THE LAST DANCE

When Mary stepped from the train onto the weather worn platform, she had a chip on her shoulder wider than the Mississippi River and just as nasty as a water moccasin. She showed her impatience by tapping one dainty foot against the weather worn platform just as a cold breeze shifted her way. Mary stopped tapping to wrap a thin coat tighter around her gaunt waist.

"Great". Said the sixteen-year-old as a strong gust blew against her uncovered legs, "I�m not only an orphan but a soon to be frozen and starved one."

Mary raised her porcelain hands with long delicate fingers with ten perfectly painted nails in the color of Hell's Fire Red, to her mouth. She cupped them in front of her cupid shaped lips, and blew warm air into her palms. She stamped her feet against the cold and wished the earth would open and swallow this awful place.

She turned and watched her bags being wheeled to the end of the platform. She was about to shout at the black porter to be careful when she heard something. Mary looked out over the flat and bleak landscape and saw an old car coming to a stop.

A Model A Ford slowly came to rest at the side of the platform and a figure emerged. Mary thought it looked like a fat worm emerging from its hole. The woman who stood in the blustering wind was fat and very short. In addition, she was, according to Mary�s view of her universe, terribly old. The short fat old woman waddled her way up the platform stairs and Mary could hear each old board protesting each old footstep of the old woman.

"No. Please dear God, do not let this be my grandmama." Prayed Mary silently into the wind, which scattered her prayer across the prairie. She watched as the old woman approached.

"Lord a gracious child, y'all must be Martha. I be your grandmama and I�m a right might sorry about your momma. I cried for days when I got word of what happened to y'all parents out there on I 95. Why gracious child a body sometimes can barely stand all the grief, but I gots my faith child, yes sir, I gots my faith."

Mary stood in the cold wind while rag tag pieces of snow began to fall about her. She was looking at a cruel caricature of her mother. Buried under a layer of fat and rows of chins, was her mother looking back at her. Deep violet eyes embedded in a fat face, a once small nose and high prominent cheek bones were now surrounded by sagging folds of skin looking much like a cotton shirt in need of ironing. A scarf covered the head, but Mary could see strands of thin white hair peeking out at her and waving in the wind catching small fragments of snow.

"My name is Mary."

"I�m sorry child, what did y'all say? I am a bit hard of hearing over this wind."

"I said," shouted Mary above the growing roar of the wind. "My name is Mary. No one calls me Martha."

"Gracious child, that�s as good as Martha. Well, come along, we better git �fore the weather turns bad."

Mary turned and observed the prairie around her, but all she saw was a solid sheet of white heading for them. For the first time since her parent�s death in a fiery car wreck, Mary was unsure what to do next. She was, after all, a child of the Deep South having been born in Mississippi. She had never experienced the fierceness of a storm of a plain.

"Well, come on child, �fore the storm hits us." Urged her grandmama.

Holding to Mary's coat sleeve, grandmama, with gentle tugs, pulled her across the snow-covered platform, down slippery steps and to the car where the porter was depositing her bags. Nodding to the small man in the brown uniform, grandmama opened the passenger door and deposited her granddaughter inside. The old woman made her way around the car in the deepening snow and squeezed in behind the steering wheel. In her old woman's voice, she spoke to Mary.

"Child, there�s a wool blanket a laying in the back seat. Better git it and wrap it around you. It�s going to be a cold ride home."

Mary shrugged but did not move. She was on a quest to ignore the small ugly fat old woman who could not really be her grandmama. No wonder her mother left home at an early age. Mary turned her face away and looked out her window. She was silent as she stared at the landscape. There was nothing except a vast blowing whiteness.

Grandmama glanced at her and Mary heard her sigh. "I just bet she is praying for my soul or something." Thought Mary as grandmama maneuvered the old jalopy through deepening drifts. The falling snow was heavy, wet, and clung in clumps to the windshield.

The wind howled its anger at the world and flung its snow flakes helter skelter across the road and across the lonely car. Inside the car, silence was king while outside the sounds of a winter god roared his might. The snow thickened and within an hour, not even grandmama could see the road.

