To See the Moon Again (27 page)

An enormous calico cat emerged from the narrow, dark hallway that tunneled to the back rooms and padded across the living room and through the doorway leading into the dining room. Seconds later from the kitchen Julia heard Sheila's voice: “There's my Lolly baby! Come here to Mommy, you fat cat.”

The phonograph was still going, but someone had turned the volume down. A jazzy trumpet was playing faintly. Julia turned back to the window to watch Carmen. She was still walking, bent against the keening wind with the phone to her ear. The sun had dropped to just above the treetops, and beneath the bank of clouds the sky was going red around the edges.

Carmen reached the far end of the driveway, made a quick turn, and started back, the wind behind her now. Julia wished she hadn't gone outside. She wanted to hear her side of the conversation. No doubt Pamela was standing right next to Butch, listening in. No, she had probably switched it to speakerphone so she wouldn't miss a word. She was probably bombarding Carmen with questions.

Here was another way Julia wouldn't have made a good parent. She would have driven a child to desperation, hovering, advising, watching like a hawk for any sign of trouble, leaping to wild, panicky conclusions. Though she wouldn't have been openly nosy the way Pamela was, she would have been very capable of reading diaries and listening in on phone conversations. She would have worried endlessly.

As she watched, she saw the girl lift her head and laugh. Maybe it was the funnel of autumn leaves suddenly spawned by the wind and sent whirling across the front yard, or maybe it was something Butch or Pam had said. But then Julia saw what it was—a V of dark geese flying low against the gray clouds, their great wings laboring, their honks a muffled chorus. Carmen stopped walking and with her index finger traced their flight across the sky.

Migrating birds fascinated her. She could talk about them for hours, as well as all kinds of other creatures that made long, purposeful journeys. Butterflies, salmon, whales. Only weeks ago they had watched a program on the History Channel about the dog team that ran six hundred miles to carry a supply of diphtheria serum to sick children in Nome, Alaska, many years ago. Though that had been a trip supervised by men, it still won her admiration. At the end Carmen had looked at Julia, her eyes glowing. “I wish I could have been one of the mushers on that trip, don't you? Watching those dogs just keep on and on and on for such a good cause—how inspiring!” Julia assured her that she wished nothing of the kind.

Carmen finally headed inside, and Julia moved from the window to the dining room table, where she pretended to be looking through the stacks of old LPs. The jazz album was still playing, now a souped-up clarinet rendition of the Beatles' “Yesterday.” Such a gorgeous, yearning tune. Such simple words.
Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say. I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.
Like most songs written by young people, it spoke of such small sorrows, nothing close to the kind they would face later, after weathering their first heartbreaks.

She didn't look up when Carmen came in. She tried to sound casual. “So I guess you told them.”

Carmen sat down on the dining room floor and leaned her head back against the wall. “I told them everything,” she said. “They were . . . incredulous.” She laughed. “But not speechless. Definitely not speechless. Especially Aunt Pam. Uncle Butch doesn't think Luna will be hard to track down. He's getting right on it. He knows about search engines most people have never heard of. He'll call back as soon as he finds out something.” With both hands she gathered up her hair and scrunched it into a bushy ponytail. “It's a good thing I called when I did. They were just getting ready to go bowling.”

Julia tried to form a picture of her sister and brother-in-law bowling. It wasn't anything she would want to watch from behind.

“I'm so nervous I can hardly stand it,” Carmen said. She let go of her hair and shook it out. “He's going to check birth records, too, but he doesn't think we'll get anywhere with that. Even if it wasn't done under the table, birth certificates for adoptions are usually amended, he said. That means the new parents' names are on the final record, not the birth parents'.”

Sheila came to the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. “We have supper almost ready. You're staying to eat. I'll call you when it's time. Hope's starting a fire in the woodstove.” She left, and they heard sounds from the kitchen—thunks and scrapes, the rattle of dishes, the whistle of a teakettle.

•   •   •

A
SHORT
while later they gathered in the kitchen again. Julia wasn't hungry—the muffins and cider had taken care of that—but whatever was cooking smelled good, and somebody had put together a nice salad of greens, dried fruit, and walnuts. Sheila was slicing a loaf of bread at the counter, and Hope stood with her back to them, stirring whatever was in the pot. The cat was curled on a braided rug at her feet.

