Losing the Moon

by Patti Callahan Henry

  She answered on the second ring, imagining him at the family pub, the Lark, cleaning glasses behind the bar or meeting a delivery truck in the back alley. If Colleen closed her eyes, she could smell the hoppy aroma of beer; she could visualize the dark wood paneling glowing under the lantern lights and hear the clang of glasses, the call of patrons, and a fiddle being tuned in the corner. Nothing, not one thing in her life, was as familiar to her as the Lark.

  “Sis.” Shane’s voice vibrated in her ear.

  “What’s up?”

  “A lot.”

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, as she could tell his voice was off, something amiss. Colleen automatically placed her hand over her stomach, where fear seemed to wait to be awoken.

  “There is,” he said.

  She heard the difference; his tone lower and quieter. There wasn’t a joke hidden in his voice this time.

  “Dad.” Colleen walked to the window overlooking the street, brownstones across the way lit with the sun rising to midsky, and she rested her forehead on the glass. “It’s Dad, isn’t it?”

  “He’s been acting funny.”

  “He’s always acting funny.” She smiled as she invoked her dad’s favorite entry into a sentence. “As the Irish say, when Irish eyes are smiling, they’re usually up to something.”

  “This isn’t about his funny sayings, Lena. It’s complicated, too. And I don’t know if I can tell you everything over the phone. You have to come home.”

  Colleen laughed, relieved now because nothing was really wrong with her dad. This was another ploy to get her to return home. Another trick. They’d tried many times before and in many ways—her niece Rosie’s baptism; her other niece, Sadie’s, first birthday party; her sister Hallie’s pneumonia that was so threatening. Of course there were also the holidays and anniversaries and milestones of family life. She was accustomed to the pleas to return.

  “Shane, what’s going on?” Colleen walked the few steps to the kitchen, poured more coffee into her pottery mug shaped like an owl’s face, one she bought in a city and country already forgotten.

  “Dad’s not doing well. Don’t make me go over this entirely complex situation on the phone. I’ve tried to handle it without you, but now I need you.”

  “I’ve already made plans to come for his birthday party in two weeks. I can’t come right now.”

  “Lena.” He said the name she didn’t use anymore. “It’s been six months of fast decline. I’ve tried to figure it out by myself. Like you, Hallie is too busy to help and . . .” His voice trailed off.

  He usually knew better than to mention Hallie’s name, and now the dull pain crashed into Lena’s chest. “Fast decline?” she asked.

  “Yes. Forgetting names; losing things; getting lost . . .”

  “It’s just comedy-Dad—he’s like that. He’s always been like that: absentminded, stumbling along. Why is this time different?”

  “I’ve tried to keep the worst of it from you, but I took him to the doctor last week. He believes it’s Alzheimer’s.” He paused in the time it took Colleen’s breath to gather in fear. “I need you to come home.”

  Dizziness enveloped Colleen and she sat on a stool as coffee sloshed from the mug onto the black marble counter. “You better not be mucking with me,” she said, using her dad’s only curse word, if it could be called a curse word at all.

  “I’m not mucking with you.”

  Between brother and sister, this line was a solemn vow that they were telling the truth.

  “It can’t be,” Colleen said, brightening for only a breath. “His sixtieth birthday is in two weeks, and that’s too early. I know that—”

  “Yes, it’s called early onset.”

  “Why am I only hearing this now? I talked to him just a few days ago. He was fine.”

  “That’s the thing, Lena. He’s fine until he isn’t. You only talk to him when he is. But when I received a late mortgage notice . . . It’s a long story. Come home and I’ll tell you everything.” Shane had never been so direct. Maybe he was thinking that her arguments often won, that she always had excuses. Maybe this time her baby brother didn’t want to hear them.

  “Okay,” she said softly. “I hear you. So what are we going to do?”

  “I have an idea.” His voice was resolute; she’d heard it before. “I have a really good idea.”

  Chapter Two

  The past is never just the past.

  David Whyte, Consolations

  Colleen stood at the window with the disconnected phone still in her hand.

  No.

  Not Dad.

  Her brother had hung up on her, but not before telling her to text her flight info a.s.a.p. For tomorrow, he’d said.

  Tomorrow.

  “Oh, Dad.” Her voice broke as she spoke into the silent apartment.

  Gavin Donohue was the kindest man Colleen had ever known. He was the barometer of all things good and true; he was the most stable and loving presence in her life, and she missed him every day. If her brother was right—and he’d used the solemn phrase and incantation, so he must believe he was—then of course she must go home tomorrow. If what he’d said was true, she didn’t have the luxury of time, to amble home whenever she felt strong enough to face Hallie and the memories.

  Memories. They were being destroyed in her dad’s brain. Yet memories were why Colleen was in New York, the reason she’d left her family and the life she once thought she’d never abandon.

  Then she did what she always did when her mind acted like a runaway train, like a rubber ball bouncing in a closed room—she grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from her Lucite desk and began to write a neat list. First, finish the article. Second, make plane reservations. Third, do not Google Alzheimer’s.

