Losing the Moon

by Patti Callahan Henry

  “Hi, honey.” Nick leaned in and kissed her cheek.

  Eliza waved a fluttering, unsteady hand at Amy. “Isn’t that a beautiful dress she’s wearing, all silver and sparkly?” She looked at Carol Anne. “I had a silver dress on tonight. It ripped.”

  Nick felt sheer panic; his wife was drunk as hell. He’d seen her drunk only once before, at a family reunion attended by an uncle she hated for various offenses. The awful things she had said, and didn’t remember afterward, were still part of Sullivan family legend.

  Nick grabbed Eliza’s elbow and attempted to steer her out of the room. She resisted, falling back into a semicircle with Amy and Carol Anne. Carol Anne reached her hand up to steady Eliza, then looked at Amy.

  “Honey,” Nick said, “let’s go find Lisbeth and head home.”

  “You’re so late. Did you finally come to show her . . . ?” Eliza shook her hand, thumb and forefinger together as if holding a piece of paper.

  “Eliza, come with me.” Nick held out his hand to his wife. Her face was pale, her makeup now appearing in stark contrast to her skin, like a child who had broken into her mother’s cosmetic case and rubbed on all the wrong colors, in all the wrong places.

  “No . . . I don’t think so, Nick. If you want to tell her, tell her with me here. I would just love to see her reaction to my dastardly deed. You’re not the one who gets to have all the fun, you know.”

  Amy backed up, banged into the wall.

  Carol Anne reached for her. “Come on, Ame. Let’s help Celia pick up some of this trash. She doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with it.”

  Eliza’s hand shot out in the space between them, patted Nick’s butt, felt the front of his pants.

  Nick backed away from her. “What are you doing?”

  “I know you have them on you. You must. You’ll never give them up.”

  “Eliza, stop.” But he was trapped in a corner and Eliza slipped her hand into his back pocket, jerked the papers from it. “Voilà.” She waved them in the air. Nick grabbed at the papers and missed.

  Eliza attempted to hand them to Amy. Amy held her hands up as a sign that she did not want them.

  “Here. Here. They’re yours.” Eliza shoved the papers at Amy.

  “What?” Amy held up her hands.

  Eliza threw the papers at Amy’s feet; they fluttered to the ground. Nick grabbed at his wife’s arm, hauled her through the French doors to the foyer. Escorting her was not a difficult task as Eliza was unsteady.

  Revvy met them at the front door. “Hey, man, guess she was more sloshed than confused.”

  “Yeah, I guess so, Rev. Now move.”

  Nick opened the front door and half-carried, half-thrust his wife onto the front porch. He closed the door behind them and leaned into her face. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “The same thing you were gonna do . . . show her the notes. I’ve waited all night for you to get here, knowing that if you did, it was only to see her. I was just beginning to hope that you weren’t coming. But it’s the same me, the same stupid me who thinks maybe, just maybe you’re over her. I was wrong about that, and about you coming here. I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid.” She wept bent over, shaking.

  “You are not stupid, just drunk. Climb in my truck. I’ll take you home.”

  “Why? Why would you take me home when it’s not me you want to take home at all?”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The background noise of the dwindling party had served as a cloak to the bizarre discussion with Nick and Eliza. Now they were gone into the frigid night and Revvy stood in the foyer staring at Amy, shrugging his shoulders.

  She had considered each part in her life—family, friends, Nick, the OWP—as separate and distinct; now her worlds had collided in a grinding mess.

  She turned to Carol Anne, whispered, “What the hell was that?”

  Carol Anne pointed to the papers on the parlor floor. “What the hell are those?”

  Amy picked up the papers, held them to the light; they were yellowed at the edges with a brownish tea color in the middle and a round coffee stain on the lower right corner. The paper was lined but the writing slanted across it, not following the lines. The note was written in all capital letters, as if screaming the smudged message.

  She began to read the words, then looked up at Carol Anne. “No . . .”

