Chapter 14 - The Dance
Amelia did not walk again that year.
Not all the way. She walked at therapy, on the parallel bars and then with a walker and then with crutches. She walked from her chair to the couch. She walked to the bathroom by herself. She walked into her classroom on the first day of sixth grade, slowly, with a cane, and nobody said anything except a girl named Priya (a different Priya) who said cool cane and then asked if she wanted to sit together at lunch.
Some days she used the chair. Some days she didn't.
It was, Dr. Patel said, exactly what recovery looked like.
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In April, the Hollis Foundation held its annual gala at the same hotel.
Grant had tried to move it. Priya had told him he was being ridiculous. He had agreed with her, eventually.
This time, he did not plan a speech. He did not plan a donor list. He did not plan anything except a table near the back, with eight seats.
At the table sat Priya. Dr. Patel. Sofia, in a borrowed dress. Rosa, in a blue dress she had bought herself. And Leo.
And Amelia.
She had wanted to wear the silver shoes. She had tried them on that morning and they had not fit—her feet had grown two sizes in two years—and she had cried about it for ten minutes, and then she had laughed, and then she had put on a different pair. Plain black flats. Slightly scuffed.
"Ready?" Grant asked.
"Ready."
She stood up out of her chair. She took his arm. They walked into the ballroom together, slowly, one step at a time.
Nobody stared. The music was playing. The chandeliers were glowing.
Grant sat down at the table and did not make a speech. He ate dinner. He listened to Sofia explain the plot of a movie he had never heard of. He watched Amelia and Leo whisper to each other across the table, and he watched Rosa watch them, and he watched the whole room the way he had not watched it two years ago—not as a room full of donors, but as a room.
Then the band started.
Leo stood up. He walked around the table and held out his hand to Amelia.
"May I have this dance?"
Amelia looked at her father.
Grant looked at her.
She took Leo's hand.
They went out onto the floor, and Leo put one hand on her waist and held her other hand up, and they shuffled in a slow circle, not really dancing, not really not dancing, and Amelia was laughing, and Leo was laughing, and Rosa put her hand over her mouth.
Grant sat in his chair and watched them.
He finished his coffee.
He set the cup down and looked out at the room—at the chandeliers, at the marble, at the doors at the back where a kitchen worker had once run out to grab her barefoot son by the wrist.
Then he got up. He walked over to the edge of the dance floor and stood there, waiting, until Amelia turned and saw him.
She let go of Leo's hand. She walked toward him—four steps, slow, on her own—and she stopped in front of him.
"Dad," she said. "Dance with me."
He put his arm around his daughter.
And they danced.
May you like
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The End
