“Oh Jeff!” Mary exclaimed when she saw me. “Have you come to practice our dance for your wedding?”
Taken aback, I set the vase of flowers down on my wife’s bedside table. Jeff was our son. He’d been killed in a car accident ten years ago, only a month before he was to be married. Sometimes when I came to see her in the nursing home, Mary thought I was Jeff, but she had never asked about the wedding.
“You will be such a handsome groom,” she said to me, her eyes bright with pride as she took my hands in hers. “I remember dancing with your father at our wedding. He was such a good sport, but he kept stepping on my dress since he had refused to take lessons beforehand.”
I kissed her cheek and smiled, not sure how to play along and not wanting to confuse her.
“Yes,” I answered. “I’ve come to dance with you.”
She squealed and I took out my cell phone to pull up the song they had chosen. I wish I had been better prepared. I teared up as I heard the beginning of Phil Collin’s song “You’ll Be In My Heart.” I took my wife in my arms and started to sway, regretting that I’d never danced with her since our wedding day 40 years ago.
* * *
Grace smiled as I walked into her dance studio. There was something familiar about her but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Hello Paul,” she greeted me, her hand soft and warm as I shook it. “I understand you’ve never danced before?”
“No,” I admitted. “My wife always wanted me to but I figured it’s better late than never.”
“Yes, it’s never too late to start,” she said. I followed her to the dance floor. She told me to hold out my hands and she placed hers in mine.
“Dance is a conversation between two people of lead and follow without words. We send and receive between compression and tension,” Grace explained, demonstrating by pressing into my hands and asking me to press back with equal pressure. Then she pulled back a little and had me counterbalance with equal tension, keeping the elbows locked.
As Grace guided my hand to her shoulder blade and put her other hand in mine in a closed frame, my mind traveled back to my thirties when Mary had signed us up for a private dance lesson together on Valentine’s Day one year. I had been annoyed that she’d wrangled me into it and was not the good sport she said I’d been on our wedding day. I was embarrassed now, and I couldn’t stop my hand from trembling in hers, although Grace didn’t seem to notice.
As we started to move forward together, she seemed to glide on wheels, and she stopped a split second after I did. I started to feel like I was playing puppet master, and I grinned to see that I could just lift my arm and my dance teacher would turn. There was something simple and easy about Grace’s instruction, like the natural way water flows downhill. I noticed that my hands had stopped trembling, though my feet still clomped like Frankenstein.
“Everyone feels awkward in the beginning,” she said, as if she could read my mind. Or more likely, I looked as awkward as I felt. “The more you do it, the more the movements will feel more natural and you won’t have to think about it.”
When I left that day, I wondered why it had taken me a lifetime before I was willing to do as Mary had asked. It wasn’t that bad. Actually, when Grace moved in response to my lead, I felt dignified. Honorable.
* * *
It was the very next day that the news announced that nursing homes were closed to the public. The Corona Virus was spreading rapidly through the country and we were ordered to stay home. How serious was this disease and how long would it be before I could see my wife again? Distraught, I took comfort that I had my dog Watson at home with me. But my mind constantly returned to my Mary. She had not understood how to use a cell phone and counted on my visits every other day. Would she understand when I didn’t come?
When the initial Stay Home Order lifted a few weeks later, we were permitted to return to most normal activities but the nursing home remained closed to visitors. The elderly were the most vulnerable to the virus and they were trying to contain such facilities to limit exposure to the infection.
“I’m so glad you came back Paul,” Grace said to me at our next dance lesson. “So many people have cancelled because of the virus. How are you doing with it?”
“I’m okay,” I said as I stood up from my chair after changing my shoes. I took Grace up in my frame and she started us off with a warm up.
“Ready, and…quick, quick, slow…”
My feet clopped and I kicked her a few times as I tried to remember what we’d done the last time. But as the music continued, I became more aware of Grace’s body next to mine and the pressure of her hand on my forearm. I stared over her head where I was going and my feet seemed to go where I wanted them to without even thinking about it. I heard Grace’s voice chant the rhythm like she was in a distant chamber and I was holding my dear Mary.
“That was absolutely wonderful,” Grace beamed. “I could feel your whole body relax and you fixed everything you were struggling with as the song progressed.”
I had not realized until that moment how much I’d missed holding my wife. It had been three weeks. Suddenly, I wondered what it would be like when she died and I never got to hold her again.
“Paul?” Grace said, breaking into my thoughts. “How are you?”
