“Don’t do that.”
“Can’t help it, darlin’.”
“Thank you for coming tonight. I think everyone is thrilled to have you and . . .” She was running out of things to say.
Nick pulled up in front of the dorm, then walked around and opened her door. It was late; she was suddenly exhausted.
“Wow, I’m wiped,” she said.
He grabbed her hand and helped her out of the truck, leading her not to the front door of the dorm, but around to the side of the building. He eased her up against the wall where the garden lamp’s light did not reach. The suffused silver of the moon’s glow scattered on the ground. He placed both hands on her shoulders; his right hand slipped, landed on the crumbled mortar of the ancient building.
“Can you leave with me for just a little while?”
“No, I can’t,” she thought she said.
He leaned in to close the gap between them. His mouth found her neck, and he kissed it, down, down until he found the small crest between her collarbones. Her body softened, became giving and malleable.
Her fingers trembled, rested in his hair. He reached his left hand up to her face, ran his finger across her lips.
Metal slammed against wood as the side door opened and closed, sending a shock of awareness to their dark hiding place. She gasped, pulled away from him. He tried to pull her back; she slipped around the corner, shoved open the door, escaped inside. She closed the door and leaned up against it, took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“You okay?” the redheaded desk attendant asked.
“Fine. I’m fine.” Amy smiled and waved at her, then walked up the back stairs to her room, where she would call her family and say good night.
“I’m just fine,” she told the gray concrete walls, herself and all the ghosts residing in Porter Hall.
Chapter Sixteen
The weeks following Amy’s visit to the island with Nick were like an extended moment before fully waking, a brief, immeasurable instant when time and location were meaningless, where possibility was endless, where kairos—a mystical timeless interval—seemed accessible. All was well, and although morning and wakefulness were approaching, her heart knew what was right and true and remained languid in its half-slumber.
During the day, Amy felt unable to shake this lethargic, off-kilter feeling of functioning in a half-sleep. Her limbs moved slowly; her thoughts remained hazy.
It was now the week before Thanksgiving, and she pulled the Christmas boxes out early. She didn’t want to wait for Phil to return from his business trip in Dallas; she carried the boxes up from the basement one by one, as Christmas music blared from the stereo. Her soul slipped back and forth, back and forth between the present and the past, between the needed and the wanted.
She sat cross-legged on the oyster Berber carpet on the living room floor, lifting ornaments, then placing them back in the box. The tree was not up yet; she was killing time as she stared at the ornaments and thought about what they represented about each family member. She set the ornaments aside and opened a second bin labeled “handmade gifts.” This box was crammed full of the gifts the children had made in school through the years: the pinecone Christmas tree, the juice-can pencil holder, the gold-painted walnut candlestick. She lifted them out, set them on the antique-trunk coffee table. Family tradition dictated where she would place each treasure: on the side table, on the kitchen counter, on the coffee table.
With each memento she pulled from the box, with each memory she unearthed, she became more certain that Nick’s claim of their unbroken vows was bullshit. Through the years she and Phil had built an incredible life together—it was not to be discarded for some college memories.
She lifted the last object from the plastic bin: a bound and laminated five-page book constructed by Molly in third grade. She remembered how excited Molly had been about this book, about the time and effort she had put into it. As Amy had tucked her into bed Christmas Eve, Molly had pulled it out from under her mattress.
“What’s this?” Amy asked, hugging her daughter.
“Look, Mommy, look what I made for you.” Molly’s body trembled beneath Amy’s hands as she waved the book in the air.
Amy’s eyes filled with tears as she took the book from Molly, asked her what it was. Molly began to bounce up and down on the bed. “Open it, open it.”
Beneath the crumpled and crookedly taped Christmas paper lay a handmade book emblazoned in hot-pink crayon, THE WORLD’S BEST MOTHER, with a hand-drawn picture of Molly’s rendition of her mother: a small, round face with too-big eyes, yellow hair that curled and waved around the remainder of the page. The mouth opened in a smile full of all-white, all-straight teeth. The nose was just two black circles in the center of her face.
Amy told Molly it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and she meant it. Molly asked her if she liked the hair. “Don’t you think it looks just like you?”
Together they read the book. Then Amy lay down with her daughter until Molly fell asleep, secure and warm.
Now Amy curled against the back of the couch, opened the book. In zigzagging black crayon it spoke of all the “world’s greatest” things about her. Of course it didn’t mention her work in preservation, or her degree in architectural history, or her affinity for keeping the house in order, or her skill in assembling scrapbooks and baby books. Molly had only written of Amy’s love for the family.
When asked what Amy’s sports were, Molly had listed: laundry, taking me to tennis, shopping for my clothes, driving my field trips, giving me really good parties for my birthday.
