Dance with Me

by Luanne Rice

  The bee circled a funnel up through the air, up to the tree branches. He watched it trace figure eights in the blue sky. Its wings were a black blur. It was doing its work, pollinating the trees. Without the bee, the orchard would die. Just like without love, people died. Dylan had felt himself draining away, before Jane. He scowled, watching the bee, thinking about how some things in life were impossible. In fact, he thought, most things.

  This orchard, for instance.

  It was one big crazy, uphill climb. One huge cosmic impossibility.

  Dylan sat under the tree, watching the bee, thinking about it. All apple varieties were unable to pollinate themselves or flowers of the same apple variety. To achieve high-quality fruit, it was necessary to cross-pollinate by planting different varieties of apple trees together. Bloom dates had to overlap, so that both trees would bloom at the same time.

  And how was a human being—a goddamn retired lawman, at that—supposed to coordinate bloom dates? Other factors had to be considered. Some apple varieties, such as Jonagold, Stayman, Winesap, and Mutsu, produced sterile pollen, and could never be used as pollenizers. Yet pollen from other varieties could be used to pollinate those pollen-sterile trees.

  Really, the honey bee did all the work.

  Dylan sat on the warm ground, staring at that bee. He thought of Jane, carrying Chloe’s picture in her locket for over fifteen years. He thought of Chloe, doctoring her ID in order to trick the clerk at Family Court into giving up her adoption records.

  Two people after the same thing: connection.

  In some ways, the whole thing seemed so right. Then why did it feel, to Dylan sitting under the half-dead apple tree, so wrong?

  CHAPTER 24

  Jane drove away from Dylan’s in a daze, and she started to go home, but instead she pointed her car toward town, the hospital. She wanted her mother. It was a sudden, instant, primal desire. She parked close to the entrance, walked up the sidewalk, pushed the elevator button, all in a state of numbness.

  When she got to the room, she found her mother sitting up in bed, the TV tuned to a game show. Jane stood in the doorway. Her heart caught, for about a hundred different reasons. Right at the top of the list, in that exact moment, was the sight of her brilliant, scholarly mother watching some tanned and blond game show host awarding microwave ovens to the winners on his show.

  “Hi, Mom,” Jane said.

  “Oh, honey,” her mother said, fumbling for the remote, turning down the sound. “You caught me.”

  “Caught you?”

  Her mother blushed. “I was so bored, I’ve resorted to something I swore I’d never do—watching TV during the daytime. But the medication makes me so sleepy, I can’t really concentrate on reading. I start a book, and I get drowsy halfway through the first page!”

  “That must be hard,” Jane said, pulling the chair over. “I know how you love to read.”

  “Books have saved my life,” her mother said, with complete seriousness. “During all the hard times . . .”

  “I know what you mean,” Jane said, thinking of how often she’d gotten lost in wonderful books over the years, made friends with the characters and authors, felt herself elevated, even temporarily, from the difficulties of her own life.

  Her mother gestured at the TV screen. “Game shows, programs like that, are . . . well, they’re like cotton candy. They taste sweet and easy, and the more you eat, the more you think you want. But they leave you feeling a little . . . depleted.”

  Jane listened, closing her eyes. Dylan’s words and the look in his eyes resonated, echoing through her whole body. She had to hug herself, to keep herself from shaking.

  “Books do the opposite,” her mother said. “No matter how entertaining, or thrilling or romantic, they nourish a person. They’re like a full-course meal for the heart and soul . . .” Her voice broke, and she buried her head in her hands.

  “What is it, Mom?” Jane asked, leaning forward.

  “I miss my books!” her mother cried.

  “Oh, Mom . . . you’ll have them soon enough. The social worker told me and Sylvie they want to discharge you soon.”

  “To . . . a . . .” her mother gulped, “nursing home!”

  Jane held her mother’s hand. Being part of a family was such a mystical thing: you could walk in, thinking you had the most terrible problem on earth, and someone you loved would come at you with something even worse. How had her mother heard about this? Jane and Sylvie had planned to talk to her together.

