Before
Almost two years after Hank left, Kestrel was living in Boise again. She’d returned to care for Grandma, but after burying her, Kestrel found no reason to return to Ann Arbor. Michigan hadn’t been home. Hank had been home.
She’d thought she was doing okay, but after she lost her job, her health insurance, and her car, she was forced to admit that all evidence proved otherwise.
So when a coworker at the coffee shop showed her an ad for the dance marathon, Kestrel declared without even reading the fine print that she was going to win.
Three weeks later, Kestrel was on a Greyhound to Los Angeles.
The competition was held in an old theater, the stage was the dance floor, and the audience sporadically filled with curious spectators.
Kestrel sincerely enjoyed the first few hours.
The playlist went all in on disco, eighties pop, and early-aughts bangers.
Despite the toe-tappers, Kestrel was mindful of conserving her energy, but her body genuinely wanted to dance.
Volunteers brought the dancers water and protein shakes with straws.
They had a limited number of bathroom breaks that were timed down to the second.
Around hour twelve, something changed inside Kestrel. She couldn’t hear the music anymore. Her thoughts turned off. And into that blank space came commands: Stop. STOP. STOP!
A part of her flickered, yearning to obey. But then, an unbidden memory accosted her—Teacher in his flannel shirt and jeans, sitting on his cut-log stool, saying, We show love for each other by obeying our common rules and principles. Obedience is love. Young Kestrel had had no answer to that.
But adult Kestrel eventually found the word to talk back to it. No. Forcing you to erase yourself was not love. Needing to reshape yourself into what was most comfortable for others was not love. Love was respect. Attention, admiration, acceptance.
So when her mind ordered her—Stop dancing, this is too hard, give up and rest—she refused to obey. And she kept dancing.
Twenty hours in, Kestrel was dancing her tired Charleston against two other women, both die-hard Austen fanatics.
They were dancing to win, but Kestrel was dancing to survive.
There was only one thing she knew she could do better than most people, and that was to keep moving.
And she had a huge advantage, because her body had done this before.
For twenty-two hours she had walked away from Farm Home.
Through forests and towns, past junkyards and cemeteries, on and on till she’d stopped noticing what was around her.
For her, this was not just a goal; this was muscle memory.
There was no destination, just a sensation. Stay on your feet. Keep moving.
“You won! You can stop now. It’s over. You won.”
Kestrel barely registered the words. After all that time, it felt easier to keep moving than to hold still. Finally a volunteer held her arms, made her look into his eyes, and practically forced her into a chair.
For a few minutes she was so confused, she thought she was sitting outside the library where her trek from Farm Home had finally ended. What a relief when she remembered that she was no longer fourteen years old and didn’t have to relive ninth grade. All she had to do was go to Austenland.