The Dance Card

 
 
                                                            
                             
When I arrived at the hospital, she was already gone. A nurse escorted me to the ward where she rested.
           “So sad. Mrs. Taylor was such a lovely lady. Everyone here loved her.” The morning light streamed through the windows, gleaming off the polished linoleum floor as we walked. My mind barely registered the nurse’s words of condolence. Memories of childhood, loss, drinking, anger, rage, and crushing resentment consumed my thoughts. I kept thinking, You did not know my mother. She was not kind or lovely. “Louisa passed peacefully,” she continued. “It must be a comfort knowing your mother was not alone.”
           We stopped at the end of the corridor, where double swinging doors opened into a ward with six beds. Privacy drapes were pulled back, exposing five empty beds. “Well, here we are. Mrs. Taylor is just over there.” The nurse indicated the sixth bed, the first one nearest the door. I did not go in initially but stood in the doorway, trying to take in the scene before me. A white sheet covered the body lying on the bed. Folded at the foot of the bed was my Mother’s old, worn wedding quilt; her sister Hattie, my aunt, stood by her sister’s side, and for the first time in fifteen years, I laid eyes on my mother.
           Aunt Hattie, who was six years older than her sister, was turned away from the door and did not notice me standing there. She held a photograph in front of her sister’s face as if the dead woman in the bed could see it and maybe respond. She then slipped the photo between my mother’s folded hands that lay across her chest. Hattie picked up the silver hairbrush on the bedside stand and began brushing her sister’s hair and talking.
           “Remember that day in the picture, Louisa?” Hattie asked, brushing my mother’s hair with long, slow strokes. “Your first day of school. You wore that pretty pink dress Mamaw made for you, and she braided a pink satin ribbon in your hair.” It was such an intimate moment. I felt like an intruder and wanted to run away but could not.
           I Watched the love and devotion of these two inseparable sisters playing out in front of me for the last time, and their love caused me a deep, wrenching sense of loss and emptiness. The emotion was jealousy. I felt jealous. Inexplicably jealous.
           “Do you remember Louisa, the week before you started first grade?” Hattie asked. “What an uproar. We were out in the berry patch back of the pond, picking blackberries for Clydette’s preserves, when a gigantic black snake stuck his head out of the bushes. He stared straight into your eyes, that forked tongue flicking in and out. Lord, love us. You liked to die of fright. “Hattie, a snake,” you whispered in a trembling voice. We both screamed, dropped our baskets, berries spilling out all over the ground, and ran hell-bent for leather, screaming all the way back to the house,” she laughed. I had to smile, too. The story of the blackberries and the snake had, over the years, become a family legend.
           “Will you ever forget Clydette’s expression when we burst empty-handed through the kitchen door, babbling about snakes, curses, and death? ‘Clydette...a big ole snake...he stared into Louisa’s eyes and flicked his tongue. We could have died! Or worse, been cursed!’” I shouted.
           Clydette, arms akimbo, shook her head. ‘Where are the berries?’ she demanded to know. That brought us up short. The crying stopped, and we stared wide-eyed into her shining brown eyes. “‘The baskets dropped to the ground, and I guess the berries spilled out,’ I explained. ‘And how am I supposed to make preserves without berries?’ she scowled. ‘Clydette, the snake,’ we wailed in unison.
           ‘There’re no poisonous snakes around here,’ she said, patting us on the behind and pushing us out the door. ‘But the curse!’ I yelled. ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Clyddette scolded. ‘Now get back out there and bring me some berries. I don’t want to have to tell your daddy why he doesn’t have preserves with his biscuits tomorrow mornin’.’ Those were the magic words, were they not Louisa? Off we went, hand in hand, scared to death, and imagining all sorts of evil about to befall us.” Hattie laughed, enjoying the memory.
           She stopped brushing and delicately placed a wave of long, thin white hair over her sister’s shoulder. “You always had the most beautiful hair, Louisa,” she mused.
