She tightens her lips. “Never.”
That crooked smile again. He takes her hand, tugs. “Then come along.”
5
Previous Year
New Year’s Eve
That winter after Mom died, Ian and I made sure Dad wasn’t alone for the holidays. After Christmas, while my bachelor-brother flew off to New York City with friends to guzzle champagne and watch the ball drop, I flew up to Indiana to be with Dad. Not that I was complaining. For introvert-me, New York City at this time of year seems like a special kind of hell, and if I were back in South Carolina, I’d be at Philip’s law firm’s party trying to keep a grip on my martini glass through satin opera gloves.
Instead, Dad and I sit on the couch in flannel pajamas watching the Times Square crowd on television. We’re like Bridget and her father inBridget Jones’s Diary,except instead of paper crowns, we sport beanies and heavy sweaters. The fire roars, but the 1915 farmhouse I grew up in still has its original windows. Although a little drafty, the house is cozy. Cedarwood paneling glows warm in the firelight while heavy pale green damask curtains help insulate against Midwest winds.
Earlier in the afternoon, I made rhubarb pies using Mom’s canned fruits in the pantry. It’s been years since I’ve had time to make a pie, and I enjoyed slicing through the butter and flour with the pastry blender, rolling out the dough to an eighth-of-an-inch thickness, and then pressing it carefully into one of Mom’s blue glass pie dishes. It was a labor of love, as I knew with each step that nothing would reach her culinary perfection. My crust would be a little too thick or chewy and my fluting ruffles uneven. By the time I opened the canned rhubarb and poured it into the pie crust, I had to wipe away a tear. Her garden lies just beyond the window. There, dormant tomato, blueberry, and rhubarb bushes quiver, brown and stalky, under a dusting of snow. I doubt Dad will know how to tend them come spring.
Thirty minutes before the ball drops, I go into the kitchen to cut pie slices, hopeful that after all these years sugar-free, Dad might enjoy a piece. When I bring it back, he thanks me, but leaves his plate on the coffee table untouched.
“Still no sugar?” I ask, readjusting my beanie hat and reaching for my own piece. Dad has followed a strict no-sugar diet for years.
He shakes his head. “She used to make a few jars just for me with no added sugar. I finished the last one last month.” He stares ahead numbly at the television. “It was her canned blueberries.”
I wonder if he’ll ever loosen up with his diet. Then again, perhaps his discipline is paying off. He might be pushing seventy, but his bloodwork always comes back excellent, and he takes a brisk five-mile walk outside every morning. Nothing stops him—even this Jack London–novel weather.
I take a bite of pie, sweetened rhubarb stalk pieces crunching in my mouth. Mom’s filling is of course heavenly, and my from-scratch pie crust is, well... not bad. Still, I can almost hear Mary Berry’s voice in my head primly telling me my dough is a little too crisp.
“We used to dance,” Dad says suddenly.
“You and Mom?”
“Yes.”
I stare up at my parents’ framed wedding photo over the fireplace mantelpiece. Mom wears a simple white A-line dress with bell sleeves, her hair neatly sprayed in a modest beehive under a fingertip veil. Dad stands beside her sporting a ’70s version of his tortoiseshell glasses. His hair is darker and thicker.
“I can’t see Mom dancing.”
“She danced.”
I mute the television.
“You know that gala where we met back in college?”
I nod. I knew they met at a dance, but I’ve never heard the details.
“The school wasn’t comfortable with the disco moves everyone was doing at the time, but they agreed to allow salsa dancing and hired a small conga band. She came up to me—I remember noticing her confidence, her perfectly smooth hair and her short buttercream dress—she was soput together. ‘Hi, I’m Nora,’ she’d said, putting her hand out. I told her my name was Gaylord, and she didn’t laugh.”
His voice tapers off as he stares down at his uneaten pie slice.
“And then you danced?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. She told me I had punch dribbled on my tie, and she dabbed it off with a napkin. Then she asked me to dance. I told her I didn’t know how to. She said I’d be fine, just to follow her.”
I can see Mom taking charge, leading my awkward youngfather away from the sidelines of the university ballroom and showing him all the right steps.
“She taught me to dance that evening. And then after we were married the next year and had a little extra money from her nursing job, we took some salsa dance lessons. She was as focused at the lessons as she was with everything else. She said the dancing was good for our hearts and our joints and that it would keep us young. I remember how she smiled when we danced, how she pressed her palms against mine during the lessons. She made it look like I led, but she did. She led all the steps and sent me in the right directions.”
“Why’d you stop?”
He shrugs. “We had you and then Ian. Between my grad school and her hospital shifts, I think it just became too much. I have few regrets with her. But I wish we’d kept that up.”
