Song of Renewal (24 page)

Liza laughed and cried through the series of performances. Angel graduated to
Nutcracker
role levels where, at nine, she wore a stunning red feathery costume of a larger bird, the steps becoming a bit more intricate.

A couple of hours later, Liza remained transfixed, growing more solemn by the moment. Somewhere along the way, in Mama’s camera sight, Angel’s demeanor had begun to morph. At first, it was subtle. Later, the camera captured facial expressions and body language that startled Liza. She’d attributed Angel’s reticence to join in Liza’s excitement to preshow jitters. But now she got an entirely different reading.

From the screen, Liza’s pride in her daughter came through as loud as a cannon discharge, while Angel appeared more and more miserable as her body shrank to near emaciation.

Angel hated ballet
. The truth sunk in to Liza – a branding iron searing her very soul.

It was obvious that Liza had blinded herself to Angel’s true feelings all through the years. And hounded her about her weight. She’d tried not to but, looking back, she shamefully acknowledged her police tactics. Tears gathered behind her eyes and a knot of pain pulled together in her chest.

Dear God. What had she done to her baby girl? She’d forced Angel to live Liza’s life.
I’ve been living through Angel. How sick.

Liza had always hated pushy, backstage mothers. Now, she faced the ugly truth.

She was one of those detestable women.

Angel hated to dance but loved to see her mama dance. Therefore, Liza would now dance for Angel.

On one level it didn’t take a mastermind to figure it out, but in Liza’s case, she hadn’t truly known, until this tragedy, how very many of her hopes she’d invested in Angel.

The videos had opened her mind to what she’d been doing all along. It stunned her. It buzzed and sizzled like a crazed hornet swarm. She had so much to make up for and she prayed she’d have a chance to do so. To survive, she had to believe it would happen.

The next night, she went to the studio refreshed, focused. Donning a black leotard and pink tights, she felt transported back in time. This time, it was her, Liza, seeking her own destiny. She recalled how, by age twelve, after experiencing grueling years of training, pain and monotony became ingrained. Now, she realized that dance had offered her a providential escape from the pathos of her childhood and young adult years. That escape had preserved her sanity and allowed her to be, to some degree, a child, a luxury that bypassed Charlcy.

She still marveled that she’d never despaired or become bored. Never did she lose sight of her goal to become a great ballerina. Music filled the chamber and Liza acknowledged anew the miracle of dance. It wasn’t simply memorizing choreography, miming teachers, or being robotic in the execution of steps. It was the phenomenon of the voice of her body harmonizing in a dramatic way with the music, doing it in a way uniquely hers.

Tonight, with music strains of variations from
Don Quixote
, Liza’s performance was explosive, her interpretation dramatic. Her hands were dramatically telling, right down to the tips of
her fingers. Her body became an expressive instrument, the notes bursting with Spanish flair.

At times, she became Angel…this time a good thing. She discerned a strange light descending over and about her. The glow swallowed her as she danced. It limned her like a halo, moving with her through stunning pirouettes. In the mirrors, she glimpsed her iridescent flight.

She changed the music to “Scherzo Fantastique” and she twirled through the steps, feeling like a graceful spinning top. Somewhere during the past eighteen years, she’d forgotten why she’d chosen to be a ballerina. Now she remembered. Dance was both an act of will and a means of expression. Ballet was the link she’d made between thought and action. It was her body’s silent voice.

Now, luminosity converged with it all. She tasted and smelled the clean radiance of the light, like a pure, fragrant mist that permeated her pores and lifted her as though she were a feather.

It converged with her as she danced for Angel She would be Angel’s legs and feet. She would carry Angel with her into this cloud of light.

Through her, Angel would dance.

Liza’s language was dance. It was, to her, life and light. Through this light, Angel would live.

Through this light, Liza had found herself. It transported her from where she’d buried herself in her daughter’s life – to renewal.

Tonight, she celebrated. She danced with a new fervor. She was the magnificent plumed creature of her sister’s description, set free at last.

Garrison faced a decision. He stood before the canvas about to introduce Angel into the landscape scene next to Liza. At what stage of life would he portray his daughter? The black-and-white family photo showed a small girl. Certainly, that child was part of the composite of Angel burrowed deeply in his heart. But so was the sixteen-year-old girl. Suddenly he felt strongly that Angel should appear as she was today, only whole and well. Happy.

Excitement gripped him as he began to sketch from a more current photo of Angel with the cheerleading squad. His natural artist tendencies rushed to the forefront as he worked for proportion, ensuring that Angel’s image was correctly in scale with Liza’s. He considered the four basic components to his work of art: sight, shape, shade, and accuracy. At intervals, he turned the canvas to the mirror, giving himself a fresh view of his work, thrilled each time it validated his accuracy.