  “Who talked to you about that?” Jane asked.

  “Sylvie,” her mother said, sniffing. “Last night.”

  Jane nodded, feeling guilty. She hadn’t realized that Sylvie might have had an agenda. Or perhaps Abby had seen her there and grabbed the moment.

  Jane had dropped the pies off at Dylan’s, and then Chloe and Mona had begged for the ride to Newport; if only Jane had kept her plans with Sylvie. She could have supported her sister and mother, and Dylan wouldn’t have looked in her locket. Her body trembled from head to toe: an earthquake of emotion.

  “Is that where you think I belong?” her mother asked now, as if she hadn’t asked the same question several times in the past weeks.

  “You’ve been falling,” Jane said, as if she hadn’t said the same thing several times before.

  “And forgetting,” her mother said, covering her eyes. “That’s the worst part; I was lying before, honey, when I said the medication makes me forget what I’m reading. It’s not that at all—it just happens. It’s just my mind . . . I was so smart!”

  “Oh, Mom, you still are!”

  Her mother shook her head, sobbing softly. “I can barely follow the game show. I forget what is happening. My books, my books . . .”

  Jane closed her eyes, feeling her mother’s thin hand. She thought of the blood running through her mother’s veins, a river of time and love, passing it to Jane and Sylvie, passing it to Chloe. She thought of her mother’s love of books, of stories, a river of words carrying symbols and meaning, tying them all together. Books and mothers and children, beloved to Margaret, beloved to Jane.

  “Oh, Sylvie, oh, Jane,” her mother said, getting her daughters confused, lifting their clasped hands to her lips. She kissed Jane’s hands. Then, fingers interlocked, she used the back of Jane’s hand to wipe her own eyes. “You look so sad . . . I’m sorry for telling you my problems.”

  Jane tried to smile, but she couldn’t. She felt grief for her mother’s forgetfulness and inability to read. The sorrow, the reality, of not being able to hold on to the things you loved washed through her.

  “What is it, honey?” her mother asked, looking deeply into her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “I want my baby,” Jane whispered.

  Her mother didn’t speak, and she didn’t let go of Jane’s hand. She just sat still, in her hospital bed, gazing at her daughter. Her skin was very soft, remarkably unlined; a lifetime of loving books had kept her in the shade, out of the sun.

  Words were impossible. Jane couldn’t explain what was going on inside her heart just then. A physical need to see her mother, to be with her blood, had pulled her straight from Dylan’s room to the hospital; the same pull existed in the opposite direction. It had nothing to do with reasoning or logic; the signal came from the heart.

  Her mother was silent. But Jane could read in her eyes that she understood. Margaret Porter, school principal, finally understood. That fact was amazing. It was as if, losing certain connections in her brain, she found the link in her heart.

  “I wanted what was best for you,” her mother said, finally.

  Jane tried to nod.

  “Your father had left us,” she said. “I was bitter. He had left me with the responsibility of raising two sensitive, brilliant young girls. When that boy did what he did—”

  “Got me pregnant,” Jane said.

  Her mother flinched, but she nodded. “I hated him. I despised him for robbing you of a chance at life. I let my own feelings
for your father leak into my decision making. I saw the pregnancy as something that was done to you—I forgot all about the fact that there was someone else involved.”

  Jane squeezed her eyes tight, the pain suddenly acute.

  “Chloe,” her mother said.

  Jane stared. Her mother had never used her daughter’s name before. She could hardly believe it—her mother had refused to personalize the baby, make her part of the family enough to acknowledge that Jane had given her a name.

  “I did you both a disservice,” her mother whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was so focused on scholarship—on your chances to excel in English, to become a professor; I knew, from raising you and Sylvie alone, how hard it was. Yet, oh, God . . . I wouldn’t trade one minute of it. I know that now . . .”

