More Perfect than the Moon (3 page)

“How many seconds?” asked Anna.

“Twenty-seven.”

A cloud slipped over the sun and it was cool for a moment.

“Cass?”

“What?”

“I passed that record a long time ago.”

Anna and I laughed. Someone called from the house and we went to tell Caleb and Grandfather and Mama and Papa that Anna was getting married and had kissed Justin for longer than twenty-seven seconds.

Anna and Justin got married and had eleven children, most of them girls. Mama gave birth to a baby lamb named Beatrice, and everyone lived happily ever after.

6

W
e drank lemonade under the big tree. The air was still. The dogs lay under the table. Mama fanned herself, her hair in wisps around her face.

“Someone’s coming,” said Grandfather.

We all turned to look at the cloud of dust rise up on the road. It was a horse and buggy.

“It’s Matthew and Maggie,” said Papa.

The buggy came into the yard and stopped.

Maggie climbed down from the wagon and put her arms around Mama.

“Sarah! You are big and lovely!” Maggie’s voice was soft.

Mama smiled. Maggie had been Mama’s very first friend when Mama came here from Maine. But when the drought came and there was no water, Matthew and Maggie and their children had moved away for two years. Mama and Maggie had written letters to each other every single day when Maggie had gone away.

And once I had seen Mama cry because she missed Maggie.

But now they were back.

Mama poured lemonade for Maggie and Matthew. She passed Matthew the homemade raisin cookies that he loved.

“I’ve missed these cookies, Sarah,” said Matthew.

Mama smiled and brushed the hair back from her face.

“When’s the day, Sarah?” asked Maggie.

“Soon. A few weeks . . . a month? The end of summer. The truth is I’m too old for this. This baby,” said Mama. “I was too old when I came to live here.”

I looked quickly at Mama. What did she mean “too old”?

“No. I’m old,” said Papa.

“No,
I’m
old,” said Grandfather, making everyone laugh.

“Grandfather wins,” Caleb said.

Maggie put her arms around me.

“And Cassie, you are beautiful!”

No one had ever called me beautiful. They had called me sneaky and elusive and imaginative. Not beautiful.

“You look just like your mama.”

I frowned. I looked at Mama. Big.

“I think I look like Anna,” I said.

“Ah no,” said Maggie. “You have your mama’s smile and her eyes.”

I frowned again.

“Actually, I think Cassie looks like Eleni, the cow,” said Caleb.

There was laughter.

“No,” said Mama. “
I
look like Eleni.”

“Don’t worry, Sarah. Eleni is a very beautiful cow,” said Grandfather.

“I almost forgot, Cassie! Sarah asked me to get this for you,” said Maggie. She handed me a small, flat, wrapped package. I took off the wrapping. It was a journal. I opened it. It was empty, no words.

I felt my throat tighten up. Mama hadn’t forgotten after all.

“Thank you, Maggie,” I said.

“It was your mama,” said Maggie. “Thank her.”

I looked at Mama.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Mama smiled. She reached out and took my hand.

“You need to keep writing, Cassie. You’re a good writer.”

My face felt hot. Mama hadn’t seen what I’d written about her. She wouldn’t like my writing if she read that.

I took the journal off behind the tree. I opened it. All of a sudden I felt far away. Far away from everyone. Far away from Mama.

I heard their talk about Anna and Justin getting married. I heard their talk about when Matthew would bring his horses for the second haying. Talk of chores and gardens and rain. Their words wound around us like steam from hot tea.

After Mama has the baby lamb, Beatrice, she goes on long walks with me, leaving Beatrice with Caleb.

“He can take care of her,” she tells me. “All she does is sleep and bleat.

“You are more beautiful than Beatrice,” she tells me. “And you are much smarter.

“And Cassie, you are the finest writer in the entire world.

“I love you best.”

I looked up, suddenly surprised at what I had written. I closed the journal with a snap.

Something else was at the edges of my mind. Something
that scared me. Some-thing I had heard but couldn’t remember. What was it?

