#we worship cary's bad ass mother caren and amazing step father daniel in this house

[fourteenaway]

A Tragic Prologue | The Story of Cary / Part I

tw: abuse, rape, domestic violence, infidelity, pregnancy. 

Exactly five years and three months had passed since Caren had married Leeland, and it’d taken that long for them to finally have something that resembled a real vacation. Five years and three months and still she often felt as if Leeland was a stranger to her.

Madame Ephron had been the one to suggest that they take a break, go to Barcelona, they deserved it. Or rather she thought perhaps that Leeland needed it to get back in true form.

It was here that Daniel’s graduation invitation from med-school finally found her in a little villa they’d taken up in for the weeks they’d be here. She knew it instantly when she spotted the thick envelope, her heart jumping at the announcement of Daniel’s achievement of his medical degree. How proud she felt knowing he’d done it, completed college and then medical school in seven years what took most at least eight.

When she opened it she found not only a formal announcement but a note from Daniel, written in his handwriting that was far better than any other doctors unreadable scrawl:

Dear Caren,

I am embarrassed to tell you this, but I am the top graduate in a class of two hundred. So don't you dare try and find an excuse to keep away. You have to be there to bask in the glow of my excitement, as I bask in the radiance of your admiration. I cannot possibly accept my M.D. if you aren't there to see. And you can tell Leeland this when he tries to prevent your coming.

Your dearest,

Daniel

Caren smiled glowing from cheek to cheek at his excitement and good humor. The only bothersome thing about this was that she and Leeland had signed a contract some time ago to tape a TV production of Giselle. It was set for June, but now in May, they wanted them both. Both of them were sure the television exposure would make them the stars they'd strived so long to be.

It had seemed a perfect time to approach Leeland with the news. They’d returned to their villa after touring old castles. So as soon as their evening meal was over and the pair had sat out on the terrace sipping glasses of a red wine, she knew he was nuts about, but gave her a headache. Only then did she dare to timidly approach going back to the States in time fo Daniel’s May graduation. 

“Really, we do have the time to fly there and be back in plenty of time to go into rehearsal for Giselle," she tried.

"Oh, come off it, Caren!” Leeland said impatiently. “It's a difficult role for you, and you'll be tired, and you'll need to rest up."

“Two weeks was plenty of time ... and a TV taping doesn’t take too long. Please, darling, let's go. I'd be sick not to see Daniel become a doctor, just as you'd be if your friend was reaching the goal he'd strived for year after year,” Caren tried again.

"Hell, no!" Leeland flared, narrowing his dark eyes and shooting sparks her way. “I get so damned sick and tired of hearing Daniel this, and Daniel that, and if it isn't his name you drum in my ears, then it's his brother, William this and that! You are not going!"

Caren pleaded with him to be reasonable, “He's only like a brother to me,” she lied slightly, “it just means his graduation day is nearly as important to me as it is to him. You can't understand how much this means not only to him, but to me as well! You think he and I lived lives of luxury compared to yours, just because we were adopted by the Derricks, but you can rest assured, it was no picnic!"

"Your past is something you don't talk about to me," he snapped back. “It's exactly as if you were born the day you found your precious Dr. William! Caren, you are my wife now, and your place is with me. Your William has Cassidy, and they'll be there, so Daniel won't lack applause when he gets that damned M.D.!"

"You can't tell me what I can do and what I can't do! I'm your wife, not your slave!"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," he said, standing and seizing hold of my arm. "C'mon, let's hit the sack. I'm tired.” 

Without speaking Caren allowed him to tug her into the bedroom where she began to undress. But he came over to help, and in this way she was informed it was to be a night of love, or rather sex. 

But she shoved his hands away.

Scowling, he put them back on her shoulders and leaned to nibble on her neck; he fondled her breasts before he reached to unhook her bra. Caren hissed and slapped his hands away, before screaming, “No!”

But he persisted in taking off her bra, finding it as easy as a mask to take off, he threw away his anger and put on his dreamy-eyed romantic look.

Caren supposed there had been a time when Leeland had appeared to her the epitome of everything sophisticated, worldly, elegant, but compared to the way he was now, since his father's death, he'd been only a country-bumpkin. 

There were times she actually detested him. This was such a time. 

"I am going, Leeland You may come with me, or you may meet me in New York after I fly back from the graduation ceremony. Or you can stay on here and sulk. Whatever, I am going. I want you to come with me and share in the family celebration, for you never share in anything-you hold me back, so I don't share either-but this time you can't stop me! It's too important!" Caren told him sternly.

Quietly he listened and he smiled in a way that sent chills down her spine. Oh, how wicked he could look.

“Hear this, beloved wife, when you married me, I became your ruler, and by my side you will stay until I kick you out. And I'm not yet ready to do that. You are not leaving me alone in Spain when I don't speak Spanish. Maybe you can learn from records, but I can't,” he spoke coldly.

"Don't threaten me, Leeland,” Caren said coolly, though she backed off and felt a terrible pounding of panic. “Without me you don't have anyone who cares, except your mother, and since you don't care for her, who have you got left?"

Lightly he reached out to slap both her cheeks. She closed her eyes, resigned to accept anything he did, as long as she could go to Daniel. She allowed him to undress her and do what he would, even though he clutched her buttocks so hard they hurt. For she could, when she chose, withdraw until she was outside of herself, looking on, and what he did to me So that what was appalling didn't really matter-for she wasn't truthfully there-unless the pain was great-as sometimes it was. 

“Don't try and sneak away," he warned, his words muffled because he was kissing everywhere, teasing her like a cat who plays with a mouse when it's not hungry. "Swear on your word of honor that you will stay and miss your dearly beloved Daniel’s graduation and stay with husband who needs you, who adores you, who can't live without you," he demanded.

She knew he was mocking her, though his need for her was that of a child needing his mother. For that was what she had become. His mother, in everything but sex. She had to choose his suits, his socks and shirts, his costumes, his practice outfits, though he consistently refused to let her handle the household accounts.

"I will not swear to anything so unfair. Daniel has come to see you perform and you have gloried in showing off to him. Now let him have his turn. He's worked hard for it," she insisted.

Caren pulled free from him then, and strolled to pick up a black lace nightgown he liked her to wear even though she hated black nightgowns and underwear. They reminded her of whores and call girls but also her mother who'd had a fancy for black lingerie. 

"Get up off your knees, Leeland. You look ludicrous. You can't do anything to me if I choose to go. A bruise would show, and besides, you've grown so accustomed to my weight and balance you can't even lift another dancer properly,” she spoke chillingly though she thought, truthfully.

He came at her angrily then, shouting, "You're mad because we haven't made it to the top, aren't you? You're blaming me because our booking was canceled. And now Madame Ephron has given us a leave so I can sober up and come back refreshed, made wholesome by playing games with my wife. Caren, I don't know how to entertain myself except by dancing; I'm not interested in books or museums like you are, and there are ways of hurting and humiliating you that won't leave any bruises-except on your ego-and you should know that by now."

