Sunlit Shadow Dance by Graham Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

the
excruciating moment when he searched her eyes for a sign of
recognition and found none. Then he told of the barbeque and the
singing in the church, and finally how he showed her the photo and
she said it looked like her but it was someone else who was no
longer there. He told them how he asked others about her and found
out she had first come there around the time Susan vanished and
that her children were the right age, sex and names, that her name
was Jane Bennet fitting the Mark identity.
    He finished by
saying. ”My mind says it is Susan, my heart so wants it to be
Susan, and yet I really don’t know.
    “ When I asked Rick, the station manager, about her he said she
seemed like someone who was nobody, a person you could look through
and see no one there, a person without a soul. I don’t think that
is right, but if it is her, she is not the person she used to be. I
don’t think she remembers anything from when we knew her before.
The minister’s wife, who is her friend, said that once Jane asked
her how old own children were when they first walked. She said she
would have asked her mother how old she was when she first walked
but did not know where her mother was.
    “ So my best guess it is Susan. But if you go there expecting
to find the person you once knew she is no longer there. The best
way I can describe her now is she has a calm flat surface, as if
she is happy and at peace. But it is like the surface of a frozen
pond, a thin shiny layer which covers something else underneath
which she cannot see. And, if you look hard, you start to see
cracks running through everywhere, just below the surface. It is
like, if someone broke the ice on a pond, and smashed it into a
hundred pieces. Then the bits of ice refroze and made a new
surface, but underneath are all the broken bits. With the cracks
running all through it you can no longer see anything reflected in
it properly, just mixed up bits. It has shapes that look familiar
but with most bits from before jumbled and gone.
    “ So now there is this person who looks like Susan and who
sounds like Susan, but it isn’t really the Susan that any of us
knew. And this new Susan is like a piece of ice that is really
thin. One tiny knock could break it all apart and then there would
be nothing left that we know.
    “ So, before I tell any of you where she was when I found her,
I need you all to promise you won’t rush off to see her and make
her try to remember and you will not let anyone else know where she
is unless we all agree.”
    Vic looked at
the stunned faces one by one, all struggling to come to grips with
this new information, hope and heartbreak in equal parts. One by
one they met his eyes and nodded. So he finished the story with the
where.
    When he
stopped talking Susan’s mother came over and sat by him, taking his
hand. Her shoulders were shaking with emotion as she said, “Thank
you so much for rushing back to tell us all, it means so much to me
that there is hope that my daughter is still alive no matter how
broken she may be inside. And not only that, but perhaps we have
grand children, a double blessing. I will trust you to tell us when
you think it is safe for us to go and see her. When you next see
her could you please take a picture of her with her children so
that we will have that to remember her by?”
    Vic had never
really talked to Susan’s mother before apart from the cursory
greetings. But now, as she talked earnestly, he could see Susan’s
mannerisms and personality in reflection. He felt a flood of warmth
for her. He started to talk to her about the children, how the boy
had sat on his shoulders and patted his head like a dog, how the
lady, Jane, had told him. “David has never willingly gone to
another man before.” He told of how David had fallen and cut his
lip at the barbeque and how he had picked the boy up and taken out
his hanky to dab the blood from his cut, and then, once done, the
boy had pushed away his tears and gone back