To See the Moon Again

by Jamie Langston Turner

  That was Carmen, always looking for the best in people. To Julia it sounded like the kind of statement someone would carefully craft to market himself as noble and generous. She would like to ask Ferde Grofé what he did with the money he earned from the Grand Canyon Suite. Had he given all of that to the American people, too?

  They rode in silence for several minutes as Carmen continued to study the insert. It was a pleasant pattern they had already fallen into: periods of quiet between the CDs and radio. And the talking, of course. Perhaps more talking than Julia would have chosen, yet she had to give Carmen credit—she could take a hint when Julia was ready to be done.

  “I went to the Grand Canyon one time,” Carmen said now. “It was one of the few trips we took when I was a kid. We rode there in Daddy’s pickup truck and stayed two nights in a motel. But we never did it again. It made Lulu too nervous to be away from home.” She closed the insert, then studied the picture on the front, an artist’s rendering of the Grand Canyon at sunset. “Did you ever go on any trips when you were growing up? I don’t remember Daddy ever talking about it if you did.”

  The casual tone was a ploy, something the girl had obviously discovered to be more successful for getting answers to her questions, especially questions concerning Julia’s childhood, about which she seemed genuinely interested, though Julia knew that her greater interest was in Jeremiah’s childhood. Head bent, Carmen pretended to be very busy trying to fit the insert back into the case, as if she didn’t much care whether Julia answered or not.

  Julia wasn’t fooled, but she answered the question anyway. “Only one I can remember,” she said.

  “Yeah? Where did you go?” Carmen asked.

  So Julia told her.

  As navigator, her mother had had only one tool—road maps, the uncooperative ones that would never fold back up the right way. Unfortunately, some of them were also out of date, which, along with the hubbub of having three children in the car, resulted in more than one wrong turn. Her father’s way of dealing with such errors was to pummel the dashboard and steering wheel while shouting insults at her mother, the children, other drivers, and the people who made the road maps.

  It was the only family trip they ever took after her father’s accident. All the way from Alabama to Missouri to visit her mother’s parents, and all the way back again. Julia realized now that her father must have been under tremendous physical duress the whole time he was driving—an activity expressly forbidden by his doctor, whom he always referred to as “Peabrain Peters.” As a child, however, she was aware of only one thing: her deep fear that the trip would never end or that none of them would still be alive when it did.

  She remembered cowering in the backseat, never relaxing for a minute, trying to shush Jeremiah, who kept saying he was thirsty or hungry or needed to go to the bathroom. He couldn’t have been more than five, but already he and their father were at odds. When their father threatened at one point to make them all get out and walk, Jeremiah spoke up at once. There was no way Julia could stop him fast enough. “But Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t like it if you got there and we weren’t with you,” he said in his clear, flutelike voice. It wasn’t exactly sarcasm, or sass, but simply a bright child’s way of noting the humor in an adult’s silly statement. But because almost anything Jeremiah ever said was assigned to the broad category of “impertinence,” their father took immediate offense.

  Julia remembered how wildly the car had swerved on the two-lane road, accompanied by a horn blast from an oncoming car, as her father swung an arm into the backseat, trying to make contact with some part of Jeremiah’s body. He hit Julia’s Chatty Cathy doll instead, knocking her onto the floor and activating her voice. “Let’s have a party!” the doll said. Jeremiah made the mistake of giggling at this, and their father slammed on the brakes and careened off the road. The car stopped at a crazy angle, the nose aimed down into a wide shallow ditch.

  Their father must have realized the difficulty of administering a spanking in such close quarters, especially since he seemed to have pulled a muscle and raised a welt on his hand, for he proceeded to deliver only a tongue-lashing about “back talk,” in which he included everyone in the car, even Julia’s doll that didn’t know when to keep her blankety-blank mouth shut.

  For Jeremiah, scoldings were so routine by now that he generally failed to be attentive, much less impressed, often putting him in double jeopardy: a spanking for the original crime and another for contempt of court. But not this time. Her father never even turned around to see Jeremiah laying both sticky hands against the window and tracing around them with his tongue.

  Julia remembered very little of the actual visit with her grandparents. She had seen them only a few times in her life, had never before been to their house, though they always sent nice presents for birthdays and Christmas. They were the ones, in fact, who had given her the Chatty Cathy doll for her last birthday. She had only vague memories of them: her grandmother’s large, soft lap and sad, droopy eyes, her grandfather’s stooped posture and his fondness for peppermints. She remembered sleeping in a white room with two white beds and yellow striped curtains. And she remembered saying good-bye, being pressed close to her grandmother, smelling her talcum powder and feeling her shake as she wept.

  On the way back, her mother drove the car, with all three children jammed elbow to elbow in the front seat while their father lay on the backseat updating them every two minutes as to the degree of his discomfort and the further damage to his back.

  “Pamela was the lucky one on that trip,” Julia said to Carmen. “She was too young to remember it.”

  Carmen was quiet for a moment before venturing, “The part about the doll is pretty funny—but I can say that because it didn’t happen to me.” She turned to look out the window. “Daddy was such a different kind of father from that. It’s hard to see how the two of them could’ve been related, isn’t it?”