As his pencil sketched, his mind first filtered out all but Angel’s barest shapes. Then he concentrated on subtle forms that emerged from the school photo. Shading came next, requiring careful attention but bringing reality to the features and contours. Swiftly the pencil moved, pausing only for Garrison’s tortillon, actually rolled paper tips, to blend and smudge tiny areas. Again, the mirror rewarded him with reflections of accuracy. He worked late into the night.

Finally, his brush began to stroke life into Angel’s features. At times, tears blurred his vision of her sweet face, but he swiped them away and kept adding life-giving flesh tones and vibrant blue eye color. The brush moved defiantly, as if battling the demons of death.

Somewhere deep inside, Garrison knew that, on some level, this was exactly what transpired. The insight staggered his mind and propelled him on into the wee hours.

Weary but elated, he recognized that this endeavor was the most important of his life. It would bring back to him what he had lost. Again, as in painting Liza, strong sunlight enhanced Angel’s rosy complexion and described the form of her features.

Light. Life.

Unlike Liza’s darker background, a white cloud reflection on the pond framed Angel’s wheat-streaked hair, making her appear to pop out in space by contrast. Garrison stood back and squinted. Diffused, abstract background shapes contrasted pleasantly with the sharp, in-focus figures. Liza and Angel were the main attraction to the eye.

His eyes relaxed and a rush of emotions invaded him. Relief. Fulfillment.

Contentment. Garrison lay down his brush and discovered his fingers nearly cramped from the long hours’ exertion. He flexed them and solemnly surveyed tonight’s efforts. Light shimmered from the scene, telling him in some mystical way that somehow, some way, he would get past the darkness.

They
would get past the darkness. With divine help, he would help rescue them all from the darkness.

chapter twelve

Angel came to Liza during the night. She sat on the side of the bed with a big old grin on her face and said, “I was just joking, Mama!” She burst into laughter. “Look. I’m okay!” It was so real that Liza reached out to gather her into her arms…and awoke to the shock of reality. She swallowed back tears before wrapping fresh courage about her to face the day.

Liza dressed listlessly, sensing some portent hanging in the air. She didn’t know quite what it meant. Perhaps it was simply an offshoot of all of the stress of recent days. “I’m trying to keep a positive outlook,” she told Charlcy that afternoon after returning from the nursing home to relieve her sister from her bedside vigil. “But I feel like I’m running out of steam. It’s like this dark cloud follows me around, you know?”

Charlcy cut her a
duh!
look. “Honey chile’, I wrote the book on dark clouds – one of which – the
cumulus
is my ex. It looks nice and fluffy and is associated with hail and tornadoes. But we won’t get started on that. Don’t want to pull you down any lower.”

Liza looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Charlcy, don’t you think you could be a little more charitable to Raymond? I mean, after all, he
is
Lindi’s father.”

Charlcy seemed to give it deep thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Nah. I don’t think so.”

Irritation and impatience spurred Liza beyond her usual tolerance for her sister’s feistiness. “Charlcy, this has to be uncomfortable for Lindi; her parents not even being civil to each other. Think how that must make her feel.”

Charlcy squared her shoulders. “You’re behind on the news bulletins, precious one. Raymond didn’t even remember her birthday back in April. And she hasn’t heard from him since. So I’m actually trying to get her to keep it in her head that he really does love her, y’know?”

Then Charlcy did an entirely uncharacteristic thing. She puckered up and began to weep.

“Aah, sis.” Liza rose and went to her on the opposite side of Angel’s bed. “I’m sorry. I know this is tough for you.” She put her arms around her sister and held her until the stormy weeping subsided and Charlcy pulled away to blow her nose and snuffle. Liza returned to her chair and allowed her space to regroup. Charlcy detested signs of weakness.

She gazed at Liza with red, swollen eyes. “I still love him, you know,” she declared hoarsely. “I fight this battle daily, loving and hating him at the same time.” She shrugged and twisted her mouth in a self-deprecating way.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to simply forgive him?” Liza asked quietly, heart in throat. Oh God. If only Garrison could forgive her. If she’d just once look at Garrison and not feel guilt at the blame lurking in those condemning dark eyes. She believed he was at least trying to forgive her.

But she still, in his unguarded moments, glimpsed the darkness in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Charlcy said, sighing deeply. “Sometimes I think I have, but then something reminds me and – ” She shook her head and looked Liza in the eye. “Forgiving is not simple.
Don’t ever think it is. But then you’ve never had major issues in your life that require forgiveness. Marriage-wise, that is.”

Liza refused to touch that. She changed the subject.

“Anyway, I feel this thing hanging over me, more and more, every day.”

Liza felt suddenly chilled. She shuddered.

“You cold?” Charlcy asked.

She shook her head. “No. I’m good,” she lied. She hesitated. “But I am exhausted. Do you think you could – ” She raised her brows in appeal.

“Stay awhile longer with Angel?”

“Yeah. Could you?”

“Be glad to. And, sis? Get some rest.”