The euphoria was wearing thin and the feeling of “all-is-well-with-the-world” was draining from Baylee’s lower eyelids and melding with the rain. The storm began as a symphony of drums—cymbals, a rolling timpani—and the rain was warm and smelled like summer camp. But now the lightning snapped and the drops stung and nobody seemed to care.

She opened the bottle of oxy; enough left to get her through July. She popped one dry.

Would one do the trick?

She popped another, then sealed the bottle. When she found Hyde, she would throw the rest away. And the weed. She didn’t want it anymore. Hyde would be enough.

She weaved between the tents. They were full. Some had a single open flap and she could see the people hiding from the storm without losing sight of The Stage. She imagined a bolt of lightning stemming crooked from the tallest post... and the huddled spectators charred below.

Hyde was supposed to visit her mom. Baylee needed her mother to know she wasn’t a screw-up; that she could do things right. Hyde was a good man. He was loving and gentle and kind. Mom would be proud.

Official news of his disappearance was as relieving as it was terrifying. He still loved her! Wherever he was, he was thinking about her! Until Jank called to tell her The Theater was on Channel Six, she thought Hyde had abandoned her; that he was ignoring her calls, laughing and showing her texts to his loving wife.

Before the news displayed the hotline number, there was nobody for Baylee to call. Hyde didn’t have any close family. And no one knew about their relationship! How many times she packed her car and sat outside her apartment with the key in the ignition but just couldn’t do it. If Hyde didn’t want her, she wasn’t going to change his mind by stalking him. If something was actually wrong, she wouldn’t be able to help!

And what if she showed up at his house and “she” answered the door? (And what if she was kind?)

The pills weren’t working; her brain was still telling her that this was a stupid place to search for Hyde. When the “all-is-well-with-the-world” returned, she would search the tents with confidence; she would know that everything would be okay.

If tonight’s search was fruitless, Baylee had a Plan B. If Hyde didn’t turn up, she’d find a highway rest stop. She’d get fucked up. There was a dime bag of weed and a bottle of hydrocodon syrup in the glove compartment. Shirts over the windows, curled in the back seat, save the pain for another day.

“Hey there sweet girl.”

Baylee’s heart jumped at the sentiment. But it was only William standing behind her in the pouring rain. His hair was stringy and the color of stone. He was handsome; she didn’t realize it as he stood in his truck, but now the lights accentuated his features and...

The oxy was finally kicking in.

“Baylee?” he said, loud enough to pierce the weather.

“Hey there!”

“How’s the search?”

She took a step closer and he did the same. His broad shoulders became a shield and now they could talk without shouting.

“I’m not going to find him, am I?” She sounded pathetic.

“No. You’re not. Did you know that I was the last person to talk to Hyde before he disappeared?” William was calm. He sounded like the guy who does voiceovers for truck commercials.

“Really?” she asked. Her face was three inches from his chest.

“Do you know the last thing he told me before he drove away?”

“What was it?”

“We were talking about you. He got in his car and rolled down his window—”

“What did he say?” she pleaded.

William lowered his lips to her ear until it was just the two of them in the downpour. “He told me that you’re wicked.”

“No he didn’t.”

“Hyde looked at me and he told me that he could never love such a wicked girl. He said he wanted you to repent.”

Baylee tried to swallow, but it wouldn’t go down. “Repent? For what?”

“Your perversions.”

Her eyes waned and her head drifted to her shoulder as the pills took full effect.

“Cyber sex. Phone sex. Video sex. You met a married man in person and had intercourse.”

In her head, Baylee shoved the old man to the ground and stepped on his throat. In reality, her tear ducts swelled and her eyes turned red, but her body didn’t move. “He told you that?”

“You abuse drugs. You abuse alcohol.”

Baylee rolled her head back and opened her eyes. Her arms were around William’s back.

“You’re a temptress. You’re a home wrecker. You’re a whore.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. Her eyes burned.

William’s face was framed by the expanse of night and crowned with a silent web of lightning. “Baylee,” he said, “you will be punished for your sins.”

*  *  *

“I love you Sarah!”

Dear God in Heaven, she prayed, get him away from me! But Sarah Huggins forgot... God would never step foot in this place.

