Song of Renewal (26 page)

But then, she wouldn’t have Angel and Garrison, would she?
You can’t go back.
She took several deep breaths like she’d always done before ballet performances. Slowly, the swirling in her head settled to a mild pulsing.

Inside the house, familiarity wrapped her in a modicum of succor. She dropped her bag on the way to the den and stepped out of her shoes before plunging into the sofa’s softness. There, the dam broke. The weeping was torrential, as violent as guilt and remorse and self-hatred can detonate. Liza cried until she hiccuped and snuffled, until she was boneless and Novocain numb. Until exhaustion toppled her into deep sleep.

“Liza?” Garrison hovered above her, his face worried. It swam. “You okay?”

She blinked, feeling the heaviness of her swollen lids and the dampness still clinging around her eyes and in the creases of her face.

“What’s wrong, honey?” Garrison slid onto the cushion, facing her prone, limp shape. His finger gently wiped the wetness beneath one eye. “You’ve been crying.” His deep voice vibrated concern.

“Mmm,” she rolled onto her back, inhaling a deep waking breath. “You just get in?”

“Yes.” He looked long and deep into her eyes. Then he swooped to kiss her lips. A soft, bird’s wing brush, one filled with longing and care. Liza felt it to her toes. Then, ever so gently, he reached to help her sit up. “Tell me about it.”

Liza didn’t need him to clarify. “I’ve been so confused in recent weeks, Garrison.”

She decided to gamble then. Either she could trust him with her heart or not. This would tell. She went on to explain how her mind had worked in recent weeks and how alone she’d
felt beneath his emotional exile. And how abandoned she’d felt when he was about to leave her, bringing back loud echoes of childhood desertion. The words, now coming of their own accord, tumbled out and over one another. On their summit rode pain. When the flow ebbed, much of the pain was gone. Where, she didn’t know. She just knew it had subsided.

Finally, she looked him in the eye and said, “There’s more. I feel responsible for Angel’s current crisis. I didn’t mean to nag her about her weight, but I did. Not consciously. But I did. Her eating disorder complicates her recovery. I’ve asked God to forgive me. I had to forgive myself. Now,” she gazed into his eyes, “I ask you to forgive me. Not just for that – but for everything. Because if you can’t, Garrison, I don’t know how we can go on.”

He reached for her hand and laced his long artist’s fingers through hers, squeezing gently. “I may be many things, Liza, but I’m not crazy. I’ve never wanted to leave you.” He moved closer, drawing her into his arms. He looked at her, heart in eyes. “Ever. I only wanted to give you space during this hard time. I wanted to protect you. From me. Can you understand that?”

Liza gazed into his pleading eyes. And in that heartbeat, she got it. She nodded.

“Furthermore,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers again, “I’ll never leave you.”

“Promise?” Her lips reached out for his.

He leaned back and gazed into her eyes, touching her soul. “Promise.”

“Another thing,” he murmured, solemn. “I’ve had no right to hold you accountable for the tragedy when I’ve made such a mess of fathering Angel in recent years. I’ve had to pray for
forgiveness. Now, I ask you for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it but – ”

“You’re forgiven, darling,” she said softly. “And now we can get on with life, huh?”

“Oh!” Her eyes white-rimmed. Can we toast tonight’s deal?”

“I’ll just say this.” His smile slid wide and white. “This is the beginning of great things for all of us.” Then he sobered. “As soon as Angel comes back.”

They embraced for long moments before Liza reluctantly moved from the warmth of his arms. “I’m going to the studio for a while,” she murmured, her fingers trailing down his arm and squeezing his hand once more.

“I’m going upstairs, too,” Garrison stood and helped her to her feet.

Together, arm in arm, they climbed the stairs, reluctantly parting ways on the landing. And for the first time in ages, Liza felt a complete oneness.

He watched her go and his heart followed. It warmed him, the realization. It inspired him as he went into Angel’s room and began to work on the painting. His heart soared as his brush stroked life and energy onto canvas. Moments later, Spanish flavored music wafted from Liza’s direction.

He laid aside his brush. The music swept him down the hall to the studio, where he quietly pushed open the door. Then, he saw her. Kitri, from his wedding-gift portrait. Not in costume this time, rather in tights and leotard, but she was there in spirit. In dance. Just at that moment, as the music swelled, Kitri leaped – an awesome jump, a kick-jeté in which she soared so high and arched her back so far that her head touched her back
leg. A beautiful explosion in air. It captured the joyous elevation of Kitri’s spirit.

Garrison’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of her. The majesty of her movements took his breath.

Garrison watched her from the doorway as the music ebbed and she gracefully moved to the barre for a towel to drape over her elegant shoulders and use to blot her brow. She spotted him and froze for a moment. Then she smiled at him, a luminous one that shot through him like a taser.

In that moment, he decided to make a wager of his own. He reached for her hand. “Come.” She did so and allowed him to lead her down the hall and into Angel’s room. “I’ve got something to show you. It’s not finished, but I want you to see what I’m working on.”

