what are your secrets?

 

Last night I had a dream that they found my father’s body in an aisle seat at a theater. None of us could understand why he’d been in that theater. There were a lot of dark offices that I had to sit in to try to get answers. Doctor’s offices, government offices, postal offices. It was unending gloomy afternoon in a communist country. Nobody was friendly; nobody could help. And, in the end, it was my problem to discover what had happened.

So, I did what any modern woman who’s watched her fair share of thrillers would do: I broke into the theater after hours and snooped in their calendar to see their schedule. To my surprise, I discovered that on the day of my father’s death, there were dance classes held in the theater. So, my father had secretly been taking dance classes and he must have died either just before or just after a class!

I felt satisfied that I had solved the mystery, but then the skies darkened even more and the rain that had been threatening for so long began to hammer down, pelting me with more and more questions. Like, okay, you solved it, but, why was he hiding the lessons? Was he taking them with a friend–with a lover? Why were the lessons in a theater? Was he planning to be a part of a performance? Would he have hidden that, too? Was he happy? Was this the one thing he’d always wanted and he finally found it and then he died?  

I woke up from the dream, relieved that it had been a dream. And then as I looked around the room and remembered what real life was, I was not as relieved. My father was long gone. He died of lymphoma two decades ago and, as far as I know, he didn't pursue a secret passion in a theater. And this, even more than his death, filled me with tremendous sadness. Because I bet he would have loved dance classes.