Dancing on Broken Glass Read online

  FEATURING A GALLERY READERS GROUP GUIDE

  An unvarnished portrait of a marriage that is both ordinary and extraordinary, Dancing on Broken Glass takes readers on an unforgettable journey of the heart.

  Lucy Houston and Mickey Chandler probably shouldn’t have fallen in love, let alone gotten married. They’re both plagued with faulty genes—he has bipolar disorder; she, a ravaging family history of breast cancer. But when their paths cross on the night of Lucy’s twenty-first birthday, sparks fly, and there’s no denying their chemistry.

  Cautious every step of the way, they are determined to make their relationship work—and they put their commitment in writing. Mickey will take his medication. Lucy won’t blame him for what is beyond his control. He promises honesty. She promises patience. Like any marriage, there are good days and bad days—and some very bad days. In dealing with their unique challenges, they make the heartbreaking decision not to have children. But when Lucy shows up for a routine physical just shy of their eleventh anniversary, she gets an impossible surprise that changes everything. Everything. Suddenly, all their rules are thrown out the window, and the two of them must redefine what love really is.

  KA HANCOCK makes her fiction debut with Dancing on Broken Glass. She has two nursing degrees and has specialized in working with psychiatric and substance abuse patients. She lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and has four children. Visit her at www.kahancock.com.

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  COVER DESIGN BY ZOE NORVELL • COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSICA BOONE/BOTANICA/GETTY IMAGES

  dancing

  on

  broken

  glass

  Gallery Books

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Ka Hancock

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Gallery Books trade paperback edition March 2012

  GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Designed by Meredith Ray

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-1-4516-3737-3

  ISBN 978-1-4516-3738-0 (ebook)

  For Mark, who kindled a fire in me with his 1-in-64,000,000 odds. I love you madly!

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  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Introduction

  Discussion Questions

  Enhance Your Book Club

  A Conversation with Ka Hancock

  Acknowledgments

  Oh my, how does one really go about thanking all those who have contributed to this feat? I will start with a husband who kept me in Pepsi and paper, and always gave me and my imaginary friends plenty of space and freedom. I love you Mark Dee! To my daughters who read each word and gushed indulgently, Hilary, Abby, and my comma queen, Whitney—fine and generous critics each, not to mention extraordinary women. And to Shawn, a great little son who is equal parts sarcasm and charm, always inspiring, always encouraging. Special thanks to Bear, Ryan, Weston, and Cesiley—the awesome kids I got the easy way. To Joyce and Lavell Lloyd, tireless cheerleaders, nurturers of all dreams, and the finest parents a girl could have. Huge thanks to my small but utterly priceless writers group; Dorothy Keddington, Carol Warburton, LuAnn Anderson, and Nancy Hopkins—friends, sisters, and believers all—and to Ed, whose voice I still hear in my head. Gratitude is too small an expression.

  I am indebted to Mollie Glick, my agent extraordinaire who sent me the nicest rejection letter but threw me a lifeline—if you ever revise this, I’d like to see it again—and meant it. You made all the difference! And kudos to Kate Hamblin for taking care of all the details. Thanks to the awesome Stephanie Abou for her expert navigation of DANCING through the foreign market; what an incredible adventure! And to Jerry Gross for his generous praise and wise suggestions early on.

  Deep and humble gratitude to my brilliant editor, Lauren McKenna, for being so good at what she does! (You were absolutely right about Priscilla . . . and pretty much everything else.) Thanks to Megan McKeever and Alexandra Lewis for keeping me on track. Massive appreciation to Kristin Dwyer for patiently guiding me through the uncharted territory of publicity—what would I do without you! Thanks to John Paul Jones and Meredith Ray for making everything look so good! And to all the wonderful people at Gallery who have taken such great care of this story and of me, I couldn’t have wished for a more fabulous experience.

  dancing

  on

  broken

  glass

  prologue

  I met Death at a party. It was my sister Priscilla’s twelfth birthday and I was five. She wasn’t particularly frightening, Death, but then I had been told all about her, so seeing her made no adverse impression on me. Until I realized she was there for my dad.

  When I was a little girl, I shared a morning ritual with my father. It started with the sound of gushing water through rebellious pipes, a moaning screech when Dad first turned on the tap. I still live in the house where I grew up and it’s the same today. But back then the sound meant my dad was awake.

  I remember I would trundle up the stairs, rubbing sleep from my eyes, feeling my way in the dark hall to the closed bathroom door. Of course I would knock, and my dad would sing out, “Is that m
y Princess Lulu?”