“Sarah,” William said from the end of her row and loud enough for other parents to hear. “I love you!”

“I’ll take care of him,” Rick growled and began to stand.

“No. But thanks.” She touched his wet arm and he sat back down. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take the umbrella?”

“You keep it. I can handle the rain.”

Rick nodded and Sarah stood. She worked her way through the line of spectators until she reached her husband, clean shaven, gripping a stack of pages too thick to be the Summons and Complaint.

“Will,” she said when she reached him, “I told Janie that I won’t see you tonight.”

“Don’t blame our daughter. It was my idea.”

“She dances in nine minutes. What do you want?”

“I wanted to know what you think.”

“About what?”

“The competition! We got the National Championship. Pretty amazing?”

Sarah wanted to tell him that she completely disapproved of tonight’s competition; that it was absolutely nuts to let children dance in a storm. She wanted to tell him to sign the divorce papers right now with no questions asked.

...but it was good to see him. “It’s quite the show, Will,” she said. “We can talk about the papers another time—”

He held out the document. It was wrapped in two large baggies and duct-taped shut. “It’s our story,” he said. “It’s a stage play.”

She accepted the manuscript and the rain pattered the plastic. “A play?”

“Slightly exaggerated, of course... for dramatic effect. I want you to play the lead. Yourself!”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m not coming back to you, Will. You need to—”

“Do you remember when I came to visit you in the library?”

She couldn’t have this conversation. Not in the storm. Not at The Stage!

“It was the day I screwed up. I admitted my failure and apologized.”

“Of course I remember.”

“I quit everything cold turkey the night you left me. The drugs, the drinking, the lies... For six months I worked on becoming a better person. And I did! For twenty-five years I stayed a good husband to you. And for fourteen years I stayed a good father. It’s all in the play!”

“In the play? Do you really think I’m going to act for you in a play?”

“You play yourself! It’ll be brilliant! It’s the ultimate expression of creativity! My family, my Theater, my writing, my piano...”

Sarah shook her head and pushed the script into his chest. “I’m not like you, Will. I wanted to be an actress when I was twenty! But then God gave me a family and that was enough for me. I don’t want to act. I forgot that dream years ago.”

William pushed the script back into her hands. “It’s not about the play. Don’t you see, honey? It happened again! You gave me those same six months. And it worked! I know I messed up. I know lied. I was a bad husband and a terrible father. But I changed! I changed for myself and I changed for you. I came to terms with my insanity and I’ve accepted my roll in making things worse.”

“But I—”

“There’s more.”

Sarah couldn’t possibly handle—

“When you flip to the back of the script there’s another document.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a business plan for The Theater. It outlines the new management system with Pauline Woodstock as my partner. After tonight, she handles the business end. No more missed opportunities.”

“Will—”

“Do you remember my baptism in Lake Michigan? Tonight can be my second rebirth. Tonight can be a start of a new era with you and me and Janie.”

Her heart skipped at the thought (a beat of forgiveness?), but she couldn’t let him think she would reconsider—

“Just take the script. If you don’t want to act, I’ll make it into a book. And I promise you, I won’t go crazy this time.” He smiled that same shit-eating smile.

Oh Will... why do you do this!

Sarah feared her next question... but she leaned forward.

William took the cue and lowered his ear to her level. 

“Hyde’s disappearance...” she said. “Was it you?”

He pulled away. He placed his hands on her shoulder and squeezed. “No, my darling. I had nothing to do with that.”

She studied his eyes for a moment longer. She could always tell when he lied. The white perimeter lights revealed every pore on her husband’s face... but he was genuine.

She looked at her watch. “Six minutes until Janie’s dance. You better check on her.”

“What about us?”

“There is no ‘us,’ Will. Not until we talk about it.”

His cheeks pulled back into a smile. “I love you, Sarah! You don’t have to say it back.”

She wouldn’t. But she did.

*  *  *

Carnival music blended awkwardly with a pop-song and accompanied a tapping clown duet. A flash of lightning—followed less than a second later by its rumbling counterpart and a sterile-electric smell—boldly announced the storm had arrived. 

