, you wouldn't believe it.” She motions for me to sit.

She's so different from the way I remember. I can't picture her on a tennis court or in a yoga studio. And Zumba? There's an undeniable lightness about her.

“I hate seeing how Morrison Ridge has changed,” I say as I sit down. The square table is much smaller than our old table, but I've chosen the chair nearest the living room, the place where I always sat when I lived here.

“It must be a shock to see the changes all at once,” Nora says. “Watching it happen gradually, it wasn't so bad.” She hands me the mug. “It's not an evil place, Molly,” she says as she takes a seat kitty-corner from me. “It's actually a beautiful neighborhood full of lovely people who only want the best for their families.”

We talk about some of the changes and I ask her about Aunt Toni and Uncle Trevor, Aunt Claudia and Uncle Jim. I'm making polite conversation but after a few minutes she reaches over. Sets her hand on mine.

“We need to really talk, Molly,” she says. Her eyes burn into mine. “We need to talk about far more than how Morrison Ridge has changed. I'm terribly upset that Russell told you what really happened.”

“I'm not,” I say, involuntarily pulling my hand away from hers. “Nora, he
had
to. I was still so furious with you. I'm still … I'm having trouble letting go of the … the shock of it all. And the anger,” I add.

She nods. “Of course you are.”

“I wish I'd known the truth.”

“You couldn't have handled it, honey,” she says. “It wouldn't have been fair for us to lay it on you. To expect you to keep it to yourself. You were very young, even for fourteen. Very … overprotected.” She stares at me intently. “I'm not even sure you can handle it now,” she says. “Can you?”

I look into the mug I'm clutching between my hands on the table. “Yes,” I say. “At least I'm trying to.”

“You were never to know,” she says. “You were … perhaps you still are”—she waits for me to look at her and when I do she finishes her sentence—“a loose cannon.”

I shake my head. “I considered turning you in,” I say. “Just you. I didn't know about the others. So many times when I was a teenager, I'd sit in my room at Virginia Dare and I missed Daddy so much and I blamed you and…” I shake my head. “Oh, how I blamed you!” I say. “But I couldn't do it. I couldn't pick up the phone and call the police. Because even though I hated you, I guess in some way I still loved you.”

She nods. “I knew how torn you were,” she says. “How torn you had to be.” She takes a sip of her coffee, then lets out a long sigh. “It was so hard for us, Molly.” Her expression is a plea for me to understand. “He begged. He never asked for much, but he needed our help. He said he would stop eating and drinking if we didn't help him. He was completely serious, and that sort of death … starving to death, no hydration at all…” She shook her head. “It can be agonizing and takes so long. It's cruel. I knew I wouldn't have been able to watch him go through that. He was suffering in a way you and I can't even imagine. How could we turn our backs on him?”

“The thing I don't get,” I say slowly, “is why he felt so desperate to die. He never seemed to be in terrible pain. That wasn't part of the MS.”

“Oh, yes he
was
in pain, honey,” Nora says. “He just never let you see it. But it wasn't the physical pain that was unbearable to him. That he could tolerate. The pain that tortured him most went far beyond the physical.”

“What do you mean?”

She rubs her arms through the sleeves of her hoodie as if she feels a chill. “He felt trapped inside his body,” she says. “He kept a lot of it from you. He was already having serious vision problems and he woke up a couple of mornings unable to speak. He'd have episodes where he was so short of breath, he'd panic. On a couple of occasions, he choked while he was eating and he was terrified of dying that way. Of choking to death. He was so afraid of what he would lose next. Would it be the ability to swallow? To communicate? The unknown terrified him. He felt as though the essence of who he was was slipping away and all he'd be left with would be his suffering. He didn't want to waste away like that. He wanted to die on his own terms.”

I hate thinking about the anguish my father must have been in. I'd been blind to it. I imagine what it would have been like, watching him fade away. Unable to see, perhaps, or speak, or control any part of his body. How afraid he must have been to want to end his life. It was a fear that no amount of “pretending to be brave” could counter. A fear so strong that death seemed like a welcome release. My heart cracks in two at the thought of him being that frightened.

I look at Nora and realize she's not the person I thought she was when I was growing up. I remember her as harried. Worried. But this Nora is a vibrant woman with a full life. This Nora is unencumbered.

“Sometimes,” I say slowly, “I thought you killed him so you could be free. It had to be hard on you, taking care of him the way you did. You were so tied down.”

She doesn't seem shocked by my words. Instead, she nods in understanding. “Do you still think that?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No.”

She leans back in her chair. “Graham and I talked about that a lot,” she says. “I wanted to be absolutely certain that setting me free wasn't part of his motivation.” She looks toward the window, and for the first time since my arrival, I see tears in her eyes. “I loved him so much, Molly,” she says, looking at me again. “I didn't want to lose him, no matter how difficult the disease became to manage. He convinced me that giving me my freedom wasn't what he was after.” She swirls her coffee gently in her cup.

I think back to that summer. “I was trying to make Daddy happy that summer,” I say. “I thought it worked, too. He seemed really content most of the time.”