Foolishly she smiled, when she should have known better than to challenge him when he was feeling less than confident. “What's the matter, Lee? Didn't your sex break satisfy your lust for perversion? Why don't you go out and find a schoolgirl, for I'm not going to cooperate." 

She'd never before thrown in his face that I knew about his debaucheries with younger women. 

It had hurt at first when she found out, but now she knew he used those girls like he used paper napkins, to casually toss away when soiled, and back he'd come to her, to say he loved her, needed her, and she was the only one.

Slowly he advanced, using his pantherlike stalk that told her he would be ruthless, but still she held her head high, knowing she could escape by shutting off her mind, and he couldn't afford to hit her. 

He paused one foot away as she heard the clock on the nightstand ticking in the silence.

"Caren, you will do as I say if you know what's good for you," he warned.

He was cruel that night, evil and spiteful; forcing upon her what should only be given in love. He dared her to bite. And this time she wouldn't have just one black eye, but two, and maybe worse. 

“And I'll tell everybody you are sick. That your period has you so badly cramped you can't dance, so you won't skip out on me, or make any phone calls, for I'll bind you to the bed and hide your passport,” he told her as he took.

He grinned and slapped her face lightly when he finished before whispering, "Now, honey-chile, whatcha gonna do this time?” He asked reverting into the southern drawl he’d grown up on.

The next morning, smiling and himself again, Leeland sauntered naked to the breakfast table, and flung himself down, sprawled out his long, beautifully shaped legs and asked casually, "What's for breakfast?" 

He held out his arms so Caren could come and kiss his lips, which she did. She faked a smile and brushed a lock of dangling hair from his forehead, and poured his coffee, and then said, "Good morning, darling. Same old breakfast for you. Fried eggs and fried ham. I'm having a cheese omelet."

Assured by her tone that all was past he sighed, “"I'm sorry, Caren," he murmured. “Why do you try to bring out the worst in me? I only use those girls to spare you."

"If they don't mind, then I don't mind... but don't ever force me to do what I did last night. I'm very good at hating, Leeland. Just as good as you are at forcing. And at harboring revenge I'm an expert!" She warned him.

She slid onto his plate two fried eggs and two slices of ham. No toast and no butter. Both of them ate in silence. He sat across the checkered red and white tablecloth, closely shaven, clean and smelling of soap and shaving lotion. In his own dark and light exotic way he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen.

"Caren ... you haven't said you love me today," he said eventually.

"I love you, Leeland," she replied.

An hour after breakfast,and she was now madly searching every room to find her passport, while Leeland slept on the bed, where she'd dragged him from the kitchen after he fell asleep from all the sedatives she'd dumped in his coffee.

He wasn't nearly as good at hiding as she was at finding. Under the bed, and under the blue rug, she found her passport. Quickly she threw clothes into her suitcases. When she was packed, dressed and ready to go, she leaned above him and kissed him good-bye. 

He was breathing deep and regularly, and smiling slightly; perhaps the drugs were giving him pleasant dreams. Though she'd drugged him, she hesitated, wondering if she'd done the right thing. 

Shrugging off her indecision, she headed toward the garage. Yes, she did what she had to do. If he were awake now, he'd have buried himself into her side all through the day, with her passport in his pocket. Besides she'd left a note telling him where she was going.

When she arrived at the airport William was waiting for her and after hugging him briefly she asked, “Did Daniel get my message? He does know I'm coming right?"

"Oh, indeed. He was fretting through every moment, afraid Leeland would refuse to let you leave him, and knowing Leeland wouldn't come. Honestly, Caren, if you hadn't shown up, I don't think Daniel would accept his degree," he said with an appraising look in his eyes.

To sit beside William and Cassidy, and watch her Daniel stride down the aisle and up the steps to accept his diploma, and then stand behind the podium and make the valedictory speech, put tears in her eyes and a swelling happiness in her heart. 

He did it so beautifully she cried. William and Cassidy also had tears to shed. Even Caren’s success on stage couldn't compare to the pride she felt now. And Leeland, he should be here too, making himself a part of her family and not stubbornly resisting all the time.

When she looked back at the stage though, and saw Daniel up there, ready to step behind the podium though, it all slipped away. 

She didn't know how he managed to find her in the crowd, but somehow he did. Their gazes met and locked, and across all the heads of those who sat between them, they met in silent communication they always had and shared an overwhelming jubilation! For they'd done it! Both of them. Reached their goals; become what they'd set out to be when they were children. The dreams they’d shared to each other when they were both young and feeling unwanted and undeserving of the love the Derrick’s had both given them. And watching Daniel, Caren believed she could see his whole life.

She saw him swinging a bat when he was ten to smash a ball over the fence, only for him to run like mad to touch all bases in the quickest possible time, when he could have walked and made his home run. But that wasn't his way, to make it look too easy. 

She saw him that first day when she’d showed up on the Derrick’s doorstep only a few years after he had, scared and untrusting of everyone as she clutched her younger sister to her chest. She saw that encouraging smile on his face that gave her hope when there was none.

She saw him racing on his bike yards ahead of her, then slowing down deliberately so she could catch up and they'd both reach William’s office at the same time and then locking up the bike for her.

The ceremony ended with a huge luncheon planned by the university in celebration. At the table Cassidy babbled away, but Caren and Daniel could only stare at each other, each of them trying to find the right words to say.

Suddenly Daniel frowned and asked why Leeland hadn’t come.

"He wanted to come, Daniel, really he did," Caren lied, “But he has obligations that keep him so busy he couldn't spare the time. He asked me to give you his congratulations. We do have very tight schedules. Actually, I can only stay two days. We're going to do a TV production of Giselle next month," she reasoned to him.

When everyone had gone and they were back at William’s house, alone on the veranda Daniel sighed and said, “Caren, he didn't want you to come to my graduation, did he?”

Caren remained silent in her answer and Daniel shook his head and said, “He’s going to ruin your careers. I warned you not to let him be your manager. Madame Ephron would have treated you more fairly. She loves you." 

Caren began to pace the porch. Her original contract with Madame Ephron. had expired two years ago, and all she owed her now was twelve performances a year. The rest of the time, Leeland and her were freelance, and could dance with whichever company they liked. 

Now everything was falling apart.

Everything was made worse by the fact that she had made a secret trip to the gynecologist the day before. Two missed periods didn't really mean anything for a woman like her, who was so irregular. She might not be pregnant, she thought. It might be just another false alarm ... but something about this time felt different. 

If it wasn't a false alarm, she prayed she'd have the strength to go through with an abortion. She didn't need a baby in her life. For she knew once she had a child, he or she would become the center of her world, and love would again spoil a ballerina who could have been the best.

