Moon Shadow: The Totally True Love Adventure Series (Volume 1) (28 page)

The shadow of a large bird, flying overhead, passes swiftly across my own shadow, which until now had always seemed somehow separated from me, and with that the deep sadness I’ve felt for things irredeemable disappears. Peering skyward I see, in the dazzling clear light, a red-tailed hawk circling directly above. As I watch the bird glide through the atmosphere with seeming ease, I feel a bond with the creature and its innate will to live on, to experience, to love and understand, and I begin to cry.

I weep for several minutes, sobbing uncontrollably at times, and then finally I start to smile, but I keep on crying until I’m able to breathe a long sigh. I wipe my tears and hush my sobs, fearful that any sign of violent grief might awaken the preternatural voice of my mother. Then I laugh quietly. Though my body feels weak and unsteady, I’m conscious now of a strong presence of mind. There’s no longer any question about what I must do. Before one can find his soul, one has to lose it.

I continue on until I reach the cemetery, which is set into an open hillside that rolls gently up to a stand of tall pines. On my right sits the empty dirt parking lot, and on my left there’s a rise of green grass and the grave markers. My mother’s remains lie on the other side of the rise, amongst a few live oaks at the edge of a rocky, unkempt tract of dead grass and weeds. Many of the graves in that area had been dug in the nineteenth century for people of Mexican descent.

The warm Santa Ana winds rustle the leaves in the trees. My gait is slow and awkward. I’ve been without sleep before in some strange locales but never in a cemetery. The wind seems to carry with it a shouted curse from the depths of a dream: “Dan!” The haunting memory of my father. Not “Frank,” but “my father.” For once in my life it isn’t hard to give into melancholy; I still carry remnants of the phantom dread, the fear of my father, like a demon adversary, in my soul, in the space where my real self lives, the region I’ve finally found and now can inhabit without fear.

The Torah has taught me that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. But that’s why there’s a Torah. One’s capacity for good and for evil resides in one’s soul. Why did my father choose evil? Transformed in death, my father had ended his life on a rock, hard as a premature truth, prevented forever from proclaiming his successes, the conquered treasures. My father had killed my mother. That is incomprehensible. But I had loved my father, and I had longed to be loved by him.

Is it possible to forgive him? Shall I continue to live with the anger? I will have to forgive my father, I know, in order to grow, happily, with Sarah. Yes, with Sarah. “God, hey,” I petition, “You’d better listen ... please ... Sarah cannot be my sister ... please ...”

I understand that to forgive my father is not to condone or excuse what my father did. He betrayed me. All the years, as a young child, of trusting him were washed away with that first night of making my mother suffer. No, forgiving him is not an act of kindness towards my father, but, rather, an act of kindness towards myself. I want nothing more than to go on living, and loving Sarah.

At the crest of the hill, I stop for a moment and regard my mother’s headstone. Penitent, I feel as if I’ve gained new insights into the ways of the world. Like a newborn baby leaving oblivion, I am awakening to a new approach to life. In my heart there’s no anger; I’ve chosen the path of forgiveness. I’m moved by a sort of serenity, a sense of inner solace, along with the awareness that there is much to live for.

However, it will take time. I don’t know if I can attend my father’s wake, his funeral, and I don’t know if I can accept the internment of my father’s remains next to my mother’s grave.

It occurs to me that the spirits of the newly dead encounter one another with words of the living, not yet knowing the language of the dead. I wonder if my mother has reconnected with my father in this manner.

The caretaker’s shed, fifty yards or so from my mother’s grave, appears deserted. I reckon the caretaker will arrive in an hour or two. Perched high on a branch of a lone pine tree, behind the shed, is the red-tailed hawk, watching me, its brown and white feathers shivering in the wind.

I walk over to the trunk of an oak tree near my mother’s grave and take out my pocketknife. With penetrating incisions I carve my initials and Sarah’s initials in the tree: D.I.R. + S.J.H. July 2014. I miss Sarah. I long to put my arms around her and to gaze upon her smile; I think I know how Joseph must have felt about Mary, her significance. And I’m lonely; it’s as simple as that.

My mother’s grave seems protective of me somehow. In March, just before I went into the Army, I’d planted chrysanthemums, surrounding her grave with them. Now the mound is a quilt of crimson flowers, clinging to life, thirsty.

I place my mother’s diary by the headstone and walk to the foot of the grave. In the ringing silence my laugh resounds. I’m filled with mirth over the extraordinary experience that has befallen me: my newly acquired appreciation of the beauty of life, of the moon, of mountain ranges, of human feelings, beauty that calls forth strong yearnings for companionship.

My hand strays wistfully to Mike’s gun. I check the action of the revolver. I’m Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
, enacting the scene in which Blondie coerces Tuco, played by Eli Wallach, to string himself up to a tree branch while standing unsteadily atop a grave marker.

I intend to admonish the caretaker, in the same manner as Blondie, with the threat of the gun if necessary, to bring up my mother’s coffin and place the diary inside.

I move about, near the grave, waving the pistol languidly and pointing the barrel skyward with my finger on the trigger. I’m watching the red-tailed hawk, on motionless wings, as he rides updrafts of the sun-warmed air. Suddenly I stumble on a rock and my knees buckle. There’s a loud
Crack
! I feel a sharp pain in my head. Reeling, all I know is a blackness descending over me, and then the distant sensation of my head striking hardness.

A
gunshot rings out from the nearby hills.

“Hurry, Mom! Hurry! Where’s Mary’s grave? Park here!”

