Chapter 15 - THE DANCE WE FINISHED
Nick didn’t answer that day.
Or the next.
He brought the request to counseling.
He talked to me.
Then he wrote a short response through the lawyers.
He wasn’t ready.
There would be no meeting.
If that changed, he would be the one to say so.
I watched him send it from Rose’s kitchen table.
Then he closed the laptop and asked what color I wanted the walls.
“Yellow.”
“Bright yellow?”
“Offensively yellow.”
He smiled.
“Good.”
We moved into the house in spring.
Ruth helped us plant flowers along the porch.
Vivian brought a lemon cake and asked before taking pictures.
Caroline came with the man she had been dating for two years, a quiet teacher Martha had never considered worth mentioning.
Lena arrived carrying a speaker.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
She gave me a look.
“You owe me one good memory in a white dress.”
It wasn’t a second wedding.
I didn’t want to replace the first one.
I wanted to stop letting its worst moment own every other part.
There were twelve people in the backyard.
Paper plates.
Homemade food.
Rose’s blue mugs lined along the kitchen counter.
I wore a simple white dress I could sit in without assistance.
My hair brushed the bottom of my ears.
For a while, I had thought growing it long again would prove Martha hadn’t won.
Then I realized she didn’t deserve a vote in that decision either.
I would grow it if I wanted.
Cut it if I wanted.
Keep it short if I liked the way it felt in the summer.
Before dinner, Nick handed me a small envelope.
Inside was a photograph from our original reception.
Taken before the scissors.
My braid lay over one shoulder.
I was laughing at something he had whispered.
“I thought you might want this back,” he said.
“The whole day wasn’t hers.”
I studied the picture.
For the first time, I could see myself without immediately looking for Martha in the background.
Later, Lena turned on the song that had been playing when everything stopped.
Nick stood in front of me.
“Can I have the rest of this dance?”
I took his hand.
Halfway through, someone moved behind me.
My shoulders tightened before I could stop them.
Nick noticed.
He slowed.
“Do you want to stop?”
I looked over his shoulder.
Ruth was carrying empty plates into the house.
The porch light was on.
The back door stood open.
Nobody was waiting to teach me a lesson.
“No,” I said.
“Keep going.”
So we did.
Beyond the fence, a car passed without slowing.
Inside, our friends argued cheerfully over who had eaten the last piece of cake.
Nick held me close, and when the song ended, he stayed.
Martha had been right about one thing.
My hair would grow back.
May you like
What she never understood was that I didn’t have to grow back into the woman who kept forgiving her.
When the next song started, I reached for my husband’s hand first.
