by Luanne Rice
“Dylan,” she whispered. They touched each other’s cheeks so tenderly. Her fingers brushed his beard. She thought of those stories on the Internet, her memory of Isabel’s picture in his kitchen, and she realized that she had stayed connected to him through their shared grief. “I wish,” she began.
“Tell me what you wish,” he said.
“I wish we could begin again. I wish I could have been wise enough to handle everything better. I wish . . .”
“You handled it fine,” he said. “I was wrong.”
“No,” she said.
“I was. You just wanted to—know Chloe.”
She kept her hand against his face, waiting.
“You wanted to know your daughter. And she’s so great, so worth knowing! She’s right here, living in the orchard, keeping us all in line. And you know what, Jane?”
“What, Dylan?”
“I think I was jealous. Am jealous, in a way.”
“But of what?”
“That you can know your daughter,” he whispered. “And I can’t know mine.”
Jane’s heart smashed open. She heard the fiddle playing downstairs, and it coaxed tears from Dylan’s eyes, and Jane could only kiss them away. She tasted his salt tears and thought of the Narragansett Bay tides and the wash of the great Atlantic on the cliffs outside Maison du Soleil.
“You can know her,” Jane whispered. “You already know her . . .”
Dylan didn’t speak.
“I knew Chloe,” Jane said. “Even before I met her last spring. I knew her; she was of me, Dylan. Just as Isabel is of you . . . and with you. I know she’s always with you. Forever.”
He put his arms around her and held her close. She felt his strong chest and shoulders enveloping her as if he wanted to make her a part of him, too, and him a part of her. Their lips met, and they kissed, and it was so slow and warm and eternal that with her eyes closed, Jane honestly wasn’t sure where their separate bodies began and ended.
“I like that word,” he said.
“Which one?”
“Forever,” he said. “I like it a lot.”
“It’s a good word,” she agreed.
The music spun downstairs, a sweet reel. Dylan opened his mouth to say something, then just smiled and kissed Jane again. They lay in the hay, hearts beating madly against each other, as the dance went on beneath them and the moon rose higher in the sky outside. Suddenly they heard a thud. And then another.
“Someone’s throwing apples at us,” Dylan said.
“Let me guess,” Jane said, looking up, grinning as her eyes locked with Chloe’s, beside Mona, leaning down from the cupola.
Margaret was dressed and ready. She wore her best fall coat—a lovely brown cashmere coat she had bought at Gladdings, just before her retirement. Not knowing what life on a principal’s pension would be, she had treated herself. And what a good investment it had turned out to be: Ten years later, and it was still as beautiful as the day she’d purchased it.
The van traveled along the dark country roads, cloaked in darkness. Margaret had asked the driver to open the window a little, and the scent of autumn, rich with the decay of fallen leaves, filled the van. Margaret was strapped in, restrained in a sense, but when she smelled those leaves and the autumn air of her beloved Rhode Island, she felt young and free.
“I’m going to a dance,” she said out loud.
“That’s right, Margaret,” the driver called back.
“My daughters will be there.”
“I know. That’s wonderful.”
“I’m going to meet my granddaughter.”
“You must be very excited.”
“Oh, I am. Her name is Clove.”
“Clove is an unusual name.”
“Not Clove. Rosie.”
“That’s pretty.”
“No, wait. It’s not Rosie. It’s . . . something else . . .”
Margaret closed her eyes. The van was bumpy. The others were asleep. They slept all the time. People in the home got so tired. Perhaps it was all that life they had already lived. So much life! With so many memories, each chock-full of joy and sorrow. That was one of the lessons Margaret had learned. . . .
Perhaps more important than math, history, science, or even—yes, even English, were the lessons of the heart. Margaret the principal could scarcely believe she was having such heretical thoughts. But her life on this earth had taught her this: that love, in the end, was all that mattered. Friends, families, suitors, husbands: Goodness abounded in all of them.
If only she had imparted that teaching to her darlings, her daughters. She feared that she had been too strict with them. Too held-back in ways of love, too restrained. So hurt by their father, she had taught them that all men were to be mistrusted.
Looking to her left, looking to her right, she felt a strange mix of sadness and joy, to realize that she was learning a different lesson now.
“Ralph,” she said, tapping his right arm gently. Then, turning to the other side, tugging Bill’s sleeve. “Billy—wake up. We’re almost there.”
“Arrch,” Ralph said. “We there yet?”
“Not quite, but almost,” Margaret said.
“You rouse Billy?” Ralph asked.
“I’m trying,” Margaret said. “He’s having quite a nap.”
“It’s a sad day,” Ralph said, “when two grown men can’t stay awake the fifteen miles it takes to escort their lady to a dance.”
“Am I your lady?” Margaret smiled.
“Yes,” Ralph said, squeezing her hand. “But don’t tell Billy. Get him up, now. We want him pulled together by the time we walk in. And I say ‘walk in’ with a grain of salt. My lady . . .”
She couldn’t stop smiling. Leaning over, she jostled Bill’s arm. “Dear,” she said very loudly. “We are ALMOST THERE.”