  Carol Anne grabbed the papers, but Amy’s tight grip caused them to rip in half. She stood still as she held half of Nick’s ancient pleas and Carol Anne held the other half.

  “Sorry . . . whoops.” Carol Anne handed her the torn paper.

  Amy dropped her half on the floor, stared straight ahead. She didn’t want the notes; she didn’t want to hold them, read them, know them. If she hadn’t been able to see them twenty-five years ago, now was not the time. Sitting in her dorm room, waiting, wondering, praying—that would have been the time to read the telegrams, not here in her parlor, in her home, at her Christmas party, with her son walking toward her with Nick’s daughter on his arm.

  She glanced, frantic, around the room. Molly’s fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Raven, waved, moved toward Amy. Ms. Raven, whose divorce was final six months earlier, wore a dress cut low enough to reveal her divorce settlement—a brand-new pair of upright breasts.

  Ms. Raven hugged Amy. “Oh, what a beautiful party. Thanks for inviting me.”

  Amy smiled, she wasn’t sure how, as Carol Anne reached down and picked the scraps of paper off the floor.

  “Oh, Ms. Raven, it sure is good to see you. I’m glad you came.”

  “Listen, Amy, I am dying to know who is that very yummy man who you were just talking to. I’ve been watching him. . . .” She leaned in and whispered, “Is he single?”

  Jack and Lisbeth joined them just as Ms. Raven finished her summation of Nick Lowry.

  “That man is my dad,” Lisbeth said. “And the woman with him is my mother.”

  “Sorry.” Ms. Raven held up her hands in surrender. “Just asking—no harm in asking.” She placed her hands on her curved décolletage and backed away from the group.

  “Thanks for coming.” Amy patted Ms. Raven’s arm and turned to Jack and Lisbeth.

  “Mom, where is Mr. Lowry?”

  Where is Mr. Lowry?

  “He and Eliza just, well, just left,” Amy stuttered.

  Carol Anne shoved the torn papers in her purse, looked at Lisbeth. “If you run out there now, you can probably catch them.”

  Lisbeth turned toward the door, then back at Amy. “What happened?”

  Amy tilted her head in question.

  “What happened? Did you say something to make them leave?” Lisbeth leaned closer.

  Carol Anne stepped forward. “Lisbeth, I think maybe you’d better go find your parents, get a ride home with them.”

  “Nothing happened, Lisbeth. Your mother needed to go home,” Amy said.

  Jack clasped Lisbeth’s hand. “Come on, babe. I’ll take you home.”

  Amy grabbed her son’s arm. “No, Jack. I don’t want you driving both ways this late. She can stay here . . . in the guest room, of course.”

  “I don’t want to stay here.” Lisbeth’s tears started again.

  “God, you have been crying all night. Aren’t you sick of crying?” Amy looked around the room, shocked to discover she’d spoken aloud.

  “Mom . . .” Jack exhaled, flashed his mother a furrowed-brow look of disgust. Newly manufactured tears poured down Lisbeth’s cheeks.

  Amy meant to find an apology but came up empty of remorse, of anything but disgust. “Lisbeth, I don’t want you driving home this late by yourself. Your parents have left. So unless you can catch them outside right now, the guest room is your only option.”

  Lisbeth looked to Jack, who by now seemed to also be weary of the tears; his expression of sympathy had decreased in voltage.

&nb
sp; Jack draped his arm around Lisbeth’s shoulder. “Come on . . . it’ll be fine to stay here.”

  “Why can’t you come home with me and stay at my house?” Amy stepped closer to Lisbeth. “I guess you did not hear me say I don’t want you two driving that far this late.”

  “I heard you, ma’am.”

  “Good.”

  Carol Anne lifted Lisbeth’s hand, patted it. “Honey, you’ll be just fine here with sweet Jack. Now you two run along.”

  Jack looked at his mother. “You okay?”

  “Just great, hon. Just great. Go on and enjoy the rest of the party.”

  She glanced away from Jack’s stare. He held Lisbeth’s hand and guided her to the back hall.

