Chapter Thirty-Four
Emily
The stadium was quiet on Tuesday.
Until my phone rang.
I was alone in the dance studio, running bits of the choreography that I’d been a little sloppy on during the game Sunday. I’d tried to take the day off like everyone else, but it was impossible.
I couldn’t sit still.
I couldn’t live in the cyclone of my thoughts any longer.
Dance had always been a sanctuary for me in times like this, when my world felt unstable and I wasn’t sure where the next day would lead.
When I realized a job wasn’t for me and I’d have to start over again, I’d dance.
When I found myself with the itch to move again, knowing a city I’d been in wasn’t home, I’d dance.
When my parents’ expectation weighed on me and I didn’t know how to deal — I’d dance.
Maybe that was why my stomach bottomed out a bit when I dug my phone out of my duffle bag and saw my dad’s face on the screen.
It was a selfie we’d taken when I went to visit him and Mom in London one year.
Dad’s rich brown complexion was warm against my lighter one, our smiles one and the same.
He’d taken me to Oxford that day to tell me all about his glory days, to show me around the school he’d hoped I’d choose for myself.
Instead, I’d gone to a private university in Arizona, earning one degree in dance and the other in communications.
Every time he called me, that photo reminded me of just one of many ways I’d let my father down.
“Hey, Dad,” I answered, breath puffing out of me after running choreo. I hung my hand on a hip, staring at myself in the mirror.
“Hi, honey. Got a minute?”
“Sure.”
“Mom is here, too.”
“Hi, sweetie!” she chimed in somewhere in the background.
“Hey, Mom. How are you guys?”
“We’re just fine. Getting ready to go to dinner with the Archers and then into the city for a show,” Dad said. I heard the groan in his voice. “Your mother is thrilled.”
“Your father is wishing he’d fallen ill so he could get out of it,” Mom added.
I chuckled. “I’m sure it’ll be great.”
An odd silence fell between us, just like it always did. But for the first time, I found myself wondering why it was there.
In the past, I’d always ascertained that it was from their disappointment in me, from their lack of connection with the life I led.
But something about what had happened with Braden had me pausing to question that.
My very own Huxley Pause.
Was it really that my parents were disappointed in me, that they saw me as a failure…
Or was it me who felt that way?
“We wanted to check in on you,” Mom said after a moment. “We saw that you danced on Sunday. That must have felt so great! How is the wrist?”
“Still a bit stiff,” I admitted, rolling it with a wince. “But getting better every day. I’m nowhere near tumbling again, but maybe in another month or so I could try with someone spotting me.”
“Just take it easy. Don’t rush too quickly,” Dad said. “We also saw your podcast interview.”
“Oh. That.”
“We loved it,” Mom added.
I couldn’t help my laugh then. “Wait… you did?”
“It made us so proud, you standing up for equality like that. So unflinchingly.” Dad chuckled. “I think you get that bravery from me.”
“And the intelligence to deliver punches from me,” Mom added.
I was still stuck on the word proud, the one syllable ping ponging in my chest and cracking ribs along the way.
There was another long pause, and then Mom spoke softly. “Emily, we’re sorry.”
“For?” I asked.
“For leaving you when we did. We should have stayed. We came all that way to see you, and then you got hurt, and I know you told us to go, but we should have put our foot down. We should have stayed and helped you. We just…”
Mom’s voice trailed, and I heard Dad comforting her like he’d muffled the phone before he came on to continue for her.
“Your mother and I have felt a bit like… I don’t know. We feel like maybe you don’t want us in your life anymore.”
My stomach bottomed out.
“Of course, I want...” But my voice trailed off, my heart squeezing.
They were being real. They were bringing all the unsaid things to the surface.
It was time for me to be real, too.
“I want you in my life,” I said, and my voice was already breaking. “I just didn’t think you wanted to be in mine, not when I’ve let you down so much.”
“Let us down?” Mom tittered. “Sweetheart, in what way have you ever let us down?”
“Should I count the ways?” I asked, sliding down the mirror until my butt hit the floor.
“I’m thirty years old and still living off the money you give me more than the money I make myself.
I haven’t held a job longer than a year since I graduated college — with degrees I know you both think are useless.
The only thing that makes me happy is dance, and I actually think I may want to make a full career of it, but that means I’ll probably never be successful like you two are.
I may never have a country club membership or fly first class, and honestly, I don’t even think I want those things.
I just… I don’t fit in the Huxley picture.
