Dancing in the Dark

“You okay?” Seth asked softly.

Wendy nodded. “I’m fine.”

“Because if this is too much for you...”

“It isn’t.” She looked up at him. “I do a couple of hours a day on a stationary bike.”

“That old one in the basement?”

“Uh-huh.”

He chuckled. “I’d have thought the pedals would have dropped off by now.” They fell into a companionable silence, broken only by the faint huffing sound of their breathing. “Your mom says you worked hard, getting back your mobility.”

“I guess.” Wendy stuck out her tongue the way the twins had, caught a snowflake and let it melt. “But I wasn’t about to give up and spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.”

“No,” he said, “I didn’t think you would.” He glanced at her. “You’re really something, you know? Your own doctors say you won’t walk again, but here you are.”

“Here I am,” she said with forced lightness.

“I was so proud of you, when Gina told me.” His voice was thick with emotion. “But I knew you’d do it.”

Wendy gave a little laugh. “You knew more than I did.”

“I knew you.” He looked at her again. “Wendy Monroe. The real Wendy, not the one the doctors met that terrible day you fell, or the one your coach saw on the slopes. I knew Wendy. Her strength, her courage, her heart.”

“Seth.” Wendy could feel tears gathering in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I already told you how awful I feel about the way I treated you, but I really, really am sorry. I thought it was the best way to end things.”

“Yeah. So you said. Listen, I don’t want to go through this again, okay? I don’t need to hear how you lay in that hospital bed and realized we weren’t right for each other.”

“That’s not what happened.” Wendy took a deep breath. “I mean...I mean, all I could think was that my whole life had changed, Seth. That I was a different person, that—”

“Oh, look at the snow on the soldier,” Robin sang out. “Isn’t it beautiful? Could we go see him, Uncle Seth? Could we?”

Seth shut his eyes, then opened them again. They’d been so close, so close to talking in a way they hadn’t since the night she’d said goodbye to him all those long years ago....

“Uncle Seth? Can we?”

He swallowed hard. “Wendy? You remember the Minuteman? You up to walking over to pay him a visit?”

Wendy didn’t answer. He looked at her and saw the glint of dampness in her eyes as she returned his look.

There was so much more he wanted to say to her, but not now, with the twins babbling happily about the soldier.

“I walked them to the green one afternoon,” he said. “Damned if they didn’t feel sorry for the statue, standing there all alone.”

“Nobody should be alone,” Wendy said quietly.

Seth reached for her hand, his aching heart soaring when she threaded her fingers through his.

“You’re right. So I explained that he wasn’t alone, that he was surrounded by the hopes and dreams of all the people who’d ever lived in Cooper’s Corner. I told them that he was proud to stand here, watching over the town, so many years after he fought for our freedom.”

“For our freedom,” Robin echoed somberly.

Wendy smiled. “That’s nice.”

“Yeah.” He gave a little laugh. “To tell the truth, I was, what, nineteen when I first saw that statue—”

“Eighteen. You were just eighteen when you came to Cooper’s Corner.”

“Eighteen. Right.” They paused before the Minuteman, so still and resolute, his lean form and stern face gently illuminated by the lights in the pedestal. “Eighteen, and I thought I was so big and tough.”

“You were never tough. You were defensive, that was all, because you’d been hurt....” Her voice trembled. “And I hurt you again, Seth. Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

He put his gloved fingers lightly against her lips. “That’s all in the past.”

“No.” Her eyes swam with tears. “It isn’t. It’s still with us. With me. I know you don’t understand—”

“You think the old Wendy is gone. That unless you can look in the mirror and see a leg that works like it used to, unless you can make the next Olympic team, unless you can win a goddamned medal, you’re not the Wendy you once were.”

“Yes—no. It isn’t that simple.”

He swung toward her. “Then make it simple,” he said in a low voice. “Explain it in words of one syllable, if you have to, until I understand why you threw us away.”

“Uncle Seth?”

“Because you have to tell me, damn it, or I’m going to be stuck forever in that moment where I opened the note that said you never wanted to see me again.”

“Uncle Seth? Look! It’s snowin’ harder.”

Seth took a deep breath. What was he doing, standing in the middle of the village green, pleading with Wendy, while two little kids sat in a sled and the snow turned to a heavy downfall?

“Yeah. So it is. Sorry, guys. You must be freezing.”

“Oh, we’re not cold,” Robin said happily. “We just want to make a snowman.”

“Another time.”

“Aw, come on. We could do it now. Please?”

“Another time, you two.” He forced himself to smile at the children. “As it is, the sled dogs are gonna have a tough go of it, spotting the igloo through the storm.”

“What’s a sled dog?”

“What’s a igloo?”

“I’m the sled dog,” Seth said, wrapping the rope around his hand. “And I’ll bet Aunt Wendy can explain what an igloo is better than I can.”

Explain about igloos? Wendy could hardly think straight. So many bottled emotions, so many tortured admissions were struggling to get out.

But the children were waiting. When she looked at them, she could see the expectation in their faces, so she took a deep breath, invented a Husky named Akela and an igloo that stood at the top of the world.

After a while, she was as lost in the tale as the children.

“Don’t stop,” they begged.

She didn’t. She went on with her story, adding characters, describing the arctic tundra and northern lights and towering castles of ice. She kept talking while they made their way to Twin Oaks, while she and Seth tugged off boots and mittens, undid all those buttons and snaps, and only stopped when they brought the twins upstairs to Maureen, who grinned and took her babies into her arms.

“Finish the story, Aunt Wendy,” Robin pleaded. Randi echoed the request, but it was late, much later than Wendy had imagined.

“I’ll finish it tomorrow night. How’s that?”

“What story?” Maureen asked.

“It’s all about Akela,” Randi said excitedly. “He lives in a igloo.”

Maureen raised her eyebrows. Wendy laughed and explained all about the walk through the snow and how Seth had pretended he was a sled dog. She and Maureen got to talking. By the time they said good-night, long minutes had gone by.

Seth was gone. Would he be waiting for her in the gathering room?

He wasn’t. The room was empty except for Clint, who looked up when he saw Wendy.

“Hey. You were terrific. I can see you’re going to be a real asset to Twin Oaks.”

“Thanks. I had fun.”

“Glad to hear it. Well, might as well call it a night. See you tomorrow.”

Wendy smiled, said yes, she’d see him the next evening, got all wrapped up again in her parka, scarf, hat and gloves, and went out into the snowy night, telling herself it was dumb to feel disappointed, that there was no reason Seth should have waited for her....

Two hard hands closed gently on her shoulders.

“It’s me,” Seth said softly, and she turned around, wanting to tell him that she knew his touch, that she’d know it anywhere, that she’d never forgotten it or him...

“Tonight was great.”

She nodded. Snow whirled around them, locking them in its white magic.

Seth smiled, lifted one gloved hand to her chin and tilted her face up. “Let’s call a truce, okay?”