  Amy reached for Carol Anne’s purse. “I want to see those papers.”

  Carol Anne led her to the living room, then out the back door to the empty and blank night. Amy’s senses dulled as the cold air outside became more an observation than a sensation.

  Carol Anne reached into her purse and pulled out the crumpled, torn papers. “What are these?”

  “The telegrams.”

  “These are not telegrams.”

  “They’re the messages, the words that were supposed to be on the telegrams,” Amy said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Look at them.”

  “How did they end up here tonight?” Carol Anne waved them in front of Amy’s face.

  “I don’t know. I have no idea.”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s think.” Carol Anne paced the lawn. “Eliza the Out-of-It shows up early at the party. She wanders aimlessly, drinking herself into some Gumby/Barbie-doll state until Nick shows up. Then she comes alive, like she’s been waiting for someone to push her ON button. She grabs these papers from his back pocket and throws them at you.”

  Despite the pain growing inside her chest, Amy laughed. “Okay. So she knew he had them.”

  “She wanted to see if he would show up with them. But why did he have them? I thought he told you he sent these telegrams.”

  “When I saw him . . . at the school—”

  “You saw him again?”

  Amy groaned. “Yes. He stopped by the school. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just saw him.”

  “God, why him? Why now? Go ahead . . . what did he say when you saw him?”

  “He said he wanted to track down the lawyer, find out if and how he ever sent the telegrams. He wanted to know what happened to them. I told him it didn’t matter. That they weren’t sent, or if they were, they weren’t received—end of story.”

  “Do you think he didn’t believe that you didn’t get them?”

  “No, I don’t think that was it at all. I think he just had to know what happened to them.”

  “Well, he found out, obviously. But why would a lawyer keep these notes for so long?”

  “Maybe they were in his file. You know, the law file.” Rational thought began to infuse her and she sensed the iced air. “I’m freezing.”

  Carol Anne looked up at the sky, as if the constellations could answer her question.

  “He had them. Nick had them. A lawyer would not still have these,” Carol Anne said.

  “No . . . that makes no sense.”

  “Nothing about Nick Lowry makes sense.”

  “He didn’t have them. It drove him crazy that he didn’t know what happened to them. He didn’t have them.”

  “Well, where—”

  And simultaneously the conclusion dawned on them.

  “Eliza.”

  “His wife.”

  Amy reached for the notes. “She hid them. Eliza had them. Hell, kept them.”

  “That’s a little weird,” Carol Anne said.

  “She’s a little weird.”

  “He came here to show you these and prove to you—”

  “That he wrote them.”

  “That you should still be together.” Carol Anne wrapped her arm around Amy’s shoulders.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Amy, you have got to stay away from him. He’s dangerous. He believes that you’re still his . . . that he’s been cheated out of you.”

  “He was.”

  “Wake up, Amy. This is your life. You weren’t cheated out of anything. So you had a few bad months or a bad year wondering what happened to him. Now you know. Put it to bed.” Carol Anne laughed. “Bad choice of words.”

  Amy didn’t laugh. Panic began its ascent from a quiver in her lower limbs to the bottom of her throat. She reached her hand to the space on her neck that Nick said he longed to touch, and emptied onto the grass all of the appetizers, champagne and white wine that she had somehow managed to shove in her mouth during the chaos of the party. The inevitability of Nick, of their bond, rose within her and overwhelmed her. Wracking heaves came again and again, until there was nothing left inside her but a desperate need to be warm and to sleep.

  Carol Anne held Amy’s hair behind her head, clucking, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” She used the same words and tone of voice Amy utilized when her own children were sick.

  “No, it’s not. I need those people out of my house. I need to go to bed.” Amy leaned on Carol Anne, sobbed.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” crooned Carol Anne, lost for a smart-ass comment for the first time since Amy had known her.

  “No, it’s not okay.” Amy bent, heaved again, and this time ruined her silver silk dress. “It’s not okay at all.”

