Choices - Chapter 4

This is the fourth chapter of my new novella titled "Choices". The first three chapters are posted in previous posts on my blog.

As soon as I stepped through the door, I realized I was now in the Country & Western club. A tall buxom blonde wearing a cowboy hat and jeans that looked like they had been sprayed on smiled as she came toward me.
She placed a cowboy hat on my head and grabbed me by the hand. “Come on Grandpa, let’s see what you got.”

She pulled me out onto the huge dance floor which must have had over a hundred people on it, all doing some kind of a fancy-step line dance.

“I don’t know how to line dance,” I yelled.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Just watch my ass and do what I do.”

Watching her ass would not be a problem, because hers was damn near perfect. However, following her steps was another issue.

I looked left and right and saw several other people just as confused as I was. But as the band played some kind of “Achy Breaky Heart” tune, we all seemed to eventually get the hang of it.

The crowd was a mixture of men and women, young and old. There were about twenty of the cowgirl dance leaders scattered throughout the crowd, all dressed exactly the same as the girl who had pulled me out onto the dance floor. So, every time the dance steps caused you to spin and look in a different direction, there was another perfectly formed blonde wearing tight jeans to follow. It was like they had been cloned.

As I danced, I started to look more closely at some of the other people up dancing. I recognized Linda, one of my old university classmates, dancing two rows in front of me. She had aged well because she looked like she was in her mid-thirties.

When we did our next turn, I recognized Joel, another old classmate. He looked like he was about thirty-five years old as well.

I slid the sunglasses down on my nose and peered over the top. Suddenly, Joel’s dark brown beard looked thinner and greyer and he aged thirty years before my eyes. These were definitely not ordinary glasses.

One of the cowgirls caught my attention and gestured for me to push my glasses up to their normal position. She smiled when I followed her instructions.

We line-danced to a couple more tunes before the music changed to a slower ballad. The dance floor thinned out when the music changed and I took the opportunity to take a break as well. I could see Linda and Joel heading off the dance floor and headed in their direction. When they got to their seats, I could see they were sitting with Mariette, another classmate, and her husband, Ron. Mariette’s eyes lit up when she saw me.

“Jay, Jay, come join us,” she said.

Although Mariette and I hadn’t seen each other in years, we’d kept in touch through Christmas cards, emails and social media. She already knew that Maddie had passed away a few months earlier.

I slid my way into the booth alongside Mariette while Joel and Linda headed to the bar to get another round of drinks.

“I’m so glad you came,” Mariette said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d be here either,” I said.

She reached out and touched my hand. “How are you doing?”

“Okay, I guess.” I looked her in the eye and I’m sure she could tell I was lying. “I’m having sort of a strange night,” I confessed.

She didn’t say anything, but just gave my hand a squeeze.

We watched the people on the dance floor for a few minutes.

“How are your boys doing?” I asked.

I was just making polite conversation as I already knew the answer. Her two sons were about the same age as mine and she had shared the highlights of their lives via Facebook updates and Christmas newsletters over the years. But I wanted to give her the opportunity to brag about them. What parent wouldn’t?

“How about yours?” she asked after she’d shared the latest stories about her sons.

Now it was my turn to brag. I could feel the smile return to my face as I told her about my sons’ latest achievements.

“How is Sarah doing?” she asked.

Our conversation was interrupted when Joel and Linda returned from the bar with several beers in their hands. They slid into the booth beside me.

Joel had just heard the last bit of our conversation. “Is Sarah your wife?” he asked as he took a swig of his beer.

I saw Linda send him a signal with her eyes that he should drop the subject, but he failed to pick up the cue.

“No, my wife passed away a few months ago,” I said. “Sarah is our daughter. Mariette and I were just sharing stories about our kids.”

“Cool,” Joel said. He took another swig of beer. “So what has Sarah been up to?”

“Not much,” I said. “She’s got Down’s Syndrome.”

Joel looked confused. “Aren’t you a little old to be having a kid with Down’s Syndrome?”

“She’s not a kid,” I explained. “Sarah just turned twenty-six. When she was younger, there were all kinds of programs available to help parents who had a child with Down’s Syndrome, but most of them ended when she turned eighteen. People seem to forget that special needs children grow up and their needs don’t suddenly stop when they become adults.”

“Doesn’t the government provide help?” Joel asked.

“Some, but not as much as they should,” I said. “It’s mostly up to the parents.”

Joel took another big swig of beer. “I’ve heard they can test for that now before the baby is born, but I guess that wasn’t available back in the day.”

Linda sent an apology to me with her eyes and then grabbed Joel’s hand. “Come on. How about more dancing and less talking.” She pulled him out onto the dance floor.

Joel was wrong. They had the test back then, but Maddie and I had made the choice not to have it. For one, the test itself increased the chance of having a miscarriage. But the bigger reason was that we didn’t think we could go through with aborting the pregnancy if the test came back positive. We decided we’d rather not know.

The leader of the band announced they were about to start a square dance. Most people headed out onto the dance floor, but I decided to sit this one out.

As I sat alone in the booth, I found myself thinking about whether we’d made the right choice. Would our lives have been easier if we’d not had Sarah? Maddie wouldn’t have had to worry about saving money to take care of Sarah after we’re gone and we would have been able to retire earlier and enjoy more of our golden years.

I felt even more guilt because I realized I’d probably pressured Maddie into not taking the test. Had it really been our decision or had it been my decision that Maddie had simply gone along with?

My thoughts were interrupted by one of the blonde cowgirls who was patrolling the club looking for strays like me. “Come on, Grandpa. Our philosophy is that we leave no man behind. Don’t forget your glasses.”

She reached out her hand and pulled me out onto the dance floor. Since I was a loner, she became my partner as we formed a new group of square-dancers.

The leader of the band looked a lot like Garth Brooks, not the current version of Garth with the greying hair and beard, but back when he had dark hair and baby-faced cheeks. He waved to his fiddle-player and we were off and running.

I’m not much of a square-dancer so I was just trying to do what everyone else was doing without making too many mistakes. When the caller said “Allemande-Left”, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do, but I knew enough to at least turn to my left to start.

The caller was using this dance as a mixer, a good way to dance and meet people you’d never encountered before. After several “Ladies Chains” and “do-si-do’s”, I had lost track of my original cowgirl partner. My mind was spinning faster and faster with each new move.

When Garth called for another “Allemande-Left”, I suddenly found myself looking into the eyes of Maddie. She looked like she did when she was thirty-eight and we were suddenly transported back to the night we had danced at the Calgary Stampede.

That was a magical night. We’d danced the night away and had more than a few drinks. We were walking out of the grounds when Maddie suddenly stopped and pointed to one of the barns where they kept the horses.

“Have you ever done it in a barn?” she asked.

I looked all around to see if anyone was watching us. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”

Her bedroom eyes gave me the answer.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the barn and then led the way up the ladder to the loft. That was a night I will never forget.

That was also the night that Sarah was conceived.