Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn by Kris Radish Read Free Book Online Page B

know she loves storms and hates the dark and that she's never had sex but is on the pill anyway because, well, just because. I know her. She is my baby, and what in the hell am I doing? What am I doing?
    She talks and the sound of her voice is a tranquilizer. Something to grab on to, something to swallow, a tonic to keep me on some kind of small but equal plateau.
    “Mom, do you remember the day I called you from school because I got my period for the first time and I was nuts and thought I would die or something?”
    “Of course I remember.”
    “What I remember is running from English class to the health room and thinking that if I could not get you on the phone that I might die. Really. I was terrified and sick and there was no one else in the world that I thought could help me.”
    “Sweetie . . .”
    “When I heard your voice it felt as if your hand was moving inside of me, Mommie. Do you remember how I cried when we talked?”
    “Yes.” I close my eyes and I can see the red skirt I was wearing that day, the way my hand trembled as I was rising from my chair to reach for the car keys so I could go get her.
    “I cried because it was the first time I realized how much I loved you and how much you meant to me and I'm so sorry that I never told you.”
    My heart stops. I can feel it grind to a halt, and then brace for that second when you can choose to keep breathing or simply remain at ease forever.
    “It wasn't your period?”
    “Maybe just a little, but I'll never forget you being there when I called and coming for me and putting me on the couch and how we went to dinner and celebrated because I was a woman. Do you remember what you said that night?”
    “I don't remember anything today.”
    My heart is barely cranking. I am mesmerized.
    “We were clinking our water glasses and you looked me in the eye and you said, ‘Katie, there hasn't been one single day my entire life that I have not rejoiced because I am a woman.'”
    “What was I thinking?”
    “Mom, you said it and you meant it and now it's time for you to act like a woman.”
    My heart lurches forward as if it has been struck by a cargo ship. Who turned my baby into a guru?
    “Katie, I don't want to hurt you, and I am afraid. I'm afraid I might hurt you and I might make the wrong decisions and that you will never forgive me.”
    “What do you want, Mom?”
    “I have no idea, baby, no idea at all.”
     
     
    Bob comes at me walking on objects so light and thin I cannot see them. Cotton, water, the breath of a baby—those are all heavy. He floats around me asking what I want and need and saying once very quickly that he is sorry, and I realize on the third day that I could use this entire situation to my advantage if I only cared, if I could only remember why I married him and what I am doing in this house and how to turn off the light switch. I have floated myself to a place that is one level above la-la land. I work and eat and sleep, and sometimes if I remember I do something terribly remarkable like answer the phone or buy groceries. I can't know if anything is changed because I can't remember how anything was before . . . before I wanted to watch.
    “Do you want to see a therapist?”
    This from a man who still asks me to go bowling and who has missed birthdays and anniversaries and who would most likely be hard-pressed to remember the color of my eyes if I turned around and he was not looking directly into them. But do I see him? Did I ever see him? Do I want to see him? There are hundreds and thousands of miles between us and I am so exhausted, I cannot—do not want to—go more than one inch. One single inch, and what will that do? Nothing. Not a damn thing.
    “A therapist?” I respond without moving.
    He looks at me and I see a blank television screen. Maybe the tail end of a cartoon with dogs and cats dressed up like people.
    “Why?” I ask.
    He is thinking. I imagine him scrambling around inside of his head, lifting up curtains,