I had been staring at her but hadn’t actually seen her. My eyes adjusted to her face and I saw her eyebrows raised in question.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I am just a little distracted with the whole Covid thing.”
“Yeah,” Grace nodded. “I think we all are.”
In the week between that lesson and the next, I went to the nursing home. They let me see my sweetheart through the window of her room, but when she gazed out at me, it was like she didn’t see me at all. The caregiver in her room directed her attention to look outside, but even while I stood there on the other side of the glass, she looked right through me and then turned away. I wept, my hand on the window pane, a million miles from touching her.
* * *
As I watched the evening news give the latest death toll, Watson lay at my feet by my recliner. I turned off the TV and got up to head to bed.
“Come on, Watson,” I said, and patted my leg. He just lifted his head and whined. His tail moved as if to wag, but he didn’t get up. I bent down and scratched his ears and noticed a puddle next to him. He had been lethargic the last few days but the vet was closed due to the virus. I knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. When I picked him up to cradle him in my arms, he let out a wheeze and I immediately regretted causing him pain. He whined some more and I sat there, rocking back and forth. The damn virus!
The next day, when I walked into the studio, I felt deflated. I wasn’t sure how I was going to move my feet.
“Ready, and….quick, quick, slow” Autopilot, she’d said. I wasn’t thinking about my feet. I didn’t even remember the sequence Grace taught me during the whole hour, though I know I moved through it well enough.
I was changing my shoes at the end of the lesson when Grace put her hand on my shoulder.
“Paul,” she said softly. “I got the feeling you were somewhere else today. Did something happen?”
“My dog died last night.”
“Ooooh!” She said it quietly but with a whoosh like the word was knocked out of her and she sat down on the chair next to me. “I’m so sorry!”
“He was an old dog. I had gotten him a few months after my son died. My wife had been devastated and I was trying to cheer her up,” I said. “It was Mother’s Day and I knew she was going to have a rough day. When I brought home the puppy, her face lit up like a little girl at Christmas. Seeing her smile for the first time since Jeff’s death was worth all the pooper scooper duty I had later.”
“Your wife? You haven’t told me about her….”
That’s when the tears crept into my eyes. I looked down at my shoes to hide them.
“Mary is trapped in the nursing home…alone,” I said. “She has dementia and they won’t let me see her.”
“I can only imagine how scary that must be for her!” Grace said. “And for you! And now your dog is gone? I am surprised you had it in you to come to the studio today.”
“I had to,” I said, lifting my head to look at her. “You’re the only human contact I have.”
Grace stood up and pulled me to my feet. She wrapped her arms around me as if she was my granddaughter. And we stood there, holding each other, and I just cried.
* * *
The months wore on and the situation with Covid got worse, not better. I tried again to visit Mary, but as the nurse brought her to the window, she grew agitated. She yanked her arm away from the attendant and turned her back.
“This is ridiculous! We are not Romeo and Juliet,” I heard her hiss. “My husband has no need to sneak around outside. He’s a gentleman and will come in to see me.”
The senior recreation center I once belonged to no longer held activities there. We were encouraged to learn how to use Zoom on the computer to connect with each other, but I just lost interest. Besides, I already had a TV if I wanted to watch people on a screen.
I was like most of the people my age who resisted technology upgrades. But circumstances were forcing us to adapt to the digital advances we had procrastinated till now. I couldn’t even go inside my bank and use a teller for transactions. My regular branch had closed all brick and mortar services, so I had to drive ten miles out of the way to the next nearest location just to use the drive through. When I complained to the lady on the screen, she told me next time to bank online, and I gritted my teeth.
More and more businesses closed for good and I was Grace’s only remaining dance student. The weekly lessons were the highlights of my life.
“Grace,” I said before walking onto the dance floor. “Why haven’t you insisted we wear masks like everyone else? Aren’t you afraid of getting sick…or getting me sick?”
“I think seeing you smile is worth risking my health,” she winked. “Besides, I’m not interested in wrapping myself up in cellophane for the rest of my life.”
“Yesterday, I saw a friend of mine at the store that I used to work with before I retired. I didn’t recognize him at first with a mask on, but he recognized me. I reached out to shake his hand and he offered his elbow like a high five.”
Grace laughed and my consternation at the incident melted.
“I guess it is kinda funny,” I grinned. “But it made me feel like a leper.”
“A lot of people are freaked out right now,” she agreed. “But you can’t take it personally. It’s their fear, not a rejection of you. It seems like it is an exaggeration of how some people react when asked to dance.”
