Sitting on the porch swing my father built, a cool September zephyr billows my curly chestnut colored hair and I sigh. The overcast skies play with my senses, dampening my already gloomy spirits to the breaking point. I’m no stranger to autumn storms, usually enjoying the light downfall with a mug of cocoa in my hands –a tradition my father started when I was younger. Today is different. The rainfall is a reflection of the painful turmoil boiling inside my heart and as the first tear rolls down my tanned cheek, the skies open.

“Come inside, mija. You’ll catch yourself death.” Nana Pilar places her hand gently on my shoulder, squeezing it slightly for support. I catch her sorrowful chocolate colored eyes and know. For many years she allowed my father to support his family, putting his own needs beneath everyone else’s. Yet when his brother returned home, she again insisted his happiness come second so Tio Antonio wouldn’t leave us again. She’s plagued by a guilt that she rightfully deserves for asking my father to deny me as his daughter and still I ache for her grief.

“I’d rather stay here, Nana,” I whisper, looking back across the beautiful gardens my father had planted for my mother. Roses of every shade cover the trellised walkway, leading to a white picket fence that he built and painted with his own two hands: the calloused but loving hands of Harmony’s finest police officer.

She sighs, lowering her head and gazing at the wooden planks that make up the porch, which wraps around the entire length of the old Victorian they bought almost twenty years ago. Arms crossed over her stomach, she tries to keep warm as she too begins to cry. “I never told him…”

Eyes darting to meet hers, I realize she’s trying to apologize to me as well. I was nearly two when my parents were finally able to wed, but that didn’t keep my grandmother from looking down on our family. It’s common knowledge that once my true paternity was released, she turned her back on us for a long time. “He knew.”

“Did he?” she sniffles. “I’m so sorry, Mia.”

I bite my tongue to keep from replying that sometimes sorry is too little too late. Instead, I reach for one of her hands and place a kiss inside her palm. “We forgive you.” Standing, I pass her and enter the house. Inside the doorway I hang my shawl on one of the wooden hooks in the wall before checking my appearance in the mirror beneath. I can’t seem to recognize the shell of the woman I am, too preoccupied with the sad sapphire eyes that belong to my mother.

“Eyes are the door way to the soul, Mia. Whenever you look into someone’s eyes, you can tell what they are thinking and feeling. Never forget that.”

Moving past the mirror, I step into the grand living room of my parent’s house and gaze at the outdated furniture. My mother had never been much of a stickler when it came to updating the fashions inside the home. Instead, she purchased what we could afford on my father’s meager salary and used the rest to feed and clothe the eight of us: six children and two adults. There were many hand me downs worn at times and some items were purchased at yard sales, but we never wanted and never felt any less because we weren’t bathed in riches. We were loved.

Walking deeper into the room, I flick on the dust-covered radio, which obviously hasn’t been used in quite some time. Hitting the play button for the CD, the first strains of a song I know well begin.

I watched from the hallway as my father held my mother against his chest, her head on his shoulder. Slowly they moved to the soft strains of music, whispering words of love to each other. Whenever they talked of their life together, the way they met and fell in love, they used the term soul mates. Even my Tia Theresa said it was Destiny; therefore it was only fitting that the song playing was “My Destiny.”

As the song faded, my father spun my mother outward, keeping hold of her hand. She blushed, chuckling softly. “Luis!” she scoffed when he pulled her closer and dipped her. “If you drop me.”

“In all the years we were together, have I ever let you fall?”

She shook her head, caressing his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you as well, sweetheart.” Kissing her cheek, he helped her back up and hit the pause button on the radio. Motioning towards me with his head, he whispered, “Is she still there?”

My mother nodded. “Of course.”

“Mia…” my father frowned, turning towards me.

I hesitated not a moment before dashing across the room to where he stood, the skirt of my purple pajamas fluttered behind me. “Papa! Me next!” I cried.

At first, he looked as if he were about to say no and insist I return to bed, but I gave him my best puppy pout and he sighed. Relenting to my whim, he swept me into his strong loving arms and held me close. Giving a slight nod to my mother, who changed the song, we began to sway together. “Mia, you’re looking awfully beautiful tonight. Are you sure you’re only five?”

“Yes, Papa!” I giggled, burying my head in his neck and clinging to him.

With one arm he pulled my mother to him and she gently rested her hand against my back. The group of us moved together in the center of the living room, totally lost in the feeling of being loved without a single care in the world. I didn’t count the number of songs he hummed to while we danced as a family, but the swaying eventually lulled me to sleep. As I drifted in his arms, I felt his lips touch my forehead before he placed me beneath the thick purple quilt on my bed.

