Spellcrossed (47 page)

His love flowed into me and through me, as strong as the earth, as boundless as the sky.

My father had said that the Fae carry the light of the sun and the moon and the stars. And maybe they did. But Rowan’s love shone with the soft glow of the fireflies that danced in our dreams.

W
E WERE BLESSED WITH A BEAUTIFUL DAY for our picnic, but the cool breeze reminded me that autumn was quickly approaching. The four of us tramped along the trail, content to savor the peacefulness. Occasionally, our pace slowed as we skirted a boggy area. In springtime, those places had been a riot of wildflowers: carpets of white-petaled bloodroots giving way to shy violets, yellow trout lilies, red trillium, and the green sprawl of jack-in-the-pulpit. Only after I’d walked the woods in spring did I fully understand what Alex had wanted us to capture during “June is Bustin’ Out All Over:” that giddy relief at feeling the world awaken.

When I mentioned that, Janet snorted. “And to think, she once thought spring peepers were birds.”

“Well, who knew frogs could sing?”

“When she came back to the house one fine spring day and told me about the beautiful buttercups she had found, I decided to take her in hand.”

“Marsh marigolds?” Rowan guessed.

“Yellow violets,” Janet replied.

“Yellow violets?” Jack echoed. “Well, no wonder you got it wrong. Talk about your oxymoron.”

“Thank you,” I said. “And as for you two, cut me a break. I lived in cities all my life.”

“You had Prospect Park,” Rowan said.

“Which I hardly ever got a chance to visit.”

“And the one in Wilmington. What was it called?”

Jack inscribed a slow crescent through the leaves with his boot.

“Brandywine Park,” I finally said. “And it was hardly the hundred acre wood.”

“Just some open space along the river,” Jack added. “With picnic tables and barbecue grills.”

A tiny step for mankind, but a giant leap for father and daughter.

The conversation drifted to other topics, but when we stopped at the ancient beech, I told my father, “The first time I saw it, I thought of that tree on the Brandywine. The one with the roots that could hide pirate gold or a family of gnomes.”

Jack stared at me in astonishment. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

Rowan seized Janet’s hand to help her ascend the hill to the plateau. After a moment’s hesitation, Jack took mine. When we reached the top, we exchanged shy smiles like kids on their first date.

But that’s what this was. And Janet and Rowan were the chaperones easing us through it with food and conversation and sensitivity.

We talked mostly about the theatre, but somehow our discussion of
A Christmas Carol
led to a comparison of Christmas celebrations in Dale and Wilmington, just as Rowan’s story of building his first snowman with Jamie’s children encouraged Jack to talk about the first time he went sledding and broke his nose.

During those two hours, I learned more about my father than I had ever known, including the shocking discovery that he’d had an older brother who had died when Jack was thirteen. Less shocking was the revelation that Jack had been considered “the bad Sinclair boy” who had grown even wilder after Jimmy’s death.

Although he quickly changed the subject, it was obvious that acting had saved him from getting into serious
trouble, that the theatre was more of a home than his parents’ house. What better place to forget his troubles—as a teenager and as an adult? And what better way to do it than by becoming—for a few hours, at least—someone else?

I’d done it myself.

The stage was playground and therapist’s couch. The one place we could safely explore our fears, our hopes, our deepest selves. A place where the laughter was approving, where we could bask in the applause and the admiration—and yes, the love—of our audience.

Little wonder he was drawn to Faerie. It was another sort of playground—more fantastical, more dangerous, and infinitely more alluring. And unlike a theatre where the magic vanished as soon as the curtain came down, its glamour never faded.

That was the first of many conversations with my father—and many walks in the woods. Somehow, it was easier to talk under the open sky, maybe because it allowed us to walk the trails in silence if we preferred.

Cautious at first, we skirted the difficult parts of our shared past to concentrate on the happy memories. But as the season neared its conclusion, we began sharing stories from the years after he had left. His were often confused and disjointed, the description of a glorious sunset over the red rocks of Sedona suddenly shifting into a vision of Stonehenge at sunrise—as if his memories were as mutable as the landscape of the Borderlands. At such moments, I glimpsed the fragile, confused old man I had met in June. It saddened me to realize how much of his life was lost—and frightened me to think that the glamour of Faerie would blot out his remaining memories.

Including his memories of me.

By piecing together his stray comments I managed to fill in some of the blanks of his final years in this world. Dark years, mostly, when his money was gone and he lived hand-to-mouth, picking up work where he could
find it, staying in one place only long enough to make enough cash for the next leg of his journey. The homeless shelters he resorted to when there was no work and no money. The struggle to find the clarity of mind to continue his quest.

He was far more at ease listening to me talk about my life, offering only an occasional quiet comment. I had rarely seen his introspective side. And while I was grateful to discover this other Jack Sinclair, it made the prospect of losing him more painful.

Perhaps he felt the same for during the final week of
Into the Woods
, his silences grew longer, his expression more troubled. When we returned to the theatre Thursday afternoon, he suddenly blurted out, “I can stay. If you want me to.”

Once before, he had made that offer and been relieved when I didn’t accept it.

I nodded to one of the picnic tables and sat down opposite him. Choosing my words carefully, I said, “Of course, I want you to stay. But most of all, I want you to be happy. Do you really want to give up Faerie for this world?”

“I wouldn’t have to give it up. Just…postpone going for awhile.”

“And what would you do here?”

“I suppose I could teach.”

“Do you
want
to teach?”

His shoulders sagged. “Not really.”

