by Peggy Webb
With his hands gripping the arms of his wheelchair and his own head bared to the rain, Jim Standing Bear sat on his rooftop and watched the distant figure in white twirling around her garden.
Occasionally the wind caught the sound of her laughter and wafted it to Jim’s rooftop perch. It was balm to his battered soul.
Sarah held her father tightly, careful of the bricks. That’s the last thing she needed: broken bones.
“You dance very well, Ginger,” he said.
“So do you, Fred.”
Her father laughed. “Why shouldn’t I? I’m the best of them all. I’m the man who danced on the ceiling.”
Sarah’s heart broke a little. The man who thought he was Fred Astair was Dr. Eric Sloan, one of the greatest heart surgeons in America. And one of the finest men in the world.
He was more than a father to her. He was her friend, mentor, co-worker. He was her entire world.
Except for her sister Julie, of course.
The confrontation she’d had with her sister earlier in the day played through her mind.
“You shouldn’t encourage him in his fantasies,” Julie had said.
“If I try to correct him, he gets upset. The truth only confuses and saddens him, Julie.”
“How is he ever going to keep things straight if you play these little games with him, Sarah?”
“That’s just it, Julie. Dad is never going to keep things straight. Never.”
Julie began to cry, and even crying she looked like one of the glamorous stars who had stepped down from the screen of the movie, The Great Gatsby.
Sarah put her arms around her sister. Giving comfort. Receiving comfort. They both cried awhile, then Sarah was the first to recover.
“We’ll get through this together, Julie. Three against the world. Remember?”
That brought a smile to Julie’s face.
“Yeah, three Musketeers, three little pigs, three little bears.”
Now they were both smiling. Julie had been seven and Sarah a newborn when Helen Sloan died. Eric had stepped into the gap, moving his office back home to be with his girls.
“Three against the world,” he’d say to them, and they’d all join hands and dance around the living room.
Eric Sloan had not only been a superb doctor but a superb dancer as well. Now it was the only memory he had. Dancing. Sarah wasn’t about to take that away from him.
She’d glanced at her father, leaning against the grand piano in Julie’s house, his feet tapping to the rhythmn of imaginary music. Seeing the direction of her gaze, Julie sobered.
“I just don’t know what to do. Tell me, Sarah. You’ve always known how to cope.”
Her sister had summarized Sarah’s life in one sentence. Give Sarah a problem and she could solve it. Put her in the midst of chaos and she could organize it. Present her with an emergency and she could survive it.
What she couldn’t do was bat her eyes and have the world swoon at her feet. She couldn’t turn heads and set hearts a-flutter. She couldn’t win parts in plays and be the life of the party. She couldn’t even follow her dream.
As long as she could remember she’d wanted to be a professional dancer, not necessarily a prima ballerina, but one of the line, dancing onstage with spotlights glittering like stars, shining straight to her heart.
After years of study and hard work, she’d gone to her first audition in New York. Waiting backstage hidden behind the curtain she’d overheard the other girls talking. “What does Sarah Sloan think this is? The barnyard ballet? She’ll never make the cut. She’s too homely.”
She hadn’t made it. Not that day nor all the days and weeks afterward. She’d left New York, gone back to school and become the best teacher anybody could want.
But the words had sunk into her soul. No matter where she was, what she did, Sarah remembered.
Her father’s voice brought her back to the garden where the two of them danced his fantasy.
“It’s raining, Ginger,” her father said.
“Yes, it is. We’d better go back inside before you catch a chill.”
“Can I stay a while longer?” Her father sat on the bench beneath the stone angel. “I want to watch you dance.”
Her father had always loved to watch her dance. It was another memory he hadn’t lost. Sarah opened the umbrella for her father, then turned back to the garden and began to dance just as she did in her dreams, her movements free and easy, her face shining with tears.
She couldn’t have said whether she was crying in sad exultation that her father remembered how she had once danced, or whether she was crying for the girl she had once been.
The rain came down harder.
“It’s time to go inside, Dad.”
Instead of feeling chilled she suddenly felt energized. She was in a new home, a new place. Pensacola had good medical facilities, good doctors.
She would hire someone to help with her dad, then she would find a job. Good teachers were always in demand.
Meanwhile she had this private haven, a lovely secret garden. She would transform it into a wonderland. A stage. A place of dreams.
“You’re still up here?” Ben hurried onto the rooftop patio. “Man, you don’t even have a jacket. You’re going to catch cold.”
He pulled off his jacket and tossed it to Jim. “Let’s get off this roof. I’ve got microwave popcorn and a Roy Rogers video waiting downstairs.”
“What more could a man want?”
Ben punched the button, and they got onto the elevator. “You sound almost cheerful. The telescope did some good, huh?”
Jim thought of the woman. She’d stayed in the garden almost two hours, dancing. Even after she went inside, Jim hadn’t wanted to leave the spot where he’d watched her in secret.
“You might say that.”
On the bottom floor, the brothers went into the kitchen where they dried off with towels Ben retrieved from the adjoining laundry room. Afterward he turned his attention to popping corn.
“You’ll never guess who’s living next door,” he said.