“Sleep well, Mia Angel…my little angel from heaven,” he whispered, brushing his fingers through my soft hair. “My beautiful angel.”

“Papa,” I breathe, eyes fluttering open to catch sight of his picture on the mantle. Reaching out, I lift it from the well chosen home and trace his features with the tip of my index finger. My father is a chiseled statue, a walking Greek god sent to protect us all. I was his angel, the one saving grace of their relationship. The only thing that spared my mother from death in that dreadful pit was me: my birth and the thought that I was out there somewhere when I was ripped so cruelly from her arms. This wasn’t supposed to be how our lives were told; we missed so much before, we were supposed to be happy now. “It’s not fair!” I scream, tossing the frame to the floor and observing the glass as it shatters and scatters across the room.

I fall to my knees on the throw rug before the fireplace, grabbing up some of the glass and tightening my fists around the shards. The sting of my hands is nothing compared to the ache in my chest. Opening my bloody palms, the crimson tainted pieces fall back to the rug, drops of my life giving blood following them. Curling into a ball, I sob into my sliced hands and shake from the emotions coursing through my body.

“Mia!” My husband, Mason, exclaims, dropping to the floor beside me and cradling me against his muscular chest. He’s a wonderful man that I met in college, shortly after beginning my second year. A lawyer by trade, my sandy haired, blue-eyed husband is my soul mate and we have been married for two years. Stroking my hair, his lips rest against my forehead and he rocks gently with me in his arms. Catching sight of my hands, he unfolds them and traces the cuts. “Let’s get those cleaned, hm?”

I nod, allowing him to help me to my feet and lead me into the kitchen. My siblings are there, settled around the kitchen table with some of our relatives. They fall silent as we join them, Mason ushering me to a chair before going off to fetch a wash cloth to clean my hands. Through blurry eyes I scan the people around the table and wish one would tell me this is all a cruel joke.

“Are you ok, Mia?” my baby sister, Jade, asks, rising from her seat and coming to my side. She lifts my hand and brushes some tiny pieces of glass from the skin. “You shouldn’t have broken his picture.”

Tears well in my eyes and my heart breaks again. Jade has only recently turned thirteen and was by far the closest to my father, at least of those still living home. This was his green-eyed baby and my precious doll. She resembles me, with the same dark flowing hair and rich mocha skin of the Lopez-Fitzgeralds.

“I know, I couldn’t control myself,” I apologize.

“You always did have Papa’s temper, especially during those blow out battles with Mama,” Marc, the second oldest of our family, retorts. He crosses his arms over the defined muscles of his chest and leans back in the old oak furniture. Glaring at me with his powder blue eyes, he reminds me so much of our beloved mother, though his skin has a faint color from his Lopez-Fitzgerald genes.

The twins, Kieran and Sierra, fix their eyes on the table, fiddling with the place mats. Obviously the mention of our father has offended them and they cannot stand to look at either of us. Only sixteen, the twins are very much like night and day. Kieran is the spitting image of our father, right down to the scar above his eye from falling out of a tree when he was barely six. Sierra, on the other hand, is my mother’s twin.

“Marc, mijo, do not pick on your sister so,” Nana Pilar scolds, wagging an arthritic finger at him. “She has defended you through the years.”

Marc huffs, rising from the table and leaving the room. Obviously, he handles being reprimanded as much now as he ever did. Jade watches him stalk away, shaking her head and clicking her tongue, much like our mother does when she is angry.

“He’s hurt.”

“We all are, but that doesn’t give him the right to behave like a d…” Dylan, the youngest boy at only fourteen, ceases mid-word when our grandmother gives him one of her notorious warning glances. He sighs, changing direction. “A brat,” he finishes, running his fingers through his medium brown hair and casting his dark brown eyes to the floor. A Lopez-Fitzgerald through and through, Dylan has the Crane-Fitzgerald genes to thank for his pale skin tone.

“It’s all right, Dil,” I tell him. Being the oldest, I was like a surrogate mother to the younger siblings whenever our parents were busy with work or just out enjoying themselves for just one night. Dylan always made it his job to protect me, be it from our mother or even Marc, for all the times I aided him.

“He just misses, Papa,” Sierra defends him as Mason returns with a first aid kit in place of the washcloth. She offers my husband a weak smile as she witnesses his compassion for me. “You remind us of him, Mason. He was always so good to Mama.”

