Moondance (34 page)

She felt the familiar sexual arousal that he stirred in her so quickly, there for a moment, then gone.

Not now. Need focus.

She tipped her head back until she touched his shoulder and his hand wrapped securely around her waist. Her eyes darted out, past the moon, over the horizon, catching on a shadow and her heart leapt. This was new. Pulling away, she pushed her nose to the window, the flat of her hand making marks on the glass, the smooth surface cool against her palms.

Her eyes narrowed. She thought she saw a smudge-black figure crouched under the window of the veranda. A glimpse of (too) white skin as the figure shifted and glanced up toward her. She was emotionally drawn to the figure, her senses were awake. This one felt different than the others.

To see more clearly, she stood on her toes, looking down the brick wall at the space between it and the veranda’s wide, flat roof. She was aware of his arms gripping her, holding her back.

She reached for the window latch, she wanted to
see
, and his hands, usually so gentle, threw her to the floor. She looked at the rug under her hands, lavender and blue and cream. So pretty, she thought. She remembered when she restored it, a lifetime ago, now so unreal.

His voice was patient.

“Not this way.”

“How?”

“You know.” The tears came and they were hot, painful, and healing, a culmination of frustration and exhaustion. He gathered underneath her, lifting her and as her face pressed into him, she knotted her hands into fists.

“My love.” he kissed her salty cheeks, her temples, her eyes. She had wanted to look outside for answers. She had wanted him inside her, to help her forget.

All he’d ever wanted was for Althea to look at him.
May I have this dance?

She collapsed into him and a small whimper escaped her lips. “I’m so tired,” she said, “Too tired.” He enveloped her body with softness, and she marveled at how he felt. He was weightless and soft, yet utterly real. His soft scent lingered in her nostrils. Curled in his arms, she traced his face with her fingertips. Real. He kissed her softly, their kiss intensifying, tongues intertwined, pressure between her legs that grew, hardened. Real. She wanted him more than she ever had. More than the mundane reality of her previous life. More than life itself.

As the tears coursed out of her, she opened to him completely, and he suckled her lips like a baby, moved down her neck, and sprinkled her breasts with nibbles. Childlike, he clung to her, and suddenly tiring of her breasts, displaying a child’s impatience and an adult’s resolution and skill, he formed between her legs, gently sucking her, his tongue deep, bringing her to orgasm. As the exquisite waves shook her body, she surrendered to him completely, her threadbare defenses dissolving into fleeting shadows under the moon’s glow.

She cried and he cradled her, her mother now, rocking her to sleep, humming to her, stroking her hair. Her love, her protector, her
strength. Hers and his, all his and hers. Real.

Time passed.

Later, Althea opened her eyes, her face bathed in the glow of the moon. He lay behind her, silent. Within her heart sprung still, fervent resolve and a new openness which was vulnerable, without apology and without excuse.

In the past few days, Althea had fought harder, and had cried more than she ever had in her life. But now, the tears were different. They were coming from a different place. She knew. Now she knew. What she needed to do.
Show yourself
.

It took some time for Althea to go to sleep that night. She knew that the dance was about to become real.

chapter 54

THE DANCE, SHE HAD learned, was a dream, but not a dream. She would wake up feeling hung over after the dance, with the tender pink feeling of just having sex.

Tomorrow, she may not wake up at all.

Althea was dancing, the hand of her partner like cold iron in the center of her back. She knew He was watching her. She could feel his gaze. It was warm and it was sad. He wanted to protect her. Some-times, he leaned forward, attentively and sometimes, he crouched in the shadows. Sometimes, he withdrew as if he could not bear to watch. She understood that he was responding to her, and even though she danced apart from him, she knew that they were engaged in a dance all their own.

Around and around they spun, quick, impossible steps, steps she knew intimately. Her feet moved with her dancer, practised and swift. She knew this one intimately, could feel its power.
Rage
. Insidious, deadly and fruitless all at once, yet working to find a permanent place in her heart.

As they spun, others gathered, silent forms, many shades of grey. Some were lithe and lean and light on their feet, while others possessed a quiet toxicity, lying in wait.
Anger, Shame, Denial
wished to dance, while
Sadness
, a light grey veil, stayed with her, perched on the small of her back like a newborn child. Never far away,
Fear
was her constant companion, for
Fear
was their ringleader — the beginning and end of it all.

Tonight, her eyes were closed, meditative, trancelike, feeling everything the demons brought with them, yet alone with her own resolve. She knew they sensed it. Their dance was more complex, frenetic. She knew they wanted her to fight, to resist and that their power increased when she did. She could sense that her calm was unnerving to them.

“You know,” he had said. Now she did.
Watch me
.

In the corner of the room, she sensed he was standing, his green eyes wide and fixed on her.

She threw her head back.

Like a child again on a swing and for a moment she felt the freedom, the head rush,
her face glowing pink, her long red-gold hair hanging loose. Her heart opened, and as she surrendered to them, she felt a warm lightness, more powerful than the demons that held her, healing, and as she filled herself up, she was spinning, the air around her thick and watery, pulling her into black.

chapter 55

ALTHEA’S NOSE WAS COLD. She walked and breathed into the cup of her hand, distributing warmth. The vanilla sun was suspended in perfect crystal aquamarine. She looked down at her feet, which were bare.

She slowly became aware of her body. Though she was moving, she felt as if she was just waking up. Refreshed, but like she needed to stretch. She didn’t know where she was, but she wasn’t afraid. She knew she’d receive everything she needed here.