The woodstove, an insert in a small brick fireplace by the back door, stood somewhat lopsided on little splayed feet of tarnished brass. A rectangle of tempered glass in the door furnished a cloudy view into its interior, and a tin washtub of roughhewn logs sat beside it. Already Julia could feel the kitchen warming up.

“Grab a bowl and serve yourselves,” Sheila said.

It was chili, Hope's special recipe that called for venison instead of beef. As they ate, Carmen summarized her phone call. Julia's cell phone was on the table, the ringer volume turned to high.

Presently Sheila began a long, convoluted tale about a folksinger friend of theirs named Lolly, after whom their cat was named. Lolly, the friend, had a colorful history. Her great-grandmother had been a survivor on the
Titanic
and had read in her horoscope the night before she set sail from England that
The floods of life will not overtake you
. On her deathbed the great-grandmother had given Lolly a silver teaspoon she had snitched from the ship, and Lolly had it made into a bracelet, which she wore every day.

The jumble of details about Lolly was hard to keep up with. Julia wondered if she had missed something—such as why they had named their
cat
after this woman. Sheila went from one story to the next in rapid succession, stopping only occasionally for small, quick bites of food. Even though Julia's attention came and went, she did appreciate what Sheila was doing—filling up time as they waited for Butch's phone call. No need for anyone else to say anything, but no empty awkward silences either.

At some point Hope rose from the table and returned with a fresh pot of tea. “Jasmine,” she said as she plunked it down on the table.

“. . . and she sells them at different craft fairs all over,” Sheila was saying now. Evidently she was still talking about Lolly. “Here's one she made for me last summer.” She reached inside the neck of her sweater and hauled out a long chain with ivory Scrabble tiles dangling from it. Some of the tiles were turned the wrong way, so it was hard to tell if the letters spelled anything. She lifted the necklace over her head and laid it on the table. “She buys up all kinds of old board games. Hope has one made out of Monopoly pieces,” she said. “Don't you, Hope?” Hope made no reply, didn't even look up from the slice of bread she was sopping in a saucer of olive oil.

On Sheila went. “And she makes these Clue necklaces, with all the colored tokens and the little weapons. The candlestick and the revolver and the knife and the lead pipe and the, let's see, the . . .”

“I didn't tell you exactly what
kind
of dream I had about my baby.” Carmen spoke clearly, loudly. “It was more like a vision. I already told Aunt Julia about it.”

“. . . and there was a wrench and a . . .” Sheila trailed off. She and Hope were staring at Carmen.

Carmen said, “It happened in the hotel in Boston, not at home. I saw a little girl running through tall grass, and then I heard a voice, and then I felt a hand on my face.” She gave a short laugh. “Okay, that's not just a
vision
. It was like a whole . . . sensory experience.”

No one said anything. Julia was thinking about the girl's use of the word
home
. She had never heard her speak of the stone house that way.

“At first I thought I was just dreaming,” Carmen continued, “but then I realized I was wide awake. I didn't open my eyes, though. I just kept still.”

“You felt somebody touch your face,” Sheila said, “and you didn't scream and jump out of your skin?”

“It was a
little
hand. Right here”—Carmen laid her own hand against her left cheek—“and then it patted my cheek like this, very gently. But first I heard the voice.”

The only sounds were the popping and crackling of wood in the woodstove and the dull, hollow susurrus of the wind outdoors.

“What did it say?” It was Hope.

“It was a child's voice, and she whispered, ‘
I walk the earth
.' But it was a loud whisper, with a little echo to it. Then it faded away, and then the hand wasn't there anymore either.”

She looked straight at Hope, then Sheila. Not at all imploringly, but as if she fully expected them to believe her, as if she had just stated a simple fact, something incontrovertible like
Here we are, the four of us, sitting at this table
. “I told Aunt Julia it was a message from God,” she said. “And I still think so.”

Hope made a sound as if something were stuck in her throat, but no one spoke. There was a soft thump as a piece of wood shifted in the woodstove.

“
For the revelation awaits an appointed time
,” Carmen said. “That's in the book of Habakkuk.”

