Song of Renewal (15 page)

He’d found her modesty incredibly appealing. He felt like he was drowning in the blue depths of her eyes. “To quote Renoir, ‘Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world’.”

She smiled then. It burst across her features and lit up the place and tethered Liza doggedly to his heartstrings. That fast. That simple. And immediately, he’d started on a portrait of her back in his dormitory room. Each day, he’d go past the dance studio during her practice time and sketch her from all angles. Everything about her etched itself into his psyche and soul. Even her little mannerisms, like biting on a fingernail when in deep thought and rotating her neck and shoulders when limbering up, endeared her to him.

The portrait, entitled “Love Song,” portrayed Liza dancing Kitri, from
Don Quixote
, whose love affair with Basilio lacked parental approval. Garrison had watched her dance the part, in awe, storing up the images for his final portrait. Sizzling moves in the final pas de deux with flirting fan, fouettes and leaps that drew gasps from him. It all culminated in the image captured by Garrison’s brush on canvas: a stunning arabesque en pointe. From Liza’s luminous smile glowed the message that love conquers all. Energy sizzled from her expressive arms and fingers, from her very pores. Her features, beneath hair pulled tightly from the center to beads locking it at her nape, showed a passionate joy of being.

He’d kept the portrait to himself all that year. Just as they’d saved themselves for marriage’s glorious and mystical discoveries, he’d saved the portrait to be his gift to her on the day they wed.

In keeping with Liza’s tradition of going to church with her family when her mother’s mood swings periodically leveled off, he and Liza began attending services down the street from campus, finding there a sense of comfort and rightness. His own parents’ churchgoing had consisted mainly of C and E – Christmas and Easter – so he’d enjoyed summers with his churchgoing grandparents because they avidly lived and loved as the Bible taught. Those were the times he’d felt truly accepted and valued.

After his and Liza’s wedding, he’d presented the portrait to her with a flourish Rhett Butler would have envied.

How she’d exulted over it! “Are you sure I’m that beautiful?” she asked teasingly, flirtatiously, breathless with sheer joy.

“Absolutely,” he’d replied, awash with the wonder of her… of them.

Tonight, he wondered,
where do I begin?
He mixed more paints and made the first stroke over canvas. Like a burst of sunshine, her face came to him. Liza. That’s where he would begin. He would capture her again. Somehow, he would.

He set up his sketchpad and began. First, he sketched her hands from all angles, from memory. The tapering grace of the fingers was distinctly Liza’s, even to the shape and size of the nails.

Next, he outlined the face and features, paying close attention to the eyes, lips, and hair. Especially the eyes. The eyes excited him, inspired him.

He mixed more paints and began to stroke life into the planes and angles. His hands gained momentum and his heart raced with exhilaration. His hands moved but he was in a spiritual searching trance.

Hours passed and he looked in wonder at his canvas.
Is this as good as I think it is?
The eyes, alight with joy and wonder, with fulfillment, gazed at him from the canvas, bringing tears
of wonder to his own. The lips spread wide with laughter and sheer elation. The wheat hair texture made his fingers tingle with the anticipation of touch.

He continued. His level of creativity surpassed anything of his past. He wasn’t sure of what it was or where it was going, but he was attaching himself to it in search of the young man he’d once been. Unsure of how it filtered into his paintbrush, he felt electrified in ways he had not in years.

He poured his heart onto the canvas as he began his soulsearch for the man Liza married, the one true to himself.

Liza, angry with herself for missing Garrison’s warm bulk snuggled to her, could not sleep. She was also angry that Garrison had left her bed again. With a heavy heart, she conceded that it merely proved he was not, after all, dependable. But then, she’d grown up with a mother whose least attribute had been dependability.

She squelched that recall, again cutting her mom slack for an illness she’d not asked for.

Even though she’d passed the nervous collapse crisis fairly well, aided initially by the strong, calming medication, she still experienced shifting doses of disquiet. Sometimes she felt weaker, like now, but only temporarily. Somewhere along the way that week, when loneliness, helplessness, and desperation had driven her to the Maker and taken her to a new level of self-discovery, she’d developed a mystical new inner strength from which to draw.

She didn’t need Garrison to fix things for her anymore. Being stronger and able to deal with anything that arose made her feel good about herself.

Liza stretched and yawned. The only thing she couldn’t resolve tonight was getting to sleep. She finally crawled from the
sheets and headed for the one place in which she might find solace.

Upstairs, she opened the door to Angel’s room, surprised to see the lights on. In fact, the place was lit up like Fourth of July and Christmas, overhead lights and all.

“Oh!” She jumped when she spotted Garrison. “Ah, I’m sorry.” She slowly backtracked to the door.

“Wait.” Garrison rushed over, paintbrush in stained hand. “Stay.” His eyes, so sincere, enticed her, but she shook her head. Curiosity sprang forth as she eyed his blemished smock and brush. Nostalgia ran through her, triggered by the smell of paint and canvas. Long ago, those hands had created magic and –

She shook her head again, shaking loose of the memory‘s grip. She was still too, too ravaged with hurt, and didn’t ever again need the pain of being so near him and yet so far away. She must be careful not to arouse the siren of need.

