Pack Up the Moon

by Rachael Herron

Six days after Robin died, Kate was still in bed, using every ounce of self-control she possessed not to go into Robin’s room, not to take up keening on his floor, the wailing that, once started, would never end. My boy my perfect boy my love my boy my boy my child my boy.

  Nolan was in the hospital, still unable to communicate. Sonia said his eyes didn’t function right—she’d checked on him every day. Sonia was as brusque as she’d always been. More so, perhaps, as if she had something stuck in her throat and couldn’t clear it.

  But with Robin’s death, Sonia’s shell had cracked, and Kate could see something inside her mother, something she’d never known was there. Sonia knew the very bones of grief, and in sharing that with her daughter, there was a softness at the curve at her cheek, a kindness in the hand that efficiently drew the covers over Kate and patted her head. There were no kisses, no words of love, but there was a rough tenderness, and Kate could tell her mother was trying. It was all she had to give. Once, Kate had woken to find Sonia staring out the window of the bedroom, with the curtain pulled back. “What is it?” she’d asked.

  “I was just thinking about your father.”

  “What about him?”

  “I should have tried harder, after he died,” said Sonia. “To give you more. I should have at least tried.” There was a pause. “I tried with Robin. My merman.”

  Kate couldn’t answer around her swollen throat.

  “But I’m still sorry . . .”

  For one moment, Kate thought her mother was going to bring it up—would talk about the granddaughter she’d never met. She closed her eyes, as if that would keep her from hearing, but instead Sonia left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  On Kate’s sixth day in bed, the day before Robin’s funeral—which Sonia had planned, dry-eyed and matter-of-factly—Sonia said, “Nolan doesn’t understand it when I tell him. His eyes don’t change when I explain it again. What happened. Where he is now.”

  Kate turned to the wall and closed her eyes. It wasn’t fair that she had to live in a world like this, feeling what she did, and he didn’t. After what he’d done.

  “You have to go to him,” Sonia said.

  “No.” It was the only word she was sure of.

  “He needs you.”

  Kate needed Robin. “No.”

  “He loves you.”

  “No.” He couldn’t.

  “You love him. You love him more than you’ve ever loved anyone except your son.” Sonia left herself out of the equation of love.

  “He took Robin from me.”

  “Then go,” said Sonia, her face fierce. Furious. “Tell him.”

  At the hospital, the ICU nurses knew the story. That much was obvious in the way they lifted their eyebrows at each other when they thought she was looking somewhere else. A nurse in green scrubs took her to Nolan’s room, and her glance was kind. The room was all glass and metal, and very cold, as if he were about to go into surgery. This wasn’t a normal recovery room. This was serious. “He just said his first few words this afternoon. It’s good you’re here.” And before Kate passed through the glass door to the nurses’ station just outside, the nurse said, “Don’t upset him. He probably won’t remember anything you tell him, so don’t expect much. His short-term memory is gone for now. It might get better later, but there’s no telling just yet.”

  Kate pressed her lips together and nodded.

  He was noticeably thinner. How could that happen in mere days? The fact that he’d grown a beard was an unexpected jolt.

  “Nolan,” she said. God, what if he opened his eyes? She had no follow-up line.

  But he did. He opened his eyes, those wonderful maple-colored eyes, and there he was. “Love,” he whispered.

  And instead of screaming, instead of raining blows down upon him, instead of anything she’d originally planned on the way to the hospital, she did something else. She examined the side rail of his bed and pushed the right combination to drop the metal. Then, lifting the tubes that were connected to various parts of his body, she slowly and oh so carefully slipped under them. She shimmied under the thin blanket. Pressing herself against him, she felt him shudder.

  “You’re right. It’s cold in here,” Kate said, as if they’d already been discussing it. Continuing their conversation. “Let me help. Come closer.”

  Nolan didn’t move. She could feel he couldn’t, so she got closer to him instead. Her knee to his, body to body, her warmth heating his chill. “That’s right,” she said.