  I loved that because it gave Lucy, my given name, a fairy-tale flair, and such things are hugely impressive to a five-year-old. He would open the door wide and the light would sting my eyes as he ushered me into the bathroom, our inner sanctum—just me and my dad. It was a small bathroom; the tub took up one whole wall, and the sink had this minuscule counter that could barely accommodate his shaving things and a bar of soap. Mickey whines about that same thing, even today. I would climb my little self up onto the toilet and open my book. That was my ostensive purpose for being there after all: to practice my phonics.

  Meanwhile my father, standing over the sink, would start to shave, and every day when he was fully foamed, he would swoop in for a kiss and a giggle. I’m thirty-three now and can still smell his shaving cream, still hear my own laughter.

  My father was a big man. His belly practically hung in the soapy sink, and sometimes when he leaned close to the mirror to inspect this or that, he would straighten to find a froth of suds clinging to his bare stomach and he’d say, “Well, looky there, Lu, got me a creamy middle just like an Oreo.” Another kiss and giggle.

  When he was all finished cleaning and combing and gargling and spitting, he would splash Old Spice over his face and fill the bathroom with that unforgettable scent. I’m still a sucker for Old Spice, but I won’t let Mickey wear it.

  I remember everything about those mornings. From the yellow towels on the floor to the sink full of soapy water, to Paul Harvey down low in the background, and the freshly pressed uniform hanging on the back of the door.

  The town where we live, Brinley Township, knew my father as Sergeant James Houston—Jim to the world and Jimmy to my mom and his partner, Deloy Rosenberg. I loved watching the transformation from sleepy, hair-everywhere, shirtless dad, to Sergeant James Houston. When he walked out of that bathroom in the blues my mom ironed for him every night, I thought he was invincible. It was utterly inconceivable to me that anything could ever hurt him, least of all two tiny bullets. I thought that’s what it meant to be Sergeant James Houston of Brinley Township—indestructible.

  But then Mrs. Delacruz, my kindergarten teacher, told us all things die. “Everything, no exceptions,” she’d said, and it got me worried. I’m sure I must have asked Dad about it, though I don’t really recall. I just remember him kneeling by my bedside one night to discuss it. Lily, who was four years older than me, was pretending to be asleep in the next bed, so he was whispering when he made this terrible declaration: Mrs. Delacruz was correct, all things did die. I suppose it was in response to my horror that he took my hand and kissed it and ran it over his bristly chin. He said to me, “Lulu, you don’t need to be afraid of death. In fact, there are secrets about death that not everyone knows.” I remember he came even closer and said, “Do you want to know what they are?”

  “Secrets?” I said. It sounded far-fetched, but my father never lied to me so I kept listening.

  “Lulu, there are three things about death that I promise you. I promise you it’s not the end. Feels like the end—that’s why people cry—but it’s not the end. And it doesn’t hurt. That’s another very important part of death that people get afraid of if they don’t understand. It doesn’t hurt. And finally, if you’re not afraid of death, Lu, you can watch for it and be ready. Do you believe me?”

  His face was so earnest, so reliable, that I simply nodded. “What does it look like?”

  “I’m not sure, but I bet it’s pretty.”

  “Is it nice?”

  “Very nice, and very gentle.” At this point he explained to my little, spongelike brain that death was not the same as dying. That sometimes dying did in fact hurt, but with it came a little bit of magic because you got to forget the hurt as if it never happened. This opened up a huge discussion about all the gory ways a person might die, and how lovely it was that you got to forget. I must have seemed skeptical, which is strange because I didn’t doubt what he was telling me. Still my dad said, “Lulu, do you remember being born?”

  I recall soberly considering this and answering, “No.”

  He nodded. “See, death’s the same. You get to forget.”

  I was amazed. My dad was right. He was always right. I don’t remember everything my father said, but I do remember the way the mystery of death utterly dissolved that night in his honest eyes. I trusted him completely, and his words have stayed with me and petrified in my grown-up soul. Of course I realize they were merely a gift bestowed on my innocence; reassurance to a little girl who couldn’t sleep. But who knew the calm he gave me would see me safely through so much loss and cradle me when I almost lost myself.

  Of course he was right: death happens to everyone. But if it’s not the end, and it doesn’t hurt . . . well, then what was there to fear?

  Certainly this was the logic of my five-year-old self. So, when Death showed up at Priscilla’s birthday party, I was intrigued, but not alarmed.

