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He has an obnoxiously early day tomorrow, so he and Simon have to leave before anyone else, but he motions for Colleen to follow him outside for a moment.
"Happy Birthday, Colleen," he tells her, pulling her into a long hug.
And then he hands her her gift and shoos her back inside.
He's crawling into bed that night when he gets a text from her that says:
Thank you. I love it.
It wasn't a tremendous gift, and it didn't cost near as much as the gifts they exchanged at Christmas, but he knew she'd love it anyway. Along with a card letting her know how happy he is that she's back in his life, he gave her a framed picture he snapped at the Boxing Day party of her sitting on the floor, holding Simon and Jane, with the other kids listening as she told them a story. The other kids are engaged, but he manages to catch the moment Simon and Jane look up at her, completely mesmerized by whatever she's telling them. He's been a little worried that it would highlight whatever thread of melancholy seemed to permeate that day, but he hoped that the complexity would make her more likely, rather than less likely, to cherish the image. He's glad he still knows her that well, at least.
Glad you don't hate it,he replies, hoping to keep things light. Then he adds:
Get some sleep, birthday girl.
* * *
The summer descends quickly.Dustin is back working full-time at the National College of Dance, but he's decided that from here on out, his work with Dance International will remain on a consulting basis rather than heading back as a regular coach. His life is marked by Simon hitting milestones and Colleen's comings and goings as he steadily leans into the grind that is gearing up for a new season.
He's finishing cleaning up after dinner, hoping to take Simon out on the back deck so he can play in the evening sunshine when he hears a car door slam outside. He peeks out the window to see Colleen trudging up his steps and immediately opens the door and pulls her into a hug.
Colleen was supposed to return days ago, but just as she was getting ready to leave a seminar, something urgent held her back, and she had to delay her return by three days. She's been tight-lipped about what exactly delayed her trip home, but Dustin can guess based on how drained, angry, and sad she's seemed whenever he's talked to her since.
She doesn't respond to the hug immediately, holding herself stiff in his arms, but Dustin has on a little tighter, and after a few seconds, he feels her lean into him, her breath shaky as hell against his clavicle. She doesn't cry, but he can feel the emotion coming off her and hopes he can absorb some of it the way she did for him all those years. They stand like that for a minute before they hear Simon yelling from his penned-in area and have to pull apart to check on him.
"Later," she murmurs to him as they walk inside, and she kicks off her sneakers at the door. "I just...later."
"Yeah," he agrees. "I'm glad you're home. I think someone else will be, too," he tells her with a wink. "Hey buddy! Look who came to see you!"
Simon stands up against the gate portion of the indoor pen, and he smiles big as he points at Colleen with one hand and chews on his other.
"Look at you standing all on your own! What a big boy you are Simon," she coos at him as she climbs over the fence and plops down a meter and a half away from the baby.
Dustin had kept her up to date on Simon's progress in standing on his own and his frequent attempts at walking, where he takes one step and then plops down on his butt and laughs like he is the funniest thing. Dustin slips into the pen and stands behind Simon, offering him a finger so that Simon can use it to balance as he walks toward Colleen. Simon complies and takes a few tiptoed steps toward her before trying to sit.
"Uh uh," Dustin admonishes as he lightly grasps Simon's hand up high so that Simon doesn't have the range to sit down. "You can walk, buddy. You're right there."
"Come here, Simon. I need a hug from my favorite boy," Colleen encourages as she holds her arms toward him.
Once again, Simon takes a few steps toward Colleen, focused on her, and then a few more, and then he let's go of Dustin's finger, and Dustin lets him, and the baby takes the last four ambling steps to Colleen on his own. Colleen hugs him to her and showers his face with kisses as Simon giggles in response. Then it's Dustin's turn to scoop his kid out of her arms, tossing Simon in the air a few times until his son is laughing and squealing so hard that he starts to cough, and Dustin has to sit with him until he calms down a bit.
"I'm so proud of you, buddy. You did so good!"
Colleen manages to get some video of Simon walking to Dustin a few times that night before dinner, and Dustin can't help but be glad that whatever burden she's been bearing has eased just a little for the moment.
They make it through dinner, and Colleen gets to snuggle with a sleepy Simon before bedtime, reading four different books to him before he conks out in her arms. She puts the baby down for the night, with Dustin only going in to ensure everything is settled, and whispers goodnight. When he comes out, Colleen sits curled up on the couch with her head on her knees.
"You don't have to tell me, but I'll listen if you choose to," he says as he sits close to her, holding onto one of her calves and squeezing it gently.
She takes a beat and then tells him how, just as she was about to leave her last seminar, she was approached by a girl who slipped her a note and then kept walking. The message said: I'm scared. Please help. It had taken Colleen almost an hour to track down the girl sitting outside on a low wall, shaking like a leaf.
"You could see how terrified she was, and I just kept thinking that I hoped I didn't mess up her life further."
"Did she tell you what happened?"
"Her coach has been touching her, and when she asked him to stop, told him she wouldn't tell anyone if he stopped, he started being awful to her in practice. Others witnessed the verbal abuse - adults saw it - and didn't step in."
"But you guys will. You've heard her, you believe her, and you're stepping in," he assures her. The whole point of starting the foundation was for situations like this, but this is where the rubber meets the road. Colleen and the other foundation experts primarily play the role of encouraging transparency and being high profile enough to keep this nonsense from getting swept under the rug - the seminars and workshops. Speeches are enormous and will impact how dancers interact with themselves and those around them. Still, the big, pie-in-the-sky goal is to eliminate abusive coaches, parents, and dancers, from having access by giving the victims the confidence and ability to use their voices.