“Are you going to make me?”
“Dr. Eric Sloan. My God, the man’s a legend, and he’s living right next door to you.”
Relief washed over Jim. The woman’s partner had been her father.
He didn’t have to be in the medical profession to know of the famous doctor. He’d pioneered a technique in the field of cardiology that had given him worldwide acclaim.
“I thought he was doing mission work somewhere in Mexico.”
“La Joya. He’s been down there for years with one of his daughters, but he developed Alzheimer’s and she brought him back to the States.”
Jim wondered if that was the daughter he’d seen in the garden. What did it matter? Disgusted at himself, he wheeled into the den.
Ben called after him. “The popcorn’s not finished. Don’t start without me.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, kid. Don’t I always take care of you?”
Jim had been taking care of his younger brother since their parents had died when a roller-coaster left its tracks at the state fair. Two-year-old Ben hadn’t let go of his twelve-year-old brother’s hand until six months after they’d settled into the orphanage.
The smell of popcorn preceded Ben into the room. “I put extra butter on yours, Jim.” He handed his brother a bowl, then settled into an easy chair with his feet up. “By the way, I saw Chuck at Trader Bill’s tonight. He asked about you.
Commander Chuck Sayers, lead solo pilot in the Number Five plane and was one of Jim’s closest friends.
“They’re all asking about you, Jim. They’re wondering why you won’t see them.”
Because they remind me of everything I’ve lost, Jim thought, of conquering the skies, of flying into sunsets and sunrises and heavens so achingly beautiful they make a grown man cry, of touching the face of God.
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them you were working so hard at your physic
al therapy you hardly had time for anything else, that you barely had time for me.”
“Thanks, kid.”
Ben put the movie in, then settled back into his chair with the remote control. “Don’t thank me, Jim. I’m not going to keep making excuses for you. You’re getting out of this house if I have to kick your butt.” Ben threw a handful of popcorn at him.
Jim lobbed a few grains at his brother. “You and which navy?”
Ben began to rattle off the names of the Blue Angels. “Chuck, Glenn, Russell…”
“Start the movie. It’s late and I’m tired and we’ll have to clean up all this popcorn before Delta comes.”
Delta, the maid. The only woman Jim knew who could put the fear of God into him.
“What’s all that popcorn doing in the den?” Delta marched into the weight room without knocking and stood in front of the machine Jim was working on with her arms crossed and her lips poked out a mile. In love with pattern and color, she wore a red polka-dotted scarf over her gray fuzzy hair and a neon yellow apron over green-and purple-striped slacks. “You got butter all over that divan and I don’t know how I’m gonna clean it up short of burning it.”
“Burn it,” Jim said. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care about nothing since you lost your legs.”
Delta didn’t pussyfoot around. She was the only person who referred to Jim’s condition as if it were natural. He appreciated her candor. More than that, he appreciated her loyalty. She’d been taking care of him and his house for more than fifteen years without ever missing a cleaning day.
“Don’t expect a Christmas bonus from me this year, Delta.”
“Humph, I ain’t expecting nothing from you but a lot of lip.” Delta lingered under the pretext of dusting the barbells. It was her way of checking on Jim, and about as subtle as an elephant in the living room. “You better be worried about me quitting. I got another job, and I hear tell they’re nice people with manners, unlike some folks I know.”
If anybody else had suggested leaving Jim, Delta would have had their head on a platter.
“Anybody I know, Delta?”
“If you don’t, you ought to. They’re just on the other side of that brick wall.”
The weights clanked together as Jim missed a beat. He was going to be sharing a maid with the woman next door. In addition to being the best housekeeper in Pensacola, Delta was also the nosiest. And the most talkative. He could find out everything he wanted to know about the woman in the garden. Including her name.
That is, if he wanted to know.
Did he? The answer was no. He had absolutely no interest in her except as a fascinating subject to view from afar.
That particular subject occupied his mind for the better part of the day, and as soon as dark came, he was in his rooftop garden with the telescope.
The garden next door was empty. Jim started to wheel back inside, but suddenly there she was standing among the ruins that had once been a beautiful garden.
The woman next door. Dancing. And this time she was alone.
She was lithe and graceful, and she danced with such passion that Jim was moved to tears.
He lost track of time. There was only the night, the woman and the moon turning her silver.
He stayed until long after she went inside, and when he went to bed all his dreams were filled with her.
Sarah was apprehensive about meeting the housekeeper. “You’re going to like Delta,” Julie had said. “Unlike most housekeepers, she’ll do anything you ask her. She’ll be a big help with Dad.”
The doorbell rang, and there on her doorstep stood the most outrageous woman Sarah had ever seen. She was wearing so many colors she looked like a rainbow.
“Hi, I’m Delta and this is your lucky day. Miss Julie tells me you got a poor old sick daddy that don’t hardly even know he’s in the world, and I’m here to tell you that folks like that don’t scare me none. I love everybody, and God’s pitiful creatures most of all.”
Delta strode into the hall, hung her purple hat on the hat rack, then surveyed her surroundings, shaking her head. “Lord, honey, you sure can use some help.”
