To See the Moon Again

by Jamie Langston Turner

  “Who’s Luna?” Sheila said.

  “The midwife.”

  Sheila asked, “You know her last name?”

  “I do in fact,” Carmen said. “I asked her one day, and she told me. Fiorelli. Isn’t that pretty? It means little flowers. Her father was Italian. Luna Fiorelli—I loved it. I told her it was mellifluous. We laughed about it. It was the only time I remember seeing her laugh.”

  Sheila unearthed the phone book from a stack of old magazines and newspapers, but there was no listing for anybody named Fiorelli. Carmen tried different spellings, but still nothing. Sheila called information, but they had no listing either.

  Another record was playing now—a bluesy rendition of “Paper Moon.” Hope returned to the kitchen with a folded newspaper, which she handed to Sheila.

  Sheila looked at it. “I didn’t know we still had this.” She pointed to a small article at the bottom of the page and passed it across the table to Julia and Carmen.

  The newspaper was dated two years earlier. The picture was small, but Carmen recognized the man at once. Together, she and Julia read the brief article, which stated simply that Ernest Thornton, director of Babies First Mission, had made a donation to a Pittsfield charity for low-income housing before closing the adoption agency and retiring with his wife overseas.

  Carmen said, “That was nice of him to do that.”

  “People give money to charities for tax deductions,” Julia said. “And sometimes to salve a guilty conscience.”

  All was quiet except for the sounds of something being chopped on a cutting board.

  Suddenly Carmen looked at Julia. “Remember when Uncle Butch told us nobody’s personal information is secret anymore? He said if you know how to do it, you can find out almost anything about anybody on the computer.”

  Julia nodded. It was true, Butch had said that.

  “We don’t have a computer,” Sheila said.

  Carmen said, “I know, but Uncle Butch does. He knows computers inside out. He’s pretty much a genius.” She looked back at Julia. “You have your cell phone handy?”

  “He’ll want to know why you’re looking for her,” Julia said.

  “I’ll tell him,” Carmen said.

  Julia dug her phone out of her purse and handed it over.

  The girl turned it on. “Hey, good deal, it’s even charged.” She stood up. “I’ll be back.”

  • • •

  CARMEN walked up and down the length of Sheila and Hope’s driveway as she talked on the phone, one hand inside her jacket pocket, her hair whipping around her head. Julia watched from the bay window in the living room, struck by the fact that all it took was a windy day and a little distance to notice how long the girl’s hair had grown. And to notice how much more mature she looked now than when she had first shown up at the stone house, though part of that was likely due to things Julia knew about the girl now that she hadn’t known then. She stopped to count—not even four months ago. In many ways it seemed more like four years. She looked at her watch again. Time was skewed here, too. It seemed like Carmen had been outside much longer than ten minutes.

  It was chilly in the living room. Julia could feel the cold emanating off the bay window. She pulled her cardigan up around her neck and buttoned it. She turned and studied the room—the Old Curiosity Shop, New England style. Everywhere she looked she saw something she hadn’t noticed earlier. Late sunlight fell across the floor onto an ornate mirror propped between two recliners. Someone had swiped a hand across its surface, which was thick with dust. A birdcage sat crookedly on a pile of blankets in a corner next to a spinning wheel, and on the mantel sat several large conch shells and a collection of clocks, all of them showing different times.

  An enormous calico cat emerged from the narrow, dark hallway that tunneled to the back rooms and padded across the living room and through the doorway leading into the dining room. Seconds later from the kitchen Julia heard Sheila’s voice: “There’s my Lolly baby! Come here to Mommy, you fat cat.”

  The phonograph was still going, but someone had turned the volume down. A jazzy trumpet was playing faintly. Julia turned back to the window to watch Carmen. She was still walking, bent against the keening wind with the phone to her ear. The sun had dropped to just above the treetops, and beneath the bank of clouds the sky was going red around the edges.

  Carmen reached the far end of the driveway, made a quick turn, and started back, the wind behind her now. Julia wished she hadn’t gone outside. She wanted to hear her side of the conversation. No doubt Pamela was standing right next to Butch, listening in. No, she had probably switched it to speakerphone so she wouldn’t miss a word. She was probably bombarding Carmen with questions.