  Jane heard sorrowful regret in her mother’s voice, and she leaned over the bed rail to hold her mother tight. “I had worked for my master’s,” her mother said. “Trying to compete with younger students, without any families to take care of. I looked at you, so young, setting the world on fire—setting the Ivy League on fire! And I felt it was my motherly duty to step in. But what I’ve deprived you of!”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Mom. I’ve blamed you, it’s true. But I know, deep down, I was afraid of being a mother. I didn’t know till after I gave her up what it would do to me.”

  “What did it do to you?” her mother asked, head hidden in Jane’s shoulder, as if afraid of hearing the answer.

  “It turned me inside out,” Jane said, still hearing baby Chloe’s cries as they took her from her mother’s arms and carried her away.

  They held each other for a long time. Abby Goodheart poked her head into the room, but when she saw them hugging, she went away. Jane had longed to hear her mother say these things for so long. She thought of Dylan, the look in his eyes last night.

  “I know you’ve seen her,” Margaret said. “You haven’t told me, but I’ve guessed that’s where you go.”

  “She’s wonderful,” Jane said.

  “I expected nothing less of your daughter.”

  “I wish . . .” Jane began.

  Margaret tilted her head, waiting.

  Jane looked out the window. Heat rose from cars parked in the hospital lot. “Her uncle knows who I am. He figured it out last night. It’s over now.”

  “What’s over?” Margaret asked her daughter.

  “My chance to be in Chloe’s life.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he caught me in a lie; I entered their world under false pretenses. He sees me as a bad person, and he’ll tell her that.”

  Margaret began to smile. Her soft cheeks drew back, and the smile widened.

  “What are you smiling for?” Jane asked.

  “Because, my darling, if nothing else, you should learn from my colossal stupidity.”

  “Learn what?” Jane asked.

  “That family members, no matter how well-meaning, don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “But he’s her uncle—he has her best interests at heart.”

  “As did I. For you . . .”

  Jane’s heart began to quicken. She saw Dylan looming over her, staring at Chloe’s picture in her locket. Then thrusting his own photo of Chloe into Jane’s hands. People dueling with love: that was the image that filled her mind.

  “I love her,” Jane said.

  “Then that is what must guide you,” her mother said.

  “He loves her, too.”

  “Love isn’t mutually exclusive. . . . Let it guide you.”

  Jane nodded, standing up. As she did, the cell phone that she had put on vibrate buzzed against her hip. She took it out, read an unfamiliar Rhode Island number, decided to check it when she got outside. “It always has; I just wasn’t sure where to go before.”

  “But you do now?”

  “I do,” Jane said.

  Her mother kissed her. Sylvie entered the room; the sisters exchanged a look. Sylvie’s was full of reproach.

  “You were supposed to be here last night,” she said.

  “I know. I’m so sorry; I didn’t realize you were meeting with Abby.”

  “We didn’t have it scheduled—she happened to be free, and she passed by the room. John and I were here, so she pulled up a chair . . . and we started talking.” She cast a glance at their mother, who was leaning back on her pillows, eyes closed, smiling slightly, as if remembering what she and Jane had said at the end. The TV was on, a picture without sound. Their mother had fallen asleep. Probably not very deeply—it was just a catnap, one of many she took in a day. But her eyes remained closed, and her head had dropped down so that her chin was resting on her chest. “How is she today?” Sylvie asked.

  “She’s sad about her books,” Jane said.

  Sylvie glanced over at the bed. Their mother’s skin was pale, but she had two bright spots of color on her cheeks.

  “She doesn’t look sad,” Sylvie said.

  “We talked about Chloe,” Jane said.

  Sylvie’s eyes widened.

  “She called her by name,” Jane said. “It was the first time . . .”

  At that, Sylvie shook her head.

  “She said her name often, to me,” Sylvie said. “Mom wasn’t denying Chloe’s existence—she just couldn’t stand seeing you in pain. She thought if we didn’t mention her, you wouldn’t miss her so badly.”

  “But how could I not?” Jane asked. “How would that be possible?”

