Slow Dance

Seventy-Four

He’d wanted his family to get here on their own—to see that this was the best way forward for Mom.

But they were all too self-involved and living too close to the edge. Desperate people weren’t generous. Or considerate.

Angel was the most reasonable of them, even though she had the most to lose. She was living in Cary’s mom’s house with her

three kids—the youngest was a little older than Gus, the oldest was probably eight.

Angel was still with the kids’ dad, but he only seemed to surface once in a while. Cary was half concerned that he was going

to surface with a gun. Jackie’s husband had already threatened to kick Cary’s ass. “You can try,” Cary had shouted at him, “but that won’t pay the mortgage!” (They’d been standing in their own front yard; Cary wasn’t breaking his promise to Gloria.)

Nothing was going to pay the mortgage.

Cary’s mom couldn’t afford it without his help. That had become clear as soon as she gave him access to her bank account.

She could lose the house to the bank or she could sell it.

That was it. That was the final word.

Cary was getting the house ready to sell.

Today he was packing up his mom’s clothes. She already had all the clothes that fit her and that she liked the best at her

new apartment, but he’d promised to let her sort through the rest of them.

Jackie had taken the dogs—after Cary had threatened to call the Humane Society. Cary was the mean old man. He was the landlord.

He was the hard line.

It was hot in his mom’s bedroom. Even with the window unit.

There was a dumpster in the driveway, and Cary had spent the week throwing out everything he found in the house that was still in a plastic thrift shop bag or a box.

“Some of that stuff is worth something!” Angel had stood on the porch and yelled at him. “She has an eye for antiques!”

“Angel, it all smells like dogs and cigarettes.”

“Not the ceramics!”

Jackie and Don had eventually shown up, pissed off and probably drunk, and climbed into the dumpster to save things. Cary

let them.

None of his own stuff was in the house. Not in a way he could find. His room in the basement had flooded a few years ago.

Fortunately he’d taken his ROTC medals and his yearbooks with him when he got his first apartment. His saber was long gone.

One of his stepbrothers had probably killed someone with it.

Cary had promised his mom that he’d set aside the family photos and all of her jewelry—the plastic necklaces and glass earrings.

She wanted her crocheted afghans and her coffee cups. And a drawer full of things that had belonged to Cary’s dad—an engraved

spike that he got when he retired from the railroad. A Zippo lighter. A cuff link.

Angel had a pile of things in her bedroom that she wanted to take for herself and another pile for Cary’s mom. She kept calling

his mom to see if she wanted something that Cary was about to throw away. His mom always said yes.

Angel’s kids sat in the living room watching TV while Cary emptied the house. (While their mom squirreled things away. While

their grandmother crawled around a dumpster, and their great-grandmother watched Judge Judy, five miles away with the shades drawn.)

Cary sat down on his mom’s bed and held his head. He was exhausted. He was filthy. He had seven days of leave left, and even

if he got this house cleaned out, he wasn’t sure how he was going to manage putting it on the market.

His mom’s mattress was shot. He could feel the springs. He should carry it right out to the dumpster—he was going to.

He didn’t bother stripping the bed. He shoved the mattress off the frame. Maneuvered it up. Out the bedroom door. It was too big for Cary to lift by himself. He had to push and drag it. It got stuck on the staircase. He was going to have to force it. He squeezed between the mattress and the wall, trying to feel where it was caught.

“Cary?” Angel called out. “Someone’s here for you.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s me!” Shiloh shouted.

Cary ducked, as much as he could, to see down the stairwell. Shiloh was standing there, holding Gus. She had Junie, too. He

was supposed to meet them for dinner later. What time was it?

“Hi,” Shiloh said.

“Hi.”

“Do you need some help?”

“No.”

Shiloh pointed. “I think it’s stuck on this overhang. Are the dogs around?”

“The dogs are gone.”

She set Gus down and pushed the mattress at an angle away from one wall, so it would come free.

“Step back,” Cary said.

She did.

He pushed the mattress forward.

Shiloh leaned in when it got stuck again. She lifted up the lower end. “Where is this going?”

“Straight out the door.”

“I’ll open the door,” Junie said.

“Juniper,” Cary said sternly. “Stay back.”

Her eyes got big and she scurried back.

“Set it down,” Cary told Shiloh, dropping his end. “I’ll go backwards.”

