A Lily in the Light(89)
“Esme,” she said, full of all the old tenderness, if not more.
Esme snapped to attention.
“I’m so happy you’re here. Both of you,” she said.
She led them to the newest framed photo above her desk, where Esme was leaning back in a bath of blue light, being carried into the empty space beyond the stage. She took the frame off the wall and handed it to Lily, who traced her finger over Esme’s tiny shape.
“Brava,” Amelia whispered. “Brava.”
Esme nodded, too choked up to say anything more, and suddenly the whole day was completely overwhelming and complete in a way Esme couldn’t have imagined. She felt tired enough to sleep for a thousand years, but she should tell Lily about living with Amelia at some point because they’d both been somewhere else once that had recharted their course.
“Come,” Amelia said, guiding them both toward the open studio. “I can’t have you out of practice when you get to Boston.”
Esme slipped out of her shoes and pulled a pair of leg warmers over her leggings, laced her pointe shoes, and watched out of the corner of her eye as Lily left her own sneakers against the wall.
“May I?” Amelia asked, gesturing toward Lily’s hair. She began braiding it into a rope that swept the stray curls from Lily’s face.
“Is this OK?” Esme asked Lily.
Lily looked up from under her lashes, nodding only slightly as Amelia braided the last few inches and tied it with an elastic band.
“She’ll tell us if it’s not, won’t she?” Amelia said with as much authority as Esme remembered. It was just as comforting now as it had been then. Even Lily seemed to find it reassuring. She followed Amelia to the mirror, where Amelia positioned one of Lily’s hands on the barre, adjusted her shoulders, and tipped her chin just a bit higher than it already was. Esme found her place behind Lily as she moved from first position to second and third under Amelia’s guidance.
They were back at the beginning again. Esme watched her sister in the mirror, her loose gray T-shirt spotted with sky-blue paint over Esme’s leggings. When Lily was still, Esme could almost see herself in the length of Lily’s arms, her side profile in the mirror, the soundless nods and eagerness to hold Amelia’s gentle corrections, only Esme had come so far from that little girl in the mirror, full of promise. She was beyond Amelia’s corrections now as she traced her own patterns in the mirror across the floor, showing off everything she’d become in the past eight years because she’d had to—but also because she’d always hoped Lily would be watching, and now she was. Amelia clapped to keep time as she always had and taught Lily a waltz so Lily could cross the floor, so to speak, all on her own.
EPILOGUE
By October, Esme had settled into Boston. She spent the mornings taking classes, learning new choreography, and her favorite, choreographing with Adam, the two of them puffing and spiking through bursts of inspiration, finishing where the other left off. She’d signed up for a creative writing class at Boston University, and when she was feeling brave, she read her short stories aloud at night while she and Adam soaked their feet in ice baths. Sometimes her stories were about dance, but mostly, they were about kids who slipped between worlds.
In the morning, she woke to cinnamon oatmeal simmering in the Crock-Pot, a smell that reminded her of Amelia every time she lifted the lid. But best of all, she woke to Adam curled on the pillow next to hers under a tangle of blond hair. Esme never felt like the day had truly begun until his blue eyes opened, bluer than the sky through their window. Her other life had been dreamlike. It would never quite feel as real as Adam’s ankle draped over hers in the morning or at night before they fell asleep. Next month, he was coming home with her for Madeline’s wedding, and for the first time, Adam’s thread in her life would cross with her family. The whole idea was thrilling.
Lily’s room had started something for her parents. They’d bought a new leather couch and painted the living room bright white. Andre wanted to fix the kitchen up next because they were growing so much nice food in the garden; they should have a beautiful kitchen to cook together like they’d had in New Mexico. Cerise couldn’t believe it’d only taken a few tomatoes to change the olive-green countertops she’d always hated. Sometime between Lily’s bedroom and the living room, Andre’s pile of folded sheets and blankets had disappeared from the living room.
They had plans to turn Nick’s room into a sewing room for Cerise, but Esme suspected that would change when Madeline told them about the baby. Madeline was just starting to show but keeping the baby a secret until after the wedding. Even though it hadn’t happened in the “right” order, Madeline insisted, she could still tell them in the logical order.
Esme went home as often as she could, taking the bus to New York for a night or two with Lily. They took the train to Central Park and climbed sparkling black rocks in silence, sat by the pond to watch frogs and turtles. Quiet time was just as important as talking time, Lily’s therapist had said. It built the comfortable space between them.
On one of those trips home, Lily woke Esme before dawn. The light outside the window was a smoky gray. It was too early for birds, and the house was silent.
“Will you take me somewhere?” Lily whispered.
Esme found her shoes and left a quick note for her parents. She followed Lily to the garden and waited while she picked the last of the lavender and tied it into a bundle. Lily locked the gate when she was finished. It still startled Esme when Lily did little normal things that made her part of their fabric, locking a gate, pouring a bowl of cereal, opening her old bedroom door, sleepy eyed.