Mary kept her silence as she watched out the window where her breath melted small patches of ice, leaving grotesque shapes on the inside of the pane. The blowing drifts chasing one another across the prairie forced the car to a mere crawl. Grandmama fought the wheel of the clanking car as a fierce wind buffeted it and snow blocked the road. Soon, the car was stuck and within minutes, covered with wet heavy snow.

Grandmama turned to her granddaughter and spoke in a voice that did not betray her feelings of growing dread, "Child, we have to git off this here road. I know of an old cabin close to here. We need to git ourselves to a place where�s we be warm and all."

For the first time since she got in the car, Mary turned and looked at the old woman. She could not believe what she was hearing. Leave the car? What insanity! Just how stupid was this fat old woman anyway. Mary decided she was not going anywhere with this crazy person. She did not answer. Let her grandmama think she is too scared to say anything.

"Mary, you reach back there and git two woolen blankets. And if�n you look real good, y'all will see a bag and in it y'all find a wool hat and gloves and such. It�s what your grandpa calls his emergency kit."

"I am not going anywhere." Mary said with conviction.

"Why in the world not child? We stay here we is going to freeze to death fer sure."

"How can we freeze to death when we have a heater in the car. Even though it is a lousy heater and barely heats, it is better than being outside."

"Oh granddaughter, don�t you understand? This old car aint got no heater, what y'all felt was a coming off that engine. And, we is almost out of gas so staying here is out of the question."

Just when Mary was ready to dig her heels in and get stubborn, a blast of wind hammered the old car bouncing the two inhabitants around like beans in a beanie. The cold wind blew through every crook and cranny it could find bringing sand-like grains of snow that whipped at their skin and clothes. The iciness of the early winter storm whipped its way up Mary's skirt and she shivered. Mary pulled the thin coat tighter around her, but it felt as if her very bone marrow had caught a chill. She began to rock back and forth to generate heat.

"Ok. You win. How far is it to this cabin you know about." Mary sneered between chattering teeth.

"Well let�s see. Can�t be more than half a mile...."

"Half a mile?"

".... as a crow flies."

"What do you mean as a crow flies? How many miles for us humans is it?"

"Why girl, by my reckoning its about two miles that way." Said grandmama as she pointed her finger due north. "We better be getting on if we gonna make it by night time."

"What happens at night time that�s no different than day time?"

"It'll git much colder and the wind will howl like a pack of hounds sent from Satan himself. The only thing that anybody would find of us in a few days would be a frozen car and two frozen prairie rats." Her face and tone determined to make Mary understand.

Mary grabbed two woolen blankets as well as a small backpack. She noticed some old clothes on the floor and took them. A pair of worn tan coveralls covered with green splotches, smelling of turpentine, unfurled in her small white hands with their bright red painted fingernails.

"Good Mary, put that on afore your legs freeze on you."

Wrinkling her nose, Mary looked at her grandmama to see if she was kidding. She was not. She was about to protest when a heavy gust of wind hit the car and with it a whirlwind of unfeeling snow. Within minutes, Mary had managed to pull the coveralls on and button it tightly against her swan throat. She looked in the backpack, and pulled out two woolen caps. She gave one to the old woman. Mary pulled her woolen hat over her ears, the earrings protesting against her pale skin. From the bag, Mary retrieved a pair of woolen gloves. Grandmama looked at the gloves and nodded to Mary as she put them on. Bulges appeared in the tops of the gloves from the rings. She had not asked if the old woman had needed them.

Grandmama laid a hand on Mary's shoulder and spoke gently, "Well child, we is about as ready as a body can be. We put our faith in God and go forward. On the count of three we will both open our doors and git out. One - two - three, go!"

As the doors opened the full blast of winter�s wrath assaulted them. Grandmama fought against the wind as she made her way to Mary�s side where she wrapped one of the woolen blankets around the young girl, Indian style. Only Mary's eyes were visible. Grandmama nodded with satisfaction as she noticed Mary's violet eyes. Grandmama made sure Mary was covered before she covered herself. Taking a five-foot rope made from hemp; she tied one end around Mary�s right wrist and the other end around her right wrist. Mary did not protest. She was too cold to do much except shiver.