They traded places. She squeezed his arm on her way past him. Cary opened the door, and they carried the mattress out through

the yard and tipped it up into the dumpster.

“Thank you,” he said.

He really looked at her. She was wearing a bright green summer dress and pedal pushers. She looked fresh. She looked happy

to see him.

Cary brushed his hands on his pants. “Did I miss dinner?”

“No. I just missed you .” Shiloh was already walking toward the house. “I wanted to say hi.” She glanced back at him. “Is that okay?”

He followed her. “Yeah. Of course.”

When they walked into the living room, Junie and Gus were standing by the couch, watching Angel’s kids watch TV. Junie looked

up at Cary and then looked down.

Cary touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry I used a sharp voice.”

She looked back up at him. “Cary, do you want to get ice cream? We’re going to get ice cream. Because it’s a beautiful Saturday

afternoon.”

“I don’t know. I think I still have work to do.”

Shiloh was standing beside him. Angel was folding clothes on the couch.

“Angel, do you remember my friend Shiloh? And this is Juniper and Gus.” He held his hand out to Angel. “This is my niece,

Angel. And her kids—Bailey, Renny and Rex.”

“I remember you,” Angel said, eyeing Shiloh. “From the hospital.”

“I babysat you once,” Shiloh said. “Do you remember that?”

Angel nodded.

“You still have incredible blond hair,” Shiloh said.

“Thanks.”

Cary turned to Shiloh. “Where are you going to get ice cream?”

“We were gonna walk up to Kone Korner.”

He looked at Angel. “Do you want me to take the kids?”

She seemed tense. Cary shouldn’t have put her on the spot like that. It was hard to say no in front of them.

“Or you could come,” he said.

Angel still didn’t smile. “You can take them.” She looked at the kids. All three of them were staring at her. Three pairs of yellow-brown eyes. They scrambled up. “Bailey, you hold Rex’s hand crossing Thirtieth Street.”

“We’ll walk down to cross at the light,” Shiloh said.

He’d never once seen Shiloh walk down to the light.

“Go get your shoes,” Angel said to the kids.

It was about eight or nine blocks to Kone Korner. Cary ended up carrying Rex across the street. He was a jumpy kid. He made

Cary nervous.

Even though Cary and Shiloh had never walked down to the crosswalk before, he still got walloped with déjà vu crossing Thirtieth

Street.

How many times had they run across this street together? Too many times to remember in any detail. So many times that the

memories were like a wall slamming into him.

He bought all the kids ice cream cones. He let them all get dip. Cary was paying for everything lately. He’d never been a

single man with a Navy salary—he’d always had dependents. There was always something. Always someone.

He couldn’t touch Shiloh just now the way he wanted to. But she leaned against him while they were waiting for their cones.

“Sorry I took you off task,” she said.

“I’d probably still be stuck in that stairwell—Angel never would have rescued me.”

Cary wanted to start walking back to the house right away, but Shiloh said the kids would drop their ice cream, and she was

probably right.

The kids took up all the spaces at the single picnic table in the parking lot. Shiloh and Cary stood behind them, watching

each other. She was eating a cherry-dipped cone. He wanted to propose to her again. He wanted to walk straight downtown and

sleep on the courthouse steps and marry her at eight o’clock Monday morning.

They finished their ice cream and walked past Shiloh’s house first. Cary promised he’d be over later for dinner. Then he walked

back to his house with Angel’s kids. He carried Rex on his back—Cary didn’t trust him not to run into traffic.

When they walked into the house, Angel took one look at Cary and stomped into the kitchen.

He let Rex down and followed her. Almost everything in the kitchen was already packed up or gone. “Are you upset that I took

your kids to Kone Korner?”

Angel wheeled on him. She had her hands on her hips. She looked like her mom for a minute, even though they didn’t resemble

each other. “I’m not your niece, Cary!”

Cary flinched. He found himself turning toward the door, like his mom might hear, even though she hadn’t been in the house

for months. “What?”

“Don’t you dare lie to me right now!”

“I’m not going to lie to you—I just...” He looked at the door again, then back at Angel. “I didn’t know that you knew... ”

“I’m not a moron !”

“ Okay .” Cary had one hand on his hip. He rubbed his forehead. “Sorry. I don’t know how to navigate this—it’s not something anybody

ever talks about.”

“Maybe I want to talk about it! Maybe I’m tired of pretending!”