“It’s okay to want Faerie. You’ve been looking for it most of your life.”

“It was all I had. But now…I just keep thinking about what Allie said. About getting a second chance and not screwing it up.”

“We’re bound to have regrets. No matter what you choose. If you go, I’ll miss you and you’ll feel guilty. If you stay,
I’ll
feel guilty for keeping you from Faerie. And you might be bored out of your skull.”

My weak attempt at humor failed to evoke a smile.

“It’s not like the clock runs out when the curtain comes down Saturday night. Let’s both think about what we want. And talk about it again on Sunday.”

His performance that night was more solemn, as if the decision he had to make weighed on him. I listened to “Stay with Me” and longed to speak those same words to him. I wanted to protect him from the unknown dangers of Faerie, to assure him that the theatre was his home, that I was his home.

Rowan had told me that the night he returned. But Rowan loved me more than my father ever could.

When Kanesha hobbled onstage, wearing her one golden slipper, and began to sing “On the Steps of the Palace,” the song seemed an ironic commentary on my situation. Cinderella was trying to make a decision, too. And like me, she was stalling. Should she allow the Prince to find her or just keep running? Was she better off at home where she was safe but unhappy? Or with her prince in a palace where she would always be out of place?

It was a jolt to realize that her words reflected Jack’s dilemma far more than mine. To stay or to run. To remain in the safety of this world or exchange it for the dangers of one where he would always remain an outsider.

Cinderella’s decision was not to decide, but to leave a clue—a shoe—and let the Prince make the next move. A clever choice that neatly absolved her of responsibility.

Like Cinderella, my father was afraid of making a choice for fear it might be the wrong one. And like her, he had left his own clues: his assertion that he would stay—if I wanted him to; his fear of screwing up; his compromise of postponing his departure—and his decision—a little longer.

He had always allowed Mom to make the tough choices. He was waiting for me to do the same.

If I forced him to choose, he would stay. For a few weeks, a few months. That was easier than hurting me.

And if, like Cinderella, I chose not to decide?

We would drift along. I would offer him a role in the Halloween murder mystery. The role of Scrooge in
A Christmas Carol
. I would use the glamour of theatre to combat the glamour of Faerie. And for a few weeks, a few months, it might work.

But then the show would close and the New Year’s celebrations would end. The long, dark days of winter would creep by. And faced with the piercing cold and the gray-white silence of this world, his eyes would turn to Faerie, the longing greater, the need to see it more urgent.

I would watch him grow increasingly restive and resent him. He would sense my reaction and feel guilty. The tentative relationship we had built this summer would slowly erode and we would end up angry and alienated.

Cinderella’s song ended in a dizzying confection of clever rhymes and clever compromise. But although we had both learned something new, our choices were very different.

After the show, I found Rowan waiting for me at the top of the stairs. Whether he knew my decision, he certainly sensed my turbulent emotions. He poured two glasses of whisky and together, we waited.

Jack’s steps slowed when he saw us sitting on the sofa. At Rowan’s gesture, he sat beside me. Knowing a long preamble would only make him more anxious, I said, “I’ve been thinking about our conversation this afternoon. It means the world to me that you offered to stay. But you lost your heart to Faerie years ago. And that’s why I think you should go there.”

His head drooped, and he began to tremble. For a moment, I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

“You’re so much like your mother. So strong.”

I took his hand between mine, feeling the rough calluses
on his fingertips, the loose, dry skin on the back of his hand. He had been in the prime of his life when he found the portal to the Borderlands, but he was older now. Was desire enough to sustain him in that other world?

“It’s okay, Daddy. Everything’ll be okay.”

A single tear oozed down his cheek. “It’s the first time you’ve called me that.”

“I lost you for awhile. And Magpie, too. But we found them again during these last few weeks. And they’ll always be with us. No matter where we go.”

W
HEN DADDY WALKED ONSTAGE FOR THAT FINAL PERFORMANCE, his gaze fastened on me as it had on Mom. His face held the same wistfulness. And his voice was hushed as he spoke the magical words he had so often used to begin one of his tales: “Once upon a time…”

That night, he offered me the tale of our lives: the charming, weak-willed prince; the marriage that began with passion and ended in separation; the baby who represented the hope for the future; the young girl eager to see the world; the stranger who emerged from the past to weave his way into his child’s life once again. The choices made. The lessons learned. The regrets. The losses.

Nancy sat beside me, her hand clasped in mine. She had arrived without Ed, claiming he had a dreadful summer cold. For once, her instincts were wrong. It would have cheered me to share their joy, to see the blossoming of their relationship, to know that on this night of endings, something wonderful was beginning.

But as the cast took their final curtain call, I decided she’d been right, after all. It would be better to meet Ed in September when he was more than an antidote for grief, when the four of us could simply enjoy spending time together and share the happiness of being in love.

I moved through the cast party with Nancy and Rowan beside me and the staff hovering nearby, their faces radiating concern and love. It was eerily reminiscent of the
Carousel
cast party on the eve of Rowan’s departure. But I was stronger now. And although I would grieve for my father, I was grateful for the gift of time we had been given—and determined to use what time we had left to help him prepare for the journey that lay ahead.

But first, I had to deal with other departures. I spent Sunday morning at the hotel, helping Frannie with checkout and bidding a final farewell to my Mackenzies.

“Don’t fret about your daddy,” Otis said. “He’s a tough old bird for all he looks like a good wind’ll knock him over. And just ’cause he’s leaving doesn’t mean he’ll never be back.”