“It’s right over that hill, dear.”

“Wait here, Mom, please.”

“I’ll give you a few minutes, Sarah.”

I jump out of my mother’s car and run like a frightened deer up the hill. The wind that stirs the dust blows my hair back and molds my skirt to my body. I know I’ll be paralyzed with fear unless I keep going. “Oh God, please let Daniel be all right,” I say into the wind, beseeching the God I might have sinned against with Daniel.

I stop for an instant at the top of the hill, see Daniel lying on the ground, and sprint towards him. I throw myself upon him in the dirt and weeds. That’s when I see the blood that trails from his head. The gun sits on the ground next to him. I shake him and he doesn’t move, so I get to my knees and roll him onto his back. His eyes are closed and his mouth open. He isn’t breathing.

He’s gone and killed himself, without me, I tell myself, and I hit him with my fists because the boy I love with all my heart is dead. He’s left me alone and I can’t bear the thought of that. I start to sob, my life is over, I don’t care if I go to hell, I’m living in hell now and I pick up the gun and hold it like I’ve seen on TV, the barrel against my temple and my finger on the trigger and I close my eyes. “I love you Daniel, as my own flesh. Wait for me, I’m coming with you—”

But suddenly the gun is snatched away and Daniel is there beside me, and he’s not dead. I collapse into his arms. “Daniel, I thought I’d lost you and I couldn’t live a moment longer without you,” I say, blubbering like a baby.

He holds me tightly. We lie on the ground at the foot of his mother’s grave. “It’s all right, Sarah. I’m here.”

“Don’t you ever leave me, Daniel, ever, ever, ever!”

“I promise.” His eyes shine with such fierce love that I tremble to look at him. I have to put my leaping heart back in place with my fingertips.

I untangle myself from Daniel and with my eye not covered by my disheveled hair I see his sad eyes. “My mother’s coming. Quick, kiss me, while we still have time.”

“But, I thought—”

“I don’t care about that. I know what’s in my heart.”

His mouth spreads into a wild, furious smile. “As do I.”

We lie together in a long heavenly embrace, and as I close my eyes on tears of joy, I feel Daniel’s lips on mine. We kiss passionately, like in a dream.

When I used to read fairy tales I figured those kinds of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of the greatest romance ever lived.

M
rs. Hartford places her hands on my shoulders and looks at me with an air of superiority. “Like I told you on the phone, Dan, Sarah is staying with relatives. Come in, I was just watching the news. Let’s talk.”

As I follow Mrs. Hartford into the living room, I sense in her something to be feared. I feel like an unwanted visitor.

She’s wearing her tennis outfit, white shorts and knit shirt, sneakers, like the last time I saw her, in July, but now her fine straight hair is cut in a bob. She gestures towards the sofa and I sit down. The TV is going, picture without sound, a news segment on MoonBlast 1, tentatively scheduled for early next fall.

“Can I get you something to drink? Coke? Orange juice?” She stands before me with her hands together.

“No, thanks,” I say nervously. I’m feeling a healthy amount of the same gut-wrenching frights I’d experienced in Afghanistan at the prospect of a firefight.

Mrs. Hartford takes a seat in the wing chair. “You look well, Dan.”

“I’m doing all right, now that I’m out of the detention center. The serious charges were dropped, involuntary manslaughter and all that. I pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for being in possession of an unlicensed firearm. No fine or incarceration, only unsupervised probation for two years. I don’t have to report to anyone, just stay out of trouble.”

Mrs. Hartford smiles and stares at me without speaking, so I go on, “Mr. Christie, my high school music and drama teacher, hired a really good attorney for me, and they worked it out with Father James of Holy Trinity, and with the prosecutors and the judge, of course. I’m staying with Mr. Christie, until I turn eighteen in seven months.” The last part of what I’ve just told Mrs. Hartford, about where I’m staying, is a lie.

“Dan, I’ve been meaning to tell you how thankful I am for what you did.”

“It’s okay,” I say affably. “Thanks for having the diary placed with my mother’s remains when the police finished with it, and for finding a good home for Wags.” I pause, averting my eyes. “Sarah’s my best friend. And she’s my sister,” I add, although I don’t believe it. “I’d like to see her.”

“She’s not coming back,” Mrs. Hartford says flatly. “I’ve enrolled her in a private high school, in another state. I won’t bother to tell you where. In fact, I think it’s best that you don’t see her again.”

I feel as if some evil gnome were playing a trick on me. “What do you mean?” I ask resentfully. “I’m Sarah’s brother.”

“That’s just it, Dan. You’re not her brother. You see, just before your father and I met, in 1998, he underwent a medical procedure that precluded him from having children. Julie had told me about it, and I didn’t believe her, but then Mike confirmed it. Frank told Mike your mother wanted another child, a daughter, and he was against it. I’ve researched the issue, and that’s the way it stands. At the risk of seeming brutish and overbearing, I have to say that you are really nothing to Sarah. She is my child, and to protect her, I will break the tie between you and her.”

“This is ridiculous,” I say, angrily, waving my arms about. “I would prefer of course to think of Sarah as my girlfriend, but I can’t believe you would destroy our relationship, our friendship. I love her.”

Mrs. Hartford presses her lips together and nods. “Let me put it this way,” she says smugly, without a trace of emotion in her voice, “Sarah’s been through a lot, Dan. She’s fifteen. If you really love her, as you say, you’ll do as I propose and go away quietly, leave her alone so that she can grow up properly and live a successful life.”