Free House of Dance by Beth Kephart

sky. Not the air but the sky; there was a difference, she said. The sky waswhat pushed down on us, and the air was what rose high. Sky had the smell of stars in it. Sky had the smell of the moon. I didn’t believe then, and I don’t believe now, that I’ve ever smelled the sky, even in spite of Nick Burkeman and even in spite of my mother.
    Except for the crows and the fly, all was quiet. I lay in my bed on my back with my arms pretzeled behind my head, thinking about rumba and box steps, about Max and silver shoes, wishing my mother would push open my door, push her head through, say something, one thing that would make me feel safe again, that would make me trust her with my secret. How have you been? I wanted her to ask me. How’s Granddad? I waited. I waited. Granddad has a nurse named Teresa, I would have told her, except that now she’d made me wait too long. Granddad’s been playing Sammy Davis Jr. songs. Granddad’s been talking about Grandmom. Granddad hardly eats, he’s hardly thirsty. I’ve starteddancing. I wanted to be asked what now I would not tell, because she wasn’t up and she still had not gotten up, and I had already found out for sure that I was plenty old to take care of myself. I didn’t need my mother. I just wanted her to come and find out about me, ask me for her sandals back, notice how I was changing. I wanted her to look and see me.
    But she wouldn’t and she didn’t, and it got to be stupid, lying and waiting, so I started doing morning things. Took a shower. Brushed my teeth. Pumped on my mascara. Put my wet hair up in a plastic claw and tied on my sneakers. I was going straight to Sweet Loaves for breakfast, I’d decided. I had money to spend, and I loved those raisins fresh.
    “Rosie?” I heard my name when I was halfway down the steps, coming from the kitchen, not the bedroom. She must have sneaked down while I was primping.
    “What?” I stayed just where I was, took no step farther.
    “Could you come here, Rosie? For a minute?”
    “What for?”
    “Please, Rosie. Don’t make me yell. You know how I hate that.”
    I came down each step the way an old turtle would, scraping the bottoms of my sneakers against the navy-blue nubs of the treads and risers. Mom didn’t tell me to hurry up, and I knew she wouldn’t; she was, by virtue of her own vanishing act, losing her right to order me around. Finally I was down, and where I stood was navy blue, and where she stood was marigold colored. She was wearing her bunny rabbit robe, and her hair was ponytail high. In her hands she held a tea mug.
    “I wanted to talk with you,” she said.
    “What for?” I asked, standing right where I was.
    “Could you sit with me for a while?”
    “Granddad’s expecting me.”
    “This won’t take long.”
    I didn’t budge. “I can hear you from here.”
    “Rosie.”
    “I’m not planning on changing my mind about Mr. Paul, if that’s what you’re hoping,” I said, coming a little, most reluctantly closer, leaning my hips against the kitchen opening.
    “You don’t have to like him, Rosie. But you do have to be polite.”
    “I don’t see why.”
    “I want him to feel welcome here. I want—”
    “He’s married, Mom.”
    “I know what he is.” Suddenly she looked minuscule sitting at the table with her fuzzy rabbit on. She’d pulled her knees up to her chin, and she still had both hands on the mug, and she was looking out the window, toward the stiff black socks on Mrs. Robertson’s line, all marching in a row to nowhere. I wasn’t going to talk about Mr. Paul. I decided right then that I wasn’t.
    “Did you know Granddad has a nurse?” I said.
    “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about.”
    “You knew?”
    “Of course I knew, Rosie. I talk with Granddad’s caseworker every day.”
    I stared at her so hard that she must have felt me looking through her, until finally she turned and stared back at me. “I thought you were mad at Granddad,” I said, tying my