Ballet music was in her head when she drove Daniel's car to visit Leeland’s mother, Madame Milena one hot spring day when all the world seemed sleepy and lazy except for those poor children being instructed by a shrill little bat wearing black, as always. 

Caren sat in the shadows near the far wall of a huge auditorium and watched the large class of boys and girls dance. It was scary to think of how soon those girls would grow up to replace the stars of the present. Then she too would become another Madame Ephron and the years would flow like seconds, until she was Madame Milena, and all her beauty would be preserved only in old, faded photographs.

“Caren," called Madame Milena joyfully when she spied her. She came striding swiftly, gracefully her way. "Why do you sit in the shadows?" she asked. “How nice to see your lovely face again. And don't think I don't know why you look so sad! You're one big fool to leave Leeland! He's a big baby; you know he can't be left alone or he does things to hurt himself, and when he hurts himself, he hurts you too! Why did you let him get control of your management? Why did you let him burn up your money as fast as it hits your pockets? I tell you this, in your place, I would never, never have let him put another in my role of Giselle!"

‘God, what a blabbermouth he was!’ Caren thought.

"Don't worry about me, Madame," Caren said coolly, "if my husband doesn't want me for his partner anymore, I'm sure there will be others who will."

She scowled and advanced on her. She put those bony hands on her and shook Caren as if to wake her up. Up close, Caren could see she'd aged terribly since Leeland’s father had died. Her ebony hair was almost white now, and streaked with charcoal.

“You gonna let my son make a fool of you? You let him put another dancer in your place? I gave you credit for having more backbone! Now you hightail it back to New York and push that other girl out of his life! Marriage is sacred, and wedding vows are meant to be kept!" She insisted.

Then she softened and said, “Come now, Caren," and led her into her small cluttered office, “Now you tell me about this foolishness going on between you and your husband!"

"It is really none of your business!" Caren insisted.

She swung another straight chair to where she could straddle it. Leaning forward upon her arms, she stabbed Caren with her hard penetrating glare, “Anything, and everything concerning my son is my business!" She snapped. “Now you just sit there and keep quiet, and let me tell you what you don't know about your husband."

Her voice turned a little kinder, "I was older than his father when we were married, and even so I dared putting off having a child until I believed the best of my career was behind me, and then I became pregnant. Leeland’s father never wanted a child to hold him down, and back, and so, from the beginning Leeland had two strikes against him,” she tells Caren.

She looks down then and whispers, “I tell myself we didn't force the dance upon our son, but we did keep him with us, so the ballet became part of his world, the most important part.” 

She sighed heavily and wiped a bony hand over her troubled brow. "We were strict with him, I admit that. We did everything we could to make him what was perfect in our eyes, but the more we tried, the more determined he became to be everything we didn't want him to be. We tried to teach him perfect diction, so he ended up mocking us with all kinds of vulgar street language-gutter talk, his father called it. You know," she went on with a wistful expression, "only after my husband was dead and buried did I realize that he never spoke to our son unless it was an order not to do something, or an order to improve his dancing technique. I never realized that my husband could have been jealous of his own son, seeing that he was a better dancer and would achieve more fame. It wasn't easy for me to become only a ballet mistress, and for Georges to be only an instructor. Many a night we lay on our bed and held to each other, craving the applause, the adulation. ... It was a hunger that would not be satisfied until we heard the applause for our son."

Again she paused, and birdlike craned her neck to peer at Caren and see if she was paying full attention.

Oh, yes, she had her attention. She was telling her so much she needed to know.

"Leeland tried to hurt his father, and my husband got hurt because Leeland made light of his father's reputation. One day he called him only a second-class performer. My husband didn't speak to his own son for a whole month! They never got back together after that. Farther and farther they drifted apart ... until one fine Christmas Day when another prodigy drifted into our lives, and offered herself. You! Leeland had flown back to visit us, only because I had pleaded with him to try and make it up with his father ...and Leeland saw you,” she took a pause and sighed, “It is our responsibility to pass along our skills of technique to the younger generation, and still I felt some apprehension in taking you on, mostly because I thought you would hurt my son. I don't know why I thought that, but it seemed obvious from the very start, it was that older doctor you loved and if not him then his younger brother. Then I thought you had something very rare, a passion for the dance that is seldom seen. You were, in your own way, equal to what Leeland was, and the two of you together were so sensational I couldn't believe my eyes. My son felt it too, the rapport between you two. You turned those big, soft, admiring blue eyes on him, so later he came and told me you were a sex kitten who would fall easily under his spell and into his arms. He and I always had a close relationship, and he confessed to me what other boys would have kept secret.”

She paused, flicked her stony eyes over Caren and went on breathlessly, "You came, you admired him, you loved him when you were dancing with him, and when you weren't, you were indifferent. The harder you were to win, the more determined he was to have you. I thought you were clever, playing a skillful woman's game when you were only a child! And now you, you ... you go and leave him when he was in a foreign country, when he couldn't speak the language, when you should have learned he has weaknesses, many of them, and that he cannot bear to be alone!"

She jumped up like a black, scrawny alleycat and stood above Caren. 

“Without Leeland to give you inspiration and enhance your talent with his own, where would you be? Without him would you be in New York, dancing with what is fast becoming one of the leading ballet companies? No! You'd be here, raising babies for that doctor. God knows why you said yes to Leeland, and how you can keep from loving him. For he tells me you don't, and never have! So you drug him. You leave him. You take off to see that younger brother, not even the one you were with before, become a doctor, when you know damn well your place is at your husband's side, making him happy and taking care of his wants! Yes! Yes!" she shrilled, "he called me long distance and told me everything! Now he thinks he hates you! Now he wants to cut you off. And when he does, he won't have a heart left to keep him alive! For he gave you his heart years and years ago!" She shouts.

Caren began to shake, slowly she rose to her feet; her legs felt weak and trembly as she brushed a hand over her aching forehead, and held back tired tears. 

All of a sudden it hit her hard, she did love Leeland. For now she saw how very much they were alike, him with his hate for his father who had denied him as a son. And her with her hatred for her mother, making me do crazy things, like sending off hateful letters and Christmas cards to sadden her life and never, never let her find peace. And Leeland in competition with his father, never knowing he'd won, and was better...and her in competition with her mother-but feeling that she had yet to prove herself better. 

"Madame, I am going to tell you something Leeland might not know, and I didn't really know until today; I do love your son. Perhaps I always loved him, and just couldn't accept it."

She shook her head, then fired her words like bullets, "If you love him, why did you leave him? Answer me that! You left him because you found out he has a liking for young women? Fool! All men have yearnings for young women but still they go on loving their wives! If you let his desire for young flesh drive you away, you are crazy! Slap his face; kick his behind-tell him to leave those girls alone or you will divorce him! Say all of that, and he will be what you want. But when you say nothing, and act like you don't care, you tell him plainly you don't love him, or want him, or need him!”

