Shoot the Moon

by Billie Letts

  “I wonder if you could sell me this?” Mark showed her the copy of Parenting he’d been reading.

  “No, but I’ll give it to you.”

  “I’d be glad to pay.”

  “Absolutely not,” she said.

  “You ready?” Hap asked as he joined Mark at the counter.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks again, Barb,” Hap said.

  “You and Matthew come to the house for dinner when you get hungry for my chicken and dumplings.”

  “Soon. Bye now.”

  When they neared the car, Hap said, “Kyle’s blood type is O.”

  “And that means?”

  “He’s not your father.”

  “I brought you something today,” Mark said, handing Ivy the Parenting magazine. “While I was waiting in the doctor’s office for Hap, I read an interesting article about the bond that’s formed between baby and mother during the first six weeks. Thought you might like to see it.”

  “Thanks,” Ivy said. She leafed through the magazine for about thirty seconds, then tossed it on the kitchen table.

  “When is your baby due?” Mark asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “You know what I’m hungry for?” Ivy said as she opened the refrigerator door.

  “Pickles,” Mark guessed.

  “No! I think that’s an old wives’ tale.” She made a face. “The thought of a pickle makes me about half-sick. No, I want stuffed olives dipped in peanut butter.”

  “That’s certainly one of my favorites. But you still haven’t told me.”

  “Told you what?” Ivy asked.

  “Your due date.”

  “Oh, it’s another six, seven weeks,” she said. “Here they are.” She took a jar of olives from the door of the fridge, then went to the cabinet for peanut butter. “Smooth,” she read on the label. “Damn. Extra crunchy’s the best.”

  “Have you picked out a name yet?”

  “A name?”

  “Yeah, for the baby.”

  “No. I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

  “Well, say it’s a boy. How about Roger?”

  “That sounds good.” She dipped an olive into the peanut butter, then popped it into her mouth. “Um.” She dipped another, held it out to Mark.

  “No, I only eat mine with crunchy,” he said.

  “Purist.”

  “Stella if it’s a girl?” Mark asked.

  “I’ll consider it. You want a cookie?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  Ivy opened a box of ginger snaps and dipped one into the peanut butter.

  “You think you and the baby will live here with your mom?”

  “She put you up to this, didn’t she.”

  “Up to what?”

  “Giving me the third degree about this baby.”

  “No! Well, not exactly. I mean, I’m interested, too. Interested in knowing when your baby’s coming, what you’re going to name it and—”

  “Where I’m going to raise it, how I’m going to afford it. Just a few casual questions, huh?”

  “Sorry, Ivy, if I’ve gotten too personal.”

  “Mark, I’m going to level with you, but I hope you won’t tell my mom. This news needs to come from me and me alone. I just haven’t told her yet.”

  “Told her what?”

  “I’ve decided to put the baby up for adoption.”

  April 30, 1969

  Dear Diary,

  I went out with Oscar tonight. We ate at the Dairy Queen, then went to the Plaza to see The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. It was really good. Made me cry.

  Oscar held my hand when we left the theatre and when he took me home, he kissed me once after we parked in front of my house, and again when he walked me to the door.

  He’s a good kisser.

  Spider Woman

  May 28, 1969

  Dear Diary,

  I got a summer job today working for Arthur McFadden at the radio station. I’ll have an office right at the front of the building and my own desk. My job will be to answer the telephone, do all the typing and filing. Mr. McFadden, my boss, said if I do a good job, he might let me work at the station part-time after school starts next fall.

  I met his stepson, Kyle Leander, while I was there. He’s a lot older than I am, but he doesn’t act like it. I’ve heard he’s strange and takes drugs, but I don’t know if that’s true. Guess I’ll find out though because I start tomorrow.

  Spider Woman

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Mark was already awake when he heard Teeve in the kitchen, but he stayed in bed, feeling some unnamed dread about the new day.

  Soon he heard coffee brewing, smelled the bread baking and the sweet, rich aroma of vanilla, which made him think of Luz and her world-class flan that seemed to cure any illness, heal any wound.

  He dozed again but roused when he heard Ivy’s bare feet padding into the kitchen. Suddenly his dread had a name.

  “Ivy!” Teeve said. “Honey, what are you doing up at this hour? Are you okay?”

  “Got any peanut butter left?” Ivy asked.

  “So you’re the one who’s been at the peanut butter. First it was mayonnaise, now—”

  “I can’t find the olives,” Ivy said.

  “Olives?”

  “Here they are.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Eating breakfast.”

  “Olives and peanut butter? I can’t even imagine the kind of appetite that child of yours is going to have. You know, when I was pregnant with you, I craved ketchup. Put it on eggs, peas, apples. Made ketchup sandwiches. Funny how pregnancy—”

  “Mom, I got up early because I need to talk to you before you go to the pool hall.”

  “Good. I’ve been hoping you would.”

  “Yeah, I figured that’s why you sicced Mark on me last night, trying to get information.”

  Mark cringed. Not so much at the conversation taking place in the next room as the fact that he was overhearing it.

  “Well, Ivy, you haven’t told me what your plans are.”