  Sylvie nodded. She looked happier, fuller, somehow. Jane knew that she had fallen in love with John, and that love had changed her. It had warmed her, filled her, made her whole. Jane had started feeling that way with Dylan. She forced herself past thinking of him. She had to concentrate on Chloe now; on making things right with Chloe. “At least you got to see her, to meet her,” Jane said.

  “Oh, Janey,” Sylvie said, hugging her really hard. “Do you think we never saw her before? Mom used to visit her school every year. On some pretext—the principal seeing how they did it in other schools. And after the first few times, she always took me with her.”

  “What did Mom think? To see her?” Jane whispered, staring at their mother.

  “She thought the same thing I did, that she’s beautiful. That’s she’s got your spirit.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” Jane said.

  “Were you with them last night?” Sylvie asked.

  Jane stared at her hands—Chloe’s hands. She thought of the drive through Newport, the feeling of salt wind coming through the cab of Dylan’s truck. She thought of the hurt, furious look in his eyes. Her gaze flickered up to meet Sylvie’s. When they were young, before Chloe’s birth, they had been so close. And then Jane had become a mother.

  A ghost mother.

  With as much love as any live mother in the world, but no baby to give it to. And Jane had changed. The heart had gone out of her. Nothing was ever the same. So now, wanting to confide in Sylvie about what had happened last night, Jane had to hold back hot tears.

  “What is it, Jane?” Sylvie asked, stepping forward.

  Jane bit her lip. Love did such strange things. It gave people a reason to live. It caused heartache and betrayals. It brought families together and drove them apart—sometimes at the same time. Right now, it was causing Jane to keep her own counsel until she had the chance to set things straight with Chloe.

  “Can I tell you later?” Jane asked. “I want to talk to you, but not right now . . .”

  “Sure,” Sylvie said, looking worried.

  Just then, their mother woke up.

  “Hello, girls,” she said, covering her mouth as she yawned. “Where have you been all day? I’ve been so lonely, waiting for you to arrive!”

  “Mom—I was here,” Jane said, feeling panicked to think her mother might have forgotten what they’d talked about, wanting to ask her about the times she had secretly visited Chloe’s school. “Remember? We spoke abo
ut Chloe . . .”

  “Sssh,” her mother said, blinking the sleep from her eyes, raising a finger to her lips. “Sssh . . . don’t mention her name. Jane might hear, and it would make her so sad . . . so very sad . . .”

  “We’ll talk later,” Sylvie said, leaning over to hug Jane.

  Jane nodded. That was just as well. She kissed her sister. She was done with words for the moment. She had to go outside and think of what she was going to say to her daughter.

  And as things turned out, she didn’t have long to wait. When she checked her messages, to see who had called, she heard Chloe’s voice asking to call her back on Mona’s cell phone. She did, right away.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mona? It’s Jane—”

  “Oh! Hi! Chloe’s right here!”

  Jane held on, listening to Chloe finish up a pie transaction at the stand. After half a minute, Chloe came on the line.

  “Hi, Jane?” she asked.

  “Yes, Chloe, I’m here,” Jane said, trying to breathe, hoping Dylan hadn’t talked to her yet.

  “Jane—can you come pick me up? At the stand? I need to get another egnancy-pay est-tay,” Chloe said as Mona shrieked in the background, “You goon! I’m the only one here, and I already know all about it!”

  Jane stood on the hospital sidewalk, ear pressed to the phone. And of course she answered, “I’ll be right there.” When she hung up, she stood there for just another few seconds, feeling pierced by Chloe’s voice, and her request, and the fact that she’d been the one Chloe had called, and every single thing.

  CHAPTER 25

  Chloe waited by the side of the road. Mona was going to hold down the fort till she got back. It was just before noon, and the day was hot. Steam was rising from the pavement. A dunk in the stream would feel good. Chloe raised her eyes, looked through the apple trees, past the barn. She wished she were a little child who could just abandon her cares and enjoy the summer day.

  “What time is she coming?” Mona asked.

  “Any minute,” Chloe said as she resumed watching the road. Her stomach dipped.

  “Think good thoughts,” Mona instructed. “Tell your body it cannot be pregnant. It will listen to you.”