  He lay on his back, tears running from his eyes, catching in her hair.

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “No,” he whispered. “But . . . something. Did.”

  Kate waited. She tried to find the place inside her chest that would allow her to punish him. You killed your son, my boy, our son. You took him. You killed my son. My boy my boy my little boy. Each word a weapon. Each word another death that he had so unforgivably escaped.

  She leaned her head close to his and softly said the words that were tangled in her mouth.

  His body relaxed.

  She said them again, and she kept saying them, over and over, until the words unwound and reknitted themselves together and made a blanket of words, draping a warmth over them both that allowed him to relax and fall back to sleep, pressed against her.

  Robin loves you. I love you. Robin loves you. I love you. Come home to us. I love you. I found you, I found you, I found you. Come home. We love you. Come home.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Sunday, May 18, 2014

  11 a.m.

  On Sunday morning, it took every ounce of Kate’s courage, every last drop she had left, to park the car in front of the address Nolan had jotted down on a Post-it when he’d left the other night. “Just in case,” he’d said. A low-slung apartment building, gray and tired-looking under the overcast skies—it looked like an old motel, and maybe it was. The plants in the planters were as exhausted as the paint.

  Her hands shook as she went down the walk toward number 4. She stretched them out, wishing she’d thought to tuck a paintbrush in her back pocket so she’d have something to cling to.

  She raised her fist to knock, but stopped when she heard the voices inside. She couldn’t make out the words, but that was his real voice, the one not everyone got to hear.

  Leaning to the left, she peeked in the side window. A man wearing a red plaid overshirt leaned forward to say something to someone who was on the other side of the wall, out of her range of vision.

  Nolan had friends who really talked with him? Good.

  It was even harder, then, to actually knock, knowing she was interrupting something important. She heard Fred Weasley barking, and a sharp “Hush!”

  The door swung open. Nolan was midsmile, but it slid from his face when he saw her.

  “Damn,” he said.

  Kate stuck her fists in the pockets of her sweatshirt. “Can I talk to you? Just for a minute.” She looked over her shoulder at the man standing behind Nolan. The man’s face was drawn, cautious. He had a black eye to match Nolan’s.

  “Yeah,” said Nolan. His voice was flat. Fred barked at his side. They let her in, but Nolan didn’t quiet the dog, letting him bark until he wound down.

  It smelled like Nolan inside, warm and soapy, and Kate’s heart thumped in her chest so hard she wondered if his friend could hear it from where he stood coolly observing her.

  Fred gave one last protesting woof and then jumped onto the couch to observe.

  “This is my—my ex-wife, Kate,” said Nolan. “This is Rafe.” He offered no explanation of who Rafe was as he would have in the past. As if they were so tight she should know who he was.

  “It’s nice to meet you.” Kate leaned forward with her hand outstretched.

  Rafe didn’t take it. “Yeah. Okay, brother, I’m gonna bail.”

  “You have to? I got Negra Modelo. Three of them have your name on ’em.”

  “Nah, bro. I was just checking on you.�
� A pointed look directed at Kate. “You call me if you need anything. Or just come over. Rita got the ingredients to cook you that mole you like—she just needs a couple hours’ notice.”

  “Good enough. Send my love,” said Nolan. They locked hands and pulled each other close, bumping right shoulders easily. “See ya.”

  Rafe slipped past, giving Kate the barest nod as he did. He closed the door behind him, and they were alone.

  “So now you’ve seen the place. Kind of pathetic, huh?” His denim voice held a challenge.

  It wasn’t. It was cozy, warm, the furniture broken in and loved-looking. The cushions on the couch—which was possibly also his bed—looked just right to sink into.

  “I wondered if you’d show me those e-mails.” There was no point in taking her time getting to the point. This wasn’t a social visit.

  “Are you serious?”

  She nodded and looked at her feet.

  “Why would I?”

  “Please, Nolan?”

