Three Girls (Plus) Book Five Chapter Twenty-Two Suite Nothings! by Andrea Lena DiMaggio Si perdue dans le ciel Ne me restait qu'une aile Tu serais celle-lá

Previously...

“No….I can’t….what kind of life can I bring to you? How can I….I can’t….” Terri shook her head.

“Czyż woÅ‚ać bÄ™dzie to….shh shhhhh.” Words that her mother spoke to her when she was little and even more recently when she lost Teddy….Don’t cry….it will be alright….shh shhhhh.”

The Friday before Thanksgiving; rehearsal hall...

A Sorority of sorts had developed over the last few months. The stage seemed almost Spartan; Amazonian Yuki would quip more than once. She sat at the grand piano, wearing a long navy cardigan to keep the cold drafts of the theater at bay. Danni stood next to the piano, her violin in her left hand and a can of Diet Coke in her right. Yuki looked over at her and glared. Danni crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue before producing a piece of cardboard that she placed on the top of the piano.

"Got it, Maestra!"

Danni smiled and placed the can on the cardboard. As she sat down she turned to face the girl in the chair on her right; a picture of warmth in leggings and sweater and hat. Lainie nodded and smiled before placing her cello in front of her. The two had developed a pact of sorts, forged from a new friendship fueled by the unbridled love and acceptance that Lainie and Gennie had shown to Danni. She and Lainie swapped back and forth between cello, viola and violin, with a violone'...an upright bass thrown in for good measure.

A quick nod and they began. Rapid and filled with power but an underlying current of sadness; almost a lament of what could have been, Lainie had said. All three girls had made an odd pact of sorts when they discovered just how much more in common they had.

"I'm glad that Christine has been able to return to facilitate this group. I've found it so helpful that I hope you don't mind if I continue to attend?" Terri said as she smiled and nodded at Christine who had recently returned after a two week help out with sister's new baby absence.

"I think it's great, Danni said, having joined the group only a week before they had called on Terri to fill in. And of course Yuki was thrilled since it was three weeks past the day where they celebrated a promise to unity; Danni was very disappointed for the two of them and wasn't shy about saying so. "You're wives, I don't care what the State of Illinois says!" Lainie had come along with Gennie after her welcome to Danni linked them as friends. The five grew closer as friends even as the three girls knitted together almost as one in their music....

As they finished playing, Lainie nearly squealed with joy; they played superbly, but the feeling between the three and the music and each other is what really made the performance. Yuki nodded and smiled; sighing almost with a relief; time had passed between sad memories and the building of new ones. And Danni just stayed seated, looking almost distracted.

"So what do you want us to bring?" A voice came from off stage as Gennie stood and clapped softly in applause. Danni looked at her almost sideways as her eyes widened in confusion.

"You know? Thanksgiving...big bird...lots of food? Day before Black 'I'm ready to shop' Friday?" Yuki said. Danni turned around and stared at her before the reality of the coming holiday sunk in....

The Davies sisters' apartment that evening...

Si traá®nant dans mes ruines
Ne brillait rien qu'un fil
Tu serais celui-lá 

“What? You didn’t!” Danni scaled the magazine across the living room in frustration. Terri had the presence of mind to duck, but the teddy bear on the book shelf wasn’t as alert and ended up on the floor covered by the issue of Modern Bride.

“Hey…that’s not mine!”

Terri laughed as she wheeled over to the bookcase and picked up both bear and magazine. Most days were wheel-chair free, but today she had a particularly long day, even if it was fruitful and rewarding. Spousal rights vs. domestic partnership didn’t seem fair in light of what folks believed or not about marriage, but Terri and Yuki had no strength to crusade; the next generation or their contemporaries would fight the good fight while they enjoyed a much-earned rest on the sidelines. Danni ignored the protest and continued.

“I thought you and Yuki were going out with her mom for Thanksgiving. Now it’s them and Lainie and Gennie? Just who the hell do I pair off with?” Her lip pushed out in a pout that was only displayed a bit of self-pity. She had been depressed for quite some time, and Terri’s attempt at pulling her up out of that familiar pit seemed to do just the opposite.

“It’s not about couples, Danni…you know Deidre and Nita from the support group will be coming. Nita’s boyfriend is back in Germany after his leave, and Deidre is not looking for that right now.”

“Oh, hell, Ter…I know…it’s just…” Danni put her head down; even as a ‘boy’ growing up, she was the emotional one of the two, but even more so lately, what with her sister gaining a life-partner.

