Slow Moon Rising (7 page)

And I did. Oh, how I did. But the truth is, with all that hope and promise, I had no idea what I would face when I returned with him to his home and his family in Florida. No idea at all.

Ami
December 2000

Anise came to live here as Dad's wife in August, and I
still
heard about it from Heather four months later. My
gosh,
my sister just didn't know when to give it up. Let it go. Move on. Couldn't she have found a million and one better things to waste her energy on? Like her kids? Her husband? Couldn't she just be happy for someone at least once in her life rather than trying to make everything about her? How she felt? What she wanted? Why didn't she just . . .
see
? Not to mention Dad's marriage to Anise was the tip of the iceberg. So not the real issue. Not that Heather would have known it. Not that anyone would. No one but me. And who could I have told? No one. For sure.

Four weeks before Christmas, on the one-year anniversary of Mom's death, Anise decorated our house so beautifully. No small feat considering how gigantic the place is. She used some of Mom's decorations and hung most of Mom's ornaments on the tree, telling Dad that it would make it more
like “Joan did it than me.” But did that even remotely make Heather happy? No. As soon as she walked into the entryway and saw everything, she crossed her arms, stalked from one room to the other like a drill sergeant, and then sternly said to Dad, “Can I see you a moment, please? In your office?”

Anise, Dad, and I had retreated into the kitchen by then. Heather made it only as far as the wide arched doorway leading into the family room. Like she couldn't stand to walk into the kitchen if Mom was not in it and Anise was.

Heather and Dad left, but not before Dad gave Anise a quick kiss on the cheek and she patted him on the shoulder, leaving me to wonder even more about their relationship. They had this way of communication through touching . . . something I didn't really remember between Dad and Mom. But maybe they had it and, a year later, I could no longer recall it.

I don't know.

Anise leaned against the small oak kitchen island and sighed after Dad left the room.

“I'm sorry, Anise,” I said from the angular bar between the kitchen and the breakfast nook. I'd deposited my Sassi dance bag there not ten minutes before the front door opened and Hurricane Heather stormed in. I now glanced at my watch. I barely had time to get to the studio. Maybe I'd make it if I went five miles over the speed limit. Or ten.

Anise fought back tears, shook her head, took a deep breath, and said, “Have you got everything you need for today?” Which was just like her. She's about looking out for someone else. Maybe this had been the connection between her and me. The other being she had years of dance
experience and she seemed genuinely interested in both my father
and
my training.

So, try hard as I may, I could not
not
like her.

I nodded. “I do.”

“Did I hear you tell your dad you've got a dress rehearsal tonight for the winter showcase?”

“Yeah. I won't be home until pretty late.”

“Can you define late?” She smiled at me in that way that says “I'm not trying to be your mother, I just don't want your father to worry.”

“We're done at nine. I'll stay to help lock up and . . . I'd say by nine-thirty, nine-forty-five.”

“Want me to save you some dinner?”

And there was another thing I liked about Anise. She cooked healthy and I was so into healthy. “That'd be super.”

“No,” she said. “That'd be
supper
.”

We giggled, and I was thankful her spirits lifted before I'd left. I didn't think I could have concentrated like I needed to otherwise.

I threw my bag over my shoulder, gave a quick wave, and said, “Tell Dad . . . well . . . tell him I said bye.” Within seconds, I was out the door leading to the garage.

Something else about Anise I admired was the way she handled the car situation. Just before Mom died, Dad and she bought me a new Ford Mustang. White exterior, red interior, fully loaded, convertible, brand new. Mom was so proud to see me drive away in it the first time, and Dad was equally as thrilled when I returned home an hour later. Their baby, they said, off in a Mustang. The whole thing had made them a little nervous, I guess.

By then, Mom had stopped driving and had given her car to a church charity league. She specifically asked that a single mother who needed transportation for getting to work be gifted with it. For a while there, I saw a young woman in Mom's car, driving around town, three kids in the backseat. I knew it was Mom's because she had this Jesus fish etched on the back window. Custom designed like the Mercedes itself. So I knew it was hers, and any time I saw this woman, I'd think of Mom—not that I didn't think of her all the time anyway.

When Anise moved to the house, she insisted I keep my car in the garage with Dad's. She had no problem whatsoever leaving hers in the driveway to suffer in Florida's torturous heat. “It's just a car,” she said. “Not even special.”

I made it to the dance studio—Straight to Broadway—in record time. I sped, but I didn't get caught, so it was okay. The winter showcase was coming up in two weeks, and there was much to be done. I had been asked to work with the three-year-olds this year. The same age I'd been when Mom first brought me to this very studio.

I went into the ladies' locker room and changed from my jeans and long-sleeved tee into a leotard, tights, and ballet shoes. I slipped on a pair of black shorts with “Straight to Broadway” embroidered on the right leg before darting out the door and to Studio A, where the little ones were already practicing.

An hour later, I left Studio A for Studio D, also known as “the big one.” The one where my class met. It was a little after five o'clock, and I was running behind. But I stopped at my locker to check my cell phone anyway, to see if anyone had called or texted.

Only Heather. A voice message saying, “We need to talk. Call me.”

I thought not.

