Read Online Ghost Dance by Carole Maso - Free Book Online Page A

look at her, she had already taken the big silver bracelet from her purse. She picked up one suitcase. It was so heavy she tipped over to one side, her leg in the air. She waved good-bye.
    All those times, sitting on her bed, buried under clothes, the suitcases overflowing, I found it easy to imagine that she would not come back again, but I did not think of it that day when we parted in Grand Central Station, she on her way home to Connecticut and I back to Poughkeepsie.
    Those days of packing always ended with Father coming in to close the suitcases that neither she nor I could manage, they were so full. He would then lower them to the floor. To me at this point she seemed already to be gone, though she’d be chatting away, knowing little work could be accomplished on a traveling day. If I could have changed shape, left my human life for the life of clothing, been fabric against fabric in my mother’s suitcase, I would have—even to have been something frivolous, bought on a whim and never once worn.
    My mother, now in a fitted dress, now in a billowy one, now in a hat, now in a veil, a scarf, a bit of plaid, my mother now in felt, now in lace, now in cashmere, smiles. My mother’s shoe, one year a pump, one year flat, one year alligator, one year suede, pivots. She takes my hand in hers, one year polished, one year not, one year gloved, and we go down the stairs, she first, me following. This is how I remember her best: an extravagant, exotic figure, descending stairs or getting into the car, but always saying good-bye.
    I borrowed from this scene, not on purpose, for what was the recurrent dream of my childhood. For years, nearly once a week I saw this in sleep: The room is white. My mother walks to the closet and drags the suitcase out—I recognize its smell immediately; it is like the smell of the interior of a new car. I feel as if it might suffocate me. “Mother,” I say, but before completing the sentence she tells me to just relax. Breathe deeply. It’s OK. She is so comforting at this moment, so maternal, that I can’t believe this isn’t her daily role. She looks at me, her head resting on her hand. “Shh, shh. Breathe deeply. Everything will be all right.” I nod. All afternoon as she’s been packing she’s been uncertain, hesitant, sorrowful, but now, patting my head, comforting me, she is stronger than anyone I have ever seen. She moves with new confidence to one corner of the room. Her face has an exquisite pallor. Her chin is raised, her eyes are focused. From the corner of the room she takes a large heavy piece of white cloth and like an expert folds it into a triangle and, smiling, she gives it to me. It calms me down and I can breathe again. From the top of the stairs she passes the suitcase to my father. This is how I know the dream is nearly over. At the end of the staircase there is always fog. I hug the triangle to me. Through the fog I wait for the sound of the door closing. I can see the back of her head perfectly, even through thick fog. I listen for the engine. The lights go on. She turns to wave.
    All night Fletcher had been awake or half awake in anticipation of his first trip to the airport. Earlier in the day he had cut airplanes from newspapers and magazines and tacked them first to his bulletin board, then somehow to his ceiling. When I left him at bedtime, he was circling his room, a truck in one hand, a giraffe in the other, learning to fly. In the morning Grandpa and I found him asleep in his chair. He had made a cape out of a light-blue blanket which was wound around his shoulders and knotted at his neck. He was curled up in it, that sweet flyer, his thumb in his mouth.
    My grandfather knew what Fletcher was dreaming. He had dreamt the same things many times before his own first trip—a swirl of clouds, the sound of engines, a lifting in the chest.
    My grandfather rarely missed a chance to pick up my mother at the airport. He seemed willing to drive any distance and was