“Trunngh,” Billy said, babbling as a bit of spit slid onto his lovely blue tweed jacket. Margaret had her tissue ready; he started to cry. “Freniiii. Laxiday. Grennwill!”
“I know, Billy,” she soothed, wiping his eyes. “I know.”
“Come to, man,” Ralph commanded. “We’ll be fighting over who gets to dance with Margaret first, and I want a fair battle. Get yourself into fighting trim here.”
“Fine,” Bill said. “Very good. We almost there?”
“We are, in fact,” Margaret said, as the van was suddenly filled with an almost magical scent of apples. Spicy, sharp, sweet . . . it was as if, driving through the split-rail fence that delineated the boundary of Chadwick Orchards, they had just entered the Garden of Eden.
“I get first dance,” Ralph said, kissing her left cheek.
“No, I do,” Billy said, kissing her right one.
Margaret closed her eyes, but the moon was so full and bright she could see pictures and faces and scenes from her life. She thought of how much she had loved to dance with the girls’ father. Thomas had been such a wonderful dancer. He had given her many happy times on the dance floor. He had given her two beautiful daughters.
Daughters, Margaret thought. Tonight I shall officially meet Jane’s daughter.
The driver parked the van. Music filled the air. Margaret adjusted Bill’s hearing aid so he could hear it. Ralph squeezed her arm. Margaret smelled the apples. The driver slid open the van door. He was a nice young man—his name was Ernest. Margaret smiled at him.
“Ready, Margaret?” he asked.
She nodded. And then she remembered.
“Chloe,” she said. “My granddaughter’s name is Chloe.”
They all saw the van’s arrival from the cupola: Chloe, Mona, Dylan, and Jane. It drove up the winding hill through the apple trees, with slow grace, as if it held visiting dignitaries. Jane sensed Chloe’s excitement mingled with nervousness.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” Chloe asked.
“She’ll love you,” Jane said.
“She might be mad at me.”
“How could she be?”
“For almost ruining
your life,” Chloe said.
Jane swallowed hard. The others were standing right there in the small space, but she had eyes only for Chloe. The girl looked up at her, eyes blue and clear as a hillside stream. They held impenetrable mysteries and questions and every answer Jane had ever dreamed of.
“You could never do that,” Jane said.
“I think I could,” Chloe said. “And did . . . see, I know.”
Jane stared.
“You know I know, because you were there. It wasn’t for long—certainly not nine whole months—but for a little while in June, I thought, I thought . . .”
Dylan took a deep breath. Had he heard this before? Jane didn’t know, but she knew it was so courageous of Chloe to say.
“Thought I was pregnant,” Chloe said.
“But you weren’t,” Jane reminded her.
Chloe nodded. “But in those days, when I was afraid I was . . . I felt like you did. I didn’t realize it at the time. All I knew was that I was so scared, so worried. I pictured my parents finding out, my life changing forever. School would be over; everyone would see me getting bigger . . . they’d all know.”
“Oh, Chloe,” Jane said, closing her eyes, involuntarily touching her own stomach, remembering what it had been like to be so young and be so visibly pregnant, to be sent away to live at St. Joseph’s.
“And all I could think was, my life was ruined . . . like yours.”
Jane’s eyes flew open. “But my life wasn’t! Not at all! I had you—”
“And had to give me up,” Chloe said. “When I thought I was pregnant, I thought about what I would do. And the hardest part, the thing I couldn’t stand, was imagining handing my baby away . . . It would be like having all the bad stuff, all the life-ruining bad stuff, and then giving up the best part. The baby.”
“You were the best part,” Jane said, eyes shining, in awe of her daughter’s empathy.
“But you had to let me go,” Chloe said.
Jane nodded. “But I held you. I held you for such a short time, but . . .” She stopped, swallowed. “It was enough. In a way, it was enough.”
“How?” Chloe asked. “Could it have been? It wasn’t enough for me . . .” She grabbed Jane’s hand.
“She’s here now,” Dylan said, stepping forward as if he knew they were both about to start crying so hard they might never stop.
“You found each other again,” Mona said.
“We had radar for each other,” Chloe said, smiling. “Yeah, that’s what it was.”
“Radar,” Jane said. “Okay, I can see that.”
“Can I ask you one thing?” Chloe asked. “Before we all go downstairs to the party?”
“The hootenanny,” Mona corrected.
Chloe nodded. “Right,” she said.
“Sure,” Jane said. “Ask me anything.”
“Why’d you name me Chloe?” She asked the question and lost a shade of color. Even her lips were pale, as if she thought the secret to her existence might be hanging on Jane’s answer. Jane saw her actually take Mona’s arm, as if she needed the physical support.
“Do we need a drum roll?” Mona asked.
Dylan laughed, but even his eyes were full of anticipation.
Jane smiled, blushing slightly. She thought back. She had never said these things out loud. The story of Chloe’s name had always been so private, just between her and . . . Chloe. . . .