Mason returns the grin, tiny as it might be. “I feel fortunate to be compared to a man as wonderful as Luis.”

“Papa,” Sierra corrects him. “You’re family.”

Shifting uncomfortably, my husband returns to his work on my hands. It isn’t that Mason is shy, but he isn’t used to being part of a family that is as close as the Lopez-Fitzgeralds.

“Where is Martina?” I ask, trying to change the subject. Martina Louisa, named for her great-grandfather and grandfather, is my adorable fourteen-month-old daughter. She was blessed with my looks and unfortunately my personality.

“With Tia Theresa and not-so-little Ethan,” Kieran snickers, speaking about our cousin who has grown up with a junior complex. Having been called little Ethan all his life, our skyscraper of a cousin is now not too happy with his name. “You might want to save her.”

I smirk. “I’ll have to do that, little brother.” I jerk my hand as my husband applies some of the antiseptic to the wounds. “Ow, watch it.”

“Sorry,” he grumbles. “Stop acting like a baby.”

“Mia! Stop acting like such a baby and give me your leg!” My mother insisted, reaching out for the aching appendage with a cloth and some peroxide. “I can’t clean it if you won’t sit still!”

“No! NOOOO! Mama stop!!!! It’ll burn!” I pulled my leg away again, slapping her hand gently as she reached again it. “It’s fine!” Being seven and quite a tomboy, I didn’t mind having scraped and bruises on my body.

“It is not fine, Mia Angel Lopez-Fitzgerald! It will get infected if you don’t let me clean it! I told you not to use those rollerblades on the concrete until Papa taught you how to skate but no, you had to do it today! Well now look,” she motioned to my injured limb. Just witnessing my grand tumble on the skates, including the slide across the pavement that tore my skin, shook her up. Her fear, however, came across as anger and she shook from the feelings she was trying to hide.

“No! Mama!” I jumped down from the bathroom counter and flew out of the room. I wasn’t going to let her put anything on my cut, not even soap and water. She didn’t care if it stung, telling me I behaved much like my father did many years ago. “Papa!” I screamed, running through the house looking for him. “Papa!”

“Mia?” He caught me as I jumped down the stairs of the porch and started for the garden. Holding me in his arms, he brushed some of my always unruly brown hair behind my ear and cupped my tear stained cheek. “What’s wrong, sweet angel?”

“Mama wants to hurt me,” I sobbed, resting my head against his uniform clad chest. He was just returning from another grueling day at the Harmony PD where he was up for promotion as Detective. Clinging to the brown button up shirt, I begged him, “Don’t let her do it, Papa.”

“Mia!” my mother called from the doorway, arms crossed angrily. “Get back here.”

“Papa!” I ducked.

“Sheridan, what’s going on?” he questioned, taking the stairs two at a time.

“She fell rollerblading and I want to clean up that mess on her knee before it gets infected,” she responded, motioning to my bloody knee. “It’s disgusting and full of gravel from skating on the sidewalk.”

“Mia Angel, are you giving Mama a hard time about this cut?” He moved me away from him slightly so he could look right into my eyes. “Don’t lie.”

“It burns, Papa!” I pouted.

He chucked, winking at my mother. “We’ll just have to take her to Dr. Russell and have her cut the leg off, Sher. She doesn’t want it to be cleaned.”

“No!” I shrieked. “Papa!”

“He’s right, Mia,” my mother agreed, through her lips twitched and I knew she wanted to smile. “We’ll have to have it cut off if it gets all green and infected.”

“NO!” I gasped. “Mama, please clean it…please!”

Removing me from my father’s arms, she placed a kiss against his lips and settled me on her hip. “Welcome home, sweetheart,” she whispered, before kissing him once more and climbing the stairs. “Dinner is cooking and Marc is waiting patiently for his Papa. He’s watching Sesame Street in the living room.”

“I’ll take care of it.” He understood that Marc was in trouble. Educational TV on a perfectly good outdoor play day was a dead give away of that. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Then she took me back to the bathroom to clean that cut.

“Mia?” My husband’s concerned voice breaks through the haze of my thoughts. “Angel?”

“I’m all right,” I whisper. “All done?”

He nods.

