Prom Night in Purgatory(69)

He laughed but grabbed at the doorknob desperately, releasing her as he did. She let him go but followed close behind him as he walked down the stairs. He reached back and grabbed her hand, and the gesture almost had her in tears again. Life had suddenly become so impossibly sweet she couldn’t keep the joy from overflowing.

At the door he didn’t kiss her again, which was probably wise, but he did press his lips to her hand. “In case you missed it before, I’d love to go to the prom with you, although I don’t think I can dance to your music.” He grimaced.

“We’ll think of something.” Maggie smiled. “After all, you had to teach me to dance to your music.”

“‘Night, my Bonnie,” he murmured and let himself out the door.

“Goodnight, Johnny,” she sighed, and watched him leave.

When Maggie shut the front door, Irene was nowhere in sight. Maggie hoped she wouldn’t find her in the attic, madly trying to recapture her lost youth. Instead, Maggie found her in her little yellow sitting room, Lizzie’s old bedroom, holding a book as if she were reading, but staring off as if her mind were full of other things.

“Irene?”

“Is Johnny gone?” Irene looked almost fearful.

“Yes.” Maggie sat down on the little sofa next to her aunt, and reached out to touch her papery soft cheek.

“I love you, Irene. I don’t think I tell you that enough.”

Irene’s book fell to her lap, and her hand reached up to cover Maggie’s.

“I love you too, sweetest girl,” Irene murmured, patting the hand that Johnny had recently kissed. She looked away almost immediately, as if something troubled her but she didn’t want to unburden herself.

The joy that had been flooding Maggie only minutes before receded dramatically as she observed her aunt’s obvious distress.

“I love him too, Irene,” Maggie rarely called her aunt by her name but felt compelled to do so now, to drive home the importance of her words.

“Yes....yes...I know,” Irene stammered. “I know Maggie. It’s not that....”

“What then?”

“I had a dream. I thought it was a dream...” Irene’s voice tapered off, and Maggie felt a cold dread seep through her.

“When I saw you in that dress the other morning, I was almost too stunned to speak....but, I’ve been thinking about it since then.”

“About the dream?” Maggie whispered.

“It wasn’t a dream!” Irene lashed out, dropping Maggie’s hand and covering her face with her own. Maggie trembled at the sudden change in her aunt and was afraid to touch her again -- afraid her touch might be rebuffed.

Irene was breathing heavily behind her hands, the harsh sounds making Maggie’s hair stand up on her neck.

“It was you!” Irene cried in a horrified whisper. “You were the girl at the dance with Johnny, the girl who told me to get rid of Roger.” She moaned into her hands. “I don’t know how it was you. But it was! I saw your face in my dream. You were wearing my dress! How did you get my dress? I remember it now, so clearly -- as if it just happened today and not fifty three years ago.”

Maggie couldn’t breath. Her heart was a pounding, and she wanted to wail like a wrongly imprisoned man who knew he was a dead man walking.

“Roger was so angry!” Irene rushed on. “He ranted and raged about you for weeks, saying you’d insulted and embarrassed him. Like a fool, I thought I needed to prove my loyalty all the more. I gave him my virginity that night, thinking it was the only thing I could do to show him I wasn’t going anywhere. I told Nana I was staying at the Russell’s again, and Cathy and Shirley covered for me....but I was with Roger.”

Maggie grimaced and felt sorrow leaking from her eyes and sliding down her nose. Gus had told her there would be unintended consequences, things she could never predict, lives she would unknowingly alter....or shatter.

“By the time August rolled around, I had come to my senses. Roger had been unbearable, and I was quite afraid of him. When Billy Kinross died and Johnny disappeared, I was horrified, knowing that it was all Roger’s fault. Billy had been so sweet to me, and he was gone -- at Roger’s hand! I believed that, but it was too late. I was pregnant.”

“No, no, no!” Maggie wanted to scream. This wasn’t the way it happened! Irene had married several years after high school. She’d seen the wedding announcement in the old newspapers at the library.

“The baby was stillborn. Did I ever tell you that?” Irene’s voice was almost trance-like as she remembered the child she almost had. “He was perfect. A beautiful, full-term little boy with lots of dark hair. But he was dead,” she whispered. “I had hoped and prayed for a way to be free of Roger. Suddenly, I had it....and it had come at the price of my child’s life. So I stayed. It was penance, my own slow dance in purgatory.”

“Can you forgive me?” Maggie’s agonized whisper filled the room, and Irene shook herself, abandoning the trance-like state she had hovered in. She stared at Maggie, her blue eyes wide and filled with anguish.

“There is nothing to forgive, Maggie,” she said softly, reaching out and touching Maggie’s stricken face.

“You’re afraid of me,” Maggie mourned, her voice barely audible.

“I understand what happened....at least I think I do,” Irene replied quietly. “You slipped back....just like Gus said you would. You tried to help me. I know that...”