Hope picked up her fork and stabbed vigorously into her salad bowl.

Carmen took a deep breath. “I just want to say this to all of you right now—
He knows our downsitting and our uprising.
That's in the book of Psalms. And he also knows where
she
is right this minute. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I believe he's going to let me see her in my lifetime.” She threw her head back and looked at the ceiling. “Because he loves me. Even when I make a mess of things, he picks me up and sets me back on my feet. It's something called . . . grace.” She looked at Julia. “Like when he led me to you.” She looked at Sheila, then Hope. “And you, too.”

Before anyone could think of a reply to such a speech, the cat delivered them all by suddenly leaping up onto the empty chair right beside Julia. She let out a startled cry, and Sheila burst out laughing as she reached over to scoop Lolly into her lap. “Bad, bad baby,” she crooned, stroking the cat. “Bad Lolly to scare our company like that. One of these days you're going to get too fat to jump.” She picked up the Scrabble necklace and jiggled it in front of the cat, who lifted a paw and lazily swatted at it.

And just at that moment, while Julia's heart was still pounding, the cell phone emitted a series of loud tweets. This time the cry came from Carmen, a squeaky “Oh!” She grabbed the phone and flipped it open, then pressed the speaker icon. Julia could have hugged her.

“Hi, Uncle Butch. I'm here. Did you find out anything?”

And then Butch's voice: “I found her. I've got her address. A phone number, too. You have a pencil?”

S
KEPTICISM
OF
M
ARVELS

Carmen wasted no time dialing the number. She kept the speaker on. It would have made a curious picture—the four of them sitting at the table, leaning forward, all eyes focused on a cell phone.

It rang once, twice, three times. Then a woman's voice. “Hello?”

“Luna?” Carmen said.

A moment of silence and then, “Who is this?”
This
was
thee-is
. A decidedly Southern voice.

But Carmen seemed to know it was the right voice. She spoke clearly, eagerly. “Luna, this is Carmen Frederickson. Do you remember me? Two years ago?”

There was such a long pause they thought she might have hung up. But then she spoke. “Yes, I remember you.”

“Luna, I need to talk to you,” Carmen said. “I have some questions.”

Another lengthy pause. “Not over the phone.” She spoke so softly it was hard to hear her.

Carmen read off the address Butch had given her. “Is that where you live?”

“Yes.”

“May I come to your house?”

A sigh. “Yes.”

Carmen told her she was in Massachusetts right now but would get there as soon as she could. Her aunt was with her. They would call tomorrow and give her a time.

After the phone call, it was only a question of how soon to leave. The address was in Roskam, North Carolina, twenty miles west of Charlotte. They must have come within minutes of it on their way to Virginia.

Julia took the phone from Carmen and was soon connected to an airline agent. As the situation called for assertiveness, she told the agent that a family emergency had arisen, of utmost urgency, and it was imperative that they cancel their original flight and instead fly to Charlotte, North Carolina, tomorrow. “On the earliest, fastest possible flight,” she stated, then added, “It's a matter of life or death.” She wasn't going to feel guilty for that, not when Luna was their only hope of finding out what had happened to Carmen's baby.

The fact that her voice was not quite steady must have motivated the agent, for he flew into action. The earliest he could get them to Charlotte was 10:40 the next morning on a nonstop flight departing at 8:33
A.M.
from Hartford, Connecticut, which was only an hour's drive from where they were in Danforth.

Hartford. Julia hesitated. Well, at least they would be there only long enough to catch a plane. The agent must have sensed her reluctance, for he apologized that this was the best he could do, added that the usual fees for changing a flight would be waived. It didn't take long for him to make the changes. At the end he said he hoped they got there “before it's too late.”

They were persuaded to spend the night at the yellow house, in a back bedroom Sheila called “the studio.” She led them through the hall to the room, then set about moving a few things to clear a path to the bed. Another cramped room, with an easel, guitar cases, and an old upright piano stacked high with music. A double bed was shoved into the corner. Evidently the easel was put to frequent use, for dozens of unframed watercolors and oils stood propped against the walls, most of them featuring animals: two preening parrots, a turtle in a brook, a buffalo herd silhouetted against a sunset sky.

