“I can’t believe you missed it!”
“What? What did I miss?”
“I did it—a double pirouette. I didn’t even need to use the barre this time. I am definitely getting better!”
Lilly beams at me with the brilliant smile and wide eyes of a twelve-year-old ballerina whose only request when we left our posh high-rise in the city was to have a dance studio space installed in her bedroom.
I think I outdid myself as I look around her room, half of which is covered in Marley dance floor and mirrored walls with a wooden barre drilled into the studs for her to practice with.
“I’m so proud of you!” I grin, taking two big strides over to hug her. She’s petite, just like her mother was, and it sometimes fills me with fear how delicate she is. Her mother was delicate too, and I will never get over the sorrow of losing her.
“Who was that woman in the driveway?” she asks as she takes off her ballet shoes and stretches.
“You saw that?”
“Yeah, from my bedroom window. Is she the new neighbor?”
I nod and don’t have much else to say about it because I don’t really know anything about her other than her name.
“Her name’s Seraphine,” I say as if it matters.
“That’s a pretty name.”
“Not nearly as pretty as adouble pirouette!” I exclaim as I pretend to twirl around myself.
Lilly laughs and tells me that I look like a big goof, and then I let her be so that she can finish her stretching and dance practice.
I go downstairs and start up the espresso machine for my third cup of coffee today. These beans were hand-delivered to me from halfway around the world. They’re easily worth their price tag and more,
I sit down at the table, realizing that I never did actually gather up the firewood that I had gone outside for, and listen to Lilly’s classical music waft out of her bedroom and filter downstairs. I’msohappy that she has dance.
When her mother died, I thought that Lilly and I would both break into pieces as if someone shot a bullet into a glass bottle. But dance held Lilly together, even when I couldn’t even manage to hold myself together.
Bella had always loved dance too, and she passed that love for the art form down to their daughter. Lilly was talented just like her mother, and she wanted to be a dancer when she grew up. So, when I decided to bring us both here after Bella’s car accident, I knew that dance was the one thing that I needed to preserve and support for Lilly above all else. I had failed to keep her mother alive, but I’ll be damned if I don’t keep dance alive for her.
Sometimes, I can’t believe that it’s been two years since Bella’s accident. It feels as if I’ve been juggling raising my beautiful daughter and managing my company all on my own fordecades. That’s a gross exaggeration. Lilly is the absolute light of my life. It’s just the company that’s a pain in my ass.
When we still lived in the city, it was a hell of a lot easier to manage a fast-paced, hugely profitable company. And I know that my shareholders still think I was nuts for making the call to move my company headquarters to this remote little town in North Carolina. But I don’t care what they think, just like I didn’t care back when I made the decision on my own. I still stand by the fact that it was the right thing to do.
When we lost Bella, Lilly and I neededtime. We needed quiet and as much peace as we could try to salvage, and we needed to slow down the pace of things while we recovered.
We also needed adrastic change. Or at least I did.
I couldn’t stay in the city where Bella and I met, and where we walked the parks and attended theatre performances. I couldn’t look up at the sky there anymore not without my Bella. I had to leave it behind and go somewhere else where I could focus on raising Lilly and being the father that she needed me to be—especially now that her mother isn’t here anymore.
At times, I feel as if I can’t do it all. I’m great at throwing money around and hiring people to do things, but I’m not as good at beingemotionallysupportive as Bella was. I don’t understand dance at all. I only know that it’s Lilly’s lifeline and that I would pay every dollar of my billions in order to give it to her. But I can’t give her all of what she needs. I am finally coming to terms with that.
I can see the light in her eyes dim when she demonstrates something that she is proud of like her double pirouettes and all I know how to say is that it is “great” or “beautiful”. If Bella was here, she would say something to our daughter about her balance or her arch or praise her on her form or technique that I have no clue about. I didn’t think those kinds of things mattered at first, but I know now that they do, and I’m lost.
Sometimes, I try to throw myself into work to make it feel as if I still am in control of things. But most of the time, work is throwing itself at me. Which is exactly why I had Tori, my secretary, hire me an assistant. I gravely need someone to help me here in this compressed headquarters. I think my exact words to Tori were something like “I don’t care who it is or what their resume looks like—as long as they aren’t a criminal, can take notes and startnow, then hire them”. In hindsight, it might not have been the best bar to set, but the bottom line is that I need help.
Sometimes, I catch myself wondering whether Lilly would benefit from having someone else around too. Another female presence to guide her on the things that I am trying butfailingto do an adequate job of.
I tried dating a couple of times, a year or so after Bella died. My heart wasn’t in it but some of the people at the company convinced me that it was the right thing to do. To get back out there instead of wallowing in grief, and to provide a female confidante and role model for Lilly. But it ended badly because therewasno better role model for her than her mother. And I didn’t want to let anyone else in.
“So, dad,” Lilly says after she finishes her practice and comes downstairs to grab some flavored water from the fridge. “There’s a guest instructor coming to the ballet studio this week and I want to go and take her master class after school. Can I?”
“Of course,” I say, snapping myself out of my drifting thoughts as Lilly sits down at the table with me. “Who is she? Anyone famous?”