  After Carol Anne tucked Amy into bed, ushered out the remaining guests and brought Amy a cup of hot lemon tea, she kissed her friend on the cheek and whispered while Phil cleaned up the parlor. “Call me in the morning. Where did you put those notes? Give them to me.”

  “They’re safe. Hidden. I haven’t even read them all yet.”

  “Just go to sleep, Amy. Get some sleep. It’ll all seem so . . . stupid in the morning.”

  “I will. Thanks for taking care of me. Do you think anyone noticed I never came back to the party?”

  “Anyone who’s here this late—it’s one thirty in the morning—wouldn’t notice if you were swinging from the chandelier.”

  “Is Phil okay?”

  “Of course he is. Cleaning up, humming to himself, locking up. But Joe is waiting for me. Gotta run. We missed his office party. He’s a little peeved. I’m having a hard time explaining why. Guess I’ll have to make up for it when I get home, you know?” Carol Anne winked and pulled the covers up to Amy’s chin. “Let it go, Ame.”

  Amy closed her eyes and nodded. She desperately wanted to be alone and she only had a few minutes before Phil would come into the room and fuss over her. He was still mad about Revvy and Mr. Stevenson and she was not up for a discussion about it.

  “G’night.” Carol Anne closed the bedroom door.

  Amy lay motionless and held her breath until the front door scraped shut. She sat up. There was no way she’d be able to sleep until she read the notes . . . the unsent pleas for her to come . . . to him. She would read them, then destroy them and move on. Enough was enough. She could not allow Nick to come into her home and toss her emotions around like a dog with a rag toy. Didn’t he know this was her house? Her party? Her family? Didn’t he have at least that much respect?

  She tiptoed into the bathroom and listened for Phil’s telltale footsteps on the warped pine floors. She locked the door, unsure if the lock even worked, as she’d never once, since the day they moved in, locked the bathroom. She pulled on the door; it was locked.

  Her silver dress lay crumpled on the tile floor. She sighed; Phil would have a heart attack if he knew how much the dress had cost—the dress she’d just ruined by puking crab puffs and champagne all over it.

  She opened the cabinet door under the sink and reached in the dark past the unused bottles of shampoo, conditioner and mud masks, then inside a tampon box, to a crinkle of paper. The pa
pers felt fragile, broken in her hand, and she pulled them gently from the box she’d stuffed them into while in a panic—wanting to put them in the last place Phil would ever look. She shuffled into the commode closet, closed the door, slammed the toilet lid down, then sat on it. She opened the papers and pieced them together like an ancient puzzle.

  She ordered the notes according to the dates on the top left corners, then began to read. She recognized his handwriting with a jolt of electric memory through her body—the slant of his lines, the straight-out stick of the K. Then and—God help her, now—even his handwriting was too strong, too . . . much. A single written note sent her slack.

  Her acid-filled stomach growled as she leaned back on the tank of the commode. How romantic, reading his twenty-five-year-old notes on a toilet.

  Amy,

  Have been in accident. Am okay. Arrested. Please come. Contact below lawyer for information.

  Nick

  No information was attached and she assumed Eliza was supposed to have added how and where to contact him. She read the note again, then again. She attempted to feel, discern, what she would have felt then, in her dorm room, empty and howling inside, wondering where he was. Would this note have comforted her, panicked her? Sent her to Costa Rica? He gave no information about why he was arrested.

  Knowing now what she didn’t understand then, she couldn’t find her past and genuine response. It was all too far away, too remote—something vaguely seen on the horizon—and the more she tried to focus on the feeling, the more it faded, disappearing into the thin line between water and sky.

  She pieced together the second note and read.

  Amy,

  Please come. Am innocent. Need your help. Call below lawyer.

  Nick

  A rising emotion that needed a name beyond sorrow overcame her. He’d needed her. He’d wanted her to come, begged her—Please come. The pain she felt when he didn’t return must have been nothing compared to what he felt when he believed she’d read these words and failed to respond. She wanted to comfort him, tell him she would have run, not walked, to the nearest airport. She wanted to heal a wound long since scarred over.