Amy tossed the book on the coffee table and rubbed at her forehead, her eyes. She leaned her head back on the green toile couch with the mismatched vintage fabric pillows. Tears began as sleep crawled upon her. She reached for a couch pillow, curled up and laid her head down on it as sleep took her in slow-moving circles. She bobbed with an outgoing tide—free-floating. Warm water caressed naked skin, oyster shells tinkled—glass against goblet, toasting her with wine, celebrating her. The sand scraped her cheek, but it didn’t hurt. She floated, sank, lifted. The shells became louder, insistent in their praise.
Louder the shells sang until they became a ringing bell.
She jumped to a sitting position. Her doorbell rang—the scraping sand was only the couch where she’d slipped from the pillows. She rubbed at her tear-salted face, believing for one moment it was the salt of the sea. She stood, unsure of place and time.
She walked down the hall to the front door. Carol Anne’s face peeked through the cut glass from outside. Even through the distorted view, etched lines of concern on her friend’s face were evident.
Amy waved at Carol Anne and reached above the doorframe for the key, moving in slow motion. She opened the door, smiled.
“Okay, that is the worst fake smile you’ve ever manufactured.” Carol Anne hugged her.
“Well, thank you.”
Carol Anne looked past Amy into the house. “Are you going to make me stand outside or let me in? You hiding something in there?”
“I’m sorry. Come in. Not that you need me to tell you to.”
“Okay, what exactly is your problem?” Carol Anne leaned against the huntboard table in the main hall.
Amy noticed a gaping seam in the antique wallpaper; she licked her finger, pushed the paper to the wall. “Oh, look. The wallpaper is peeling there.”
“Your whole house is peeling, Amy. You love that.” A crease of unease formed between Carol Anne’s eyes. “You’re out of it. What’s going on?”
Amy looked at Carol Anne. “Not that I’m not glad to see you and all that, but why are you here?”
“You are out of it. We have plans to go Christmas shopping, remember? It is Saturday, two o’clock, right?”
Amy looked up at the grandfather clock, leaning precariously as it had done for eighteen years since
she’d bought it at an art auction with Phil. She’d wanted that clock too, right? She’d agreed with Phil, hadn’t she?
Yes, it was two o’clock, and suddenly her dream of the sea and the oyster shells felt far more vivid, authentic, than Carol Anne standing in her hall, reminding her it was time to go and do.
She wanted to return to the dream, to the floating and celebration. She wanted to know where the dream, the sea would carry her.
“I don’t feel like it today. I’m tired.”
“Well, you are going. I can’t stand you like this.”
“No. I really don’t want to. I can finish my Christmas shopping on the Web. Really. I’m sorry I forgot . . . maybe I’m catching that winter flu going around.”
“You aren’t catchin’ anything but a sickness of the heart. I won’t allow this to happen again. No way.”
“What are you talking about?”
Carol Anne tilted her head to the right and left, then whispered, “I know you, Ame. It’s Nick. Don’t think I don’t know these symptoms of yours. I saw them almost kill you one time. He knows, somehow knows, how to do this to you.”
“What?” Amy looked away from her friend, her conscience screaming her own stupidity.
“You saw him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Carol Anne. But not why you think. He’s helping the OWP. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Great.”
“He could really make a difference—”
“Well, you’re coming with me now.”
“I’m busy . . . unpacking Christmas stuff.” Amy shuffled into the living room. Carol Anne followed. “See all this stuff? I can’t just leave it out like this. Phil will come home and put it in all the wrong places, wonder why I didn’t finish my job.”
Carol Anne leaned down, picked up the “World’s Best Mother” book, leafed through it.
“Isn’t it weird how they see us?” Amy asked.
“Who?”
“Our children. They have this vision of us, of how we are, and it revolves only and solely around them. I mean, look at this book—it doesn’t describe me, you know—me—at all. It just describes what I do for her—for the house, for the family.”
“That is you . . . to her.”
“But it isn’t me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It isn’t me at all. She forgot to mention that I have a degree in architectural history, that I love preserving the past, that . . . I am me.” Amy sighed. She wasn’t lying to Carol Anne about being tired.
“Preserving the past . . . you nailed it.”
God, she wished Carol Anne would leave. She’d never wanted this before, and the need to be away from her best friend shocked her. “I’m talking about buildings, architecture.”
“I’m just repeating what you said, that’s all.” Carol Anne picked up a red ornament, rolled it in her hand.
Amy groaned. “Can we do this another day? Maybe after Thanksgiving?”
“No.”
“You are being a major pain in the ass.”
“That is what I intend to be, because I love you. Now come on.”
“I’ll drive separate in case I need . . . to come home first.”
Amy walked through the living room into the kitchen. She folded a towel left crumpled on the counter by either Phil or Molly, then placed the towel neatly over the sink. She picked up the discarded junk mail no one else threw away and tossed it in the trash can. Did she have to do absolutely everything? It irritated her, the never-ending chores and the continuous picking up and the truth that only she did it all.
She grabbed her car keys from the hook on the wall and walked into the garage, kicking the door shut behind her. A loud thump instead of the scraping sound of the warped door shutting came from behind her. She turned as if to reprimand the door for not obeying.