"Come on, we better be a going afore the weather gets bad."

"Bad?" Shouted Mary with disbelief. Grandmama did not hear over the sound of the fierce wind. Screaming at the old woman, Mary�s words were caught in the frosty frigid air and lost and she shook with impotence as the old woman tugged on the rope. They set out across the frozen and stark landscape.

Mary felt as if they had been traveling for days. She was tired, cold, and very hungry. She looked at the figure in front of her bent against the wind. For the first time since the death of her parents, Mary thought about someone else. How does she do it? In this wind and cold and deep snow? Crazy. I was right, she is crazy. The rope on Mary�s wrist tugged and she forced herself to forge ahead.

Mary could see that the old woman was so tired that she could barely put one foot in front of another as they fought their way through the deeping snow.

"It's her own fault. We should have stayed in town until the storm was over." Though Mary with bitterness as they bent against the arctic wind. After awhile, Mary stopped thinking terrible thoughts about the old woman and concentrated on putting one foot in front of another. She was so cold that and tired. She wanted nothing better to do than to sink down in the snow and go to sleep. A slight tug on the rope reminded Mary that she needed to go forward and with a deep sigh, she followed.

One foot in front of another and it became their rhythm to walk. Snow blowing from the North brought bone coldness that reached deep into a their souls and nestled there. Their chests ached where the lungs stood frosted and nostrils almost shut to try to keep the cold out of the sinuses. They became dehydrated breathing through their mouths and just when Mary was about to give up, Grandmama gave a shout and stopped.

Pointing into the swirling mists Grandmama tugged on the line. Mary saw nothing but white blindness ahead and as she began to give Grandmama an evil look, the swirling snow parted and there a few hundred feet in front of them, was a dilapidated log cabin. Mary jumped in front of Grandmama and now she was breaking trail as they made for the cabin. Grandmama let herself be lead and within a few minutes, they were standing outside of a crooked log door.

Mary pushed and Grandmama joined in. With a moan of protest, the door gave and both fell inward. Kicking the door shut with her feet, Mary lay quietly upon the rough-hewn floor and breathed in the smells of a time long past.

An hour later, a small fire was burning in the barrel stove and both inhabitants had their clothes hanging as near the stove as they could get them. They had dressed in some old clothes and wrapped themselves in moldy blankets they had found in two small bedrooms. To them the blankets felt like the most expensive cashmere. Grandmama looked to her granddaughter.

"Child, I gots to give it to you. I never thought you had it in you to make this trip. However, I known that if we stayed behind in that old rickety car we were both dead fer sure. Are you feeling Ok?"

"Yes. I am finally starting to thaw out a little. I never thought we would make it either. However, we did. I had to make it through."

"Yes child, there is things that we have to do even if'n we don�t want to."

A slight groan escaped Grandmama�s lips as she moved her feet. Mary looked and was horrified to see two feet with very fat toe sausages attached to them. The sausage toes had been frozen and now they were swelling and turning black, the skin cracking. Mary glanced at her grandmama and shook her head. How could this old fat woman do this thing? Bring them out of the storm? Mary looked away.

"Mary, please bring old granny that piece of torn burlap. I will try to tear it into strips and wrap my toes in it."

Mary rose, her body rigid and sore from the hike to the cabin, and made her way to a piece of filthy burlap thrown in the corner. Taking two fingers, she gingerly picked up the rag and brought it to grandmama. Grandmama watched with amusement as the young girl did everything in her power to keep from touching it. With her button nose wrinkled, Mary deposited the soiled rag in Grandmama�s stiff and swollen hands.

"Oh child, it aint nothing but an ole rag. It aint going to hurt ye."

Bending over from the old handmade chair, Grandmama tried to wrap her feet, but her weight and stiffness prevented her. Mary looked on with a dawning horror for she knew she must do this thing. With a loud sigh, Mary took the burlap and knelt beside the old woman. She gently wrapped her grandmama�s feet.

