Silence came and burdened the air as Mom studied the smiling portrait of my stepfather Chris. What brother was she talking about? Mom didn't have a brother anymore. Why did Madame look at Dad when she asked about Cory?
"Yes, yes, of course," said Mom, making me puzzled as to what she meant. "Now tell me all about Greenglenna and Clairmont. I want to hear about everybody. How is Lorraine DuVal? Whom did she marry? Or did she go on to New York?"
"He never married, did he?" pursued
Grandmother with her eyes narrowed.
"Who?"
"Your brother."
"No, he hasn't married yet," answered Mom, again testy. Then she was smiling. "Now, Madame, I have a big surprise for you. We have a daughter now and her name is Cindy."
"Hah!" snorted Madame, "I already know about Cindy." There was a strange gleam in her eyes. "But still I would like to see and hear more about this paragon of all little girls. Jory writes she may have some dancing abilities."
"Oh, she does, she does! I wish you could see her in her little pink leotards trying to imitate Jory or me--I mean when I could dance."
"Your husband must be getting along in years by now," Madame said, disregarding photographs Mom tried to show her of Cindy, who was already in bed for the night.
"Did Jory tell you I'm writing a book? It's really fascinating. I didn't think it would be when I first started but after I mastered transitions I really surprised myself, and now writing is more fun than work. Just as satisfying as dancing." She smiled and fluttered her hands about, plucking at lint on her blue pants, tugging down her white sweater, fiddling with her hair, shuffling papers to tidy her desk. "My room is a mess. I apologize for that. I need a study, but in this house we don't have the room . . ."
"Is your brother making hospital rounds too?"
I sat there, not understanding who this brother was. Cory was dead. He'd been dead for years. Though nobody laid in his grave, nobody at all. Little headstone beside Aunt Carrie and nobody there . . .
"You must be hungry. Let's go into the dining room and Emma can heat up the spaghetti. The second time around it's always better . . ."
"Spaghetti?" snapped Madame. "You mean you eat that kind of junk? You allow my grandson to eat starches? Years and years ago I warned you to stay away from pasta! Really, Catherine, don't you ever learn?"
Spaghetti was one of my favorite dishes--but we'd had leg of Iamb tonight in Madame's honor, fixed the way Momma thought she liked it best. Why had she said spaghetti? I gave my mother a hard look and saw her flustered and breathless, looking as young as Melodie, as if she were terribly afraid something might go wrong--and what could?
Madame M. wouldn't eat at our house, wouldn't sleep there either, for she didn't want to "inconvenience" us. Already she'd found a room in town, close to Mom's dance school. "And though you haven't asked me, Catherine, I'll be delighted to stay on and replace you. I sold out my school the moment Jory wrote and told me of your accident."
Mom could only nod, looking queerly blank.
A few days later Madame looked around the office that had been Mom's. "She keeps everything so neat, not like me at all. Soon I'll have it looking like my own."
I loved her in an odd kind of way, the way you love winter when you're hot in the summer. And then when winter was shivering your bones, I wished it would go away. She moved so young and looked so old. When she danced she could almost make you think she was eighteen. Her black hair came and went according to which day of the week it was. I'd learned by now she used some color rinse that was shampooed in and soon came out to darken the teeth of her white comb. I liked it best when it was white, silvery under the lights.
"You are everything my own Julian was!" she cried, smothering me with too much gushing affection. Already she'd dismissed the young teacher Mom had hired. "But what makes you so arrogant, huh? Your momma tell you that you are sensational? Always your momma thinks the music is what counts most in the dance, and is not, is not. It is the display of the beautiful body that is the essence of ballet. I come to save you. I come to teach you how to do everything perfect. When I am done with you, you will have flawless technique." Her shrill voice lowered an octave or two. "I come too because I am old and may soon die and I do not know my grandson at all. I come to do my duty by being not only your grandmother, but also your grandfather and your father too. Catherine was big fool to dance when she knew her knee could fold any second--but your mother was always big fool, so what's new?"
She made me furious. "Don't you talk like that about my mother. She's not a fool. She's never been a fool. She does what she feels she must--so I'll tell you the truth and you let her be. She danced that last time because I pleaded and pleaded for her to dance at least one time with me professionally. She did it for me, Grandmother, for me, not herself!"
Her small dark eyes turned shrewd. "Jory, take lesson number one in my philosophy course: Nobody ever does anything for anyone else unless it gives them even more."
Madame swept all the little mementos Mom cherished into the trashcan, like they were so much junk. Next she hauled up a huge beat-up satchel, and in minutes had the desk more cluttered with her junk than it had been before.
Immediately I knelt to take from the trashcan all the things I knew my mother loved.
"You don't love me like you love her," complained Madame in a gritty voice of self-pity that sounded weak and old. Startled at the pain in her voice, I looked up and saw her as I'd never seen her before--an old woman, lonely and pitiful, clinging desperately to the only meaningful link to life she had--me.
Pity flooded me. "I'm glad you're here, Grandmother, and of course I love you. Don't ask if I love you more than anyone else, only be happy that I love you at all, as I'm happy you love me for whatever reason." I kissed her wrinkled cheek. "We'll get to know each other better. And I'll be the kind of son you wanted my father to be--in some ways--so don't cry and feel alone. My family is your family."
Nevertheless, tears were in her eyes, streaking her face, making her lips quiver as she clutched at me desperately. Her voice came cracked and old: "Never did Julian run to me like you just did. He didn't like to touch or be touched. Thank you, Jory, for loving me a little."
Until now she'd been just a summer event in my life, flattering me with too much praise, making me feel special. Now I was uncomfortable to know she'd be here always, shadowing all our lives--perhaps.
Everything was going wrong in our lives. Maybe I could put all the blame on that old woman next door. Yet here was another old woman in black, ten times more trying than Bart's grandmother, more dominating too. Bart was a kid who needed some control, but I was almost a man and didn't need more mothering. With some resentment I pulled away from her clutching, clawlike hands and asked,