Dance

We are at the wedding.
The only wedding we will attend this year.
After last summer's glut, just this one.
Lonesome at the end of the summer.
A day of mourning.
September 11th.

The groom, handsome and kindly.
The bride, radiant.
All is as it should be.

Jessica sleeps through the speeches but wakes in time to snaffle the lion's share of her mother's chocolate fondant pudding and ice cream. Spoon fed to her by a proud and careful eight year old relation. Wary of stains, grass or chocolate. Some kind of cousin one or more times removed. We tried to work it out, her and I, but decided it was too complex and we would just call their relationship 'cousins.'

Later the first dance.
The happy couple have chosen Starship's 'Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now', not the choice I was expecting to be honest. It was released in 1987 when these two can barely have been knee high to a grasshopper.

The lyrics take on a strange poignancy and I'm suddenly whizzed back to my own wedding. In a strange, half light my husband and I dance through the NICU to the sounds of Starship.

They look so happy and brave.
I think to myself . . . nothing?
I hope so. And find I am crying.

The band starts. They are playing 'Johnny B Goode' and red and green lights chase around the floor. Jessica alternates between attempting to capture one for her very own and staring at the band. My husband and I work out, shamefacedly, that is probably the first time she has witnessed anyone playing an instrument.

My aunt and uncle dance close to the front. Proper dancing belonging to their generation. Not the shuffle of the 1980s. Jessica watches. She puts a leg out and up. Then brings it down smack on the floor. And again. Joining in.

I take her hands and we are whirling in the midst of them. And I am happy.

Not the flattish contented feeling I termed happiness before.
Life gave that old thing a good shake and up it popped, into three dimensional solidity.
Happiness sits over my heart, claws extended into my skin. Like a small vicious animal.
So sharp that I can almost feel it, a shard of glass penetrating my skull.
I am suddenly self-conscious. I wonder if anyone else sees me and my happiness and judges.
Look at her dancing over there, her with the dead daughter and all that shiny, spiky mess over her heart.

But nobody is looking.
Their eyes register briefly then slide on.
A sweet toddler in a silk dress. Mistook her for a boy initially, with that short hair, but in a dress?
A woman with hair that is too long for her age. She would have done well to have attempted to squeeze into those Spanx this morning but perhaps she's just the type who lets herself go? That child is too old to still be carrying that baby belly. Don't know who these two belong to, bride or groom?

But I don't care for their thoughts.
If they even pause for long enough to spare us a thought or two.

I feel free.

We whizz around and around. Chasing one another, this way and that. I smile, she smiles.
Everything tumbles into place, just for an instant.
My heart beats. Her heart beats. It is enough.

And on the edges of that splintered, glimmering, glowing mess that is my happiness hovers Georgina.