Page 16 of Second Dance
“I guess we’ll find out.”
“And you never looked for her?” Peter asked.
“No. It wouldn’t have been right. Not when your mother was alive. And even now, it feels a bit like a betrayal to her.”
“Why?” His question was asked in his typical gentle way, like, whatever my answer, it was fine.
“We were married a long time, and I loved her very much. It’s not so easy to let go.”
“She’s gone, Dad. And you’re still here.”
I was still here. Waiting for my phone to ding like some kind of college kid.
“Check your phone,” Peter said. “Maybe she wrote back.”
I didn’t mention that I had the notifications turned on and heard nothing. Instead, I got up and grabbed it from the counter, pulled up the app and there it was. A message from @DancingQueen.
“She wrote back,” I said, more to myself than Peter.
“Read it.”
I tapped the message, and it opened on the screen.
Hi Alex. I can’t believe it’s you! Or that you live here. I’d love to have a drink and catch up on the last fourteen years. From a Google search, I can see that you’ve been busy. I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your wife. But congratulations on your successful company. It doesn’t take too much insight to know what drove you to build that particular product. You always said you’d do something to help kids like your sister, and it looks like you’ve done it.
I’m available for a drink after my last class tomorrow. I could meet you at The Pelican at six? Or another day of the week would be fine too.
Gillian
“She wants to meet for a drink tomorrow night,” I said to Peter.
“You have to say yes.”
“I kind of do, since I suggested it,” I said. “I’m now wondering if it was such a good idea.”
“You won’t know unless you go,” Peter said, grinning. “Who knows what could happen?
That was exactly it. Who did know? Certainly not me.
Wanting to make a good impression, I’d arrived at The Pelican a few minutes early and had planted myself at a corner booth. It was dinner hour, and the place was packed with tourists and locals, but I’d lucked out and arrived as a few tables were being cleared.
As I waited, my mind kept circling back to the night she’d come to tell me that her life was about to change forever. Nineteen years old, sitting on the edge of my mattress in my cramped New York apartment, her knees pulled to her chest, she told me Shelley and Daniel had put in their will that Gillian was to take the baby should anything happen to them.
Tissues pressed against her red-rimmed eyes, she whispered, “I have to go. Grace has no one else. She’s my family.”
The urge to beg her to come with me, to Boston, to let me take care of her and the baby somehow—it had nearly overwhelmed me. But what did I have? A scholarship I’d fought hard for and still a year left before I had my degree. No way to support a child. She knew it. I knew it. So I’d had to let her go. Had to drop her at the train station and watch her walk away.
Penn Station’s crowded platform—I could still see her there. The whistle shrieking over the garbled crackle of the departure board announcements. Her slim silhouette was outlined against the steel cars, her suitcase at her feet, the scuffed floor vibrating with the rumble of engines below. She’d had on a red coat, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting her in a harsh glow, but even that could not dim her beauty. I’d kissed her one last time. As if my life depended on it. I’d memorized the softness of her lips, the way she tasted of strawberry candy. The warmth of her breathagainst my mouth, the slight tremor in her hands as they found my chest. A kiss that would have to be enough to last a lifetime—though I already knew it could never be.
When we finally broke apart, it felt like pulling away from gravity itself. She backed away, the space between us growing inch by torturous inch, cool air rushing to fill the void where her warmth had been. Her hand lingered against my chest for one suspended heartbeat, two, before sliding away, slender fingers trailing across the fabric of my shirt.
“Goodbye, Alex. I’ll never forget you.”
“I’ll always love you,” I said, sure it was so.
She’d climbed the narrow steps into the car, her suitcase bumping behind her. For a heartbeat she’d paused in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame. Then she turned, and our eyes met across the crowd. Her lips trembled, her gaze fierce and unflinching, as if she were burning the memory of me into her mind. I tried to do the same.
And then she stepped inside. The door slid shut with a final clang, and the train carried her away.