The earth under her feet was soft. She was walking on a narrow path lined with rocks, and mounds of black earth. When she came to a fork in the path, she made an instinctive turn to the right, and followed a steep incline, the ground seeming to alter under her feet, green and lush. She stepped into a circular clearing surrounded by more rocks, the deciduous trees she grew up with and a tawny-red bench in the middle of the clearing. A figure stood as she approached.

“You’re on your way, li’l miss.” The brilliant white smile, the familiar
nickname, the wide vowels and singsong lilt. She looked into Albert’s eyes.

“On our way where?”

“A place far, faaar away.” he chuckled. Althea hugged him, pressing her face into his rough wool coat, inhaling his warm pipe smell. Obviously, she was still dreaming. But she liked this dream better.

“No, wee one, this isn’t a dream. This is as real as it gets.”

“I’ve missed you.” Her eyes were teary, but she felt at peace. She knew he was here to guide her.

“That’s right, I’ve been your guide for some time now. Ever since you were a wee one. There’s a few of us rooting for you.” His eyes twinkled. “But today, I’ve been granted the opportunity to answer some of your questions. You’re one lucky girl.”

“Where are we?” Albert laughed, a rolling chuckle building in his chest, his head thrown back in such a familiar way, that Althea’s heart ached.

“Well that’s just like you to forge ahead, isn’t it? I’m not sure if I can answer that the way you want, but I can tell you a bit about
why
we’re here. Is that okay with you?” Wondering if she had any real choice in the matter, Althea nodded.

“Oh yes, you have choice, wee one. Lots of that here. But first, let’s talk about your mother.” They sat down on the bench together, and she held Albert’s hand, which was strong and rough.

“She chose me.” Althea said.

“Go back further.” Albert said.

“G.”

“Now we’re cookin’.”

“Sophie loved him.”

“Yes.”

“He was a musician.”

“Yes. Gregory was a talented piano player. He had just started playing with us back then, and he was soooo wet behind the ears. Sophie sang with the band. She had such a voice. Played piano, too. It broke my heart when she stopped.”

“And he was married —”

“Yes he was. I don’t believe he would have left his family for Sophie. She was, by the definition of the day, not always the proper girl next door.”

“What happened?”

“Gregory was an American, who spent the summer with the band. He was kind of a naïve ladies man, thought it’d all work out, didn’t think much at all really,” Albert chuckled. “When Sophie got pregnant, she wanted to be with him. When he wouldn’t leave his family, she was devastated.”

“So he is my father. But I thought —”

“No, wee one, that’s not it.”

Albert stopped talking, letting it sink in. If she had been on earth, Althea would have felt a toxic mixture of frustration, confusion and disappointment. In this realm, she felt a confused blurriness, as if someone had blown bubbles in her face, tickling her, teasing her.
Come find me
.

“She decided to have the child on her own,” Althea said.

“Yes, she did.”

“Then she had my
brother
and later me, and then they died in an auto accident —”

“No, hon. Gregory died in Vietnam before you were born. You were right about that. Let me try to explain. Sophie got pregnant, Gregory left her, she decided to have the child. Then Gregory was killed in the war. That was when Sophie was about six months along, waiting for him, even though he didn’t want her to. When he was gone, Sophie broke down, became obsessed, wanted to hang on to the pregnancy more than ever, like she could keep a piece of him alive.”

“So it was Gregg then. She gave birth to my brother.”

“No, Sophie lost that child in the seventh month, after she found out Gregory was gone. After that, she went wild.”

Althea imagined her mother’s face. The round blue eyes which would cloud over whenever Althea asked about her past. The evasive-ness.
Lies
. The bubbles popped and softly broke against her eyes, her face. In this realm, she didn’t know how she should feel. She had so many questions.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.”

Althea’s eyes settled on the sun. In this place, the sun shone without burning and she could look directly at it, its colors buttery and brilliant. Thought she loved its warmth, the sun lacked the complexity of the moon. It lacked mystery.

“Please tell me the truth.”

“The truth is that the child that Sophie miscarried was a boy. After you were born, Sophie began referring to him as Gregg, and she changed her name, and yours, to Brecht. She never let Gregory go.”

“I never had a brother.”

‘No hon, you didn’t.”

“And my father was never killed in an auto accident.”

“That’s right.”

For a moment, Althea felt as if she was going to cry. But it was different here, and instead, she felt buoyed up, full, in a way that was free of heaviness or despair. This place calmed her, and she felt like a thick, opaque gauze was being lifted from her face, her eyes, her body, her heart.
This is what truth feels like
. The horizon she faced became clearer, as if an ocular lens had created a slight magnification of everything around her. It made sense. It made so much sense. Why Sophie was so secretive about their past. Her need for control. Her obsession with Althea. Everything. In her throat, an airy curiosity settled. She wanted to know everything now. Everything that would help her to unravel the tangle of her past. Her mother had been lying to her, her whole life.
But why?

“Sophie was manipulative, obsessed, she lied. And you knew that. Why did you marry her?”

“Well, this may not make sense to you, but Sophie helped me out. I was a drinker back then, you know? And I wasn’t on good terms with my family, and sometimes I wasn’t on good terms with the law. Sophie helped me get dry, kept me safe. When Gregory didn’t come back from the war, we comforted each other, and after she lost the baby, Sophie tried to end her own life. Twice. Pills and alcohol. I found her, both times. It was quite a scene, the scariest time of my life and the darkest period of hers. I helped her, too. She’d say, in the end, I gave her another reason to live.”

“Which was what? To have another child? I’m assuming Sophie
is
my mother.”