“I'm not his mother, or a priest, or God," Caren said wearily, sick of all the passion she used. Backing toward the door, Caren tried to leave before saying, “I don't know if I can keep Leeland from younger women, but I'm willing to go back and try. I promise to do better. I'll be more understanding, and I'll let him know I love him so much, I can't abide the thought of him making love to anyone but me."

Madame came then to take Caren in her arms. She soothed, “Poor baby, if I have been hard on you, it was for your own good. You have to keep my son from destroying himself. When you save him, you save yourself, for I lied when I said you would be nothing without Leeland. He is the one who would be nothing without you! He has a death wish, always I've known it. He thinks he's not good enough to live on because his father could never convince him he was, and that was my fault too, as well as his father’s. Leeland waited for years and years for his father to see him as a son, worthy of being loved for himself. He waited equally as long for his father to say yes, you will be even a better dancer than I was, and I'm proud of what and who you are. But his father kept his silence. But you go back and tell Leeland his father did love him. To me he said it many times. Tell him too that his father was proud of him. Tell him, Caren. Go back and convince him of how much you need and love him. Tell him how sorry you are to have left him alone. Go quickly before he does something terrible to himself!" She begged before Caren left.

So it was time for her to say good-bye to Cassidy and William. Only this time she didn't have to bid adieu to Daniel.

He put his foot down, “No! I'm coming with you! I'm not letting you go back to a crazy man. When you've made your peace with him, and I know everything is alright only then will I leave," Daniel declared.

The plane set down at La Guardia around three. A hot, sultry day. Both Carena and Daniel were both tired. 

"At this hour Leeland will be in the theater rehearsing. They'll use the rehearsals as a promotion film. There have to be a lot of rehearsals; we've never danced in this theater before and it's important to get the feel of the space you have to move in,” Caren explained to Daniel.

Daniel was lugging along Caren’s two heavy suitcases, while she carried his much lighter bag. She laughed and smiled his way, glad he was with her, though she knew Leeland would be furious.

"Now you stay in the background ... and don't let him even see you if everything goes alright. Really, Daniel, I'm sure he'll be glad to see me. He's not dangerous,” Caren reasoned.

“Sure," he said glumly.

They sauntered on into the darkened theater. The stage up ahead was very brightly lit. The TV cameras were in position, ready to shoot the warm-ups. The director, producer and a few others were lined up in the front-row seats.

The heat of the day was chased by the chill of the huge space so Daniel opened up one of Caren’s bags and spread a sweater about her shoulders after they both sat down near the aisle, midway back in the center section.

Automatically Caren lifted both her legs to stretch them on top of the seat just ahead. Though she shivered, the corps de ballet were sweating from the hot light. Caren looked for Leeland but didn't see him.

Just to think of Leeland though, was to bring him out of the wings, onto the stage in a series of whirling jetés. Looking so handsome.

"Wow!" whispered Daniel in Caren’s ear. "Sometimes I forget how sensational he is on stage. No wonder every ballet critic thinks he will be the star of this decade when he learns some discipline. Let it be soon ...and I mean you too, Caren." 

She smiled, for she too needed discipline, "Yes," she said, "I too, of course."

No sooner had Leeland finished his solo performance than the woman that had replaced Caren, Loretta Price pirouetted out from the wings, wearing red. She was more beautiful than ever and she danced so extraordinarily well for a girl so tall. 

That was, she danced well until Leeland came to partner her, and then everything went wrong. He reached for her waist and got her buttocks, then he had to quickly shift his hold, so she slipped and nearly fell and again he adjusted to save her.

A male dancer who let a ballerina fall would soon never have a partner to lift. They tried again the same jump, lift, and fall back, and this time it went almost as awkward, making Loretta seem ungainly, and Leeland unskilled.

Even Caren, sitting halfway down the row of seats, could hear her loud curse. "Damn you!" she screeched. "You make me look gauche-if you let me fall, I'll see you never dance again!"

"Cut!" called the director, getting to his feet and looking impatiently from one to the other.

The corps de ballet milled about, grumbling, throwing angry looks at the pair center stage that was wasting so much time. Obviously, from the sweaty, hot looks of all of them, this had been going on for some time, and badly.

"Laurent!" called the director, well known for having little patience for those who required two, or even more takes. "What the hell is wrong with your timing? I thought you said you knew this ballet. I can't think of one thing you've done right in the past three days."

"Me?" Leeland railed back. "It's not me... it's her-she jumps too soon!"

"Okay," the director said sarcastically, "it's always her fault and never yours." He tried to control his impatience, knowing Leeland would walk out in a second if criticized too much. "When is your wife going to be well enough to dance again?"

Loretta screamed out, "Hey, wait a minute! I came all the way from Los Angeles and now you're sounding as if you're going to replace me with Caren! I won't have it! I'm written into that contract now! I'll sue!"

"Miss Price," said the director smoothly, "you are the cover only—but while you are, let's attempt it again. Laurent, listen for your cue. Prince, make ready and pray to God this time it will be fit to show an audience who might expect better from professionals."

Caren smiled to hear she was only the cover. She had thought she was really written out. She found she perversely enjoyed watching Leeland make a fool out of himself and Loretta as well.

Yet, when the dancers on stage groaned, she groaned along with them, feeling their exhaustion, and despite herself she began to feel pity for Leeland who was diligently trying to balance Loretta. 

Any second the director could call "take ten" and that's when Caren would make her move.

Up ahead, first row, Madame Ephron suddenly turned her wizened giraffe neck to crane Caren’s way, and those sharp little beady eyes saw her sitting tensely, watching like an eagle. 

"Hey, you, Caren," she called with great enthusiasm, “Come,” she gestured, “sit by my side.”

"Excuse me a minute, Daniel," Caren whispered. “I've got to go up there and save Leeland before he ruins both our careers. I'll be alright. There's not much he can do with an audience is there?"

Once Caren was seated beside Madame Ephron, she hissed, "Sooo, you’re not so sick after all! Thank God for small favors. Your husband up there is ruining my reputation along with his and yours. I should have known better than to always let him partner you, so now he can dance with no one as well."

"Madame," Caren asked, "who arranged for Loretta to be my stand-in?”

"Your husband, my love," she whispered cruelly, “You let him get control, you were a fool to do that. He is impossible! He is a tempest, a devil, so unreasonable! Soon he will go mad, if he doesn't see your face or we will go mad. Now run fast and put on dance clothes and save me from extinction!"

It was only a matter of seconds before Caren had on a practice outfit and, as soon as she had her hair bound up and securely fastened in place, she strapped on her pointes. At the dressing room barre she warmed up quickly. Doing her pliés, and the rond de jambes to pump blood into each limb. Soon enough she was ready. Not a day passed where Caren didn't do her exercises for several hours.

In the darkened wings Caren hesitated. She was prepared, she thought, for almost anything for when Leeland saw her, what would he do? While she watched him on stage, suddenly from behind she was brutally shoved aside! 