  The party was in our backyard. The barbecue was sizzling with hamburgers, the coolers overflowing with beer and Hawaiian Punch, and Mom was arranging candles on Priss’s cake. Besides half the junior high, a lot of my parents’ friends were there. Jan and Harry Bates, from next door, were trying to get their goofy son to stop chasing my sister Lily around with his ferret. (They were nine years old, but I knew even back then that Lily would marry Ron Bates. Everyone did.) Dr. Barbee was there and the Witherses from the funeral home down the street, my dad’s police friends—even the mayor was there.

  I was setting paper plates on the picnic table when I noticed her. I knew immediately who she was, and she didn’t seem all that threatening or wrong. In fact, she looked as if she’d be kind, though I’ve come to wonder about that. If I had to describe her, I don’t think I could, because how do you really describe the feeling attached to an apparition? It seems to me now that it was more like a raw knowing that took on a shape and dimension that something in me recognized. I’ve seen her since and have personally assigned her as female, mostly by instinct and impression rather than anything resembling proof. All the same, I’d know her anywhere.

  I wasn’t scared by her presence at all. In fact, I remember being quite intoxicated by the sound of her whisper above the noise, though I never heard what she said. I watched her kind of float among our guests, her whole bearing no more substantial than the inside of a cloud. At one point she even looked at me, right in my eyes. If my father had never told me about her, I think I would still have known who she was. It was an irrepressible connection, completely undeniable. She knew me, too. She smiled at me—at my little-girl self—but she saw my grown soul and my grown soul understood. She would come for me, too. But not then.

  No, she was there for my father. And my dad must have felt it, too, because he found my gaze from across the yard. I can still see his face, the knowing in his eyes. They told me not to be afraid—he wasn’t.

  I still thought him too big to die and much too solid to ever spring a leak that would kill him. But two tiny bullets did just that. He died the day after Priscilla turned twelve, when he tried to stop a drifter from robbing Arnie’s Gas N’ Go.

  Death came for my mother twelve years later. And then it was just we three girls, Lily, Priscilla, and me.

  one

  Dr. Barbee. Lunch with Lily. Pick up dry cleaning. Hospital to hug Mickey. I was lying on the exam table, freezing, planning my day out on my fingers while I waited. Charlotte Barbee said she’d be right back to finish up with me, but that had been several minutes ago. I counted my fingers again. Lunch. Dry cleaning. Mickey. There was something else but I couldn’t remember. Actually I just couldn’t think past Mickey. He’d been there six days so far—but of course not really Mickey for days before that. But this morning he sounded good, he sounded nearly back.

  Charlotte hurried back in apologizing. “Darn insurance company! Think I have nothing better to do than . . . ,” she huffed, then breathed. “Now, where were we, Lucy?”

  In just a moment, I was back i
n position, my bare feet firmly resting in the metal stirrups, freezing just like the rest of me. “Why do you keep it so cold in here, Charlotte? That’s just mean.”

  When she didn’t answer, I lifted my head off the pillow and watched her face float between my bent knees. She was down there adjusting a pair of duckbills to get a better look at what should never, in my opinion, be looked at in the first place.

  “So how’s Mickey this week?” she asked, still probing, ignoring my concerns about the temperature.

  “Better than last week,” I said, gasping at her touch.

  “Is he still in the hospital?”

  “Yes. But he can come home Friday, if he’s good. And I so hope he’s being good.”

  Charlotte Barbee smiled her knowing smile. “How long have you two been married now?”

  “Almost eleven years.”

  “It hasn’t been that long, has it? Where does the time go?” she said. “Now give me some deep breaths.”

  The deep breaths made me cough and then I remembered: pick up cough drops.

  It was my annual physical and Charlotte Barbee was nothing if not thorough. She knew what she was looking for, and if she found it, I would see it in her face where I’d seen it before. To the casual observer, this might have seemed like an ordinary physical exam, but the truth was more complicated. I was being scrutinized for recurring cancer. I’d had my first bout seven years ago, when I was twenty-six. That pathology used to place me not in the healthy-adult-female column, but in the more tentative cancer-survivor column—that is, until I’d been clean for five years. I breathe a little easier now that I’m in the healthy column with my two sisters. The same cancer that claimed our mother and grandmother threatens Lily, Priscilla, and me as well. With these fickle genetics skulking through our blood, we’re all very vigilant, especially Dr. Barbee, in whom we put our trust.

  Lily offered to come with me today for moral support, but in all honesty, these checkups are almost harder on my sister than they are on me, so I declined her generosity. Lily is the real worrier among us, and me getting sick again is the absolute sum of all her fears. These days, where physicals are concerned, she prepares for the worst possible outcome, the whole time praying to hear Charlotte’s magic words of reprieve: Everything is fine. That pronouncement is like winning the lottery every time, and until Lily hears it, she is convinced dedicated worry will produce a good outcome.