The house was dark and quiet when I sat straight up in bed. Lottie and Nick moved a little on the bed, but they didn’t wake. Very slowly I got up. I looked out the window. There was a half-moon. I walked down the hallway to Caleb’s bedroom. I pushed the door open.

Caleb slept in a tangle of blankets. I walked over quietly and sat on his bed. I waited. I didn’t want to shake him. Sometimes Caleb was cross if you woke him. I waited, watching him for a long time. After a while he turned over. A book fell off the bed and hit the floor with a loud thump.

Caleb sat up, startled.

“What?”

“Shhh. A book fell off your bed,” I said softly.

“What are you doing here, Cassie? Go away.”

“I need to ask you something,” I whispered.

“Not now. Tomorrow,” mumbled Caleb.

“Please. Now, Caleb.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Caleb.

I took a deep breath.

“How old is Mama?”

“Oh Cassie. I don’t know. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight. Go back to bed.”

“Caleb? Why did Mama say she was too old?”

“I don’t know. Go away.”

“Caleb?”

“What?”

“How old was your mama when she had you? When she . . .”

I stopped. I couldn’t say the word.

Caleb turned over, his back to me. He didn’t say anything. I got up and walked to the door. I walked back to my room and took out my journal. I couldn’t say it but I could write it.

What if Mama is too old to have this baby? What if this terrible baby makes Mama die like Caleb’s mama died when he was born?

I closed the journal as if shutting away the words would make them go away. But they didn’t go away. I sat at the window watching for the longest time until the sun came up orange over the east meadow.

7

M
ama was cooking pancakes in the big black skillet. The smell of melted butter and syrup filled the kitchen. We drank lemonade under the big tree. The air was still. The dogs lay under the table. Sarah fanned herself, her hair in wisps around her face.

“You look tired, Cassie. Didn’t you sleep well?” she asked me.

“No.”

Mama put her hand on my forehead.

“You don’t have a fever.”

She handed me a cup of juice.

“Mama?”

“Yes?”

I didn’t know how to ask her.

“Are you worried about being old?”

Mama burst out laughing. Then she stopped.

“You’re serious, aren’t you, Cass?”

Mama sat at the table.

“No, I don’t worry about that. Why do you ask?”

“When Maggie was here, you said you were too old.”

“I did say that, didn’t I? I guess what I meant was that I’ll have a new child to run after. Cassie, I thought I had the best life when I came here to be a mother to Anna and Caleb and marry your papa. And then I had you! And that seemed just perfect.”

Perfect
. That word again.

“But life has its ways, Cassie. This is something that I didn’t expect.”

“I didn’t expect it, either,” I said.

“No,” said Mama softly. “You didn’t.”

Grandfather came in with Caleb then, and my talk with Mama was done. I still had the lump in my throat. I was still scared. I went out to feed the chickens. They didn’t seem afraid of anything.

Summer clouds rolled in, and Papa came out of the barn.

“Rain’s coming,” he said, squinting his eyes to see the faraway clouds.

“It was sunny just a bit ago,” said Grandfather. “Summer storms come in fast.”

“I hope it goes fast, too,” said Papa. “We’ll be haying soon.”

The chickens didn’t like rain, and when the first drops came they ran to the barn.

The geese had hatched goslings last week, and they had taken to following Mama everywhere. A large Mama getting larger. They followed her into the barn and out, down the road for walks, and today they tried to follow her into the house.

Caleb and I looked out the small barn window. The cows liked the rain and the coolness it brought. Eleni lifted her face to the rain, and when the wind came the horses ran out in the meadow.

“Was that you in my room?” asked Caleb. “In the night?”

“Yes.”

“I thought maybe it was a dream.”

I didn’t say anything. Caleb looked down at me.

“It will be all right,” he said. “I promise.”

How could he promise that?

Thunder came then, drowning out anything I could say. I stood very still, looking out the barn window. After a while Caleb put his arm around me. We stood there for a long time as the rain pounded on the barn roof and chickens pecked around our feet.

I watched day after day, but there wasn’t much to write. Not much to make up. All I saw was the girl riding the dappled horse when she came again to see Caleb. It was Violet, Maggie and Matthew’s daughter. They met behind the windmill. I heard them laughing and laughing there.