“Lainie and Gennie tied the knot last fall before Lainie had her surgery. It’s just not fair.” Danni plopped back on the couch and grabbed the rescued magazine off the coffee table and opened it up.

“Look at them…did you ever see something so phony….and so….wonderful?” She shook her head as she scanned the two-page ad in the center of the magazine; the bride looking somewhat disinterested and the groom looking downright thrilled. Where guilt and shame came from, she probably might figure out later, but at that moment, the same thoughts and accusations came to her once again.

“I should have never done it, you know?” Terri shook her head in frustration at the sound of Danni’s nearly weekly mantra.

“Would you just shut up? Please? Just for once, can at least one of us enjoy the fact that we’re finally who we’re supposed to be?” She screamed; her sorrow for her sister was surpassed only by her frustration over her sister’s loss of faith. She wasn’t so much angry at Danni as angry at herself for failing in her own calling. Danni could play the hide off a bow, but Terri felt useless as a minister; enough self-doubt to go around with plenty enough left over to leave on the table at Thanksgiving as holiday favors.

“I’m sorry, Sis, but not everyone is as blessed as you are.” Danni realized what she had said when Terri rolled around the end of the coffee table and rolled over her foot with her wheelchair.

“Oh, damn….” She looked at Terri. A second later Terri was laughing as she pulled Danni down onto her lap in the chair. The two started to laugh together; their sound had always had some odd harmony when they laughed together, and now had developed into a nice alto/mezzo duet. Terri coughed a bit before finally saying.

“You know I’m going to need some help; Yuki and her mother will be making some Kielbasa dish and some chicken dish called Tatshutaage. Everybody loves you; you don’t have to pair off with anybody!” Terri hadn’t meant to be abrupt with Danni, but she was nonetheless.

“Fine…I’ll come and help out, but don’t expect me to hang around….I hate my life and I don’t want to be around anybody, okay? Easy for you to say I don’t have to pair off. You didn’t lose the love of your life and now you’ve found her. What about me, Ter….”

Between a new medication for her depression and her flair for the dramatic, her plea quickly descended into histrionics as she scaled the magazine across the living room once again; sparing the recently repositioned teddy bear but knocking a picture of their parents off the wall, shattering the glass and breaking the frame. Terri over to the shelf once again and picked up the photo; a bit bent but still intact. Danni stared at the picture in Terri's hands before she burst into tears and ran to her room.

Danni lay on her bed; she was too busy crying to hear the soft steps behind her as Terri climbed out of the wheelchair and into bed. A moment later the two sisters were holding each other. Big sis to little sis; just as it had always been in one form or another.

“I miss Mom.” Danni sobbed. Why did they have to die? I feel so alone.” Danni looked at Terri before burying her face in her sister’s breast in shame.

“Shhhh….shhhh.......I know…you miss them and I can’t take their place. I know that Dad would just pat you on the head and tell you that everything is going to be alright.’ Terri said as she mirrored what she had just said.

“But Mom…she’d know what to do. She could always …fix things.”

Immortelle, immortelle
J'ai le sentiment d'áªtre celle
Qui survivra á  tout ce mal
Je meurs de toi

“Mom would try and most of the time she’d succeed, hon…but she couldn’t fix everything….She cried all day on my birthday.”

“Because she knew she was going to die?” Terri nodded but added quickly,

“Yeah, but we never got the chance to tell Dad, and you already knew…She was so broken up after I came back from Tucson….”

“She couldn’t fix you? Is that what she was hurt about?” Danni put her face next to Terri’s and rested against her cheek.

“Yes…I think she fought even harder after the doctor told her about me than when her doctor told her about her. If she was here, she’d still have something to say, but love doesn’t always listen to a mom’s prayers, Dan…sometimes we just have to let go.” Terri remembered the day she surrendered to the love that was planned for her before she was even born.

“I don’t know what to let go of, Ter…or what to grab onto when my hands are free.” Danni began to sob again. Terri cupped her cheek with her hand and supported it while she kissed the bridge of Danni’s nose and felt the flutter of her sister’s eyelids.

“Shhh….shhhh….we’ll figure it out together. I just have to believe we’ll figure it out. We just need some help.” Terri pulled Danni close and hummed softly; a lullaby tune she had made just for Danni when they were little. Soon the two had fallen asleep awaiting the help that would come in a completely unexpected but not unfamiliar form.

Finally - Somewhere

Immortelle
Words and Music by
Lara Fabian and Rick Allison
as performed by Lara Fabian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLXt7Up69RE