Chapter 6: The Song Margaret Loved

Ethan came back from the parking lot and found his father standing exactly where Clare had left him. The piano played softly. Henry hadn't moved toward the floor.

“I can change it,” Clare said.

“I heard you the first time.” Henry's voice was thin. “I asked you to leave it on.”

He held out a hand as though searching for the back of a chair. Ethan brought one over. Henry sat, looking past both of them.

“We played this at our fortieth anniversary,” he said. “Margaret was furious because the band started too fast. She went up and made them begin again.”

Ethan pulled out a second chair. He didn't ask if Henry felt dizzy. He sat beside him.

The music reached the passage where Henry would normally have turned his partner. His fingers moved once on his knee.

“Maybe Saturday is foolish,” he said. “Evelyn knew her. What will she think if I ask?”

“You could choose a different song,” Ethan offered.

“I could. I'd still know which one I was avoiding.”

Clare stopped the track when it ended. She didn't start another.

Ethan asked, “What did Mom do after she told the band to start over?”

“She counted us in herself. Loudly. Half the room joined her.” Henry smiled despite himself. “Your mother never suffered a bad tempo quietly.”

“I remember her doing that in the kitchen.”

Henry looked at him. “I didn't think you'd noticed.”

“I noticed. I just never joined in.”

They stayed until the building's closing announcement sounded from the hall. At the door Henry told Clare he would come to Friday's practice. He wasn't ready to choose Saturday's music yet.

Friday afternoon, Clare laid the center's budget and her class proposal across a table in the studio. The twelve students at Wednesday's meeting had turned into eighteen names willing to register for a full term. She had a schedule that used the ballroom on two evenings and a modest plan for volunteer help. The proposed fees would pay for instruction and routine class costs. The roof and the construction closure still needed separate decisions.

Marisol joined her to go over it. “I can put this on Sunday's board agenda,” she said. “But there's something else. The contractors sent an updated schedule. They're requesting exclusive access to the ballroom after the social, beginning next month.”

“Next month?”

“Nothing has been signed. I'm telling you because you need to address it tomorrow if you want the class protected.”

Clare asked for the dated notice, then checked the footer. Caldwell Development Group. This revision had been sent three days earlier, before her conversation with Ethan on Wednesday. She called his office. He was in a meeting. She left a message asking him to call about the revised schedule.

Henry arrived while she was still studying it. She turned the pages over; she didn't want him to feel that every lesson had become a meeting about a building.

“Put on the song,” he said.

“Margaret's?”

He nodded. “If I'm going to hear it in my head all night, I'd like to know whether I can stand while it plays.”

She started it. Henry crossed half the room before stopping. He took out the old card, held it for a moment, then returned it to his pocket.

“Can we try the first step?” he asked.

“Whenever you're ready.”

He offered his hand. They danced slowly, without trying to cover much ground. At the turn he missed a count, and Clare waited while he found the rhythm again. He did not let go.

When the song finished, he kept hold of her hand for another breath.

“Saturday,” he said. “I'll ask Evelyn. She can say no. That's her choice.”

“And yours?”

“Mine is to ask.”

Ethan called Clare after Henry left. He said he'd located the revised schedule and that his planning team considered exclusive access necessary to store materials during renovation.

“You saw this three days ago?” she asked.

“It came through my office. I didn't read that version until you called.”

“Marisol had to tell me.”

“I asked them for alternatives this afternoon.”

“That's helpful. You should have told me what was being proposed before trying to change it.”

“I was hoping to bring you an answer instead of another problem.”

Clare looked at her careful class plan. She could already hear the board asking why she had prepared it without knowing when her room would be taken.

“I needed the problem,” she said. “It belongs in the decision.”

“You're right.”

“I want you to hear me say it when everyone else can hear it too.”

He didn't ask her to spare him that. “I'll be there.”

On Saturday Clare arrived early to pin attendance figures and student statements to a presentation board. She gave Marisol a copy for Sunday's meeting. Henry turned up in a navy suit and shoes polished so brightly she could see the ceiling lights in them. Evelyn had not arrived yet.

“Your son's coming?” Clare asked.

“He said so. I'm trying the unfamiliar experience of believing him.”

At seven, Ethan walked in without a phone in his hand. He carried a framed photograph Evelyn had dropped off that afternoon: Margaret in a blue dress, laughing beside a much younger Henry. Henry took it carefully and stood looking at it while the first guests moved toward the dance floor.

“I'm here for the music,” Ethan told him.

Henry's eyes stayed on the photograph. “Good.”

For a moment Ethan stood beside him, looking at Margaret's face. “She would have laughed at those shoes.”

“She would have asked where I bought them,” Henry said. “And then laughed.”

Ethan put a hand briefly on his father's shoulder. Henry covered it with his own before setting the photograph down.

Evelyn arrived in a green dress. Henry set the photograph down, touched the dance card inside his jacket and went to meet her. Clare watched him reach her without stopping four steps away. Evelyn offered her hand before he found his words.

They began to dance. Henry's first turn was cautious, then steady. He missed one beat and Evelyn laughed; he laughed with her. Ethan stood beside Clare and watched his father keep moving when the next verse began.

Clare let them have the whole song. When it ended, she carried her presentation board to the side table where Marisol was speaking with two center board members. Ethan followed when he saw where she was going.

Marisol introduced them. Clare handed out the class proposal, attendance sheets and the contractor's revised schedule.

“I can show you how the course covers its running costs,” Clare said. “But I can't promise these students a room unless we discuss this closure first.”

One board member frowned at the date on the notice. Ethan reached for his copy. Clare held onto it for a moment, facing him across the table.

“Your office sent this on Tuesday,” she said. “You offered me a different room on Wednesday.”

Henry and Evelyn had come off the floor. They were close enough to hear.

Clare released the paper and asked Ethan the question she'd held since Friday.

“Why didn't you tell me what they were asking the center to give up?”