"You've been replaced," hissed Loretta. “So, get out and stay out! You had your chance and loused it up. Now Leeland is mine! You hear that? He's mine! I have slept in your bed, and used your makeup and worn your jewelry. I have taken your place in everything."

Caren wanted to ignore her and not believe anything she said. When the cue came for Giselle to go on, Loretta tried to hold her that's when Caren turned savagely upon her and pushed her so hard she fell. She blanched with pain, while Caren went on pointe and glided onto the stage, making her perfect little string of pearls. 

Each tiny step could have been measured and proven to be of an exact distance. For now was the shy, young village girl, sweetly, sincerely falling in love with Loys. Others on stage gasped to see her. Relief lit up Leeland's dark eyes for an instant.

"Hi," he said coolly as she neared him, and fluttered her dark lashes to enchant him more. 

"Why'd you come back? Your doctors kick you out? Sick of you already?" He asked.

"You are a nasty, inconsiderate brute, Leeland, to replace me with Loretta! You know I despise her!"

His back was to the lookers as he sneered wickedly, all the while keeping time, "Yeah, I know you hate her. That's why I wanted her." 

He curled his beautiful red lips so they looked ugly, “Listen to this, dancing doll. Nobody runs out on me, especially my wife, and comes back and thinks she can still fit in my life. My love, my dearest heart, I don't want you now, I don't need you now, and you can go and play bitch to any man you want! Get the hell out of my life!"

"You don't mean that," Caren said, as they both performed perfectly, and no one called cut. How could they when they did everything so exquisitely right?

"You don't love me," he said bitterly. "You've never loved me. No matter what I did, or what I said, and now I don't give a damn! I gave you the best I had to give, and it wasn't enough. So, dear Caren I give you this!" 

And with those sudden words, he broke the routine, jumped high into the air, to come down forcefully and directly onto her feet. All his weight, brought down like a battering ram to crush her toes.

Caren uttered some small cry of pain, then Leeland was whirling back to chuck her under the chin.

“Now, love, see who will dance Giselle with me. Certainly it won't be you, will it?" He hisses.

“Take ten!" bellowed the director, too late to save her.

Leeland gripped her shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. Caren stared at him rattle-eyed, expecting anything. Then suddenly he whirled away leaving her center stage, alone, on two damaged feet that hurt so badly she could have screamed. Instead, she sank to the floor and sat there staring at her rapidly swelling feet.

From out of the darkened auditorium Daniel came running to her assistance. 

“Damn him to hell for doing this!" He cried, falling on his knees to take off her pointe shoes and examine her feet. Tenderly he tried to move her toes, but she cried out from the awful pain. 

Then he picked her up easily and held her tight against him, "You'll be alright, Caren. I'll see that your toes heal properly. I fear a few are broken on each foot. You'll need an orthopedist,” he told her.

"Take Caren to our orthopedist," ordered Madame Ephron who teetered forward and stared at Caren’s darkening, enlarging feet. She peered more closely at Daniel, having seen him only a few times before. 

“You’re Caren’s doctor boy who caused all this trouble?" she asked, making Caren blush. “Take her quick to the doctor. We have insurance. But that fool husband, this is it. I fire him!” She declared.

At the doctor of Caren’s feet were X-rayed disclosing three broken toes on her left foot, and one broken small toe on her right.

Thank God both her big toes were spared, or else she might never dance again! 

An hour later Daniel was carrying her out of the doctor's office with a plaster cast drying on one foot that reached to her knee, while the small toe was only taped and left to heal without such protection.

The doctor's last words rung in her ears though, “You may, or you may not dance again, it all depends." 

On what it depended, he didn't say.

So she asked Daniel. 

“Sure," he said confidently, of course you'll dance again. Sometimes a doctor likes to be overly pessimistic so you can think how great he was when everything works out fine due to his special skill."

Clumsily he tried to support her while he used her key to open the door of the apartment Leeland and her shared. Then he carefully lifted her up again, carried her inside and kicked the door closed behind him. He tried to make her as comfortable as possible on one of the soft couches.

Caren had her eyes squeezed tightly together, trying to suppress the pain she felt at every move.

Daniel tenderly supported both legs so he could stuff pillows under and keep them elevated to reduce the swelling. Another fat pillow was carefully eased under her back and head and he never said one word not one word.

Because he was so silent, she opened her eyes and studied his face that loomed above her. He tried to look professional, detached, but he failed. He showed shock each time his eyes moved from one object to another.

Fearful Caren looked around and her eyes bulged and her mouth opened. 

This room! The mess! Oh, God, it was awful!

Their apartment was a wreck! Every painting Leeland and her had so carefully selected was torn down from the walls, smashed on the floor. Even the two watercolors Daniel had painted especially for her, portraits with her in costume.

All the expensive trinkets they’d bought lay broken on the hearth, lamps were on the floor, the shades slashed to ribbons and the wire frames bent. Needlepoint pillows she'd made during the long tedious flights from here to there while on tour were ripped, destroyed! Houseplants had been dumped from their pots and left with roots exposed to die.

Two cloisonné vases that William had given as a wedding gift, gone too. Everything fine and costly, and very cherished, things they had planned to keep all their lives and leave to their children, all beyond restoration.

"Vandals," said Daniel softly, "Just vandals." 

He smiled and kissed her forehead and squeezed her hand as tears came to her eyes. “Stay calm," he said, then he went to check the other three rooms, while she sank back on the pillows and sniffed back her sobs. 

Oh, how he must hate her to do this! 

Shortly after, Daniel was back with his expression very composed, in that same eye-of-the-hurricane way she'd seen a few times on his face. 

"Caren," he began, settling cautiously down on the edge of the sofa and reaching for her hand, “I don't know what to think. All your clothes and shoes have been ruined. Your jewelry is scattered all over the bedroom floor, the chains ripped apart, the rings stepped on, bracelets hammered out of shape. It looks as if somebody set out deliberately to ruin all of your things and left Leeland's in perfect condition."

He gave her a baffled, troubled look, and maybe the tears she tried to hold back jumped from her eyes to his. With glistening blue eyes he extended his palm to show her the setting of a once exquisite diamond engagement ring, given to her by his brother, William.

The platinum band was now a crooked oval. The prongs had released their clasp on the clear and perfect two-carat diamond.

Sedatives had been shot into her arm so she couldn't feel the pain of her broken toes. She felt fuzzy and disoriented, and rather detached. Someone inside her was screaming, screaming hatred was near again-the wind was blowing, and when she closed her eyes.

"Leeland," she said weakly, "he must have done this. He must have come back and vented his rage on all my belongings. See the things left whole, they are things he chose for himself."

"Damn him to hell!" cried Daniel. “How many times has he vented his rage on you? How many black eyes—I've seen one-but how many others?"

