Free The Book of Someday by Dianne Dixon Page B

delighting in her laughter, and telling her: “I wish I were you, Bella. I wish I could fly! I wish—”
    AnnaLee cuts him off—saying “You’re home early”—hating the nagging tone in her voice. And at the same time remembering the hurt of having to sell her mother’s wedding present, the blue-and-white porcelain vase, to Mrs. Wang.
    Jack keeps his conversation directed at Bella, finishing his thought as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “I wish I could do what you do every day, Bella…I wish I could spend my time out in the sunshine with your incomparable, wonderful mother.”
    He then delivers Bella into AnnaLee’s arms, and tells AnnaLee: “I love you.” He does it with an attitude that suggests apology and unhappiness.
    It makes AnnaLee weary. He’s constantly leaning on her, needing her to be his compass and his strength. And in spite of the love she has for Jack, sometimes the weight of him is too much. Which is why AnnaLee is closing her eyes and pressing her cheek against Bella’s, escaping into the comforting feel and scent of her little girl’s skin, seeking the warmth of sunshine and the smell of summer grass.
    Jack is passing his finger over the reddening welt on AnnaLee’s forearm that runs from her elbow to her wrist, and he’s asking: “Where did this come from?”
    “Thorns,” AnnaLee says. “From earlier—when I was trimming the roses.”
    “It could get infected. We should go upstairs and clean it.”
    Jack’s touch on her arm is extraordinarily compassionate.
    And AnnaLee murmurs: “Eleven.”
    “Eleven…?” Jack says.
    “It’s been eleven years. Since the emergency room. In Brooklyn.” AnnaLee is momentarily lost in thought. “I can’t believe how young we both were.”
    “We’re not so old now, are we?”
    “I think maybe we are. I think maybe I am.” AnnaLee shifts Bella so that her hold on the baby is more secure. Then she asks Jack: “Do you ever think about that night?” There’s a hint of brittleness in her tone, something slightly combative.
    Before Jack can answer, she says: “I think about it…about how it felt just after the truck hit me. When my face was on the pavement and I could see my leg, bent at that odd angle. Mangled. Cut-up like chunks of meat. Like something on a butcher’s table.”
    AnnaLee’s eyes haven’t moved from Jack’s face; she’s trying to get him to engage with her—she wants him to let her know that he’s hearing what she’s saying. But the way he’s looking at her—the way he’s standing there, wordlessly, helplessly—is showing AnnaLee something she already knows.
    It isn’t in Jack’s power to give her what she needs.
    All AnnaLee has is the sound of her own voice, as she’s telling him: “I know the accident was a long time ago and that everything’s fine now. I’m alive. I can walk. But I’m not talking about now—I’m thinking about that night. About me. Who I was. I was a really good dancer…in rehearsal for Giselle …the ballerina who was going to dance the lead.”
    AnnaLee understands that she’s resurrecting an old and unsolvable riddle. It’s an exercise in futility. And she can’t stop herself. Because part of her is still refusing to come to terms with what happened that night. With its randomness—and permanence.
    “There was coffee in the rehearsal hall,” she’s explaining to Jack. “And I was running across the street for espresso. I hardly ever drank espresso. Why did I want it right then, at that particular moment? And why, when there was barely any traffic on the street and there were lights everywhere…streetlights…store lights…why didn’t the truck driver see me? Why?”
    AnnaLee is begging Jack to help her make sense of it.
    But all he says is: “It was an accident, Lee. Accidents happen.”
    She glances down at her wedding ring, murmuring: “Accidents happen…then they cause other accidents.”
    Jack sighs. The apology—the unhappiness—that was in him earlier has