  Here was another way Julia wouldn’t have made a good parent. She would have driven a child to desperation, hovering, advising, watching like a hawk for any sign of trouble, leaping to wild, panicky conclusions. Though she wouldn’t have been openly nosy the way Pamela was, she would have been very capable of reading diaries and listening in on phone conversations. She would have worried endlessly.

  As she watched, she saw the girl lift her head and laugh. Maybe it was the funnel of autumn leaves suddenly spawned by the wind and sent whirling across the front yard, or maybe it was something Butch or Pam had said. But then Julia saw what it was—a V of dark geese flying low against the gray clouds, their great wings laboring, their honks a muffled chorus. Carmen stopped walking and with her index finger traced their flight across the sky.

  Migrating birds fascinated her. She could talk about them for hours, as well as all kinds of other creatures that made long, purposeful journeys. Butterflies, salmon, whales. Only weeks ago they had watched a program on the History Channel about the dog team that ran six hundred miles to carry a supply of diphtheria serum to sick children in Nome, Alaska, many years ago. Though that had been a trip supervised by men, it still won her admiration. At the end Carmen had looked at Julia, her eyes glowing. “I wish I could have been one of the mushers on that trip, don’t you? Watching those dogs just keep on and on and on for such a good cause—how inspiring!” Julia assured her that she wished nothing of the kind.

  Carmen finally headed inside, and Julia moved from the window to the dining room table, where she pretended to be looking through the stacks of old LPs. The jazz album was still playing, now a souped-up clarinet rendition of the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Such a gorgeous, yearning tune. Such simple words. Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say. I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday. Like most songs written by young people, it spoke of such small sorrows, nothing close to the kind they would face later, after weathering their first heartbreaks.

  She didn’t look up when Carmen came in. She tried to sound casual. “So I guess you told them.”

  Carmen sat down on the dining room floor and leaned her head back against the wall. “I told them everything,” she said. “They were . . . incredulous.” She laughed. “But not speechless. Definitely not speechless. Especially Aunt Pam. Uncle Butch doesn’t think Luna will be hard to track down. He’s getting right on it. He knows about search engines most people have never heard of. He’ll call back as soon as he finds out something.” With both hands she gathered up her hair and scrunched it into a bushy ponytail. “It’s a good thing I called when I did. They were just getting ready to go bowling.”

  Julia tried to form a picture of her sister and brother-in-law bowling. It wasn’t anything she would want to watch from behind.

  “I’m so nervous I can hardly stand it,” Carmen said. She let go of her hair and shook it out. “He’s going to check birth records, too, but he doesn’t think we’ll get anywhere with that. Even if it wasn’t done under the table, birth certificates for adoptions are usually amended, he said. That means the new parents’ names are on the final record, not the birth parents’.”

  Sheila came to the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. “We have supper almost ready. You’re staying to eat. I’ll
call you when it’s time. Hope’s starting a fire in the woodstove.” She left, and they heard sounds from the kitchen—thunks and scrapes, the rattle of dishes, the whistle of a teakettle.

  • • •

  A SHORT while later they gathered in the kitchen again. Julia wasn’t hungry—the muffins and cider had taken care of that—but whatever was cooking smelled good, and somebody had put together a nice salad of greens, dried fruit, and walnuts. Sheila was slicing a loaf of bread at the counter, and Hope stood with her back to them, stirring whatever was in the pot. The cat was curled on a braided rug at her feet.

  The woodstove, an insert in a small brick fireplace by the back door, stood somewhat lopsided on little splayed feet of tarnished brass. A rectangle of tempered glass in the door furnished a cloudy view into its interior, and a tin washtub of roughhewn logs sat beside it. Already Julia could feel the kitchen warming up.

  “Grab a bowl and serve yourselves,” Sheila said.

  It was chili, Hope’s special recipe that called for venison instead of beef. As they ate, Carmen summarized her phone call. Julia’s cell phone was on the table, the ringer volume turned to high.