  He muttered something under his breath and then took his laptop from the side table and propped it open on the small kitchen table. A few keystrokes, and a file called “To Do” opened in his Gmail. At least forty e-mails dropped, scrolling down the page.

  “There. You satisfied now?”

  “Holy shit.”

  He nodded. “It’s bad.”

  Kate sat in front of the keyboard, expecting him to stop her.

  But he didn’t. He stood next to her and watched. From the couch, Fred Weasley groaned, far back in his throat.

  She opened the most recent one, dated two days before.

  She’s in pain all the time. Her veins have collapsed. The port actually exploded in her chest. We can hardly get the pain medicine in her. It’s not fair. How long do we have to keep this game of protracting her life going? It’s the worst, most vicious game we’ve ever played, and we’re losing more every day.

  The back of Kate’s throat felt thick. She breathed around the salt that filled her mouth.

  She placed her hands on the keyboard.

  Then she looked up at Nolan.

  “May I?”

  He swallowed. Then he nodded.

  She typed slowly, because everything, after all, for this family, and for her own, depended on this moment.

  We, Robin’s parents, can’t tell you what to do. It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. And none of it is your fault, not her sickness, not her pain. And we know this: You won’t know what to do until you do. And when you know, you’ll know with all your heart that you’re doing the right thing, no matter what that is.

  She took a deep breath and then continued typing.

  Nolan still carries the burden, and Kate carries the same one. Your story will be different from ours. But know that we understand what you are up against, and we stand with you. We pray for peace for you, with you.

  Love, Kate and Nolan Monroe

  She pushed the chair back and turned the computer so Nolan could read it. He dropped into the chair next to her, and as he read, his eyes filled with tears. That muscle at the side of his jaw jumped, the one that twitched when he was angry. He scowled and rubbed his face.

  Then he hit the send button.

  He turned the computer so it was in front of her again. “Do the next one.”

  Now our baby only cries when he thinks we can’t hear him.

  Kate typed:

  Robin used to do that. Kate used to do that, too, when she thought Nolan was far enough away. But it’s important to cry. As a family. Hold on to each other. Forgive each other. It will be harder to hold on to each other later—practice now.

  When she was done, Nolan read it, hit send, and said, “The next one.”

  They stopped using tissues after an hour, letting the tears fall onto the tabletop, wiping their eyes with the backs of their arms. Kate developed a headache that almost blinded her. Nolan gave her ibuprofen before swallowing four himself.

  The last one, the one that Nolan had received first, so many months before, was the hardest.

  He’s gone. I couldn’t do a thing. I couldn’t help. He went, and he was alone because I took a motherfucking walk to see if they had fresh coffee in the cafeteria, and he died by himself. My child. By himself. He’s gone, and I did nothing.

  Kate put her hand over her mouth. She felt Nolan kiss the side of her head.

  Then she typed:

  You did everything you could.

  She wrote their story. Robin had been alone, too, essentially. And now all they had was each other, and it would have to do. They were everything that mattered to each other.

  We understand your pain.

  “We do,” Nolan said. “We do.” He hit send.

  Kate leaned against Nolan. He was solid. Sure. He put his arms around her. “It’s Mother’s Day today,” she said. “Did you know that?”

  A long, shuddered breath. She wasn’t sure whose it was. Another one. It was their breath, then. An apology made of air.

  “I found you,” he whispered.

  “Thank god,” she said. And then she dug her fingers into his shirt, just over where his wings were. She hung on. “Thank god you did.”

  Nolan grabbed her then, wrapping his arms around her. He was strong. He was still strong. “I’m here,” he said. “Still here.”

  She held him tighter, so tightly her arms ached. Then she put her mouth as close as she could to his ear and told him the truth she’d never said out loud. The truth he already knew.

  “If you hadn’t done it, I was going to.”

