“I’ve seen you dance. You’re beautiful and you can do this!” I tell her.

“I can’t do it. I can’t go out there.” She makes to turn and flee into the dark labyrinth, but I stop her.

“I can’t do it. Let me go!” she begs again.

“Why? What are you scared of?”

“They’ll point and laugh at me. They’ll say, ‘She’s no good.’ They’ll see how ugly I am!” Two tears detach themselves from her lovely eyes and trace long, blue-silver lines across her delicate white skin.

It dawns on me that she’s not talking about dancing but about a completely different performance, a completely different form of “stepping back into the light.”

“What are you most scared of?” I ask.

“There’s no one there, Sam, nobody left to love me.” She crumples in despair on the boundary between light and dark, when all she needs to do is take one step—one tiny step—back into the brightness and warmth of life. I can tell how she longs to whirl across that stage, watch the curtain rise, and then dance and live and laugh, lost in the music, the light, and the waves. She wants to live, but she fears life more than death.

“I’m here, Maddie,” I say gently. “I’m going to sit in the front row and clap. I won’t take my eyes off you, and no one will say you’re ugly. I love you. I’m here.”

I pull on one of her arms, then the other, but she stays slumped on the floor at the back of the stage. When a roving spotlight grazes her arm, she shrinks back as if burned. Tears stream down her cheeks as she tilts her face toward me, and the misery in her eyes is heartbreaking. Such despair, such desire, such loneliness.

“But what happens if you leave me too?” Madelyn asks.

“I won’t.”

“Everyone leaves someday. Everyone.” Frantically she jumps to her feet and staggers off into the darkness. Her silhouette seems to fray, her white outfit fades, her arms and legs become feathery shadows, and a heartbeat later she has melted into the surrounding blackness.

“I’m not leaving,” I call after her quietly. “Did you hear me, Maddie? I’m not leaving!” I scream, but she doesn’t hear me. She simply doesn’t hear me and if she does, she doesn’t believe me. The day is sucking me away, but I don’t want to leave her. I want to stay with her and sleep forever, yes . . .

DAY FORTY-ONE

Sam