  Presently Sheila began a long, convoluted tale about a folksinger friend of theirs named Lolly, after whom their cat was named. Lolly, the friend, had a colorful history. Her great-grandmother had been a survivor on the Titanic and had read in her horoscope the night before she set sail from England that The floods of life will not overtake you. On her deathbed the great-grandmother had given Lolly a silver teaspoon she had snitched from the ship, and Lolly had it made into a bracelet, which she wore every day.

  The jumble of details about Lolly was hard to keep up with. Julia wondered if she had missed something—such as why they had named their cat after this woman. Sheila went from one story to the next in rapid succession, stopping only occasionally for small, quick bites of food. Even though Julia’s attention came and went, she did appreciate what Sheila was doing—filling up time as they waited for Butch’s phone call. No need for anyone else to say anything, but no empty awkward silences either.

  At some point Hope rose from the table and returned with a fresh pot of tea. “Jasmine,” she said as she plunked it down on the table.

  “. . . and she sells them at different craft fairs all over,” Sheila was saying now. Evidently she was still talking about Lolly. “Here’s one she made for me last summer.” She reached inside the neck of her sweater and hauled out a long chain with ivory Scrabble tiles dangling from it. Some of the tiles were turned the wrong way, so it was hard to tell if the letters spelled anything. She lifted the necklace over her head and laid it on the table. “She buys up all kinds of old board games. Hope has one made out of Monopoly pieces,” she said. “Don’t you, Hope?” Hope made no reply, didn’t even look up from the slice of bread she was sopping in a saucer of olive oil.

  On Sheila went. “And she makes these Clue necklaces, with all the colored tokens and the little weapons. The candlestick and the revolver and the knife and the lead pipe and the, let’s see, the . . .”

  “I didn’t tell you exactly what kind of dream I had about my baby.” Carmen spoke clearly, loudly. “It was more like a vision. I already told Aunt Julia about it.”

  “. . . and there was a wrench and a . . .” Sheila trailed off. She and Hope were staring at Carmen.

  Carmen said, “It happened in the hotel in Boston, not at home. I saw a little girl running through tall grass, and then I heard a voice, and then I felt a hand on my face.” She gave a short laugh. “Okay, that’s not just a vision. It was like a whole . . . sensory experience.”

  No one said anything. Julia was thinking about the girl’s use of the word home. She had never heard her speak of the stone house that way.

  “At first I thought I was just dreaming,” Carmen continued, “but then I realized I was wide awake. I didn’t open my eyes, though. I just kept still.”

  “You felt somebody touch your face,” Sheila said, “and you didn’t scream and jump out of your skin?”

  “It was a little hand. Right here”—Carmen laid her own hand against her left cheek—“and then it patted my cheek like this, very gently. But first I heard the voice.”

  The only sounds were the popping and crackling of wood in the woodstove and the dull, hollow susurrus of the wind outdoors.

  “What did it say?” It was Hope.

  “It was a child’s voice, and she whispered, ‘I walk the earth.’ But it was a loud whisper, with a little echo to it. Then it faded away, and then the hand wasn’t there anymore either.”

  She looked straight at Hope, then Sheila. Not at all imploringly, but as if she fully expected them to believe her, as if she had just stated a simple fact, something incontrovertible like Here we are, the four of us, sitting at this table. “I told Aunt Julia it was a message from God,” she said. “And I still think so.”

  Hope made a sound as if something were stuck in her throat, but no one spoke. There was a soft thump as a piece of wood shifted in the woodstove.

  “For the revelation awaits an appointed time,” Carmen said. “That’s in the book of Habakkuk.”

  Hope picked up her fork and stabbed vigorously into her salad bowl.

  Carmen took a deep breath. “I just want to say this to all of you right now—He knows our downsitting and our uprising. That’s in the book of Psalms. And he also knows where she is right this minute. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I believe he’s going to let me see her in my lifetime.” She threw her head back and looked at the ceiling. “Because he loves me. Even when I make a mess of things, he picks me up and sets me back on my feet. It’s something called . . . grace.” She looked at Julia. “Like when he led me to you.” She looked at Sheila, then Hope. “And you, too.”