  Nothing good, ever, came from over-Googling.

  * * *

  • • •

  The article was shit. Colleen knew it and yet she hit the send button anyway. “Mexican Fun in the Sun.” Even the title was the worst. But she didn’t care. Her heart hadn’t settled for even a minute since Shane had called that morning.

  It’s all in the details—this was a universal law in the writing world, as unbending as a physics equation. Colleen had kept the focus on trivialities—the scattered sparkle of morning sun on the river; the gravel road with weeds forcing their way up in the ruts and grooves; the thickness of hotel room towels; the floral rug with vines that wriggled through the pattern like snakes. Well-chosen details added together made a vivid picture, and she gathered the minutiae and decided which ones to share, which ones would send a reader to plan a trip to the location she’d just vacated.

  But the overarching narrative of her own story? Ah, she’d avoided that for years. It was easier to notice the smallest things in her forest than to rise above the treetops and gaze down to see the not-quite-green relationships and withering spaces.

  And now? Her sight was fixed firmly on home and on all the emotional uncertainty a visit there would entail.

  Colleen had learned to be happy in the years since the heartbreak that had caused her to run from Watersend. She made a good living and had enough friends to stay as busy as she pleased. Sometimes she sensed a glass wall stood between her and her pals, as she was never able to tell the full truth of why she chose New York, why she never went home. Avoiding all mention of family and home, there seemed to always be a piece missing in her relationships, as if by leaving out the subject of her family she’d left the bottle of wine at home when she arrived at a dinner party. She cherished her work and her apartment and someday—maybe someday—she would again love a man. Until then, she went on as many adventures as possible and talked to her brother and father at least once a week. To her sister she didn’t speak at all.

  Back at her computer, she typed “LGA airport to SAV airport” in the search bar and watched the flights scroll, one
by one, then startled as her apartment buzzer squealed. She walked to the intercom and pressed the speaker button. “Hello?”

  “Colleen, you can’t ignore me forever. Let me in, love.”

  Philippe, the sort-of-boyfriend she’d been avoiding since her return from Mexico a week before. This was a relationship she needed to end, a discussion she needed to have about how she didn’t feel the same as he did. He’d been so much fun, taking her to haunts and hidden places in the city she’d known nothing about, introducing her to an Italian social scene that kept her up until the early morning. She’d had a blast, but now he wanted more. More than she was willing to give. But his friendship, his ability to be fully present and listen, well, she did enjoy that part.

  “Darling,” she said, using his language. “Not now.”

  “I have croissants,” he said. “Warm ones from Pastanos.”

  This man knew his way to her heart, or at least her bed. She pushed the buzzer and then opened her studio door to watch him stride up the stairs, but it was her neighbor she saw first: Julia, who wore multiply colored spandex and her bleached hair high in a ponytail, revealing the dark roots.

  “Hello, Colleen,” Julia said in her singsong voice as she pulled keys out of her purse. “How are you today? Not traveling right now?”

  Here was the neighbor who watched Colleen’s every move but had no idea what went on with her own teenage son. “Not right now.” Colleen averted her gaze to see Philippe climbing the stairs with the telltale brown paper bag in his hand.

  “Another friend?” Julia followed Colleen’s gaze to the tall man in dark jeans and black T-shirt, his smile as wide as his face.

  “Your son,” Colleen said, “skipped school today.” She greeted Philippe with a much warmer kiss than she would have if Julia hadn’t been watching.

  Julia slammed shut her apartment door and in the wide hallway where a tenant had painted a bright blue mural of the Brooklyn Bridge, Philippe laughed. “Will you ever give her a break?”

  “Not until she gives me one.” She took the bag from his outstretched hand and together they entered her apartment. She grabbed the croissant and took a bite before they reached the kitchen counter.

  “Colleen.” Philippe grabbed a Travel and Leisure magazine from a leather bag slung across his body. “You did it!” He held it up and pointed at her name on the front cover. “Your name in big bold letters right here.” He dropped the satchel onto a stool and the magazine onto the kitchen counter.

  Colleen grinned and even had the good sense to blush a bit. Yes, finally her name had found its way onto the cover of one of the finest travel magazines. Top Ten Tips for Traveling by Expert Colleen Donohue. There it was, right next to the sailboat tilted against the wind in Barbados, directly under Island Escapes.

  Philippe flipped open to the article and pointed at her professional photo—Colleen leaning against a pillar in some faraway and nameless place with an azure sea in the background. Her hair backlit and lifted lightly by what appeared to be a breeze but had actually been a fan, appeared like a halo. She wore a sarong and sandals—“forced casual,” she called it. “And your photo.” He held up his hand for a high five. “Well done, my love.”

  “Thanks, I’m really proud of that piece.”

  “Well, the advice tips don’t matter so much to me. It’s the stories you wrote to go with them that make it interesting.” He kissed her cheek. “I felt like I knew you better with each one.”

  Colleen ran her fingers along the edge of the counter. “How about the stories where I wrote about the travel mistakes I made?” she asked. “Was it too much?”