I’m not a lawyer or a doctor or a financial advisor or whatever else your friends’ kids are, and I know it brings you shame. ”
“I’m going to stop you right there, young lady,” Dad said, his voice firm. “You do not bring us shame. The only thing you have ever brought us is joy.”
“And you think we’re embarrassed that you love to dance?
That you travel and see the world the way you do?
” Mom laughed. “Honey, I wish I could dance like you! I wish I’d leaned into the freedom I felt pulling my soul when I was a young adult and had done the same.
I wished I’d taken time to get to know myself, to try things and learn from them before trying something else. ”
“We both rushed into responsibility because we wanted success,” Dad continued. “And we love our lives. But we look at you and we smile because this was what we worked so hard for. We’re happy we could provide for you to take this time to discover yourself.”
“God, are we,” Mom echoed. “Nothing in the world makes me happier than knowing you could explore who you are with the security we provided. And we’d provide it your whole life, if that’s what you wanted.”
“Because in the end, you being happy is the only thing we want,” Dad finished.
I didn’t realize I was crying until the tears streamed down my cheeks, falling into my lap. “You guys always do this thing… this pause where you look at each other and it’s like… it’s like you pity me. Or like you worry about me.”
“Well, of course, we worry about you,” Dad said on a laugh.
“If you ever decide to have children, you’ll understand that.
But that pause we share?” He took a moment, and I laughed to myself, imagining them doing it now.
“It’s a little thing your mom and I do in moments we want to soak up and not forget, in moments where we see you making decisions we wish we could have. ”
“It’s us taking a mental snapshot, and telling the other that we did this, we raised a beautiful, strong, talented woman who takes life by the horns,” Mom said.
Now I was really crying.
“I thought you guys stayed away from me because I didn’t fit into your life.”
“We’ve kept a distance because we thought that was what you wanted,” Mom said. “We didn’t want to suffocate you.”
“We’d move next door if you said it was okay,” Dad added. “Is it? I’ll call a realtor right now.”
I laughed. “No, don’t do that. Mama would die without New York City hot dogs.”
“It’s true,” she said on a long sigh.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I let anxiety take over me, I guess. I thought the worst.”
“We all do that sometimes,” Mom said. “You get that from my side of the family, I fear. But… we’d love to start changing things. Can we come visit again soon? And actually stay a while?”
“I’d love that,” I croaked. “I… there may be someone I want you to meet when you come.”
That made them pause again, and this time, I didn’t see it as a bad thing.
“Oh?” Mom asked in a teasing tone.
“Maybe,” I said. “It’s… things are complicated right now. I’m not sure we’ll be able to figure it out, but… I’m trying to have hope.”
“What’s so complicated about it?” Dad asked, and I heard the protectiveness in his voice. “Any man would be lucky to have your attention.”
“He’s a football player. For Seattle.”
“Oh,” Mom and Dad said in unison. “I guess that’s a bit of a problem,” Mom surmised.
“A bit,” I echoed. “But… I think we could make it through. Especially because I’m pretty sure this is my last season with the team.”
“What? Why?” Mom asked.
I bit my lip. “I… well, I think I may want to get a studio of my own and teach.”
There it was again. The Huxley Pause.
This time, it swelled in my heart like a glitter-filled balloon.
“Sweetie, that is…” Mom sniffed. “That is just wonderful.”
“We’ll help,” Dad added instantly. “We can come look at places with you, help you clean and decorate and get business up and running.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t move?” Mom asked.
I laughed, pressing a hand over my heart.
“What made you think of this?” Dad asked.
My chest ached. “Braden. The player I was telling you about. He… he just helped me see what I couldn’t.”
“Sounds like love,” Mom assessed.
I nodded, my eyes flooding again. “I do love him. God, I love him,” I said, rolling my lips together. “But he’s got a lot on his plate, and I just don’t know if he can choose me right now.”
“I can.”
I balked, head snapping up to find the absolute last person I expected to see.
Braden.
He was standing in the doorway of the dance studio, winded, like he’d run all the way from Baltimore. He was dressed in a Seattle Seahawks sweatsuit, a big puffy jacket over it all, his hair a wreck, his eyes red and deep with exhaustion.
He was still gorgeous.
I still wanted to run to him.
“I can choose you,” he said, taking a small step, like he didn’t want to scare me off. “I can and I am and I should have last week and I am so fucking sorry I didn’t.”
“Um… maybe we should let you go?” Mom teased.