"Please don't," Caren said sleepily, "He never hit me, that he didn't cry afterward, and he'd say he was sorry. Yes, so sorry, my sweetheart, my only love. I don't know what makes me act as I do when I love you so much,” she muttered.

"Caren," began Daniel tentatively, tucking the platinum band in his pocket, "Are you alright? You look close to fainting. I'll go in and straighten up the bed, so you can rest in that. Soon you'll fall asleep and forget all of this, and when you wake up, I'm taking you away. Don't cry for the clothes and things he gave you, for I'll give you better and more. As for this ring William gave you, I'll search around the bedroom until I find the diamond."

He looked, but he didn't find the diamond, and when she drifted into sleep, he carried her to the bed he'd made up with clean sheets. She was under a sheet and a thin blanket when she opened her eyes, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her face. 

Caren glanced toward the windows and saw it was getting dark. Any moment Leeland would come home, and find Daniel with her and there'd be hell to pay.

But she wanted him to stay. For always he gave her comfort when nothing else could. Always he was there when she needed him to do and say the right thing.

“You’ve made it Daniel. I haven’t yet. You should let me go,” Caren whispered and then added, “You've achieved your goal of being a doctor. But I'm still not a prima ballerina." she said this last part bitterly.

"Caren, don't belittle yourself. You will be a prima ballerina yet!” He said fervently. "You would have been a long time ago, if Leeland could control his fits of temper that makes every company manager afraid to sign the pair of you on. You get stuck in a minor company just because you won't leave him."

Caren sighed, wishing he hadn't said that. It was true enough Leeland’s fiery temper tantrums had scared off more than one offer that would have placed them in a more prestigious company.

“You've got to leave, Daniel. I don't want him to come home and find you here. He doesn't want you near me. And I can't leave him. In his own way he loves me and needs me. Without me to keep him steady he would be ten times more violent, and I do love him after all. If he struck out sometimes, he was just trying to make me see that. Now I do see,” Caren told him.

"See?" he cried. “You're not seeing! You’re letting pity for him rob you of good common sense! Look around you, Caren! Only a crazy man could have done this. I'm not leaving you alone to face a madman! I'm staying to protect you. Tell me what you could do if he decides to make you pay again for leaving him alone in Spain? Could you get up and run? No! I'm not leaving you here, unprotected, when he might come home drunk, or on drugs,” Daniel started.

“He doesn't use drugs!" Caren defended, protective of the good that was in Leeland, and for some reason, wanting to forget all that wasn't.

"He jumped on your toes, when you need those toes to dance on, so don't tell me you will have a sane man to deal with. You need to leave him,” Daniel insisted only to be rebuffed.

"Daniel, I'm going to have Leeland's baby. I went to a gynecologist while I was in town. It's the reason I stayed longer than I originally intended. Leeland and I are having a baby."

She could have slapped him from the way he moved backward. He sat up on the side of the bed and bowed his head into his hands. Then he sobbed, "Always you manage to defeat me, Caren! First William, my brother who I can’t even hate, then Leeland who I’ll never understand why you put up with, and now a baby."

There was a silence for a moment before he suddenly faced her,  "Come away and let me be the father to that child! Leeland isn't fit!”

"Daniel I'm going to have the baby with Leeland,” Caren said with a firm resolution that surprised even herself, “I want Leeland's child for I do love him, Daniel, and I've failed him in so many ways. Failed him because you and William got in my eyes, and I didn't appreciate what I could have had in him. I should have been a better wife, and then he wouldn't have needed those girls. I…” Caren tried to continue before Daniel interrupted. 

"You forgive him for breaking your toes?" he asked, astonished.

"He kept begging me to say I loved him, and I never would. I kept a deceptive parasol over my head, to keep dark doubts in my mind, and I refused to see anything that was noble and fine about him but his dancing. I didn't realize that to love me, even when I denied him, was noble and fine in itself. So, let me go, Daniel. Even if I never dance again, I'll have his child and he will go on to fame without me."

Daniel looked at her with deep sadness before standing up and leaving.

So Caren slept only to bolt awake at the sound of a telephone ringing.

Why did a telephone ringing in the dead of night always have such a threatening sound? 

Caren sleepily reached for the receiver and muttered, "Hello?”

"Mrs. Leeland Laurent?"

Caren came awake a bit more, and rubbed at her eyes. "Yes, this is she."

She named a hospital on the other side of town, “Mrs.Laurent, would you please come as quickly as possible? If you can, have someone else drive you. Your husband was in an auto accident, and is even now in surgery. Bring with you his insurance papers, identification, and any medical history you have, Mrs. Laurent...are you there?"

But she wasn’t she was back to being a young child and hearing her father was dead in auto accident, and she instantly cried out, “Daniel!” Hoping her hadn’t left.

He was to her in a second coming from the other room, “I’m here,” he said, for he always was and would never truly leave her.

In that dim and lonely hour that comes before dawn, Daniel and Caren arrived at the hospital.

In one of those sterile waiting rooms they sat down to wait and find out if Leeland would survive the accident and the surgery.

Finally, around noon, after hours in the recovery room, they brought him down. They had him laid out on what they called a "fracture bed", a torturous looking device that strung up his right leg which wore a cast from his toes to his hip. His left arm was broken, and in a cast, and strung up in a peculiar way too. His pale face was lacerated and bruised. His lips, usually so full and red, were as pale as his skin. But all of that was nothing compared to his head.

Caren shivered to look. His head had been shaved and small holes drilled for metal calipers to be hooked in to pull his head up and backward. A leather collar lined with fleece was fastened about his neck. A broken neck! Plus a leg fracture, and a compound fracture of his forearm, was to say nothing of the internal injuries that had kept him on the operating table three hours.

Caren cried out, “Will he live?”

"He is on the critical list, Mrs. Laurent," they answered so calmly, "If he has other close relatives, we suggest you contact them."

Daniel made the call to Madame Milena, for Caren was deathly afraid he'd pass away any moment, and she might miss the only chance to tell him she loved him. And if that happened, she'd be cursed and haunted all through the rest of her life.

Days passed. Leeland flitted in and out of consciousness.

He stared at Caren with eyes lackluster, unfocused. He spoke but his voice came so thick, heavy and unintelligible she couldn't understand. She forgave him for all the little sins, and the big ones too, as you are apt to when death is around the corner. 

She rented a room in the hospital next to his where she could catch naps, but she never had a full night's rest. She had to be there when he came to, where he could see and know, so she could plead with him to fight, to live, and, most of all, say all the words she'd so stingily kept from his ears. 

"Leeland," she whispered, her voice hoarse from saying it so often, "Please don't die!"

Their dancing friends and musicians flocked to the hospital to offer what consolation they could. His room filled with flowers from hundreds of fans. 

Madame Milena flew up from South Carolina and stalked into the room wearing a dreary black dress. She gazed down on the unconscious face of her only child without any expression of grief. 