Carol Anne stood holding it open. “I’m driving with you. I’ll leave my car here and I promise you can go home when you want.”
“I want to go home now.”
“Get in the car.”
“Okay, okay.”
As they drove the familiar streets of Darby, the company of her best friend and the tree-lined lanes of her hometown soothed Amy. Carol Anne rambled on about an artist who had backed out of the art show when he didn’t receive a front-row spot in the display. “Ego, ego,” Carol Anne said, then she stopped, touched Amy’s shoulder.
“What in the world is that sound?”
“What sound?”
“That eternal dinging noise.”
“Oh, that. I think it’s supposed to warn me when I’m almost out of gas.”
“Well, what does it mean this time?”
Amy glanced down at the dashboard. “Shit, I’m on empty.” She whipped the car into the Texaco station on their right. “I need gas.”
“You need something, all right.”
Amy scrunched her nose at her friend and parked in front of the gas pump. She never let her car get below half a tank. It was a safety rule she taught her kids—one she kept herself with regularity.
Amy stuck the nozzle of the gas pump into the side of the car and noticed for the first time the phallic symbolism of the gas pump filling the car to make it go. What is wrong with me?
She watched the numbers go by and counted with the pump’s click, click, click until it finished.
She paid and climbed back in the car, looking at Carol Anne. “All solved. Let’s go spend money on beautiful and meaningful gifts for our families.”
“Now that sounds like my best friend.”
“Where do you want to go first?”
“Let’s hit the Antique Emporium and go from there—I know I want to buy my adorable husband an antique golf bag for his collection.” Carol Anne pulled a list from her purse. “Got a lot of stuff here to cross off.”
Amy pulled the car out into the street and reached to push the ON button to the stereo to block out the loud thumping noise that seemed to be following the car.
“Now what is that noise?” Carol Anne tilted her head.
“I don’t know. Something at the gas station, I guess.”
Amy turned right onto Magnolia Avenue and punched the gas as a loud, long honk emitted from the Volvo she passed. Her car bumped, jolted to the right. She jerked the wheel to stop the car from sliding off the road.
“Damn, did I just run over something?” She looked at Carol Anne, then shrugged her shoulders, looked in the rearview mirror. A Jeep full of teenagers pulled up alongside them, honked, pointed to the back of the car.
“What the . . . ?” Carol Anne rolled down her window, shoved her head out into the wind. She pulled her head back in. “Stop the car, Amy. Pull over.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Amy rolled her eyes, pulled into the parking lot of Rosie’s Cut Cabin, shifted into PARK and looked at Carol Anne. “What is it now?”
Carol Anne opened her mouth as if to talk, but laughter poured out. “You forgot to . . .” Carol Anne bent over in another spasm of laughter. “You left the gas hose in the car.”
Amy didn’t understand. “What gas hose?”
Carol Anne opened her car door. “Get out. Look.”
Amy opened the door, stepped around to the passenger side of the car and there, sticking out like the deformed tail of roadkill possum, was the black tubing of the gas pump. She sank onto the cold, damp pavement and buried her head in her knees, not caring about her gray wool slacks, or her cashmere sweater, or the old ladies at Rosie’s getting their hair set for the week and staring out the window at her. She brought her knees up to her chest and told Carol Anne the story of Nick and the jail while she tried not to cry, tried not to stare at the hose jutting out of her car, gas dribbling from its severed end like some vulgar representation of her life.
Chapter Seventeen
The fact that Nick had been in jail and had never truly left her didn’t fit into the crammed facts of what her life had become. She’d repeated the story to herself a hundred times, trying to find the settling point of the story, the bottom line. Yet all she heard was his summary of it: Our vows are still there, never broken—a sentence that ran over her tongue, as rich and seductive as melted butter.
This constant playback of Nick’s words reminded her of the days when she’d play Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” over and over again on her eight-track, thinking the repetition would allow her to understand the significance of the song and she could then apply this meaning to her life. It hadn’t worked then, either.
She leaned up against the sink and stared out the bubbled glass window, which offered her a wavy view of the backyard. The evening sun came through in one strip against the sill, lighting it as if a child had painted a gold stripe, uneven and slanted on the vanilla-shaded paint. An Adirondack chair faced the old tire swing that hung as a reminder of Molly’s and Jack’s childhood; she couldn’t bear to pull it down, though no one had sat on it in years.
She sighed and picked up the last plate, rinsed it off without looking and placed it in the dishwasher. A slice of pain shot through her forefinger. She drew her hand back and looked down. A paring knife stuck out from the bottom rack of the dishwasher at a menacing slant for anyone not paying attention. Who had placed it sticking up? Hadn’t she taught everyone to put the knives upside down in the rack? Blood ran down her finger in a single stream, mixing with the soapy dishwater in a washed-out pink flow.
Losing the Moon Page 14