“No. It’s better if I go to her studio.” She left, closing the door firmly behind her.

Moments later, in the studio, Liza turned on some warm-up and stretch music. From the echoes of her mind came a signaled response to the notes’ rhythm. The tempo inside her leaped to life as she found clean black leotards, tights, and ballet slippers in the closet and dressed. The snug contours of the costume hugged those of her body like a second skin, lending weightless aerodynamics to her movements.

She’d always kept a supply of her own dance costumes there because she made impromptu appearances to spend time with her daughter, dancing with her, coaching, and, at times, simply encouraging her.

Reliving young ballet days of her own.

Her warm-up today began with frappés at Angel’s ballet barre, where floor-to-ceiling mirrors bordered the entire
twenty-by-twenty chamber. Her hand rested gently on the wooden barre as she broke down ballet movements into their smallest, most elemental components. She allowed herself to indulge in the memories of Angel dancing, of their times together here.

Tonight, she traveled back in time to her beginnings, thinking of Angel as she went through the pliés, keeping her knees soft and articulating her feet, pointing them not just at the ankle but also through the toes and metatarsals; the area from instep to toe. Demi-pliés, grande pliés, and relevés, backward and forward, stretching to the floor, head between knees all served to increase her tissue temperature – like lubricating the joints.

It had been a long time.
Ah, Angel. How beautiful you are and how beautifully you dance.
Her heart felt near to breaking at what was no more.
All because of me.

Liza felt tears gather, but she stubbornly pushed on, placing a tennis ball between and just below her ankles, helping her find her placement, knowing she was properly aligned before she did her first grand battement. It was a controlled throwing of one straight leg into full extension, distributing her weight equally on the other foot, all five toes turned out, the support leg stiff and straight, allowing her body to balance. She continued long minutes, alternating right and left legs.

Her body, now feeling warm, would be more receptive to dancing. Tonight, however, Liza didn’t feel the patience for small controlled movements that would protect against injury. Anger’s adrenaline launched her into uncharacteristic recklessness. She hung out in several static stretch positions at the barre and then segued into a sudden, big forceful a’ la seconde straddle stretch on the floor.

That brought on
uh-oh
pain. The punishment seemed fitting. Penance.

If I can hurt my body, I won’t feel my heart and soul coming apart at the seams
.

Tears coursed down her cheeks as she went about stretching and flexing long unused muscles and limbs. She welcomed the exertion. She would glory in the next-day soreness, the pain giving her respite from her thoughts. Heedlessly switching the music to an allegro tempo from “The Sleeping Beauty Prologue,” she spun to petit allégro in the fifth fairy’s “finger” variation of a daunting series of pas de chats that go where men don’t dare, taking off and landing on pointe.

Breathless, her senses heightened, she quickly switched music again, this time to
Don Quixote
, when Kitri replies to Basilio’s, her lover’s, leaps with a signature jump of her own, a grand jeté with her back leg bent to graze the back of her head.

She was astonished that she could still feel the brush of foot against occipital hair.

Emboldened, Liza switched the music to “Allegro Brillante.” She escalated her turns in the same way the music built. Her first pirouette was a double, second pirouette was a triple, and so on. She lost track in the dizzying splendor of it all.

She employed
enchainement
to center floor dancing, a linking of various steps in combinations of movements, allowing her to move more freely through space. The combinations made her feel “dancier,” more into emphasizing musicality and the expressive use of the head and shoulders.

Breeeeeathe,
Liza had to remind herself more than once to keep from freezing in the air, thus ending the jumps. When she did so a couple of times, she doggedly recommenced, mentally challenging herself to breathe at regular intervals.

Soon, she soared, weightlessly, as free as a winged creature born into dance.

How she’d missed dancing. Was it wrong to enjoy it tonight, when Angel –

Guilt hovered, heaving and groaning like some ghoul. Then Angel’s glowing face flashed before her, like the times when she’d watched her mother dance. Liza still tasted and breathed the pride shimmering from her daughter’s sweet features.

And it struck her anew just how much her dancing for the girl had meant to Angel. Impulsively, she switched “Allegro Brillante” back on and did a breathless series of pirouettes about the studio, just the way Angel loved her to do.

This time, she truly danced for Angel.

Liza knew in that heartbeat that Angel would want her to do just what she was doing tonight. Having Angel study ballet and Liza being on the local ballet board of directors, had kept her, to an extent, connected. Here tonight, she could feel Angel’s presence and she prayed that soon that presence would be not just in spirit but in body as well.

Later, in the wee hours before dawn, she and Garrison went to their separate rooms, passing each other in the hallway. Their gazes locked for a long moment….

Liza averted her eyes and brushed past him.

Angel’s condition, with seizure control drugs, stabilized.

She remained comatose.

“They’re talking about moving her,” Liza told Garrison one Sunday, his only full day off from the office. They ate a lunch of veggies and salad downstairs in the hospital cafeteria. “She’s been here three and a half weeks. They only retain patients for a certain period before transferring them to Restorative Care.”