Mary thought how grateful she was that her friends couldn't see her doing this as she wrapped the swelling feet with its old woman toenails. When she was done she stood and moved closer to the barrel wood stove. She felt its warmth and remembered how surprised she was at how easy grandmama had started a fire in this contraption. Grandmama had poked around on the side of the cabin and found what she called a cache of wood. She even knew where to look for some matches. Hearing a slight moan from behind her, Mary turned and walked back to the rickety old chair and sat at a plank table. It wasn�t more than seasoned wood laid on top of wooden barrels. Dust lined its top and Mary could see tiny paw prints clearly in the dust. She looked away and noticed grandmama looking at her.

"I reckon your grandpa will be a looking for us in this here storm. However, I wish he'd just stay at home. Your grandpa is not a well soul. He suffered one of them strokes a few months ago and the doctor said he weren�t to have no excitement." Spoke grandmama as she fingered her wedding ring.

"Why did my mother leave home?"

Surprised, grandmama looked at her bedraggled granddaughter.

"She never tole you?"

"The only thing my mother ever said to me was that when she was a little girl, you and her father packed everything up and left Mississippi to come up here and live in this God-forsaken country."

"I see. What else did your momma tell you?"

"That she cried all the time because she missed Mississippi so much and no matter what she did, you and grandpa refused to move back. So, when she turned sixteen, she up and split."

Old rheumy eyes looked upon her granddaughter and with much sadness in her voice she spoke, " Child, there�s more to life than the whim of a young and strong headed daughter. Her father and I had to make a decision, a hard decision of staying where there was no hope of any kind of future for us."

Mary looked at her grandmama with contempt. "Mother hinted that maybe grandpa did something to her."

Grandmama sat up straight and stared at her. Her voice tinged with anger. "Why now, her father was and is the most gentle man I ever knowd and I aint saying that �cause I�m a married to him".

"Of course you would say that."

"If�n you thought her father abused her in some way then why did y�all come here?"

"It wasn�t my choice. No one knew what to do with me until Mr. Green, an attorney, told everyone that you and grandpa were the executors on the trust and that I had to go and live with you until I turned twenty-one."

Now with sadness in her voice, the old woman replied, "I see. Please, continue."

"I was going to run away, but the attorney said that if I did such a thing I could just forget about the house and all. So, here I am."

"It makes no difference how you got here. God works in many ways."

Mary answered with a sneer, "What has God got to do with it? And you didn't even know I existed until a week ago when the lawyer called you."

Mary got up and wandered to the stove. Holding her hands out to the stove and with head hanging she continued, " You never bothered to try and find my mother. You never cared if she was alive or dead. All those missed birthdays of mine, all those times I could have called and spoken to you".

Grandmama pulled her stiff body from the rickety homemade chair and wobbled over to Mary on sore and frost bitten feet. She reached out to touch the soft black hair but the girl pulled away as if she had just smelled something bad.

"You don�t understand child. Your momma saw things through the eyes of a child. She acted as a child. Your momma never told you the whole story."

Lifting her head, Mary shouted at grandmama, " Are you saying my mother lied to me?"

With a weary sigh, the old woman responded, "Your mother did not lie to you, she just didn�t tell you all the whole story. You see . . . "

Mary turned from her grandmama and said, "I do not wish to discuss this any more. You are a mean old woman whose husband did something bad to my mother that made her run away and you are covering for it. There is a name for what he did to her and men go jail for it. Get away from me you ugly fat old woman!"

Grandmama, with hurt in her voice replied, "It is as well. I am tired and you are too. I will go and lay down on that old bed with its old quilt. If �n y'all get tired jest slip in beside me."

The old woman made her way to the rattletrap bed with its goose feather mattress and lay down. She watched Mary from underneath heavy lids and listened to the wind howling its early winter rage outside the door. A great weariness descended upon her soul and her heart ached for this child who must be led from the darkness and into the light. The old woman fell asleep with a prayer on her lips.