“Janie Carmel!” Chase said and wrung Miss Kayla’s vomit from his mop. “You’re next!”

Janie rolled her neck and approached the mess. “That’s wrong. I’m after Tracy.”

“No ma’am. Her dad filled out a drop form this morning.”

Tracy had been pulled from the competition.And Janie knew why. “Give me five,” she said and marched away.

“You’re on stage in four!” he shouted.

Janie adjusted the bun. It sat squarely atop her head with enough hairspray to withstand the night’s humidity. Her shoes were wet—part of the break-in process—and she flexed and stretched with every stride from the left-wing to the right.

No sign of Tracy. No sign of her father. A black drape flared in a burst of wet wind.

Janie looked behind her. The stairwell chasm yawned from behind a blockade of yellow caution tape and it whispered her name.

She tried to ignore that stairwell; for days she tried to forget the man trapped below.

“Janie,” it whispered again.

She ducked the tape. She held her tutu away from the narrow walls. She abandoned the storm and Chase and the tapping clowns and stepped the final step into the cellar.

The corridor was longer tonight. Closet on her right. Empty changing rooms on her left. Ten more steps. Her right hand dragged across the hatch-room door. Her pointe shoes traced lines in fallen mortar dust. She turned to face the chorus room and prepared her heart for a sudden jolt of the door or a blood-curdling howl from within... but the only sound was the thumping base upstairs. She saw the cement seal for the first time; streaked and mashed with imprints from her father’s left finger and thumb.

Fingers that typed a thousand reasons he loved her.

Fingers that shot and buried his good pup... for her.

Daddy deserved loyalty. Daddy deserved a daughter that could dance.

But it was her fault that Hyde was dead.

It was her fault that Kayla was sad.

It was her fault that Tracy wasn’t dancing.

#1000. We are the same...

Janie squeezed every muscle in her face—every muscle in her body—then rammed her fist against the chorus-room door. A tear broke from her chin and marked the dust with a stone splatter. “Hello?” she cried and punched it again. “Are you in there?”

If a man was dead behind that door, her father didn’t deserve a loyal, dancing daughter. She couldn’t be like him. 

And the acceptance of that notion set her free.

She pounded again—harder—but still no reply. She picked her fingernails beneath the hardened cement but it would take hours to break away the mortar without tools.

Sherlock. After her dance, she would tell Mr. Cavenaugh.

Janie slapped her hands together to clear the dust. She pressed away the tears and looked at the door. She shook the butterflies from her stomach, turned, and breezed through the hall with new briskness and peace.

Chase was no longer a burden. He could be her boyfriend again. Someday, if he wanted to settle, maybe she would do that with him. Maybe they could get a kitten. Maybe she could have a daughter of her own.

Her dance would conclude with three jetés and a chasse off stage-left. But Chase would be standing stage-right. If she leapt left, then stopped suddenly after the final jeté to turn back, she would lose points...

...but points didn’t matter if she landed in her boyfriend’s arms.

When her dance was over, she would tell him what she did. They would tell Cavenaugh together.

She bounded up the stairs, lighter now than ever before.

William stood at the top step. His clothes were dark with rain. He extended his claw and she took it. He smelled of cinnamon; his red wad of gum was speckled with flecks of sunflower shells. His face was smooth. He looked like Daddy again.

When the carousel of music stopped and flashing cameras caught the final pose of the clowns, the children bowed, exited The Stage, and ducked the drizzle on their way to their families in the back row.

Janie and Will stepped backstage. She saw Chase. He nodded you’re next, then grabbed his broom.

She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to tell him!

Will spoke loudly so Chase could hear. “When you’re finished, honey, I’ll be waiting in the left-wing.”

She nodded.

Chase zip-zagged again with his push broom, sweeping the glitter, feathers and wetness from the wooden floor of The Stage.

“You love me Janie?” William asked.

“I love you, Dad.”

“Our secret will stay a secret?”

“Of course.” It was a lie, but it was necessary.

The announcer blared through the overhead speakers and introduced the next dance with peppy enthusiasm. “Next up we have competitive ballet, age fourteen. Please welcome Janie Carmel performing ‘An Elegy for Miracles!’”