He placed her nearby and he crossed to the painting, lifting the covering.

From the canvas, the lily pond glistened with sunlight and the Love Tree, their trysting place of early married days, stood tall, kissing the azure sky. Bold letters, artistically engraved into the bark, spelled “G Loves L.” Along with this was a notch denoting each of their years together. The notches formed a flower – with each current year’s mark forming its stem. An arrow pointed downward to “Loves Angel.” A perfect heart enjoined the entire eternally joined threesome. Other tiny round notches, the beginning of a rose, commemorated their daughter’s visits to the lily pond.

Beneath the tree lay a golden pine carpet, where Liza lounged. “It’s one third of the way to renewal,” he said gently as he showed Liza the photo from which he worked, the one from long ago days that he’d found in the attic. In it, Liza, Angel, and Garrison bubbled over with laughter and love.

In the painting, happiness radiated from Liza’s very pores. Garrison’s attention to detail hummed from the minutest flecks in her eyes.

“Oh God – Garrison,” Liza gasped, gazing poignantly at the painting. Then she burst into tears.

Garrison had not expected this reaction. “Aah, Liza,” he murmured gently. “I didn’t intend to upset you. I just thought it might give you hope, darling. I’m doing more sketches of Angel now, trying to get just the right expression. I’ve already done some preliminary, practice images of her on canvas. Now, I’ll add her to this scene. Just as this portrait isn’t finished, neither is our destiny.”

“I – I know,” she snuffled. “It’s just so – so beautiful.”

A smile slid across his face, mere inches from hers. “Just wait till it’s finished.”

He kissed her, long and hard. She whimpered in protest when their lips parted. He smiled her a slow, lazy promise before releasing her. “First order of business is to move back to your bed.”

That accomplished, they spent the next few hours doing what they enjoyed most. “I’ve always said that any time spent out of bed with you is wasted time,” Garrison murmured in her ear and against her soft neck. “So we’ve got lots of making up to do.”

“You always were marvelous at making up,” Liza purred hours later as they languished in bed. She sighed contentment, reminding Garrison that in the midst of calamity came this love oasis. A miracle.

“You’re so easy to ravish,” he groaned and swooped in again for a kiss.

“Garrison!” she squealed with delight. “We’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Speak for yourself,” he growled and claimed her lips once more.

chapter thirteen

They sat at Angel’s bedside, truly together and with a new anticipation. Their profound coming together, in Garrison’s estimation, had to offset something in their daughter’s precarious situation. Something so…explosive could not go ignored by the forces that be.

Everything of faith in him hummed this morning. And he saw it in Liza as well. The helplessness and despair was no longer in her blue, blue depths. They now radiated something beyond mere hope.

Expectancy. It was a certainty that something was imminent.

It bloated and simmered in them as they took opposite sides of Angel’s bed, facing each other. After a while, they slipped quietly from the room. Down the hall, they knelt at the tiny altar.

“Please, Angel,” Liza prayed, clasping Garrison’s hand. “Come back to us.”

Blackness cocooned Angel. A sound? Voices? “Please, Angel, come back to us.”

Mama? Suddenly the blackness scattered and Angel was dancing across a vast expanse of wood parquet floor in Mama’s
wake…“Angel!” One voice, masculine and persistent, froze her into stillness while Mama pirouetted away, oblivious. Angel pivoted and danced in the opposite direction, spinning like a top, backward…backward in time, toward the one beckoning her.

Her bare feet sank into the pine needle carpet surrounding the lily pond, now sparkling beneath a warm morning sun. The blossoms were brilliantly white today. Rustic silvery gray wood benches sprouted from the forest floor, ones Daddy built long ago for this forest oasis of theirs.

“Angel!” Troy’s voice. “Come help me with the dog. He’s hit bad.”

Troy Bailey hovered over a heap covered with a red, plaid, woolen blanket, shaded by the roof of their picnic shelter, a square, weathered wooden pavilion with a storage room. “I saw the car hit him.” Anger flared Troy’s nostrils. “It just kept going.” His dark eyes pinned Angel. “Can you imagine being that cruel? Just to leave him lying there in the road, bleeding?”

With hands so very gentle, he pulled the blanket up a bit.

“By the time I pulled over and ran back to check on him, he’d disappeared. I followed the trail of blood down here, where he’d dragged himself. I’m sorry, but I had to force the storage door open for a blanket to wrap him in to subdue and cover him. I’ll pay for the lock.”

“It’s okay,” Angel murmured. She peered over her neighbor’s shoulder and gasped. She gazed at the ugly, mangy mongrel that’d pestered the entire countryside for years now. All he was good for was foraging in trash cans, digging up flowers, treeing cats, and in general making a nuisance and creating messes.

“Yeah. It’s him,” Troy muttered. “Everybody and his grandpa have shot at him at one time or another but he’s wily and seems to have ten lives.”