Mary watched her grandmama sleeping. Her gaze swept the small log cabin. She watched as shadows cast from the old stove moved in random acts of play across the wooden logs. Phantoms of shapes danced restlessly and seemed to Mary they moved with the tempo of the wind. The wind drew her attention and moving silently across the wooden floor with its dirty oval braided throw rugs, she stood in front of the window. She could see nothing in the night. Only the sound of the gale as it tore at the old crooked log cabin. Mary turned, pulling the wool blanket tighter across her chest. She moved one of the chairs to the side of the wood stove and with a heavy sigh fell into a restless sleep.

Sometime in the early pre-dawn cold, a sound woke her. She sat up with a jerk and listened. There! Above the sound of the howling arctic wind was the creaking of floorboards. There was someone outside. Mary grabbed one of the logs and headed for the door. The door slammed open just as she got there and Mary screamed. The sound vibrated around the small cabin and grandmama bolted up in bed.

"What in the world is wrong child? " She shouted in fright.

"There�s a negra that�s broken in." Expressed Mary in panic as she raced to the bed, the log raised above her head. The black man stood tall and filled the doorway with his bulk. His face outlined from the glowing woodstove but the only thing Mary saw was his blackness. He entered and closed the door behind him. He viewed the scene before him and with a shout rushed to the bed. Mary swung the log but the man caught it as it arched towards his soulder. With a powerful tug, he ripped it from her hands. Mary screamed and fell back on the bed.

"Oh please, please don�t hurt us. We didn�t mean to break into your cabin but we were so cold. And we didn�t mean to eat any of your canned food but we were real hungry too."

Grandmama is astonished by Mary�s outburst. "My heavens child. What has gotten into you?"

Mumbling against the quilt Mary whispered, "Grandmama, please, don�t anger him. Negras have bad tempers."

Getting out of bed, grandmama went to the man, and with a yell of joy, fell into his outstretched massive arms.

"I jest knew you�d so some sort of foolish thing like this."

Dumbstruck by the spectacle of her grandmama in the arms of the big black man, Mary looked closely at them. Seeing the look upon her face, the man gently pushed grandmama away and removed his down filled winter coat with its fur-rimmed hood. An old man with short white kinky hair towered over Mary. His brown warm eyes looked into hers and she shrunk more into the quilt. She didn�t understand what was going on and was too afraid to ask. She looked to her grandmama but the old woman was gazing at the man as if he were a god or something. The old man spoke to Mary in a soft rolling tone.

"Hello. It�s nice to meet you Martha. My name is Joseph Whitmore and I am your grandpa."

With a shout of disbelief, Mary jumped from the bed and stood in front of him. Her voice trembled as she confronted him, "You lie. My grandpa is no negra. My mother was not black. "

With sadness beyond the understanding of youth, grandpa continued, " No child. That teaching is old and wrong. Nothing made in God�s image is an abomination and certainly not anything created from two people who loved one another as much as your grandmother and I do. Only by man do these rules apply."

As a dog that has gone mad and turned on its owner, so did Mary as she faced her grandmama.

"This is a cruel joke. You must have taken up with this black person after my real grandpa died."

Crying, Mary headed for the chair beside the wood stove and sat where she put her head in her hands, and wept. Grandpa moved to his wife and taking her hands brought them to his lips. He noticed she did not look well. He put his arm around her and guided her to the other chair where he gently lowered her into it. He walked to the table and pulled the third and last chair out. He sat and gazed with infinite love upon the old woman.

Speaking to his wife of more than fifty years, he said, "I figured y'all would head here when the weather turned really bad." Looking around the small one room cabin, he continued, "It hasn�t changed much has it? We had some good times here in those early years. Times of love and laughter when we were a whole family. You, me and Sarah".

Mary listened to him talk, hating him and his voice, and wanted nothing better than to block him out, but couldn't help herself and listened.

"Yes, Joseph, they were good years. But all the years have been good ones."

"If we could go back in time right now, would you change what happened?" Spoke Grandpa as he looked at his wife.

She answered, her voice ringed with love "No Joseph, I would trade nothing. I would ask for nothing else."

Mary turned and looked at the odd couple. One, a short, white, fat woman, so old that the skin under her chin sagged almost to her ample bosom. The other, a black man so old that the veins on the backs of his hands stood out grotesquely. His fingernails an unhealthy yellow color as were the whites of his eyes. Mary watched as the two folded into one another, everything around them forgotten, including her.