After Sheila left, Julia pulled back the bedspread and saw sheets that looked clean enough. Several quilts were laid across the foot of the bed. Carmen pressed a fist to her forehead. “I feel like somebody hit me with a sledgehammer.” She laughed. “I sure hope we can sleep with all these animals in the room.”

Later, when they were both in bed, Carmen spoke into the dark. “I canceled all our motel reservations while you were in the bathroom.” Such a thing had never occurred to Julia. The idea of the authors' tour suddenly seemed like something from another lifetime, someone else's lifetime in fact.

Sometime later Julia fell into a restless sleep, then woke to the sound of howling wind. She wished they were on the plane right now. She had a horrible thought of pulling up to Luna's house to find it recently deserted, dust still rising from a gravel driveway where a car had peeled out for parts unknown. She lay for a long time with her eyes open, studying the contours of the dark room. Finally she fell asleep again, but off and on she awoke and looked at the window for signs of daylight.

•   •   •

I
T
was close to noon the next day when Julia pulled up at the address in Roskam, North Carolina. It was a tall narrow town house, overlooking a park and a tennis court, where a boy was hitting balls against a backboard. There were six town houses in a row, identical except for the colors—a palette of desert hues. Taupe, red clay, sage, mauve, sand, sky blue, all of them with high-pitched gables, balconies, tin chimneys, and small yards. Luna's house, the fifth one, was the color of sand. A pot of yellow chrysanthemums sat on the front stoop. The driveway, Julia noticed, was concrete, not gravel, and she was relieved to see that there was a car sitting in it.

She turned the ignition off, but neither of them made a move to get out. “That's not the car she used to drive,” Carmen said, her hands clenched. “I'm so scared. What if she's gone? Or won't talk? Or doesn't know anything?”

“Then we'll figure out something else,” Julia said. She laid hold of the door handle. “Let's go.” As she stepped out of the car, she heard the sounds of children playing in the park.

Carmen followed her to the front door. Julia pressed the doorbell, and from inside came the barking of a dog, growing louder as it neared the door, then the clicking of claws against hardwood.

“She had a dog,” Carmen said. “Sometimes he rode in the car with her.”

They heard a voice from inside and footsteps approaching the door. Then the snap of a deadbolt, a twist of the knob, and the door opened a crack, as far as the security chain would allow. Julia, standing in front, saw an eye and part of a woman's face. Not the friendliest of expressions from what she could tell. Meanwhile, the dog scrabbled at the door and continued to bark, its snout jammed into the crack.

“Hi, Luna,” Carmen said. She gave a wave through the crack.

“Just a minute.” The tone was neutral, cautious, though the words were barely audible over the barking of the dog.

The dog's snout disappeared suddenly, and the door closed firmly. Then the sound of retreating footsteps and the barking grew fainter. Then silence. Carmen shot a worried look at Julia. From farther inside the house, the dog's barking resumed, but less frantic now, a treat-begging bark or a let's-go-outside bark. Then it stopped.

Again, approaching footsteps. Then a soft metallic chatter as the chain was disengaged, and the door opened slowly. And there she stood. Not a tall woman, but striking. She had an olive complexion and a mane of long dark hair, with several slender braids around her face.

Julia found it hard not to stare. She looked like she belonged to another time and place—a prophetess or priestess, and not a very happy one. But maybe it was only the intensity of her deep-set eyes, her absolute stillness, the firm set of her mouth. Maybe it was the long purple robe she wore, an elaborate garment with a plush nap and voluminous sleeves spangled with gold sequins. It had to be a bathrobe—there was a tassel at the top of the long front zipper—but Julia had never seen one quite like it. Not exactly the kind of thing you would throw into the washing machine. The expression on her face said that company was the last thing she wanted right now. Or—it came to Julia as a revelation—maybe it was a mask to cover up something else, like fear.

Luna stepped aside and motioned them in. She closed the door behind them and led them through a hallway into an open, airy living area with a vaulted ceiling. She walked smoothly, fluidly. It could have been a graceful walk but for the fact that under her robe she was wearing clogs, which resounded like hooves against the hardwood floor.

