When the clinking of forks on glasses subsides, you will find my mother in the middle of the dance floor. Does she even know the songs that the DJ is playing? Definitely not. It doesn’t matter. She swishes her hair and dress in one fluid, rhythmic swivel and is free in a way that I will never understand.
“Come on over and dance with me!”
But there are too many people that I don’t know. If I get up, these strangers will look. They will see that my dress is too tight. That my lipstick has faded from eating the catered chicken. That I am uncomfortable and clumsy and not enough. They will see me.
I want to join her. I can’t.
I shake my head.
She shakes hers. In her bright, luminous green eyes there is a minute flash of something. Of disappointment. Pity? Sadness. Then she continues swaying—eyes closed, ears tuned in to the music—for the celebration that she never had. For her daughter who won’t get out of her plastic folding chair. Dancing because she doesn’t care and dancing because she cares so much.
I watch her. She dances.