“I’m going to go get Martina and check on Mama. Do you think you can find out if there’s anything to feed the troops around here? It’s getting late and he’d want us to eat something before we waste away.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he replies, pecking my lips. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I leave the kitchen and walk down the dimly lit hallway to the staircase. Heading upstairs, I hear the high-pitched squeals of my daughter, followed by the soft and comforting voice of Marc. Observing them for a moment from the doorway of the nursery set up for her here, I notice how good my brother is with the baby. Marc was hit hard by my father’s death, having survived the car accident that left my father in a coma for nearly a week before he slipped away. My brother, however, is unscathed physically but blames himself, as he was the driver that day. Since the accident, he has avoided my mother completely.

“I thought Tia Theresa and Ethan were in here.” I enter the room and perch myself on the edge of the overstuffed toy box. The second my daughter spots me, she squirms in her uncle’s arms until she slips free. On chubby, unstable legs, she toddles towards me with arms outstretched.

“Tia Theresa was making her cry, so I saved her from a fate worse than a dentist visit,” he replies quietly, keeping his eyes on the floor. “I’m sorry about downstairs.”

I shake my head. “You’re hurting too, Marc, and you can’t keep it bottled inside anymore. You’re not doing yourself any good this way.”

“Easy for you to say, Mia! You didn’t kill him!” he screams, covering his mouth once the words are out. As the shock of his admission fades, tears replace the surprise in his eyes and he finally allows himself to cry.

Martina, lost as to the cause of my brother’s sorrow but feeling the grief, changes direction before I can lift her and falls into his lap. Hugging him tightly, she raises one pudgy hand to pat his cheek. “No,” she tells him.

Joining him on the floor, I put an arm around his shoulders and hold him as he cries. I try to remain strong, being the rock I know my father had been isn’t an easy job. It’s one I accept freely, however, as it is my place to help the family through this as the oldest child. It’s how he would have wanted it and I don’t shy away from my responsibility…not like my uncle did so long ago. “It will be all right, Marc. Everything is going to be all right.”

“How?” he demands of me. “How is it going to be all right now that he’s gone? How are we going to get through this, Mia? How?”

“By being Lopez-Fitzgeralds,” I explain, as if that’s all he needs to know. Even though he’s an adult, my brother is still very much a child in his heart. He is upset so easily and needs us to support him still. “We’re a family, Marc.”

“I killed him, Mia. I wasn’t paying attention to the road. He kept telling me to watch where we were going and I didn’t! If I hadn’t tried to make it through the yellow this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Marc, how many times has Papa gone through a yellow on the verge of it being red? You didn’t know that driver was drunk and going to go through the red light! It wasn’t your fault!” I retort, cupping his cheeks and making him look at me. “You didn’t do this.”

“I shouldn’t have…”

“You didn’t do this,” I stress. “It was his time.”

Marc shoves me away and gets off the floor. “I hate you.”

“No,” I shake my head, trying not to let the words bother me. “You love me and you hate the fact that I won’t let you blame yourself for what happened to him. Papa wouldn’t want you letting this eat at you, Marc, and you know it.”

He doesn’t reply, just leaves me alone with Martina. Sweeping my confused daughter into my arms, I follow his steps out of the nursery. Instead of returning downstairs, however, I walk to the door of my mother’s room and pause. Since the funeral, which was five days ago, my mother hasn’t ventured from her room much. My sisters and I take turns bringing food to her, trying to get her to eat more than a few bites before she falls into an exhausted sleep. Sierra and I have done this most, trying to protect Jade from the vision of our mother, who is an emotional wreck and slowly dying of her broken heart. Placing my hand against the door, I listen intently for any sounds that she’s awake.

My answer is the muffled sobbing of a woman in pain.

Pushing open the door, I peer into the darkened room and allow my eyes to adjust to the new light. My mother has begged us to keep the fire lit in the hearth, praying that it would be better than all the candles Nana Pilar has ever lit in the window for Poppy Martin and Tio Antonio. We meet her request and it’s light flickers shadows across the walls as the warmth soaks through my clothing. Stepping inside, I look around for my mother.

On the bed, her now white hair in knotted curls from her lying around, is my beautiful but utterly depressed mother. Once the elegant and vivacious Sheridan Lopez-Fitzgerald, she is now nothing more than an old bitter widow who spends her days and nights crying and praying for the man she misses.

“Mama?”

Raising her head slightly from his pillow, she dazedly glances over at us. Normally, this is all of the response we get from her, but her lips start to move and finally she speaks. “Mia, I didn’t hear you come in,” comes her garbled reply as she slowly sits up and brushes away the tears on her cheeks. “Oh Martina,” she sighs, a flicker of joy flashing in her eyes.

