The first dance lesson was mortifying. Just like seventh grade, I was self-conscious and awkward, even with my own husband. I placed my left hand on Tom’s shoulder, and extended my right arm. He rested his right hand on the small of my back, and put his left hand in mine. So far, so good. But when we moved it was all wrong. “Left-two-three. Right-two-three...” the instructor intoned. But whose left? Whose right? Tom’s or mine? “Back-two-three. Forward-two-three…”

I felt like an idiot. Plus, I was getting hot. I stuck out my lower lip and blew a blast of cool air under my bangs. Ballroom dancing was not for me. There was nothing fun about it. My feet didn’t do what they were supposed to do and my arms were as rigid as a toy soldier’s. I couldn’t wait to get out of the studio.

“What do you think?” I asked Tom in the car, massaging my aching toes.

“I think you need to get yourself a comfortable pair of shoes,” he said.

We’d taken home a CD with a mix of music to practice with. Initially I resisted, but Tom insisted. The next night he pushed aside the coffee table and overstuffed chair in the sunroom to clear the hardwood floor. “Do we have to?” I asked.

“We’re supposed to,” Tom said.

I thought again of my parents swirling and twirling in our living room and Mom with her coquettish dips. When it came to dancing, she was a natural. I was not.

Maybe it’ll be better without the instructor staring at us, I thought. Maybe I won’t feel like a geeky seventh grader again. I put my hand on Tom’s shoulder and looked down at my feet as they shuffled in a clumsy box step. “Left, two, three…right, two, three.” I thought of Mom with my father.

I recalled the time just before Tom and I got married when I desperately needed to have a real heart-to-heart talk with my mother. I had been battling an eating disorder and I wanted her to know. I needed to tell her but was afraid of her reaction. Summoning up all my courage, I picked up the telephone and called her. I explained what I was going through. There was a long, long silence. Then she said, “You’re not going to tell Tom about this, are you?”

Now I looked up at my husband on our makeshift dance floor. Tom had never flinched when I told him about my bulimia. With his support and prayers I had managed to conquer it. Tom’s love and faith were constant. I knew for certain he loved me. It wasn’t a question of luck. It was something much deeper than that. I was blessed.

“Hey,” Tom whispered to me on the dance floor, “you’re good.”

“No,” I said, “it’s you.”?

For a moment the two of us were lost together, without any awareness of time or space. We were really dancing. We could really do it. Mom, I thought, I see why you loved to do this. It’s so much fun…so romantic. And there in our sunroom, in my husband’s arms, with the music on the CD, I felt I could forgive her for all the things she said over the years that I had found hurtful. I could see how in her own way she wanted the best for me. A happy marriage, someone I could always depend on, someone to dance with. All the precious things that she had lost. I closed my eyes and prayed-a simple, silent prayer for my mother.

The next morning I bumped into Mom outside her back door, waiting for a friend to pick her up to go to a Ladies’ Guild meeting at church. She wore a leopard-print silk scarf draped around her neck and a wide black belt cinched around her waist. “How are the dancing lessons?” she asked.

“Not bad,” I said.

“Are you two practicing?” she asked me.

?You must have heard us in the sunroom,” I said.

She smiled and her eyes got a faraway look. “Remember, Kitty,” she said, “it may not always seem like it, but these are the best years of your lives. You two kids should do everything you can to make the most of them.”

The old familiar words. This time, though, they didn’t sting. Yes, maybe I was lucky-lucky to have these last years together with Mom. A chance to redo the past, a chance to heal from lingering hurts. The years wouldn’t go on forever. She wasn’t getting any younger and neither was I.

“Yes,” I said, “we’re doing our best.”

A car horn sounded. Her ride. "Bye, dear." As she descended the concrete steps, she gripped the white wooden handrail and her lips moved slightly as she counted each step, like me counting my dancing steps. Before getting into her friend's car, she turned and waved to me. Even though I knew she couldn't see me, I waved back.