  It was the first time in years that tears felt like a relief. Like forgiveness.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Sunday, June 1, 2014

  Two weeks later, on Sunday morning, Kate wasn’t paying attention to anything in the world but her painting. When Nolan shambled down from the house carrying two coffee cups, wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothing, she had to blink hard to bring herself back.

  “Hey,” he said. “Am I bugging you? I can go . . .”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “It’s good.”

  Nolan smiled. “Great.”

  Fred Weasley leaped through the oleander and then ran off to investigate the ivy.

  “Only for tonight,” she’d said last week. “One more night.” One night had turned into seven, then fourteen, and Kate knew, if it worked, it would be for longer. It was a terrifying, precarious feeling. They were both standing on the same cliff, looking at each other, each daring the other one to jump. Kate thought of the hang gliders at Fort Funston, and how they ran toward the edge until they ran out of earth. Then, when the ground fell away, they simply picked up their legs and dangled in the air.

  “I can’t believe you never did this before,” Nolan said, gesturing at the bathtub.

  Kate picked up the brush again and went back to it. She was covering the bright blue, little by little, with jewellike spots of color. She was painting a mosaic in paint, bright shards of blue and red and vibrant yellow. The porcelain tub was all together, still of a piece, but in paint she broke it and put it back together. An image was forming, and she wasn’t—for once—planning ahead. It was coming slowly, and so far, she had just a leg at the top right side of the tub, a small dangling leg that reminded her of Icarus’s fall. Trees, like the ginkgoes overhead, were forming on the porcelain. The hillside was the one she stood on. Small strokes of blue and green became the hydrangea next to her. She was painting her hill on the tub, and Robin was running out of the picture, just there, at the top.

  Nolan nodded to the small wooden box at her feet, but before he could say anything more, a voice called down from above.

  “Hello?”

  Kate dropped the brush in the dirt at her feet. Never mind. A little dirt crumbled into the paint would give it texture.

  Pree came down the narrow path. “Hey.”

  “I’m happy you came.” The words seemed small to convey so much.

  “Me, too,” Pree said.

  Nolan
looked confused, as Kate thought he might. He’d catch on soon enough.

  Pree, meanwhile, was looking at Nolan curiously but without antagonism. “Hi,” she offered.

  Nolan ducked his head. Then he gave that sweet shy smile and Kate saw the same one spread across Pree’s face.

  “I wanted to take a walk,” Kate said. “Together. To where Robin’s . . .” She took a deep breath. She hadn’t been there since the day they put half his ashes in the ground, since they pulled the grass back and then rerolled it, like a living rug made more verdant by the bodies below. “To Robin’s grave.”

  Both Nolan and Pree swayed toward each other. Kate was sure neither had noticed, but on another day in a different time Nolan would have taken Pree’s hand. Kate knew it, and her heart wept. And then leaped, for having them both here.

  “This was his favorite body of water,” said Kate. “A bath. Any bath.” She looked at Nolan. “May I leave some of his ashes here?”

  Nolan nodded.

  Kate opened the box and withdrew the plastic bag. She moved to the hydrangea, Robin’s flower, and reached underneath it. She spilled some of the ash, feeling it float back up and brush her wrist. Looking at Nolan, she raised her eyebrows. A question.

  He took the bag from her and spilled more. So small, really, what his body had been reduced to. From their sturdy little boy to this fine grit. “Leave a little,” she whispered. He did, passing the bag back to her.

  She put the bag back in the box and held it tightly as they walked together through the streets. It was such a short walk—a lovely one, past cottages and old homes set back, like theirs, behind gardens that had been growing for dozens of years. Tangles of jasmine bursting into bloom waved in the breeze as they passed.

  Pree took the lead, striding ahead confidently. She knew the way, Kate noticed. Even once inside the great park of the cemetery, she knew which way to turn, which crypts to pass, where to head across the grass. So when they got to Robin’s headstone, Kate wasn’t surprised to hear Nolan say, “Motherfucker.”

  Pree bit her bottom lip.