Of all the people in this house, Martina is the one that breaks through the sadness in everyone’s heart. Her natural exuberance and lack of comprehension in the situation around her makes it easy for her to be our clown.

“We came to check on you, didn’t we Martina?” I tickle my daughter’s tummy and she giggles, clapping her hands. Her smile seems to light the room better than the fire.

Once my mother is on her feet, she reaches for the baby and takes her from me, grunting in the effort of lifting her. “My are you getting big,” her soft, sweet voice returns and for a moment it’s almost as if she hasn’t lost my father but it merely waiting for his return home. “Yes you are.”

I watch her slowly make her way from the bed to the rocking chair by the fireplace, falling into her seat and settling my daughter on her lap. She begins rocking, staring off into space for a moment and letting her sadness return. When she speaks again, her voice cracks and I know that she’s fighting tears. Trying to spare her the pain, I start to remove Martina from her lap.

“No,” she grabs my wrist, not even looking at me. “Leave her.”

I nod, drawing away and walking to the window overlooking the town. The autumn storm is over now, the clouds parted so that moonlight spills across the earth. I gaze at the heavens, pretending that each glowing orb is an angel listening for prayers. I whisper softly to them, begging that they allow my mother one last dance with my father: an eternal dance that will save her from this tormenting hell she’s left to live. She needs him; without him she’s incomplete.

“Martina, have I ever told you about the first time I met your grandfather by crashing into his police car?” she asks my toddler, though her voice is laced with the pain of a woman who lost her other half.

Glancing her way for only a moment, I can’t take the sight of my mother with tears on her cheeks, rocking my daughter to sleep as she begins the tale of a love now gone. My watery azure eyes return to the landscape and notice that the moonlight glows upon the grassy knoll where my father rests beneath a towering oak. Though his body is here, I know the soul of the man we love is in heaven now.

“Mia, remember that you’ll always be my little angel, even if you are marrying this Mason guy.” My father cleared his throat, cocoa eyes filling with tears. Straightening the mantilla on my head, he kissed my cheek before taking my arm. “Letting you go is going to be the hardest thing I ever have to do.”

“You don’t have to let go, Papa,” I replied, gripping his arm tightly. “You just have to share me with someone else.”

“I don’t play well with others,” he laughed, but slowly the mirth fades and he becomes more serious. “Do you love him, Mia?”

“Almost as much as I love you, Papa,” I replied. “I want to be his angel too.”

He nodded. “Then let’s go, but remember. You’re my angel first.”

“And now you’re mine, Papa.” I rest my hand against the cool glass.

One day my parents will dance at the gates of Heaven together, listening to their favorite song eternally as they no longer suffer apart. Until that day I know that he is watching over us, but I still wish I had taken advantage of our time together. If I had known that the father daughter dance at my wedding was the last time I would ever dance with my father, I would have begged the band to play the song all night.

Minutes later I take my sleeping daughter from my mother’s arms, but she doesn’t notice as she studies the flames dancing in the hearth. Instead of interrupting her, I carefully slip out the door. For a few minutes I wait, making sure she’s going to be all right. When she closes her eyes, I assume she’s going to rest again and leave to tuck Martina in. Once the changing and kissing is complete, I return to my mother’s room to help her back to bed. I’m surprised when I find her standing and swaying softly to a song she’s humming. She stops suddenly, and smiles.

“Thank you, Luis,” she whispers. “Thank you for our last dance.”

“You’re welcome, Sher. I love you.”

Jumping, I swear I heard my father’s voice in the room, but I know he isn’t there. Shaking my head, I close the door behind me. Seconds later, my mother leaves the room in the disheveled state she’s in, the smile gone but the light in her eyes still there. For the first time since the accident, she’s Mama again. As she disappears down the stairs, I close my eyes and sigh. “One final dance between two loving souls, thank you, Lord, for giving them that chance and for giving us Mama back.”

It may not have lasted forever, but I know that dance is etched into her heart, much like it is now in my mind. I will never forget what it’s like to dance with my father again.

~*~If I could steal one final glance, one final step, one final dance with him
I'd play a song that would never, ever end
'Cause I'd love, love, love
To dance with my father again~*~

The End

Disclaimer: This story in is in no way meant to infringe upon the rights belonging to Passions, NBC, or any entity thereof. All rights to Passions and any related content, including characters used, belong to "Outpost Farms Production Inc", James E. Reilly, and NBC.
This story and the original characters are the property of the author. Copyright 2003. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without the written permission of the author.
Dance With My Father- Copyright © 2003 - All Rights Reserved.