           Hattie replaced the picture from her sister’s hands in the red leather family album. She turned through several pages, then stopped. “Oh, Louisa, so many wonderful memories,” she sighed. “Here is one from the year you were queen of the Willow Bend Mardi Gras, just like Mama had been.” she caressed the photo with her fingertips, trying to smooth out the creases from too much handling. “The picture of you, sitting on a throne high atop the Queen’s float. Such a shame it’s black and white.” Hattie held the picture under the bed lamp, peering intently at it. “That was the day Race blew into town?”
           “Oh my, would you look at this?” she gasped in amazement. I never realized it before, but I swear Race is in the background of this photograph—him standing there admiring you while you waved to the crowd.” Hattie showed the picture to her sister, as she had done with the other one.
           “So handsome, such a tall, dark, lanky stranger.” Tears filled my eyes at the mention of my father. I wanted to shout, Don’t speak about him. She is to blame for his leaving. But I remained silent as my aunt continued the story.
           “A wildcatter, fresh out of the East Texas oil fields and his first big strike.” Like all family stories, I had heard the story hundreds of times about how my parents met. This story was my favorite. Once, I snuck the picture out of the album and tucked it under my pillow, dreaming I would someday be Queen of the Mardi Gras and marry a wildcatter like my father.
           “There you were waving to the people. Race stood in the crowd that night. You didn’t notice him, but he noticed you. Yes, sir, he surely noticed you.” Hattie patted her sister’s hand. “Somehow, Race wangled a ticket to the Mardi Gras Ball that night even though the tickets sold out weeks before.”
           “I remember. He walked into the hotel's grand ballroom, stopped in the doorway, and surveyed the room. People turned, conversations stopped in mid-sentence, and everyone stared at the handsome stranger wearing an ill-fitting, rented dinner jacket,” Hattie fussed with bedclothes, smoothing them out, and plumped the pillow, then continued. “He strode up to Papa and said, ‘Sir, my name’s Horace Taylor. They call me “Race,' and I want to meet your daughter.’
           Hattie’s laughter filled the hospital room as she wiped tears from her eyes. “Papa was so taken aback. ‘Of course, son, but I have two daughters. Which one do you want to meet?’” She shook her head at the memory. “That was Papa’s joke on Race, who turned scarlet red in the face, looking down at his feet and said, ‘Well, ah, sir,” and he glanced over at you on the queen’s throne. ‘That one, no offense to your other daughter, you understand, who I was not aware existed.’ ‘I’m just joshing with you, son.’ Papa enjoyed joking that way, remember? ‘Yes, you have my permission to meet Louisa. That’s her name, Louisa.’”
           “Race Taylor, what a catch. All the girls wanted to dance with him, but he picked up the dance card from your wrist and wrote his name on every line. Remember that? Every line.”
           That is when I remembered the card in my pocket from the house. I took it out and saw the dance card, with my father’s signature on each line and the silk corded loop still attached.
That was the night my parents met and fell in love. She was only eighteen. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. My aunt must have heard the movement because she turned and saw me standing there.
           “You’re here,” she exclaimed with a smile, rushing over to give me a hug. With her arm still around my shoulders, she gave me a squeeze and said, “Come. Come and talk to your mother.”
           “Aunt Hattie, I love you, but this ritual...talking to her like she’s alive?”
           “You should talk to her,” she coaxed. “It will help you both.”
           “No,” I answered bluntly.
           “It’s in your blood, you know.”
           “What is in my blood?”
           “Talking to the dead.” She smiled at me in that sly way she had.
           “Hattie, I’m tired and have arrangements to make. I hope she has money for a funeral because I do not.”
           Ignoring my comment, she went on. “Louisa’s and my great grandmother, your great-great-grandmother was Cajun,” she said. “She’s where you and your mama get your beauty and green eyes.”
           “Yes, I remember the stories.”