  “First of all, some of this stuff is just going to happen, Mom. This baby is coming with or without a plan.”

  “But what about later?” Teeve asked. “Are you and the baby going to stay here with me? You know I’d love that, but if you decide you want to have your own home, I understand. Kate Morey down at the end of the block, she’s putting her house on the market, moving into one of those assisted living places. Now, Kate’s house is nice. And reasonable, too. I could help you with the down payment.”

  “Mom, I won’t be staying in DeClare. I’ll be moving on. Probably head somewhere in the Northwest.”

  “Oh, honey, I was so hoping you two would stay here with me.”

  “You’re not listening, Mom. I said I’ll be moving on.”

  Teeve looked stumped. “I don’t get it. You. You’ll be moving on. What about the baby?”

  Mark covered his head with his pillow, trying to block out the conversation that was going to tear the two women apart.

  “Mom, I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, and it’s going to hurt you. So much. But . . . well . . .”

  “Say it, Ivy.”

  “I’ve decided not to keep the baby.”

  “What does that mean?” Teeve asked, her voice taking on a different tone.

  “I’m going to put the baby up for adoption.”

  Following a silence that seemed to last a lifetime, Teeve said, “I don’t believe you,” her voice brittle, thin. “You wouldn’t do that. You couldn’t.”

  “I can. I have to. Not for me, but for her.”

  “A girl? You’ve had an ultrasound?”

  “No. But I know. Somehow I just know.”

  “A granddaughter.” Teeve choked back a sob. “And you’re going to give her away. Like a book you’re not interested in reading. Or a plant you don’t want to take care
of. You’re just going to give her away.”

  Mark heard Teeve sit heavily in a kitchen chair, could imagine her with her elbows on the table, her head in her hands, unable to hold back the tears.

  “Mom, a child needs two parents, and in my case, since I’m not gay, that would mean a mother and a father. I can’t be both.”

  “Of course you can. I was.”

  “You did a hell of a job of it, too. But I’m not you. You were able to manage me, a home, a business. I can’t do that.”

  “Then stay here with me. You know I’ll help.”

  “No, you raised one child. You don’t need to raise another. That wouldn’t be fair to you or to her.”

  “Ivy, you would be a wonderful mother.”

  “Mom, I’ve worked with kids being raised by one parent. Women and men worn down by lack of money and time. Never enough sleep, never enough energy. Going without health care, trying to make the rice and beans and milk last until payday. Their kids in day care, preschool, after-school centers because Mommy or Daddy works two jobs, takes classes at night, prays their car’s transmission and tires will last until they get their tax refunds.

  “It’s a scary world, especially if you’re trying to raise a child alone, but if you have a partner, someone to help you make the big decisions, someone to take over when you’re too tired to fix supper, someone to take turns staying up with a sick baby, then the bad times must seem bearable.”

  “Ivy, you’ve never been scared of anything.”

  “You’re wrong. I was scared when Navy left us. Scared when I’d see you cry, scared whenever someone came to the door at night, scared when you’d have to leave me alone for the time it took you to go to the drugstore for my cough syrup or antibiotics or—”

  “But Ivy, there’s no guarantee that the people who take . . . take your baby—” Teeve’s voice was broken by weeping.

  “No, I get to have a say in who adopts her. I’ve been to the Chosen Child Agency in Tulsa. I can choose the adoptive parents. I can find a couple who can give my baby the kinds of advantages I can’t. Education. Travel. She’ll know music and art.

  “She’ll have the luxury of being a child who won’t have to face the humiliation of signing up for free lunches, who won’t be made fun of because she doesn’t wear the right kind of clothes, who will never have to bring her friends home to the low-income housing where she and her mother live.”

  “Ivy,” Teeve said, “I’ve always believed there are very few decisions we make that can ruin our lives. But giving up your child is one of them. It will be a mistake you’ll regret for the rest of your life. And there’s no going back.”

  After Mark turned the burner off under the eggs, he poured batter onto the waffle maker and switched on the coffeepot. He set the kitchen table for two, adding bright green place mats, matching napkins and a vase of zinnias he’d picked from Teeve’s garden.

  Then he went as quietly as he could down the hallway to Ivy’s closed bedroom door, where he heard her crying. He started back to the kitchen, trying not to make any noise, but the rubber tip from his crutch made a squealing sound against the hardwood floor.

  “What are you doing out there, Mark?” Ivy asked.

  “How do you know it’s not your mom?”

  “She left for the pool hall a half hour ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than stand out there listening to me blowing my nose?”

  “Thought you might like to join me for breakfast.”

  “I’ve already had breakfast,” she said.

  “Yeah. Olives and peanut butter.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “Waffles and scrambled eggs.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Okay.” Mark returned to the kitchen, took up the eggs and the waffles—golden brown now—arranged them on two plates and placed them on the table along with two glasses of milk.

  He’d just sat down and poured syrup on his waffle when Ivy came in and sat opposite him.

  “Looks like you were pretty sure I’d take you up on your offer,” she said.

  “No, but I hoped you would.”

  At first, they ate in silence. Finally Ivy said, “I guess you heard everything earlier this morning.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “I really hurt my mother.”