“Better he die now," she said flatly, “than to wake up and find himself a cripple for life.”

“How dare you say that?" Caren flared, ready to strike her,  "He's alive-and he's not doomed. His spinal cord wasn't injured! He'll walk again, and dance again too!"

Then came the pity and disbelief to shimmer her jet eyes and then she was in tears. She who'd boasted she never cried, never showed grief, wept in Caren’s arms. 

"Say it again, that he'll dance-oh, don't lie, he's got to dance again!"

Five horrible days came and went before Leeland could focus his eyes enough to really see. Unable to turn his head, he rolled his eyes Caren’s way. 

"Hi."

"Hello, dreamer. I thought you were never going to wake up," Caren said.

He smiled, a thin ironic smile, "No such luck, Caren love." 

His eyes flicked downward to his strung-up leg. "I'd rather be dead than like this."

Caren got up and went to his fracture bed that was made with two wide strips of rough canvas slipped over strong rods. It was a hard, unyielding bed to lie on, yet she stretched beside him very carefully, and curled her fingers into his tangle of remaining uncombed hair.

Her free hand stroked his chest, “Lee, you're not paralyzed. Your spinal cord was not severed, crushed, or even bruised. It's just in shock, so to speak."

He had an uninjured arm that could have reached to hold her, but it stayed straight at his side, "You're lying," he said bitterly, "I can't feel one damn thing from my waist down. Not your hand on my chest either. Now get the hell out of here! You don't love me! You wait until you think I'm ready to kick off, and then you come with your sweet words! I don't want or need your pity-so get the hell out, and stay out!"

Caren left his bed and reached for her purse, crying, even as he cried and stared at the ceiling. 

“Damn you for wrecking our apartment!" Caren stormed when she could talk, "You tore up my clothes!" Caren rampaged, angry now, and wanting to slap his face that was already bruised and swollen, “Damn you for breaking all our beautiful things! You knew how painstakingly we chose all those lamps, the accessories that cost a fortune. You know we wanted to leave them as heirlooms for our children. Now we've got nothing left to leave anyone!”

He grinned, satisfied. “Yeah, nothing left for nobody,” he yawned, as if dismissing her, but she was unwilling to be dismissed, "Got no kids, thank God. Never gonna have any. You can get a divorce. Marry some son of a bitch and make his life miserable too."

"Leeland," Caren said with such heavy sadness, "Have I made your life miserable?"

He blinked, as if not wanting to answer that, but she asked him again, and again, until she forced him to say, "Not altogether miserable-we had a few moments."

"Only a few?"

"Well... maybe more than a few. But you don't have to stay on and take care of an invalid. Get the hell out while you can. I'm no good, you know that. I've been unfaithful to you time and again."

"If you are again, I'll cut your heart out!"

"Go 'way, Caren. I'm tired."

He sounded sleepy from the many sedatives they fed into him and shot into him, “Kids are not good for people like us anyway."

“People like us...?"

"Yeah, people like us."

"How are we different?”

He mockingly, sleepily laughed, bitterly too, "We're not real. We don't belong to the human race."

"What are we then?"

“Dancing dolls, that's all. Dancing fools, afraid to be real people and live in the real world. That's why we prefer fantasy. Didn't you know?" He asked.

"No, I didn't know. I always thought we were real,” Caren whispered.

"It wasn't me who ruined your things, it was Loretta. I watched, though."

Caren felt sick, scared he was telling the truth. Was she only a dancing doll? Couldn't she make her way in the real world, outside the theater? Wasn't she better at coping than her mother?

"Leeland ... I do love you, honest I do. I used to think I loved someone else, because it seemed so unnatural to go from one love to another. When I was a little girl, I used to believe love came only once in a lifetime, and that was the best kind. I thought once you loved one person, you never could love another. But I was wrong,” Caren tried.

"Get out and leave me alone. I don't want to hear what you've got to say, not now. Now I don't give a damn," Leeland told her.

Tears coursed down Caren’s face and dropped down on him. He closed his eyes and refused to see, or listen. She leaned to kiss his lips, and they stayed tight, hard, unresponding.

Next he spat, "Stop! You sicken me!"

"I love you, Leeland," she sobbed, “and I'm sorry if I realized it too late, and said it too late but don't let it be too late. I'm expecting your baby, the fourteenth in a long line of dancers, and that baby is a lot to live for, even if you don't love me anymore. Don't close your eyes and pretend not to hear, because you are going to be a father, whether or not you want to be." 

He rolled his dark, shining eyes her way, and she saw why they shone, for they were full of tears.

Tears of self-pity, or tears of frustration, she didn't know.

But he spoke more kindly, and there was a tone of love in his voice, "I advise you to get rid of it, Caren. Fourteen is no luckier a number than thirteen."

She left his room to sleep on Daniel’s shoulder for a few hours. When she got up she walked to Leeland’s room to see he was asleep, deeply asleep. The intravenous tube that led to his arm ran under the sheet and into his vein.

But for some reason she fixed her eyes upon that bottle with the pale yellow liquid that seemed more water than anything else, so quickly it was being depleted.

She ran back to shake Daniel awake, "Daniel," she said, as he tried to pull himself together, “isn't that IV supposed to just trickle into his arm? It's running out very quickly,too quickly, I think."

Hardly were the words out of her mouth when Daniel was up and running toward Leeland's room.

Daniel only had to throw back the sheet to see the problem, the tube had been cut! 

"Oh, God," sighed Daniel, "an air bubble must have reached his heart."

Caren stared at the shiny scissors held so loosely in Leeland’s slack right hand. 

"He cut the tube himself," she whispered, "he cut the tube himself, and now he's dead, dead, dead.”

Daniel turned on the nurse, but Caren stopped him even in her grief, “It's all right," she said dully, "If he hadn't done it this way, it would have been another. I should have known and warned you. There was no life for him if he could never dance again. No life at all.”

Leeland was buried next to his father. On the headstone, Caren made sure Madame Milena agreed to the name she added:

Leeland Laurent Romanov, beloved husband of Caren, and thirteenth in a long line of Russian male ballet stars.

Maybe it was ostentatious and gave away her own failure to love him enough while he lived, but she had to let him have it the way he wanted or as she thought he wanted.

Daniel, William, Cassidy and her paused at the foot of his father’s grave too, and she bowed her head to show respect to Leelands father. Respect she should have given him too.

“Caren," said William when they were all seated in the long black limousine, "your room is still as it was, all yours. Come home and live with Cassidy and me until your baby is born. Daniel will be there too, doing his internship at the local Hospital."

Caren stared over at Daniel who was seated on the jumpseat, knowing he'd won a much better position in a very important hospital—and he was interning in a small, unimportant one. 

“Duke is so far away, Caren," he said with his eyes avoiding hers. “It was bad enough traveling when I was in college and med school so if you don't mind, let me be somewhere near so I can be here the day your son or daughter arrives in the world."