I texted Anise instead:
Everything okay at home?
I put my phone back into my bag, shut the locker, and went into my studio where, already, most of my class had their feet up on the barres. I looked to Letya, my instructor, mouthed, “Sorry,” and got in place, facing the barre. We had at least three hours of work ahead of us; our class was performing four numbers in the showcase.

I needed to stretch, which I'd not had time to do before working with the tots. I placed my feet in first position, bent my knees for a grand plié. My stomach growled loud enough to draw the attention of Avery, my best friend, who stretched beside me.

It was then I remembered: I hadn't eaten yet today.

I sat in a corner booth, my head bent over a copy of
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
, when I heard the bells chime at the front door. The hostess said, “Welcome to Denny's.” Footsteps came toward me, but I didn't bother to look up.

“There you are.”

I raised my eyes. My older sister Jayme-Leigh—born between Kimberly and Heather—stood near my table. Her long copper hair was tied back with a scrunchie at the base of her neck and pulled over one shoulder. She wore tight jeans, ankle boots, and an oversized sweater with a tank top underneath. A shoulder-strap purse dangled at her hip. She looked anything but pleased.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, feeling miffed but not knowing why I should.

She slid into the booth opposite me. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” A waitress approached the table. Jayme-Leigh gave her an exasperated look and said, “Cup of coffee. Decaf.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Black.”

The waitress turned her attention to me. “Would you like a refill on your Coke?”

I grabbed the glass and tilted it toward me. “Ah . . . yes. Please.” After the waitress walked away, I said, “What do you mean ‘what time it is.' It shouldn't be
too
late.”

“Try eleven-thirty, Ami.” Jayme-Leigh used her best “I'm so aggravated” voice. “Dad is going stark mad. I've been driving
all
over looking.”

I looked at my watch. “Oh my goodness.” I started digging in the ballet bag resting on the booth seat next to me. “Dad and Anise. I need to call them.” I found the phone and flipped it open, realizing then that, somehow, it had been turned off, probably after my earlier text to Anise.

“Don't worry. I called Dad from the parking lot. Told him your car was here. So what gives? You were supposed to come home after practice. At least that's what Anise said you told her.”

“I thought . . . I meant to. I guess I was so hungry and”—I looked down at my book—“I've got to get this book read for school—it's pretty good, actually—and . . . I guess I just forgot to check the time.”

Jayme-Leigh sighed in a way that reminded me of Dad. “You forgot.” Her lips formed a thin line.

I didn't answer right away. I really couldn't. There was no excuse worth offering. Oh, I had my reasons, all right. For one, Heather and her tirade left me a little anxious about returning home. But . . . there was something else. Something that every quiet moment at home only made worse.

I hadn't talked to anyone about my life's complication, not even Avery. Hadn't told her what had happened right before Mom died. Because, honestly, what if Mom had been wrong about what she told me. She was nearly nuts at the end there, anyway.

Could I trust the words of a dying woman when little she said made any sense anyway?

“Jayme-Leigh, if I ask you something, can we keep it between us?”

“Depends, Ami. I'm not going to keep anything from Dad that I feel he needs to know about you. You're his daughter.”

The waitress returned with the coffee and a brand-new glass of ice and Coke. She whisked away my old glass and the trash of my straw's wrapping, and said, “Anything else, just holler.”

Jayme-Leigh sighed. I knew why; she hated words like
holler
. But she plastered on a smile and said, “We'll be sure to do that.” It was about as fake as anything I'd ever seen her do, and I'd seen her do a lot of fake things. Not that she's a bad person. She's not. She's a great sister and an even better doctor. When Mom was sick, Jaymes treated her with the best daughter/doctor care any patient could have asked for. At least, she did when Heather allowed it. But Jayme-Leigh has this way about her that those who know her best can see and those who don't know her at all—which is most
people—can't. A sort of “I'm above all this” manner that is really just Jayme-Leigh keeping her distance. Sometimes even from family.

Jayme-Leigh stirred her coffee, took a sip, and said, “Why these kinds of places seem to have the best coffee but the stickiest floors is beyond me.”

I laughed a little. Not a lot. I had too much other stuff on my mind to find a lot of humor in the moment.

“So, Ami . . . what? What do you want to tell me? Or ask me?” I figured it didn't matter if Jayme-Leigh said she'd keep this between sisters or not. What I was about to tell her would, no doubt, be a run-to-Dad piece of information. She'd probably tell me she wasn't going to say anything, but she'd tell Dad anyway. She'd say, “Don't tell Ami I'm telling you” and then Dad would promise and actually keep his word.

Maybe.

“Okay, so here's the deal, Jaymes. Remember at the end there? When Mom was pretty close to being gone?”

She wrapped her hands around the brown ceramic mug. The aroma of her coffee had reached my nostrils. I loved the smell of it, and the scent reminded me of Mom. Every morning, hearing the coffeepot gurgle and cough. The rich scent of coffee beans and hazelnut wafting through the house when Dad took a tray of breakfast sweets and caffeine from the kitchen to the master suite. Every morning, until drinking coffee meant spitting up blood.

“Of course I remember.”

“Do people who are dying, like Mom . . . do they sometimes say things that are . . . I dunno . . .”