"Excuse me. I hate to break up this reunion of yours but I think you owe me more of an explanation." Sniffed Mary,

The couple broke eye contact and looked at the young girl.

"Yes, child, you do. Come, pull your chair over here". Spoke grandmama in a whisper.

Mary hesitated, than with the wind wailing and slamming against the log door, she drug the chair to the table and sat between them. She glanced at the door expecting the wind to invade and bring with it the stinging and blowing violate snow. Her grandpa noticed her worried glance.

"Martha, do not worry, that old door is strong and has withstood many winter storms."

"Do not call me Martha. My name is Mary."

He said nothing but looked to his wife.

"It�s all right. The child is scared." Responded grandmama. "You see Mary, your grandpa and I fell in love, in Mississippi, during the war years. A time when there was no tolerance for such a thing to happen. We went off and got married by a black minister."

Reaching for his wife's frostbitten hand Mary�s grandpa glanced at Mary and continued, "Your grandmama was the most beautiful creature I ever saw. Black or white. Long golden hair that fell clear down to here. Eyes the color of wheat when a shaft of sun caresses it. She was poetry, fire, and earth all in one. I never had a chance."

Grandmama continued while her husband held her cold hands in his, "We tried to make do. My family threatened to kill him and me and there were a few times when rocks and such were hurled at us. But when I got pregnant with your momma, I got scared." She could feel the comforting pressure of her husband�s hands around hers. "We moved and moved from place to place and found no peace. Your momma was called names, jumped on by the white kids, and ignored by the black children. Poor little thing could find no peace."

Grandpa watched as his wife hung her head remembering those early years and the hatred they endured.

" I lost my position at the Black College and for the first five years I took any job that came along until one day I read that teachers were needed in isolated cattle country out west. I applied."

"Oh child, please try and understand, that we had to do it." Interrupted grandmama.

Sneering at her grandparents, Mary replied, "Do what? Snatch my mother from the area she loved so much? She loved Mississippi. The smell, the people, the atmosphere, just everything. You took her away from all she loved." Mary got up and walked to the wood stove.

Looking at one another, Grandmama continued, "Mary, she was just a small child. We were trying to give her a better life."

"No! That�s not true. You were being selfish. You two wanted to be alone and not face the truth of what you done." Lashed Mary as she whirled away from the stove and faced the old couple, her anger rising. "You married a negra!" Mary shouted as she hurried to the table and slammed her hand down. "No wonder my mother never told me about you. She was ashamed." Sobbing, Mary slumped to her knees on the floor.

Grandmama started to get up, but her husband stopped her. He reached over and smoothed Mary�s hair.

"You have your momma�s hair. All windblown even on a sunny day with no breeze". Mary reached up and pushed his hand away as he continued, "Only one time in a person�s life does a love like your grandmama and I have come along. Some people never even get to love like us."

"Mary". Spoke Grandmama. "We loved your momma with our very souls. We brought her out here to protect her but we were too late. She always remembered the good of Mississippi and never the bad things. She even forgot what happened to her brother."

Mary looked up in surprise. "What brother? Mother never said anything about a brother. I have an uncle?"

Looking at one another, her grandparents seemed to make a decision and grandpa continued, "He was born first. A big husky baby that favored me. Dark he was with dark eyes and hair. Couldn�t tell there was any white blood in him by looking." Said grandpa as he ran his large hand through his gray hair. He got up and walked to the wall farthest from the stove. Mary could barely hear him. " James was five when your momma was born. Oh how he adored her. Watched over him like an angel or something. She couldn�t go no where without him being with her." Grandpa fell silent as he looked at the floor lost in thought.

"Mary", Spoke Grandmama. "Your momma was about three years old when she wandered off into a field. James went insane looking for her. We was all a looking for her but it was James that found her and the white man who took her."

She listened as her heart beat faster. Grandmama continued, "The white man was hurting your momma and when James saw that he went really crazy and attacked the man with a board he found. The man took the board away from James. We heard your momma screaming and when we got there, we found James. He had been beaten to death."