They passed a doorway to a bedroom and proceeded through the kitchen to a sunroom facing the backyard, where the dog was investigating something under a tree. Beyond the yard was a steep embankment, at the top of which Julia could see pedestrians and cars passing. Luna gestured toward a love seat. All of this without saying a word. Julia and Carmen sat down side by side.

Luna moved to a chair across from them, her features still set in stone, her lips slightly pursed now. The brightness of the sunroom revealed her to be older than Julia had first thought. She wore no makeup, and her hair was threaded with gray. Something in Julia had to admire a woman who would do that—seat herself at close range in unflattering light. She wondered if Luna had a husband, if he lived here, too. She had seen none of the telltale signs of a man's presence—little piles of clutter, men's shoes in places they shouldn't be, dishes in the sink.

The sunroom seemed to be tightly sealed against outside noise. A large old-fashioned alarm clock sat on a low white table beside Luna's chair, its vigorous tick-tocks reverberating in the small room.

A few magazines were fanned across the top of a square wooden chest that sat between the love seat and Luna's chair. Luna studied the magazines first, then stared at Carmen's knees for a few moments before slowly lifting her eyes to the girl's face.

•   •   •

S
HE
didn't die, did she, Luna?” Carmen's voice was soft and pleading. “Do you have any idea where she is?”

The slightest intake of breath, the faintest flicker of an eyelid, but Luna remained perfectly composed, sitting erect. Slowly her gaze traveled upward to a point just above Carmen's head. Her eyes swept back and forth, as if watching the cars. Perhaps she was wishing she were inside one of them.

She looked back at Carmen. “How did you find me?” Again Julia heard the Southernness—the long deep scoop of
how
, the flatness of
find
.

Carmen answered calmly, evenly. “That doesn't matter right now. Please, Luna. You've got to help me—where is she?”

Julia caught the change in the question. The first two had been so neatly sidestepped—
She didn't die, did she? Do you know where she is?
—that they had answered themselves.

Luna's eyes suddenly filled. “I always knew this day would come. I didn't know how we would meet up”—there was that loose, gaping
how
again—“but I knew we would, sometime, some place.” With one hand she fidgeted with the tassel of her robe. “I had nightmares about it—looking up and seeing you in a restaurant or on the sidewalk or in a store. I don't know why I never once thought about you calling me on the phone and coming to my house.” She looked up at the ceiling, blinking away tears. “I want you to know I've been haunted day and night about what happened. You have to believe that.”

To Julia the words were too easy, had probably been practiced many times in the event of a face-off like this. “Carmen has had plenty of bad days and nights, too,” she said.

Up to this point Luna had barely acknowledged Julia. She flashed her a hard look now, then addressed Carmen once again. “I knew God would judge us all someday. I told the Shelburns so. They said all they wanted was to give the babies good homes and the girls a chance to start their lives again. But that's not all they wanted.” She bowed her head. “I guess you know what happened to them.” She looked up again. “But I knew my day of accountability would come, too.”

Carmen stood up. She walked around the wooden chest and dropped to her knees in front of Luna. “I know the agency closed down and the Shelburns are both dead. But we didn't come here to talk about all that. All I want to know right now is
where she is
. You know, don't you? You've got to tell me.”

Luna stared down at her hands, which were tightly clasped in her lap. Big, capable-looking hands with an enormous topaz ring on one index finger. Lips clamped together, she started nodding, barely perceptibly but keeping perfect time with the loud tocks of the clock. At length she sighed deeply and said, “Yes, I do know.”

Carmen touched her hand. “Where?”

Luna looked at the clock. “They should be finishing their lunch about now, and then she'll be going down for a nap.”

“How . . . do you know that?” Carmen said.

“She lives two doors down. In the green house.”

•   •   •

I
N
keeping with her skepticism of marvels in general, Julia was slow to take this one in. She heard Luna's words, replayed them, doubted them, replayed them again.
Two doors down. In the green house.
In her mind she saw the six town houses all in a row on the same side of the street, across from the park. She ran through the colors in order. Taupe, red clay, sage, mauve, sand, blue. Then backward. Blue was the last one, then Luna's before that, the color of sand. And they were sitting inside that one right now, their rental car parked at the curb in front. The house on the other side was mauve.