The idea, as she faced her teenaged daughter now, made her laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Chloe asked.
“It’s funny,” she said, “because you told me.”
“Told you my name?”
Jane nodded. She felt time spinning, making her almost dizzy, as she went back to that train ride home from seeing Jeffrey at Pennsylvania Station. She had been so tired, and she had slept. And she had dreamed . . . and she had dreamed of Chloe.
“I was on a train,” she said. “And I was very tired . . . slept the whole way . . .” She decided to leave out her feelings about Jeffrey. She would have to think about what to say about him, if anything. “And the train was rushing all along the shoreline, that stretch of the Connecticut coast, where you can see a lot of water. Harbors and beaches, Long Island Sound . . .”
“Okay,” Chloe said, raising one eyebrow skeptically. “Who were you with?”
“I was alone, but I was with you,” Jane said.
Chloe just listened.
“We were together,” Jane said. “It’s hard to explain now, but that’s how I felt. That it was you and me, on the train. I had just found out about you. And I had no idea of whether you were a boy or a girl. But I did have an idea—as a matter of fact, I knew for sure.”
“That I was a girl?”
Jane nodded. “And I had this dream.” She closed her eyes for just two seconds, and the whole dream came back, just as if she was still having it. Which, in a way, she was, she realized as she looked into the eyes of her daughter.
“And the dream was of you. You were beautiful. You were tiny, but not quite an infant. Maybe three or four. With dark, dark hair, and bright blue eyes. And you spoke in complete sentences—just like an adult.”
“She did,” Dylan filled in. “That’s what actually happened.”
Jane nodded, not at all surprised. “I said to you, ‘What are we going to do?’ And you said, ‘I want to go to the beach.’ And I said, ‘But what will happen if I look away, and I can’t see you?’ And you said, ‘You’ll call for me.’ I had to say, because I didn’t know, ‘What will I call? What is your name?’ ”
“And I said, ‘Chloe,’ ” Chloe said quietly.
Jane nodded.
They stared at each other for a long time. Jane didn’t dare speak for a long moment. Because the girl in her dream had just become this girl in real life, and she suddenly realized, with a swift shock, that the dream had been true all along.
Downstairs, the music was so pretty. The guitar went off on a twangy riff, and then the fiddle came in to lift the song right up to the stars. Jane thought of them all, standing on this platform in the sky. She couldn’t take her eyes off Chloe.
“The story of your name,” Mona said, sighing.
“It’s even better than I thought,” Chloe said.
Jane nodded. It was better now, because she had had the chance to tell it. The music downstairs changed, and Jane heard applause.
“That’s for the old people,” Chloe explained.
“It is?” Jane asked.
“It’s a barn dance tradition,” Dylan said. “We clap for our elders.”
“Because they’re so wise,” Chloe said.
Jane and Dylan exchanged a skeptical look. The girls gathered the remaining apples in their skirts, bunched them on their hips like drawstring bags, and climbed down the stairs. Jane stood in the cupola, gazing down at the glossy top of her daughter’s raven-dark head. It made her feel like a melting ice cube.
Dylan touched her hand. “Look,” he said, pointing out the window.
A cluster of deer were grazing in the startling, brilliant, silvery moonlight. Their coats were rich and brown. The fawns were dappled, almost invisible in the tall wheaten grass. A lone owl cruised among the trees. Red apples were heavy on the boughs.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Jane said.
“It is,” Dylan agreed.
The band struck up a waltz. It was a long way down, and Dylan’s limp made him move slowly. Jane thought of her mother, waiting. She thought of Chloe emerging from the hayloft, being led across the floor to be introduced—perhaps by Sylvie and John, perhaps by Sharon and Eli. Maybe by all four. Chloe had a lot of family.
Jane wanted to witness the moment. But the waltz was playing, and as she had learned that hot day in New York, life was in the moment, and love was in the moment, wherever you happened to be. So she held out her arms.
Dance with me? her eyes seemed to say.
Dylan knew what she meant. So there in the cupola, with t
he fiddle playing far below, they stepped into each other’s arms and let the music take them wherever it wanted.
About the Author
LUANNE RICE is the author of Dance With Me, The Perfect Summer, The Secret Hour, True Blue, Summer Light, Safe Harbor, Firefly Beach, Dream Country, Follow the Stars Home—a Hallmark Hall of Fame feature—Cloud Nine, Home Fires, Secrets of Paris, Stone Heart, Angels All Over Town, Crazy In Love (made into a TNT Network feature film), and Blue Moon (made into a CBS television film). She lives in New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut.
ALSO BY LUANNE RICE
The Perfect Summer
The Secret Hour
True Blue
Safe Harbor
Summer Light
Firefly Beach
Dream Country
Follow the Stars Home
Cloud Nine
Home Fires
Blue Moon
Secrets of Paris
Stone Heart
Crazy in Love
Angels All Over Town
DANCE WITH ME
A Bantam Book / February 2004
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2004 by Luanne Rice
Title page photograph from Corbis Stock Market
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