  “Nope. Made it even better. I loved it.”

  “Me, too.” Colleen nibbled on the end of her croissant. “If only my piece about Mexico had flowed as easily.”

  Philippe reached her side and pulled her close against his long, lean body. “You can ditch me if you must, but you have to tell me what’s going on. It’s like another woman replaced the one who left for Mexico. Did you pick up a virus there that changed your heart?”

  He was endearing and funny. Why couldn’t she fall in love with the endearing and funny ones? Why did they bore her? Why did she instead want to call Daren, the guy who had constantly stood her up while they’d dated? She smiled at Philippe. “No, I’ve just been so buried in work, and I told you before I left—I’m not sure we’re right together.”

  “You don’t look so well.” He squinted. “Have you been crying?”

  My God, she had been. She touched the edges of her eyes. How had she not realized? “It’s my dad.”

  “You have a dad?”

  “What the hell does that mean?” She moved away, putting space between them. But she knew what he meant. She never talked about her family. “Yes, I have a dad. The best dad in the world.”

  “And what’s wrong?”

  “I’m going home to find out. My brother won’t tell me much until I get there other than Dad might have Alzheimer’s. So it’s either the worst trick in the world to bring me home or . . .”

  “No one would lie about that, would they?”

  “Not Shane.” She shook her head, crumbs falling from the croissant in her hand.

  “I’m sorry, Colleen. What can I do to help?”

  “There’s nothing.”

  “And your mom?”

  “Mother to me. And sadly, I lost her two years ago.”

  “You know what?” He paused and tilted his head in curiosity. “I know nothing about your family. Tell me about them.” He moved closer to her, lowering his voice with the tender request.

  She shrugged, wiping at the edges of her eyes to remove any further evidence of emotion. “It’s not a complicated family as far as families go.”

  He laughed and with his usual dramatic flair threw his arms in the air. “All families are complicated. Two or twenty, they are all complex.” He ran his hands through his messy curls. “So you can’t fool me, Colleen Donohue.”

  She smiled before she knew she had. “True. I just meant that there aren’t that many of us. Mother was an only child and she’s passed. I never knew her parents; gone before I was born, because Mother was a late-in-life baby. Dad only has one sister, and she lives in Virginia. I don’t have any cousins at all. I know this sounds crazy to someone from a family like yours—all those sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles; it’s like you could have your own country.”

  “What about your dad’s parents? Your grandparents?”

  “They were amazing, at least what I remember of them. They died when I was in elementary school. They used to come visit a couple times a year, but we never went to see them.”

  “That’s weird.” Philippe took a croissant from the bag and held it absently in his hands. “My favorite times were visiting my grandparents.”

  Colleen shrugged. “They loved coming to see us.” She took the croissant from Philippe. “Now. Can we stop talking about this?”

  He lowered his voice. “Let me be here for you.” He came closer and moved to place his arms around her.

  She allowed his hug with the shield of the croissant before her. “That’s so sweet, Philippe. But I told you from the beginning I have—”

  “No interest in a serious, long-term relationship.” He stepped back. “I know.”

  “But you thought you could change my mind.” Colleen had been here before, with men who thought she was playing games when she was telling the truth. “Listen. You’re an amazing guy. If I had even the slightest inkling to settle down, it would be with someone like you. Maybe even you.”

  He took the pastry from her, placed it on the counter and kissed her, long and slow and luxurious. She allowed him to draw her closer to the unmade bed at the far end of the room, but stopped a few steps from the rumpled sheets. “Philippe, not now. You know I adore you, but I have to book my flight and figure out what�
��s going on with my family. I’m a bit of a mess.”

  His dark hair fell over one eye and he brushed it away, his gaze set on her. “You’re always a mess. It’s one of my favorite things about you.” He kissed her again.

  “That’s what my mother always said.”

  “You’re a beautiful mess then,” Philippe said as sunlight fell through the large windows forming a spotlight on the hardwood floor between them.

  “Philippe, I have to go home tomorrow.”

  “And I didn’t even know you had one.”

  Colleen looked at him and she laughed despite herself. “I don’t have one, really. Home. That’s a misnomer at best.”

  In a swift motion, Philippe picked up the magazine from the counter, flipped to her article and read out loud. “‘Number ten: When you return home, take with you everything you’ve seen and learned.’”

  Colleen stared at Philippe, aware of the obvious: she didn’t know what or where home was anymore.

  “What happened,” he asked, “that you can write about going home and yet never do it?”

  About the Author

  Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times bestselling author whose novels include The House at Water's End, The Idea of Love, The Stories We Tell, And Then I Found You, Coming Up for Air, The Perfect Love Song, Driftwood Summer, The Art of Keeping Secrets, Between the Tides, When Light Breaks, Where the River Runs, and Losing the Moon. Short-listed for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and nominated multiple times for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award for Fiction, Patti is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups. She lives with her husband and three children in Mountain Brook, Alabama, and is working on her next novel.

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