Don’t Let Me Go(81)

Then Grace said, “What happened, Billy? What happened to you?”

And he didn’t even feel the urge to fight it. It was bound to find him sooner or later, and tonight seemed as good a night as any.

Still, they lay in silence for a long time.

“It’s a little hard to explain,” he said at last. “But I’ll try. I’ll try. I’ve just always had panic attacks. And I know you want me to tell you why, but I don’t know why I have panic attacks and other people don’t. I’m not sure if anybody knows that. I grew up in a weird, scary house, but other people did, too, and they don’t all have panic attacks. But I’ve had them ever since I was…oh, I don’t know…maybe even your age. Maybe first or second grade. But then they just kept getting worse. For years I could keep them away by dancing. Or keep them at bay, anyway. As long as I danced regularly. But then after a while I had to literally be in the very act of dancing to stop them. So I’d have panic attacks when I traveled, and on the way to the theater. And then during curtain calls. So I started going to fewer auditions. But when I was inside, I was always OK. So I just started staying inside. Like I told you before, it gets to be an addiction. You want to be OK right now, so you trade that for having a good life in the long run. It’s a bad trade, but people do it all the time. That’s all addiction really is. It’s trading away the future so you can feel OK right now. That’s what your mom is doing. And that’s what got me. There’s really quite a lot of it going around.”

Billy wondered if Grace had understood any of that. But she was a smart kid, so he figured she probably understood enough. As much as she needed to.

Billy heard her snore lightly, so he scooped her up and carried her in and laid her down on the couch, covering her with the afghan, which had never been put back on the bed.

He looked at the clock. Ten fifteen.

It brought a little pang of pain to his gut to think of Jesse and Rayleen out together, talking, or looking into each other’s eyes, or whatever they were doing. But he brushed it away again. They had a right to find happiness, if indeed it was there for them. It benefitted Billy nothing if they failed.

Just as he was climbing under the covers, Grace spoke to him from the living room.

“Billy?”

“You OK?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to tell you something.”

“All right. What?”

“You can’t tell anybody.”

“OK.”

“I’m going to be a dancer when I grow up.”

Billy breathed three times, consciously. As much as he could bring himself to believe in prayer, he prayed that the life would not wound her beyond repair.

“Why wouldn’t you want anyone else to know that?”

“Because they wouldn’t believe me. They’d think I was just being a stupid kid. But you believe me, right? You believe I can really do it, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do. But, like I said last time you asked, you’re going to have to work incredibly hard. But I believe you can, if you want it badly enough.”

“I do. I want it bad. And it’ll all be because of you. You’re the one who taught me to shine.”

“There’s a lot more to it than I’ve taught you so far.”

“I know. But you’re not done teaching me. Are you?”

“No,” Billy said. “I’m not.”





Grace



“Someone is knocking on Rayleen’s door,” Grace said. “Billy, do you hear that?”

Grace paused her dance rehearsal to listen, standing balanced with one leg in the air. Her balance had gotten a lot better since she’d started with all the dancing. Still, she hoped she didn’t look too much like one of those bird dogs you see in the movies and on TV, helping hunt pheasants. Or…then, on the other hand, those were really pretty dogs.

“Maybe we should go see who it is, so we can tell them Rayleen won’t be home till five thirty.”

“I’ll go along,” Billy said, lifting the cat up off his lap.

“Why? I can open a door, you know.”

“But we don’t know who’s on the other side.”

“Some protection you’ll be,” she said as they approached the door nearly elbow to shoulder.

“Hey.”

He sounded hurt.

“Sorry.”

It was so natural to take those little shots at Billy, and he was around so much of the time, that Grace had to keep reminding herself that it was easy — too easy — to hurt his feelings.

Billy undid the locks and Grace opened the door, a team effort.

There was a lady at Rayleen’s door, and Grace remembered her, but just for a second she couldn’t remember from where. Then the lady turned around and smiled at her, and Grace’s tummy did a little flip-flop. It was that lady from the county. The one who’d come already, once before, to check on her.

“Oh, there you are, Grace,” the lady said. “Do you remember me?”

“Yeah.” Grace was surprised by how little her voice sounded. “Just not your name.”

“Ms. Katz.”

“Right. I wonder how I forgot that. Because I really like cats.”

“It’s not spelled the same,” the lady said, still smiling that smile that didn’t seem real. It looked more like something she might have put on earlier that morning with her make-up.