  “It was the accident,” Julia said. “My father never got over it. Not physically, not mentally, not emotionally. He took it out on the world, and since it was our misfortune to be stuck in the same house with him, we bore the brunt of it.” Even as she said it, she realized that this was something she had never before put into words. To Carmen it must have sounded like a prelude to forgiveness, or the act itself, though Julia knew she was in no way capable of ever doing that.

  Carmen seemed to be thinking this over, but then she said, “I actually remember Daddy telling me about that doll of yours—I’m sure you already know why.” She didn’t wait for a reply. “What other things could your Chatty Cathy say?” This, too, was typical of the girl, buying time, suspending the discussion of something important by circling back to a trivial detail.

  But trivial details were fine with Julia. She didn’t want to talk about her father anymore. “Oh, let’s see—she could say, ‘Tell me a story’ and ‘Please brush my hair’ and ‘Let’s play house’ and ‘May I have a cookie?’ Those were some I remember. And ‘I love you.’”

  She could have told Carmen that her Chatty Cathy doll mysteriously lost her voice shortly after the trip, that one day when she went to pull the ring behind the doll’s neck, there was nothing to pull. The ring was gone, with only an empty pinhole where the string used to be. But there was no reason to get into all that—her mother’s dissolving into tears when she saw it, Julia’s own inconsolable grief, the fact that she never said a word to her father for fear that next time she might find one of the doll’s limbs missing, or the pretty blue eyes that opened and closed, or the blond hair on her head, or her whole head. To think that she had a father who would do such a thing filled her with horror and shame. And a great deal of anger, which she took care to conceal.

  She had loved the doll before that, but thereafter she loved her obsessively, with a sentimentality born of pity, as one would love a blind puppy. From that day on, Julia stayed in her bedroom more than ever, and she took to hiding Chatty Cathy whenever she wasn’t home. She never carried the d
oll out in public after that, for she didn’t want to run the risk of exposing her handicap to others.

  Well, goodness, enough of all that, she told herself now. You couldn’t go through life whimpering over a little thing like a doll. Such was life. She had gone through much worse things than a broken doll. And so had other people. She glanced over at Carmen, who was staring into space, her lips pursed as if whistling, though no sound came out.

  • • •

  JULIA wanted to be behind the wheel of a car as little as possible in the four major cities they would be visiting before beginning their authors’ tour. To this end she had instructed Carmen during the planning stages to find hotels within walking distance of the main tourist attractions. They would locate their hotel, park there, and then do their sightseeing on foot. Or if they couldn’t walk somewhere, they could take a taxi, maybe a subway or bus if they could figure out the right one.

  Washington, D.C., was the first stop. They could only sample it, of course, so it was a matter of selecting. The National Zoo was Julia’s choice, an easy one after learning that Carmen had never been to a zoo. After some deliberation, Carmen chose the National Mall. Even then, they would have to keep moving to see them both.

  After arriving in the city, finding their hotel, and eating lunch, they walked to the Mall and spent the afternoon visiting the monuments and war memorials. “It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Carmen said as they stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking across the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument. “To be able to see such a little bit, when you could spend days and days here. It feels sort of like a . . . desecration, doesn’t it?”

  At the World War II Memorial, they separated briefly while Julia moved around the oval walkway taking pictures of the arches, pillars, fountains. When she returned to the Pacific Tower, she found Carmen bent down in front of an old man in a wheelchair, listening, nodding earnestly. “This is Clarence Baker,” she said when she looked up and saw Julia, “and this is Clarence Baker, Jr.” She gestured toward the younger man at his side. “They’re both veterans—World War II and Vietnam.” The old man lifted a finger and said something with great vigor, though indistinguishable. It was then that Julia saw the tears coursing down his face.

  Carmen took one of the old man’s hands in hers. “Thank you for what you did for our country.” She looked up at his son. “Thank you both. You’re true heroes.” She patted the old man’s hand gently and smiled. “And thank you for sharing all those things with me,” she said. “We owe you so much.”

  “What was he telling you?” Julia said as they walked away.

  “I don’t know,” Carmen said. “I couldn’t understand any of it, but his son said he fought in the Pacific and was in the Bataan Death March.”

  • • •

  THE next morning they took the Metro to the National Zoo. They started at the Cheetah Conservation Station and wound their way down Olmsted Walk to the emus, then the elephants, the small mammals, the apes, reptiles, lions, and tigers. After the Kids’ Farm, they started back toward the front entrance, stopping by Lemur Island, Gibbon Ridge, and Beaver Valley. In Julia’s opinion, the whole experience verged on sensory overload—sights, sounds, smells. Even touch, for Carmen insisted on joining the children who were petting the goats at the Kids’ Farm.

  They took their time, stopping all along the way for Carmen to sketch pictures of animals in her journal while Julia took notes in hers. They ended near the entrance again, saving the Bird House and Asia Trail for last, and it was here, along the Asia Trail, where something unforgettable happened. Julia knew the lemurs and clouded leopards and otters and flamingos and all the rest would fall out of her mind eventually, but this was the memory she would keep.