Princess Violet and Caleb are very happy. They laugh all day long. Their children, Ondine and Tootie, are growing up, and Tootie is getting a little fat even though she eats only nuts and fruits.

Caleb smiled when I read this to him. He was nicer to me now. He didn’t seem to mind me writing stories about him. Sometimes he even liked them.

But writing was hard. Stories wouldn’t come, and I said so to Grandfather. He nodded.

“Maybe there’s too much going on, Cassie. Too much in your head, filling it up.”

“Mostly Mama and the terrible baby,” I said. “I do not plan to like that baby.”

Grandfather sat down next to me.

“Remember when I first came here? You didn’t much like me.”

I thought Grandfather was mean then. I thought he was hateful and cranky.

“You changed,” I said.

“You changed, too,” said Grandfather.

“You changed more,” I said, making Grandfather laugh.

I thought about what he said. I was different now. So was he. And Mama would be different soon.

Everything would be different. And it would never change back again. But I wrote it that way.

“Where is Beatrice?” I ask Mama.

“Gone,” says Mama. “Gone away. Flown up to the sky with the doves.”

All we have to take care of are our goslings, Willie Jo and Margaret Louise and Madeleine.

Happily ever after. Just the way it always was.

8

D
ays went by, one by one by one, faster and faster. The haying would begin today. There were already neighbors and their horses and cutters out in the fields. The side yard was filled with tables for lunch later on.

I watched Mama all the time now, peeking at her from around doors and watching her nap in the afternoon. I watched her from the tree as the goslings followed her. At night I could hear her as she walked around the kitchen, and I’d tiptoe down the stairs and watch her until she went back to bed. I couldn’t stop watching her.

I am Mama’s protector. I will keep her safe. I will save her from the terrible baby.

I have to watch.

“Cassie? What are you doing?”

I jumped as Grandfather came up behind me.

“I’m watching Mama.”

“I can see that. You do it all the time. Why?”

“I have to!” I blurted it out.

Grandfather stared at me for a minute. Then he took my hand.

“Come with me,” he said.

I looked back at Mama.

“I can’t,” I repeated.

“Come,” repeated Grandfather, ignoring me.

He pulled me into the cool, dark barn. Caleb looked up from cleaning a bridle.

“Caleb. Your papa needs the bridles,” said Grandfather.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

Caleb picked up another bridle and went out to the field to hitch up the horses. He didn’t look at me.

Grandfather pointed to a wooden trunk.

“Sit there, Cassie.”

“I don’t have time, Grandfather.”

“Yes, you do.”

“You are
still
mean,” I told Grandfather.

Grandfather didn’t answer. He sat down next to me.

“Caleb told me what you asked him in the middle of the night.”

“Caleb shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “He was asleep, too. He didn’t even remember what I said.”

“Yes, he did,” said Grandfather. “He did, Cassie,” he repeated softly.

Grandfather took my hand again. I tried to pull it away, but he held on tightly.

“Cassie. You don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “Caleb’s mama died when he was born because she was frail.”

Frail. I knew that word. We had a lamb born once that was frail, and we’d brought it into the house to keep it warm, and we’d fed it from a bottle night and day. But the lamb had lived.

“Sarah is strong, Cassie.”

His hand was warm, and I could feel tears fill my eyes.

“I am afraid,” I whispered. “I have to keep Mama safe.”

“No, Cassie. That isn’t your job. That is your mama’s job, and your papa’s job. And mine.”

I stared straight ahead, hoping the tears would not fall down my face. Grandfather held my hand, and the voices of Matthew and Caleb and Papa came closer. Finally, just before everyone came into the barn, Grandfather leaned over and kissed me.

It was the kiss that made me cry. I ran away from Grandfather, past Matthew and Papa and Caleb, past Maggie and Violet’s sister Rose and Violet in the yard. I ran past Mama, who turned to watch me. She called my name, but I ran into the house and up the stairs and into my room.

“Cassie!”

It was Mama’s voice at the bottom of the stairs. I opened the door.

“Cassie, I want to speak with you.”