“You always made him happy, Molly.” Nora smiles. “You were the best thing that ever happened to him and he adored you. But honestly?” she adds. “The joy you saw in him that summer was primarily because people told him they would help him. He was happy because he finally had a way out.”

“Oh God,” I say. “Really?”

She nods. “Really.” She stands up and reaches for the coffeepot on the counter, then pours more into my cup. “So,” she says with a complete change of tone. “I know nothing about your life. Almost nothing, at any rate. I know you're occasionally in touch with Dani, but I guess you told her not to tell us anything and she's guarded your privacy completely. But I want to know everything.” She sits down again. “What sort of work do you do? Are you married? Do you have children?”

I tell her I live in San Diego. I tell her about Aidan and about my work. And then I tell her something I believe she'll be able to understand in a way no one else in my life can.

“I had a hysterectomy and can't have children,” I say.

Her expression is full of sympathy. “Oh honey,” she says.

“So we're in the process of adopting and I'm frankly terrified.”

She studies my face, taking that in. “What's terrifying you?” she asks.

“Everything,”
I say. “The baby's due in about a month. The girl—her name's Sienna and she's very sweet, but she could change her mind at any time before the adoption's final. So I'm afraid of that. And I'm afraid … it'll be an open adoption, so Sienna will still have a role in our child's life, and I…” My voice trails off and I look up to see Nora smiling at me.

“Well,” she says, “I have a little experience with this.”

“I know.” I smile back.

“I assume, though, that your husband … Aidan, right?”

I nod.

“I assume Aidan is not the baby's father and Sienna is not his former lover.”

I wince. “That must have been so hard for you.”

“It wasn't easy,” she admits.

“No,” I say, “Aidan is not the baby's father.” I lean forward and it's my turn to rest my hand on hers. “How did you do it, Nora? How did you stand it? How were you able to share me the way you did, especially with a woman your husband had once loved?”

She covers my hand with hers and it's warm from being wrapped around her mug. “Oh, Molly,” she says, and for the first time I see lines in her face. In her forehead. Between her eyebrows. “It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.”

“What was it like?” I ask.

She sits back, looking at me as though truly seeing me for the first time since I arrived in the house. She smiles. “I loved you,” she says. “I adored you. But I was your mother. My role in your life was very clear to me. I had to be the one to discipline you and lay down the law. Amalia didn't have to worry about any of that. She didn't have to worry about keeping you clothed and making you three meals a day. She didn't have to worry about keeping you safe or teaching you to make good choices or help you grow into a responsible, capable adult.”

“She was very … mellow,” I say, not sure that's the right word.

“I was jealous of her,” Nora says. “I admit it. I knew your father loved me and was faithful to me, but I also knew that Amalia would always have a place in his heart. And then as you grew up, it was clear she had a place in your heart as well.”

I hear the crack in her voice. I feel her hurt.

“I even wondered,” she continues, “once you cut me out of your life, if you were still in touch with her. If she'd become your—”

“No,” I say. “No. Not at all.”

“I know that now,” she says. “Dani told me you'd cut ties with everyone.”

I nod.

“I knew Amalia was a lot more fun than me,” she says with a half smile, “but Graham would say ‘it's not a popularity contest, Nora,' and eventually I accepted that. I knew that I had to be your mother, not your friend. If that cost me some of your affection, so be it.”

“I sometimes felt as though you didn't love me very much.” I feel awkward saying that to her, but it's clear we are finally baring our souls to one another. Finally telling the truth. I remember all the times my father said that I needed to learn to talk to Nora. He wanted me to have deep, meaningful conversations with her.
It's happening now, Daddy,
I think.
At last.
“I worried it was because I wasn't yours—biologically—” I say, “and that I might feel the same way about the baby we're—”

“Really?” She looks wounded. “Oh, Molly. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel that way. I know I don't have the warmest personality.” Her smile is rueful. “But in my own defense, I was under a lot of stress, working full-time and taking care of you and your father.”

I nod. I can see that now, how much she'd had on her plate. I can imagine how hard it had been to keep our household running smoothly back then.

“I'll tell you how it's going to be.” She wears a genuine smile now. “You are going to hold that baby in your arms and fill up with more love than you ever thought was possible. You'll instantly be her protector and her nurturer. You'll instantly be her mother.”

“Is that how you felt about me?” I ask.

“Yes, honey,” she says. “And to be honest? I didn't want to feel that way. I was so shocked that you existed and so
mortified
by the way you came into our lives, that … well, I wasn't happy about it, as you can imagine.” She shakes her head. “But I distinctly remember rocking you one summer night on the porch. I was holding you on my lap and trying to get you to fall asleep. And suddenly it happened. The love came over me. It felt like a wave. Like a tsunami. It absolutely took my breath away. And then you were mine, from that minute forward.”

She stands up and leans over to hug me. “I'm so glad you're here,” she says. “I love you so much, Molly. I always have and always will.”

I hold on to her and feel something uncoil inside my chest. It's as though, for the first time in twenty-four years, I can take in a full breath. I'd hurt myself when I escaped from Morrison Ridge, I can see that now. By cutting myself off from everyone I'd ever cared about, I'd cut myself off from the love.