  “Probably.”

  More silence.

  “What about you?” Mark asked.

  “Me?”

  “You’re hurting, too. More than your mom, I suspect.”

  Ivy stared at him as she began to cry again.

  “I’m sorry, Ivy. I didn’t mean to say anything that would make this worse for you.”

  “Then don’t be nice to me. Don’t feel sorry for me, don’t fix me breakfast, don’t try to make me feel better. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Okay.” Mark grabbed her plate, picked up his own and took them to the sink.

  “Hey, I wasn’t finished with that.”

  “Yes, you were. Your nose just dripped into your waffle.”

  Ivy reached into her blouse pocket, pulled out a tissue and wiped her nose.

  “Now, you stay right there,” Mark said. “I’ve got something to show you.”

  He left Ivy snuffling at the table, went to the den and returned with a small duffel bag. He sat down and began to remove items from the bag, lining them up on the table, one at a time. He took out a blue bootie, Gaylene’s diary, some photographs, a tube of lipstick, a key chain, some dried goldenrod and a senior ring.

  “Where did you get all this stuff?” Ivy asked.

  “From Kyle. Rowena. Enid.”

  “Why are you showing me these?”

  “Because they’re all, in one way or another, connected to my mother. But they’re just things.” Mark stared at Ivy, unblinking. “Do you know what that means?”

  Ivy shook her head.

  “It’s all I have of my mother. Pictures, some old flowers, a ring. But no memories. I have no memory of her. Not one memory of the woman who gave me life. I’m never going to remember her reading to me or kissing me good night; I’m never going to recall her teaching me to swim or giving me my first bike. I will never recollect a birthday cake she baked for me, or her warning about looking both ways before crossing the street, or telling me not to run with scissors.”

  “But you’re not in my situation. You don’t know—”

  “Ivy, I don’t know if your decision is right or wrong. That’s not for me to say.”

  “Mark, you were adopted, and even though your folks weren’t as warm and loving as they could have been, they gave you a safe life.”

  “Safe?” Mark was thoughtful for a few moments. “Ivy, I never felt like I fit in. Had no idea why, but I suppose it was my personality. I’ve always been insecure, but I covered it by being obnoxious. Tried to make everyone think I was superior.

  “But something was not quite right. When I asked where I got my dark skin or my black hair, the answer was my grandfather who died before I was born. Any pictures of him? Any pictures of me as a baby? No, they were conveniently destroyed in a house fire. Where did I get this scar on my head? Easy answer. I fell down some steps when I first started to walk.

  “Was I damaged by any of that? Yes, I think so. In a very subtle way. I developed some vague disapproval of who I was because I didn’t look or behave like my parents. At times, I just didn’t feel like I belonged.

  “Maybe that’s why I failed at so much.”

  “Failed. You haven’t failed. You have a successful career, your own clinic. You own—”

  “Yes, but it’s not what I thought it would be. I became a vet because I love animals, wanted to relieve their suffering, help them live more comfortably. Or die without pain. I suppose I saw myself as a rescuer.

  “But what I’ve ended up doing is cosmetic surgery. Scrotum tucks on aging dogs, breast reductions on cats that
were allowed to deliver too many litters. I’ve performed a nose job on a poodle because the owner thought her precious ‘Pearl’ felt self-conscious about her appearance. I’ve done penile implants on animals more interested in sleep than breeding and eye jobs on Pekingese so they wouldn’t look so Asian.”

  “That seems so wrong.”

  “It was. It is.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Because of my father. It was his clinic; he called the shots. And I was still trying to please him. Guess I still am.”

  “But there’s more to what you do than implants and nose jobs.”

  “Oh, now and then I get to save a pet that’s been hit by a car or has a kinked bowel or tumor. And sometimes I put down an animal that’s in misery. But mostly I’m a plastic surgeon to the pets of Beverly Hills, owned by people about as real as paper flowers.

  “But Ivy, you’re the most real person I’ve ever known. And I think your child would be so lucky to have you for a mom. For sure, she’d have more than this.” Mark gestured to the objects he’d placed on the table.

  “And she’d never have to say, ‘I have no memory of my mother. Not one memory of the woman who gave me birth.’”

  July 8, 1969

  Dear Diary,

  Oscar came over this evening to tell me good-bye because today he joined the Marines. He had to get his mother out of jail last night because she was arrested on a public drunk charge. He said he’s had enough.

  I wish he had finished school first, but he said he had to get away and the military was the only way he knew how. I just hope he doesn’t get sent to Vietnam. Lots of American boys are getting killed over there.

  Spider Woman

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  After Ivy left for a doctor’s appointment, Mark put the dishes in the dishwasher, rinsed out the coffeepot and wiped off the stove and cabinet, all the while thinking about her, about what he’d said to her. He felt uncomfortable at some of the comments he’d made, felt like a pretender to wisdom he didn’t have. After all, who could know better what she should do than Ivy herself?

  When he started repacking the duffel bag, he looked at the photos again, then picked up the ring, Gaylene’s senior ring. He studied the design, the stone, the facsimile of her high school and the year, 1970.