Madame Milena jolted so her head almost struck the ceiling of the car, "You carry Leeland's child?" She cried. "Why didn't you tell me before? How wonderful!" She glowed, so the sadness dropped from her like a gloomy cloak. “Now Leeland's not dead at all, for he will father a son, who will be exactly like him!”

"It may be a girl, Madame," William said softly, while he reached for Caren’s hand causing Daniel to turn away slightly, “I know you long for a boy like your son, but I long for a little girl like Caren and Cassidy ...but if it's a boy, I won't object."

"Object?" cried Madame. "God in his infinite wisdom and mercy will send to Caren the exact duplicate of Leeland! And he will dance, and he will reach the fame that was waiting just around the corner for the son of my husband!"

That night as Caren sat on the porch, the door behind her opened and closed quietly. She didn't look to see who it was, for she knew. She was good at sensing people, even in the dark. 

William sat in the chair next to hers, and rocked his chair in the same rhythm as she rocked.

"Caren," he said softly, "I hate to see you sitting there with that lost and drained expression. Don't think all the good things in your life have passed you by and nothing is left. You're still very young, very beautiful, and after your baby is born, you can quickly whip yourself back into shape, and dance until you feel you're ready to retire and teach."

She didn't turn her head. Dance again? How could she dance when Leeland lay in the ground? All she had was the baby. She would make the baby the center of her life. She would teach her child to dance, and he or she would reach the fame that should have been Leeland’s and hers. Everything that her mother failed to give her and her siblings she would bestow on her child.

Never would her child be neglected. When her child reached for her, she would be there. When her child cried out for Momma, he wouldn't have to make do with only an older sister. No, she’d be like her mother was when she was with her father. That was what hurt the most, that she could change from someone loving and kind into what she was, a monster. Never, never would she treat her child as her mother treated hers!

She had to be careful and not eat junk food; She had to drink plenty of milk, take vitamins, and think happy thoughts, not vengeful ones. Every day from now on she would play ballet music. Inside her, her baby would hear, and even before he or she was born a small living soul would be indoctrinated to the dance.

She smiled, thinking of all the pretty tutus she could buy for her little girl. She smiled even more to think of a boy like his father with dark blue eyes just like his. 

Carailand Ryan Laurent would be his name. Carailand for both her and his father and Ryan for Daniel’s little brother who now filled her dreams, remembering the way Daniel described him.

Though she tried diligently to think only of the innocent child growing within her, still her thoughts would steal to her mother, filling her with hate, filling her with unwanted plans for revenge. For somehow she had caused Leeland’s death too.

Madame Milena came often to check on her condition,and filled her with authoritative advice.

“Now you keep up your practicing; play the ballet music to fill Leeland’s baby with love for beauty before he is born; inside you he'll know the dance is waiting for him." 

She glanced down at Caren’s feet that had finally healed, “How do those toes feel now?"

"Fine," she answered dully, though they ached when it rained.

The long days of grief sped by more quickly because she had Leeland's baby, part of him to keep with her. 

Soon Christmas was upon them, and she was so large she didn't feel she should show herself. Daniel insisted, along with William, that it would be good therapy to go shopping.

Caren bought an antique gold locket to send to Madame Ephron, and inside she put two small photos of Leeland and her, in their Romeo and Juliet costumes.

Shortly after Christmas her thank-you note arrived:

Dear Caren, my own love,

Yours is the best gift of all. I grieve for your beautiful dancing husband. I grieve for you most of all if you decide not to dance again just because you are to become a mother! Long ago you would have been a prima ballerina if your husband had shown less arrogance and more respect for those in authority. Keep in shape, do exercises and bring your baby with you. My poor son just had a baby himself, I pray he will be a dancer. Bring your darling child and they can run around together. We will all live together in my place until you find a new dancer to love. Life offers many chances, not just one. Come back.

Forever here for you, 

Madame Ephron

Her note put a wistful smile on Caren’s face. 

It was a cold February night when Caren felt her first contraction. She gasped from the sharp pain. She had known it would hurt, but not so much! 

She glanced at the clock, two o’clock in the morning of Valentine's Day. Her baby would be born on what would have been her and Leeland’s sixth wedding anniversary! 

"Leeland," she cried out, as if he could hear her, "you are about to become a father!"

She got up and dressed as speedily as she could before she crossed the hall to rap on William's door. He mumbled something in the way of a question. 

“William," Caren called, "I think I just had my first contraction."

"Thank God!" he cried from the other side, instantly wide awake. "Are you all set to go?"

"Of course. I've been ready for a month."

"I'll call your doctor, then alert Daniel, you sit down and take it easy!"

"Would it be all right if I came in?" Caren asked.

He swung open the door, wearing only his trousers, "You're the calmest mother-to-be I've ever seen," he said as he helped her sit. 

He raced next to swipe at his face with an electric razor, then he was running to put on a shirt and tie. 

“Had any more contractions?" He asked.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, when another seized her. She doubled over, “Fifteen minutes since the last."

She gasped and he looked pale as he pulled on his jacket, then came to help her up,"Okay, I'll put you in the car first, then go for your suitcase. Keep calm, don't worry, this baby will have three doctors doing their very best..."

"To get in each other's way," Caren concluded.

"To see you have the best medical attention possible," he corrected.

He left a note for Cassidy for when she woke up, also telling her to call Madame Milena and put the tape they made for her.

It seemed forever before the hospital loomed up ahead. Under a protective canopy at the emergency entrance, a solitary intern paced restlessly back and forth. Daniel, who said "Thank God you're here! I was picturing all sorts of calamities," even as he assisted her out, while someone else rushed up with a wheelchair, and without any of the preliminaries other patients had to endure. 

She was snug in bed in no time at all and gasping from another contraction.

Three hours later, her son was born, Daniel and William were there, both of them with tears in their eyes, but it was Daniel who picked up her son, still with the cord attached, messy and bloody. He put him upon her belly and held him there while another doctor did what he had to. 

"Caren can you see him?" Daniel asked tears in his eyes.

“He's beautiful,” Caren breathed in awe, seeing all that light wavy hair, the perfect little red body. With a fierce anger so like his father's he waved his tiny fists and flailed his thin legs, screaming at all the indignities inflicted upon him and all the light that came so suddenly to shine in his eyes, and put him center stage, so to speak.

“His name is Carailand Ryan Laurent, but I'm going to call him Cary,” Caren whispered.

Both Daniel and William heard her thin whisper. She was so tired, so sleepy.

“Ryan?” William asked for the rest was understandable to him.

It wasn't Caren who had the strength to answer. It was Daniel who understood all of it.

“Carailand was for both of them, and she always did love Cary Grant movies. But he’s blonde and beautiful just like my brother Ryan was. I used to tell her about him all the time when she first came here,” he whispered with a small smile.

For a moment their eyes met and she smiled. How wonderful to be understood, and never have to explain.