  It was midafternoon. Along the stone walk near the giant panda house, they heard a commotion ahead of them, but not the sounds of animals this time. As they approached, they saw what was happening. A young woman some thirty feet away was trying to get a little girl into a double stroller, where a docile baby was already installed. The girl, perhaps three, was throwing a fit. Not just the garden variety, but a royal hissy fit, as Pamela would say.

  The mother snapped the child’s lap belt and pushed the stroller forward, but the child unsnapped it and lunged out, shrieking, “Papa! Papa!” then took off down the walkway in a gangly but purposeful gallop. The mother, a slight woman but stronger than she looked, and very quick, plucked her up and reinstated her in the stroller, amid much screaming and churning of arms and legs, and the whole cycle started again. The mother never raised her voice, but remained focused and seemingly unperturbed, whispering in the child’s ear when she picked her up. As if the child could hear anything but her own screams.

  Everyone along this part of the Asia Trail was curious, of course, Julia included, though she knew it was an unflattering commentary on human nature that such spectacles always made onlookers feel superior. Some people were only sneaking glances, but others were gawking openly, some of them stopping in their tracks to do so, drifting together in little clumps and remarking audibly: Can you believe that? I know what that child needs. Kids today—parents let them run the show.

  And then, all of a sudden, from right beside Julia, came Carmen’s commanding voice: “Come on, people, let’s don’t just stand here! Let’s pitch in and help her!” She burst into action, sprinting ahead. Julia followed, more than a little embarrassed. As they drew near, the child flung herself onto the walkway, rolling onto her back this time, kicking, pumping her arms and legs, screeching, gasping over and over, “Papa! Papa!”

  With one hand on the stroller, the young mother knelt near her, but far enough away to avoid getting hit or bitten. She was pleading with the child. Carmen touched the woman’s arm, and she looked up, startled. “I can push the stroller so you can carry her,” Carmen said. “Maybe she’ll calm down that way.” She nodded toward a bench. “Or maybe we can move over there and sit down. Will she let you hold her?”

  The mother shook her head. “At these times she does not want me. I cannot reason with her.” She spoke with an accent. She looked back to her daughter and said something in what sounded like French. Carmen knelt down beside her close to the child, whose eyes were tightly shut. She was still crying and writhing but appeared to be winding down. “Hey, there, kiddo,” Carmen said, “what’s up? Bonjour, ma petite. Tu es tres jolie. Je m’appelle Carmen.”

  As if Carmen had flipped a switch, the child went still and opened her eyes. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and began sucking furiously, glaring up at her. “I don’t really speak French,” Carmen said to the mother. “I have a neighbor who’s a French teacher. He taught me a few words.” The mother gave a wan smile and reached over to push the child’s hair away from her face. The girl swatted at her hand angrily.

  A short, bald man came forward, holding out his hand. “Here’s a piece of candy. Would that help?” Julia took the candy and handed it to the mother, who gave another weak smile. A teenager appeared: “I could do some magic tricks for her. I do shows for kids’ parties all the time. I’m a ventriloquist, too.” A woman with a little girl of her own offered a stuffed bear. “Would she like to see Gumpo? Mary Beth will let her hold him. He’s very soft and huggable.” Another woman knelt down in front of the baby, who had by now begun to fuss. She rocked the stroller a little and made soft clicking sounds out the side of her mouth. “Does he have a pacifier?” she asked.

  The mother dug a bottle out of a stroller pouch. “This is what he wants.” At the sight of it, the baby let out little mewls of longing.

  And this was how it came to be that Carmen sat on a bench along the Asia Trail at the National Zoo one day in early October, with a little girl named Josette in her lap, beside the child’s mother and baby brother, while a small crowd stood around watching a teenage boy pull coins out of people’s ears and carry on a funny conversation with Gumpo the stuffed bear. It was like a scene in an old movie—the kind where good things materialize on cue. A warm and f
uzzy moment. If Julia hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed it could happen in a public place in this day and age.

  Before they parted, Josette’s mother told Carmen and Julia what had triggered Josette’s temper tantrum. It was a short story, and very sad. At the zoo not half an hour earlier, Josette had seen a man in the crowd—a stranger, but tall and bearded like her father, wearing a dark wool cap like his—and she thought it was her father. All in the world she wanted was for him to pick her up and hold her and carry her home. The saddest part of the story was this: “My husband went away three months ago,” the mother told them. “He has not come back or called. He does not want us any longer. How do you tell this to a child?”

  • • •

  THEY took the Metro from the zoo back to the National Mall and found a nice restaurant for dinner. Carmen tore open another packet of sugar to add to her tea, for they had apparently reached the Land of Unsweetened Tea. She stirred it for a long time. At length she sighed and said, “I’ll never forget Josette.”

  Julia nodded. She knew nothing could have aroused Carmen’s pity more than a little girl who wanted her father. The waiter brought a covered basket to the table, lifted out two small, crusty loaves with a pair of silver tongs, and set them on the bread plates.

  “I hope she’ll see her papa again,” Carmen said, “but I’m so afraid she won’t.”