Page 50 of Second Dance
“What did you expect?” I asked.
Bella shrugged and averted her gaze, looking toward the water.
Gillian tilted her head, looking over at Bella with sympathy in her green eyes. “Bella, can I share something with you?”
Bella lifted a shoulder. “If you want.”
“I grew up without a father. My mother was a mess most of my life—drugs and bad choices in men. My sister was ten years older than I, so she basically raised me.”
“Why was she so much older?” Bella asked.
“My mother got pregnant at sixteen with my sister. Her boyfriend didn’t stick around. So it was the two of them. My mom struggled to take care of a baby alone. She fell in with some bad people in the trailer park where we lived. According to my sister, who remembered a lot even though she was so young, that’s when my mom started using drugs. When Shelley—my sister—was ten, my mom hooked up with some random guy she met in a bar. He was married. My mom never told me about it but Shelley remembered him coming by for a month or so. Long enough that he got her pregnant. He bailed, of course, when he found out. Said he couldn’t leave his real family and all that.”
Bella exhaled a sigh but didn’t say anything.
“I was naturally curious about my father but my mom wouldn’t tell me anything about him. After I begged her, Shelley told me what she remembered. Fancy car. Shiny shoes. Boxes of chocolates. He brought those with him whenever he came to see my mom. Anyway, as I grew up, I asked more questions and eventually, one night when my mom was drunk, she told me his name and where he lived. It was in a wealthy neighborhood of Sacramento. I took two buses to get there.”
“You went to see him?” Bella asked, eyes wide. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen. Just like you. By this time, my mom had died.”
“Oh.” Bella’s gaze didn’t leave Gillian.
“Like you, I had this hope that, if he met me, he would decide he wanted me after all.”
“But that didn’t happen?” Bella asked.
“No. I went up to his front door and rang the bell. It was this big brick house. I could hear the sound of children playing in a pool in the backyard. This man came to the door. Green eyes, like mine. But he was older than I’d expected—balding and overweight—flushed cheeks like someone who drank a lot.”
“Did he know who you were right away?” Bella asked. “Because Darren knew me.”
“Because you look like your mom,” I said.
Gillian continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “Yes, I believe he did. Regardless, I told him. ‘I’m Gillian and you’re my father.’ Then I just stood there, waiting for him to welcome me inside. But he didn’t. Instead, he acted like he had no idea who I was. Told me to leave or he’d call the police.”
I’d not heard this story before. My heart hurt, thinking of a young Gillian standing on that front porch, waiting for him to open a door into his life.
“That was the one and only time I saw him,” Gillian said. “I felt like such a fool. As I said, by that point my mother was dead and I was living with my newly married sister and her husband. She was twenty-four and had managed to put herself through law school and take care of me at the same time. When I got home and told Shelley what I’d done, she cried. She asked me what she’d done to make me want to find him.”
“She blamed herself?” Bella asked.
“That’s right. I confessed to this fantasy that maybe he’d want me after all and then I wouldn’t have to be such a burden on her and my brother-in-law. She assured me I wasn’t a burden, even though I knew how hard she worked to keep me fed and clothed and enrolled in ballet classes. Regardless, shetold me I would always have her and that we didn’t need anyone but each other. My sister was there for all of it, like a mother to me. Four years later, I earned a spot at a ballet academy in New York City. I was about to begin my second year when I got the call that she’d died. My sister and brother-in-law had been in a car accident. Both killed instantly. In their will, they named me as their baby’s guardian. So, at nineteen, I left school and came home to take care of my six-month-old niece.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Bella asked. It could have come off as rude but my daughter’s tone was more curious than cruel.
“Because I get it. I understand what it’s like to miss someone so much it’s like physical pain. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t wish my sister was here. Even though raising Grace has been such a gift, I still wonder sometimes what all of our lives would have been like had Shelley lived.”
“Do you ever wake up in the morning and think for a second it was all just a nightmare?” Bella asked.
“Not anymore. But that first year after Shelley died, I did. And I had this little baby who needed me, and I was barely grown myself.”
Bella had never told me she woke up that way. This conversation was proving quite educational about both of them.
“I keep waiting to feel better,” Bella said. “And everyone seems to be moving on except me. Peter loves where we live. Dad’s … dating.”
“And it all feels like a betrayal to your mother?” Gillian asked.
“Yeah. Even though I know she’s not here and never will be again,” Bella said. “And that everything’s different.”