“All right.” He held up his palms. “Angel, all right. You’re not my niece, you’re my— You’re my sister.”

Angel crossed her arms. Her chin was pointed up. “We look alike, and we don’t look like anyone else.”

“I know,” Cary said. He knew.

“You’re my only whole sibling,” she said. Angel had half siblings. And stepsiblings.

“I know,” he said.

“And Rex looks just like your baby pictures.”

Cary rubbed his forehead some more. “I don’t know why you sound so angry about this—I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from

you.”

“Because you treat me like I’m nothing to you, Cary! And I’m actually trying to help you—we’re the only sane people in this family!”

Cary nodded. He nodded too long. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Angel had started to cry. He didn’t know how to react to it. It wasn’t like seeing his mom cry. Or Shiloh.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

She wiped her face on her sleeve. “I always looked up to you... but you don’t see me at all.”

Cary didn’t need another sister.

He didn’t need more family.

He was stretched so thin.

He sat at the kitchen table and talked to Angel. He listened, mostly. She wanted to tell him how she’d figured it out. ( “And then Grandma told me she had a hysterectomy when she was thirty-five...” ) She wanted to tell him about their dad—and their dad’s kids. One of them apparently looked like Cary. Suddenly the world

was full of people with his eyes.

Cary tried to stay focused on this one person, sitting in front of him.

For the first time, he asked Angel what her plan was, where she was going from here.

She said she was moving in with her mom and Don. She didn’t have a choice. She was on a waiting list for housing assistance,

but it would take a couple months. She could afford rent, but every place wanted a two-month deposit.

I can’t take this on, Cary wanted to say to her. I can’t take you on. I can’t be tied to this house and everyone who ever lived here, for the rest of my life. Siblings, aunts,

cousins, neighbors, dogs, ex-husbands.

But he listened.

And he couldn’t deny that it was Angel who had convinced his mom to stay at the assisted living center... Angel who was

moving the needle in ways that Cary couldn’t. She was the only other halfway-sane person in the family. And she had three kids.

He kept thinking about Bailey, Renny and Rex.

And Junie and Gus.

Cary was stretched so thin, he felt like everyone could see through him.

He told Angel she could have his mom’s car. And the TV. (He was always going to make sure that she got those.) And he told

her that he’d pay her security deposit—she didn’t have to pay him back. It was better if she didn’t try. It was best that

she didn’t tell her mom about it.

Then he agreed to talk to Angel about his plans from now on. To strategize with her, regarding his mom. Her grandma. (Lois.)

“You really think Grandma doesn’t know that you know?” Angel looked like she felt almost sorry for Cary. “I thought for sure

that she’d told you a long time ago.”

He shook his head. “I think she’s been calling me her son for so long, she’s started to believe it—she told me once that I

was her easiest pregnancy.”

That cracked Angel up. “Well, I guess that’s true!”

Cary laughed, too. A little. He felt anxious. “I don’t want to take anything from her. Especially now.”

“I won’t say anything to Grandma. I never have. I’ve never even asked my mom about you—I don’t know whether Don knows...”

Cary nodded.

“My mom has your baby picture in her wallet,” Angel said. Begrudgingly.

Cary didn’t know what to say to that.

She went on—“I’ve never even seen a picture of myself from when I was a baby.”

“You were cute,” he offered. “You had tons of hair, and it was the color of cornsilk. You looked like Renny. Everywhere we

went, people said you looked like a doll.”

Angel smiled at him. Then she looked down. “I’m not going to make this an issue with Grandma,” she said again. “But when it’s

just the two of us... Or the next time you’re introducing me to a girlfriend...”

“There won’t be a next time,” Cary said. “There’s only Shiloh. And she already knows you’re my sister.”

Angel looked up at him. She wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. “I thought you were going to lie to me. Or try to deny it.”

“I won’t lie to you,” he said.

Shiloh had the kids that night, so Cary couldn’t stay over.

He waited for her to put them to bed—then collapsed on her, pushing her back onto the couch.

She didn’t ask him what was wrong. Just ran her fingers through his hair.

The next day was Sunday, and Shiloh came over to the house to help for a few hours. She left the kids with her mom. She brought

Mikey.

Angel’s boyfriend came over, too. He was a real creep—but he got all the dog shit out of the backyard by noon, so that was

something.