  Before anyone could think of a reply to such a speech, the cat delivered them all by suddenly leaping up onto the empty chair right beside Julia. She let out a startled cry, and Sheila burst out laughing as she reached over to scoop Lolly into her lap. “Bad, bad baby,” she crooned, stroking the cat. “Bad Lolly to scare our company like that. One of these days you’re going to get too fat to jump.” She picked up the Scrabble necklace and jiggled it in front of the cat, who lifted a paw and lazily swatted at it.

  And just at that moment, while Julia’s heart was still pounding, the cell phone emitted a series of loud tweets. This time the cry came from Carmen, a squeaky “Oh!” She grabbed the phone and flipped it open, then pressed the speaker icon. Julia could have hugged her.

  “Hi, Uncle Butch. I’m here. Did you find out anything?”

  And then Butch’s voice: “I found her. I’ve got her address. A phone number, too. You have a pencil?”

  • chapter 22 •

  SKEPTICISM OF MARVELS

  Carmen wasted no time dialing the number. She kept the speaker on. It would have made a curious picture—the four of them sitting at the table, leaning forward, all eyes focused on a cell phone.

  It rang once, twice, three times. Then a woman’s voice. “Hello?”

  “Luna?” Carmen said.

  A moment of silence and then, “Who is this?” This was thee-is. A decidedly Southern voice.

  But Carmen seemed to know it was the right voice. She spoke clearly, eagerly. “Luna, this is Carmen Frederickson. Do you remember me? Two years ago?”

  There was such a long pause they thought she might have hung up. But then she spoke. “Yes, I remember you.”

  “Luna, I need to talk to you,” Carmen said. “I have some questions.”

  Another lengthy pause. “Not over the phone.” She spoke so softly it was hard to hear her.

  Carmen read off the address Butch had given her. “Is that where you live?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I come to your house?”

  A sigh. “Yes.”

  Carmen told her she was in Massachusetts right now but would get there as soon as she could. Her aunt was with her. They would call tomorrow and give he
r a time.

  After the phone call, it was only a question of how soon to leave. The address was in Roskam, North Carolina, twenty miles west of Charlotte. They must have come within minutes of it on their way to Virginia.

  Julia took the phone from Carmen and was soon connected to an airline agent. As the situation called for assertiveness, she told the agent that a family emergency had arisen, of utmost urgency, and it was imperative that they cancel their original flight and instead fly to Charlotte, North Carolina, tomorrow. “On the earliest, fastest possible flight,” she stated, then added, “It’s a matter of life or death.” She wasn’t going to feel guilty for that, not when Luna was their only hope of finding out what had happened to Carmen’s baby.

  The fact that her voice was not quite steady must have motivated the agent, for he flew into action. The earliest he could get them to Charlotte was 10:40 the next morning on a nonstop flight departing at 8:33 A.M. from Hartford, Connecticut, which was only an hour’s drive from where they were in Danforth.

  Hartford. Julia hesitated. Well, at least they would be there only long enough to catch a plane. The agent must have sensed her reluctance, for he apologized that this was the best he could do, added that the usual fees for changing a flight would be waived. It didn’t take long for him to make the changes. At the end he said he hoped they got there “before it’s too late.”

  They were persuaded to spend the night at the yellow house, in a back bedroom Sheila called “the studio.” She led them through the hall to the room, then set about moving a few things to clear a path to the bed. Another cramped room, with an easel, guitar cases, and an old upright piano stacked high with music. A double bed was shoved into the corner. Evidently the easel was put to frequent use, for dozens of unframed watercolors and oils stood propped against the walls, most of them featuring animals: two preening parrots, a turtle in a brook, a buffalo herd silhouetted against a sunset sky.

  After Sheila left, Julia pulled back the bedspread and saw sheets that looked clean enough. Several quilts were laid across the foot of the bed. Carmen pressed a fist to her forehead. “I feel like somebody hit me with a sledgehammer.” She laughed. “I sure hope we can sleep with all these animals in the room.”