With a sob, Grandpa whispered. "The man was never convicted. A white man is not going to get charged for murdering a little negra boy if�n that boy attached him first. He was never even arrested."

"That�s right Mary," Interrupted grandmama. "No one but us mourned that little boy. Then the hate mail started. More rocks and bottles and we was called awful names. So, we left."

Mary rose from the floor and sat on the bed. With her voice quaking with anger she looked at her grandparents, "Oh, I get it. All this talk about real love and trying to give my mother a chance and all that was just garbage. You ran" With an anguished look on her face, she continued, "You took your wife and daughter and ran instead of fighting for what was right."

"Mary," Spoke grandmama as she nervously pushed back a stray of gray hair. "Your grandpa waited for that man to git off work and when that white man walked home, your grandpa waylaid him."

Grandpa nodded his head sadly. "I got my revenge Mary. I killed that man who killed my little boy and who destroyed part of my daughter�s mind. You see your momma could never remember that she had had a brother, or that she had been harmed. She only remembered the good times."

Grandmama got up and walked to her husband and standing in front of him she put her arms around his old head and pulled it against her matronly bosom. He raised his still massive arms and encircled her waist. Mary looked at the two of them and a small flame began to flicker in her soul. The flicker became a flame that was burning away her anger. As her anger melted, suddenly everything was clear.

"Mother never could tell me anymore about her childhood except the good times. Even as a child, I thought something was not quite right with her. She would say that something terrible had happened to her and that her father had done something."

Grandpa looked at his granddaughter and with tears in his eyes spoke, "I took a job way out here all those years ago so that your momma wouldn�t have to be around hatred anymore. We settled right here. You is standing in the first home I ever built with my own two hands."

Mary looked around her and understood how grandmama had known so much about this old cabin. Grandmama saw her looking and said, "We had the best years right here."

"We did, didn't we." Said Grandpa as looked up at his wife still in his arms. Then, he gazed upon his lovely granddaughter and spoke, "We used to push the old table out of the way, and with your momma humming a song, your grandmama and me would waltz around the floor."

As the two old people held onto one another, they head a sound. Listening, they realized it was the old tune Mary�s mother used to hum. Looking at their granddaughter, Julia spoke in a hushed tome, "Momma used to hum this old tune all the time."

Pushing his wife back a little, grandpa got up from the chair, and taking one of her hands, he bows to her, and asked if he might have this dance. With a giggle, and a slight curtsy, grandmama, nodded. Mary watched through violet misty eyes, as the short fat woman and the tall once massive but now gaunt black man quietly waltzed a little unsteady across the floor, the old woman's sore feet forgotten.

The wind howled its fury to the cold world and the wood stove cast its glow on the old wood logs, while shadows played across the walls and ceiling. Mary watched her grandparents in each other's arms and then magically two images superimposed themselves on the dancers. Mary blinked and stopped humming, but the couple danced on. There, where her ancient and wrinkled grandparents waltzed, was another couple, a young couple. A young woman with long hair the color of wheat when a shaft of sun falls upon it and a tall, handsome black man with flashing eyes and as graceful as a gazelle, dancing with her. The apparitions turned and looked at Mary and for the briefest breathe of eternity, she felt their love and as she basked in the passion of it, her heart opened and she let all that love in.

Mary stayed at the farm after her grandparents passed away. She married that handsome Indian boy from across the pasture and for years people gossiped about the brood of dark skinned children with violet eyes. However, time moved on and people now called her after her grandmama�s Christian name: Martha. Martha�s Indian husband died on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and now she was alone when the storms arrived.

When the severe blizzards charged across the plains, Martha would light the old barrel wood stove and oil lamps in the kitchen and sit in the ancient creaking rocking chair. It is on such winter nights while she sits wrapped in a torn and aged wool blanket, that she watches shadows from the glow of the oil lamps move across old logs. It is within the shadows that a silhouette of a young couple stands. They are entwined in each other�s arms, and as Martha hums a tune, they slowly dance a waltz among the shifting shadows.