           “Some believe it takes the soul two hours to leave the body. People sit with the dead, sing to them, and talk with them to help their souls pass through the veil. I brush her hair because she always loved having her hair brushed.”
           “Hattie,” I said, gathering my thoughts before I spoke. “This is too much. I haven’t seen her in fifteen years, and, well, I lost her when Jodie died, you remember? I’m still so angry, and I’ll never forgive her...” I glanced across at the body lying cold and still on the bed, “I only came down here for you and to make sure she was truly...” I stopped, “I’m sorry. I know you loved her, love her, and raised her after your mother and grandmother died. It must have been terrible for you. You lost your childhood. You gave your entire life to look after her. I don’t have the same relationship with her.” I turned to go.
           My aunt reached out and touched my arm. “Tell her what’s in your heart. Just don’t say it with anger. You’ll find the love,” she smiled. “Trust me.”
           Reluctantly, I moved to the opposite side of the bed from my aunt.
           “Take her hand,” my aunt instructed.
           “Hattie?” I protested.
           “Go on,” she nodded.
           Tentatively, I touched my mother’s hand. It was cool. Unconsciously, I stroked her hand as Aunt Hattie had done.
           “Go on...talk to her,” she encouraged. “These feelings have festered inside you far too long,” she said. Talk to her. She will hear you. I promise.”
           “Okay, Aunt Hattie.”
           Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to gaze down at the woman in the bed who had been the dominating force of my life for thirty-five years. It was amazing, but her beauty could not be denied, even through illness and death. “Mother,” I began stiffly, glancing at Hattie. Then, starting again, “Mama, you are beautiful. You always have been. I hated you for being beautiful. I blamed you for Daddy leaving.” The words sounded strange, finally spoken aloud. They had spun around in my mind for twenty-odd years, and now, finally, they had a voice. “I blamed you for Jodie getting killed in that car wreck. You and he fought about something that night. I didn’t understand, and then he ran out of the house. He was so angry, and he’d been drinking, and it was storming out. Why didn’t you stop him?” Anger rose in my voice.
           “Soft,” Hattie cautioned. “Softly.”
           “He was my brother, my only brother, and then he was gone, and I still don’t know why.” I paused and took another breath. “Daddy left, then Jody...then I lost you too.” Decades of tears spilled out. I looked up at Hattie. She smiled. I looked down again at my mother. “The drinking and the pills. You were drunk at Jodie’s funeral and...” I stopped.
           “Go on,” Hattie urged. “You’re doing fine. Trust your heart.”
           “Mama, I hated you for letting Daddy go and not begging him to return.” I wiped tears away and grasped my mother’s limp, dead arm in both of my hands as if I could bring her back to life. The sobs came again. Then, while clutching her arm and through tears, I could see the woman, not my mother, for the first time. I bent down and kissed her on the forehead. “He was a wildcatter, and that’s what they do. They move on to another oil field, looking for the next big strike. Finally, they just don’t come back.” Calm swept over me, “It wasn’t your fault, mama. It wasn’t anybody's fault.” I combed my fingers through her once-thick auburn hair, which I inherited. She was so beautiful. Rich waves of shining hair, sparkling emerald eyes, closed forever.
“Mama, I was at the house today. I found this on the floor?” Hattie glanced up. “I found the dance card from the Mardi Gras Ball.” Taking it out of my pocket, I held it up for her to see, just as Hattie had done with the photographs. It now seemed to be such a natural thing to do.
           “Look Mama, Race Taylor, written, in his own hand, on every single line.” Tracing the faded letters with my fingers, I almost felt his presence beside me. “The pink silk wrist loop is frayed but still attached.” I lifted her hand, and the room turned cool as I slipped the loop around her withered wrist. A white glowing light surrounded the bed. Then suddenly, the frail old woman before me transformed into the girl in a white organza off-the-shoulder ball gown with gardenias in her hair, waltzing around the dance floor with her prince charming.
           “I loved him too, mama,” I whispered, kissing her forehead. “I loved him too.”