I remembered how disappointed Mary had looked when I made up excuse after excuse why I wouldn’t dance with her. At weddings, at work dinner parties, even in the kitchen. She must have felt so rejected. But it had just been my own fear and insecurity. Oh Mary, I thought. I will make it up to you. I’ll dance with you when this damn virus lets me see you again!
* * *
I was excited for my lesson the next week. Grace had sent me a text that she had a surprise for me. I was desperate for a surprise after so much bad news about BLM riots and fires destroying half the country. I could really use some pleasant company.
When I got to the building, the door was locked and I texted Grace to find out if she was running late. No, she replied, and she sent me a code to unlock the door.
By the DJ booth, she’d taped a big neon sign that said “hit play.” Confused, I did so and Grace appeared before me! Except it wasn’t Grace in body. It was a hologram!
“Good evening Paul,” Grace’s image greeted me. “The new government mandates for Covid precautions have prohibited physical contact between persons outside your household. This means any services that normally require touch like dance and massage therapy must be suspended. Even non-essential medical services like chiropractic and dental practices must cease. The best I can do is to recreate our lesson with a hologram. I recorded the lesson for you and you can hit pause and play at your convenience.”
I touched the lighted figure and my hand went through the image.
“I’m sorry that I cannot be a tangible being,” Grace’s recording continued. “You will have to use your imagination. We will first begin with a warm up, and then I will walk you through several new steps.”
I was so bewildered, I took her outstretched hand. I watched her frame connect to me but felt nothing.
“You always did say that I felt as light as a feather,” she said apologetically, her eyes sad. The music started to play, over which I heard her say “ready, and…quick, quick, slow…”
I watched her frame, trying to match the image to mine more than I focused on my feet. A few times, her spirit drifted away and I had to catch up. I went through the pattern she told me to execute, and I forgot to lead her into a turn, but she spun anyway. In person, she would never have spun if I had failed to do my part.
“Great job,” the hologram praised. “Now I will show you your footwork for the next set of figures. You can do them beside me and then we will do them together.”
Normally, when Grace showed me a new pattern, she put her hand on my shoulder and we moved through it side by side so I could feel her change of weight from foot to foot and which direction. But there was no weight on my arm when the ghost stood beside me.
As she stood in front of me to engage as my partner again, I looked at her eyes, straight through to the wall. There was a poster of two people dancing with the quote below it “Dance is a conversation between the body and soul.”
I dropped my frame and watched Grace’s hologram foxtrot without me.
* * *
The next week, I got another text from Grace: “My studio has closed. I couldn’t come up with the income to pay the rent, even with the unemployment income and the PPP loan. Please download Zoom onto your computer and I will send you the link to our class at the usual time.”
My heart dropped. So far, I had refused to join Zoom, but I would try it for Grace.
As Grace’s face popped up on the screen, I felt as nervous as the first time I’d walked into the dance studio.
She explained how we would modify the lesson and then I got up and walked away from my screen to the middle of my tiny living room. I’d moved the recliner and coffee table out of the way but it was still cramped.
Grace began to talk again, and I could barely see her figure on the screen. I sighed. I couldn’t understand what she was saying and went back to the computer to have her repeat herself.
She demonstrated what we were going to do and I was to pretend she was dancing with me. I watched her do the figure 3 times and then went to my dance space again. I tried to keep looking at the screen 10 feet away but it was hard to see what she was doing and I couldn’t look at her when I turned.
After several more attempts, I sighed again.
“Grace,” I interrupted her, returning to the computer. “This isn’t going to work. I am just going to have to wait till Covid ends before I do any more dance lessons with you.”
“I understand,” Grace agreed. We said our goodbyes and she left the meeting.
Since I had now joined the world of Zoom, though, I might as well see if I could get the nursing home to cajole Mary to use it. I dialed the number to the facility.
As I discussed the idea with the director of activities, the woman interrupted me.
“Paul,” she said. “We were about to call you today to let you know that Mary has suddenly fallen ill. Many of our patients have gotten Covid and your wife just tested positive.”
* * *
It was March 2, 2030 and I couldn’t have been more proud. I’d walked Grace down the isle and watched her marry a wonderful man. And now I had the honor of dancing with her at her reception. As the beginning chords of Phil Colin's song began, I looked down at my surrogate granddaughter. She had never smiled that big in all our lessons together, and I smiled back. And I knew Mary was smiling down from heaven now too.
Dedicated to Steve who took lessons from me to connect with his wife with Alzheimer’s.
And to the father of my children who danced with me on our wedding day to this song and died in 2019.
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