“We’ve just moved in. I haven’t unpacked all the boxes, and I’m afraid I got sidetracked in the garden.”
“Delta’s here now. You don’t have to worry about a thing, Miss Sarah.”
“Call me Sarah.” Sometimes when the heart is overburdened, a small kindness can reduce a person to tears. That’s how Sarah felt now, but she blinked the tears back. “You don’t know what a relief it is to have you here, Delta.”
“I wish that stubborn man next door could hear this. He don’t listen to a thing I say. If he don’t start trying to live again, I don’t know what’s going to become of him.”
Sarah had visions of a gray-haired man, much like her father, who had suffered an illness that took his body but not his mind. She had always been a romantic. She could take the least little bit of information and build an entire fantasy around it. And while she abhorred gossip she was interested in her neighbors, especially the ones on either side of her new house.
Not that she would pump the housekeeper for information. Fortunately, Delta didn’t need pumping.
“You might have heard of him, your sister living here and all.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’ve been living out of the country for years.”
“Jim Standing Bear, the Bear, they call him. He’s one of the Blue Angels. Now, I know you’ve heard of them.” Sarah nodded. “He was one of the sweetest men I ever knew till that wreck tore him all to pieces. Now, I ain’t one to gossip, but I worry about my babies, and he’s one of my babies. Mm-hmm. Been taking care of him for might ’nigh onto sixteen years, and I ain’t never seen a handsomer, kinder man. Jim Standing Bear is a gentleman through and through and anybody tells me different is gonna get walloped upside the head. It like to killed me and him both when he had to quit flying.”
Sarah’d heart contracted. She had always been partial to angels with broken wings.
“Will he ever fly again?”
“I don’t know if he’s gonna walk again, let alone fly.”
“Oh, dear.” Now, Sarah did get tears in her eyes. It was always easier to cry for somebody else. She revised her vision of the gray-haired man to somebody much younger, a tall muscular man with black hair and the blackest eyes she’d ever seen, the kind of man she used to secretly drool over at the Saturday matinee. She pictured him in Navy dress blues with gold wings pinned to his shoulder.
Upstairs, a bell began to ring. “That’s Dad. I have to go.”
“You go on up, honey, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll start in the kitchen.”
Upstairs she found her father sitting in a chair beside the window. He smiled when she came in, not the vacant smile she’d seen for the last few weeks, but the real smile full of wit and understanding.
“I’m sorry to ring, Sarah, darling, but these old legs are not what they used to be.”
She knelt beside his chair and kissed his gnarled hands. “Dad, it’s wonderful to have you back.”
“I’m afraid these moments of lucidity will become more and more infrequent. I wonder if you can accompany me into the garden and read to me? I want to take advantage of every moment I have left.”
“You know I will.” Sarah lifted a copy of Homer’s The Odyssey with a well-worn leather cover, then led her father down the curving marble staircase.
The sun was brilliant, the day was warm, especially for March, and even in its unkempt state, the garden was beautiful. She guided her father to the fountain, then sat beneath the angel with the broken wing and began to read.
Her father tilted his face up to the sun and closed his eyes, smiling. Sarah’s heart lifted. Coming to Florida had been the right thing to do. Her father loved the outdoors, and the sun had a therapeutic effect on people. Who knew what miracles might occur?
In the midst of the chapter about Circe’s enchantment, Sarah felt a
nother presence. It was more than a prickle at the back of her neck, more than the shiver that ran down her spine, more than the goose bumps that popped up on her arms. Awareness invaded her, filled her soul, took over her skin, a bone-deep certainty that she was no longer alone. Her father had long since fallen asleep, and she’d continued reading merely for the sound of a human voice, even if it was her own.
Sarah kept her eyes on the book, but she was no longer reading. Nor was she capable, for the powerful presence stole her breath. A potbellied stove had taken up residence where her heart used to be, and heat radiated through every pore of her body.
She’d meant to keep her head down. She’d meant to keep reading, but something beyond her control made Sarah glance upward, and there he was sitting on his rooftop. Her next-door neighbor. Standing Bear, the Blue Angel.
It wasn’t polite to stare. That’s what she’d been taught, but Sarah couldn’t have turned away if she were being chased by a stampede of wild elephants. He was no more than a distant figure, but Sarah didn’t need to see every detail to know him. She knew him already, deep in her bones. There was great strength in the man and even greater courage. But most of all there was great kindness.
It was no accident that the Bear had for a time been one of the elite flying Blue Angels, for that’s exactly what he was—an angel. Sarah’s own personal guardian angel.
She realized that the Bear had probably come to his rooftop to take advantage of the sun. She knew he was a mortal man with a broken body. She knew he was probably doing well to take care of himself, let alone somebody else.
Still, she could dream, couldn’t she? Life was too hard not to take advantage of every glimmer of the rainbow. First the garden and then the guardian angel, the real thing, not a cold stone statue.
With the Bear’s warmth still on her skin, Sarah closed the book and stood up. She would attack the weeds. She would wrestle with the overgrown vines. She would unearth the rose beds and give the camellias room to breathe.
But first she would acknowledge her angel. Looking across the garden wall and upward toward the Bear, she smiled.
