To See the Moon Again

by Jamie Langston Turner

  Later, when they were both in bed, Carmen spoke into the dark. “I canceled all our motel reservations while you were in the bathroom.” Such a thing had never occurred to Julia. The idea of the authors’ tour suddenly seemed like something from another lifetime, someone else’s lifetime in fact.

  Sometime later Julia fell into a restless sleep, then woke to the sound of howling wind. She wished they were on the plane right now. She had a horrible thought of pulling up to Luna’s house to find it recently deserted, dust still rising from a gravel driveway where a car had peeled out for parts unknown. She lay for a long time with her eyes open, studying the contours of the dark room. Finally she fell asleep again, but off and on she awoke and looked at the window for signs of daylight.

  • • •

  IT was close to noon the next day when Julia pulled up at the address in Roskam, North Carolina. It was a tall narrow town house, overlooking a park and a tennis court, where a boy was hitting balls against a backboard. There were six town houses in a row, identical except for the colors—a palette of desert hues. Taupe, red clay, sage, mauve, sand, sky blue, all of them with high-pitched gables, balconies, tin chimneys, and small yards. Luna’s house, the fifth one, was the color of sand. A pot of yellow chrysanthemums sat on the front stoop. The driveway, Julia noticed, was concrete, not gravel, and she was relieved to see that there was a car sitting in it.

  She turned the ignition off, but neither of them made a move to get out. “That’s not the car she used to drive,” Carmen said, her hands clenched. “I’m so scared. What if she’s gone? Or won’t talk? Or doesn’t know anything?”

  “Then we’ll figure out something else,” Julia said. She laid hold of the door handle. “Let’s go.” As she stepped out of the car, she heard the sounds of children playing in the park.

  Carmen followed her to the front door. Julia pressed the doorbell, and from inside came the barking of a dog, growing louder as it neared the door, then the clicking of claws against hardwood.

  “She had a dog,” Carmen said. “Sometimes he rode in the car with her.”

  They heard a voice from inside and footsteps approaching the door. Then the snap of a deadbolt, a twist of the knob, and the door opened a crack, as far as the security chain would allow. Julia, standing in front, saw an eye and part of a woman’s face. Not the friendliest of expressions from what she could tell. Meanwhile, the dog scrabbled at the door and continued to bark, its snout jammed into the crack.

  “Hi, Luna,” Carmen said. She gave a wave through the crack.

  “Just a minute.” The tone was neutral, cautious, though the words were barely audible over the barking of the dog.

  The dog’s snout disappeared suddenly, and the door closed firmly. Then the sound of retreating footsteps and the barking grew fainter. Then silence. Carmen shot a worried look at Julia. From farther inside the house, the dog’s barking resumed, but less frantic now, a treat-begging bark or a let’s-go-outside bark. Then it stopped.

  Again, approaching footsteps. Then a soft metallic chatter as the chain was disengaged, and the door opened slowly. And there she stood. Not a tall woman, but striking. She had an olive complexion and a mane of long dark hair, with several slender braids around her face.

  Julia found it hard not to stare. She looked like she belonged to another time and place—a prophetess or priestess, and not a very happy one. But maybe it was only the intensity of her deep-set eyes, her absolute stillness, the firm set of her mouth. Maybe it was the long purple robe she wore, an elaborate garment with a plush nap and voluminous sleeves spangled with gold sequins. It had to be a bathrobe—there was a tassel at the top of the long front zipper—but Julia had never seen one quite like it. Not exactly the kind of thing you would throw into the washing machine. The expression on her face said that company was the last thing she wanted right now. Or—it came to Julia as a revelation—maybe it was a mask to cover up something else, like fear.

  Luna stepped aside and motioned them in. She closed the door behind them and led them through a hallway into an open, airy living area with a vaulted ceiling. She walked smoothly, fluidly. It could have been a graceful walk but for the fact that under her robe she was wearing clogs, which resounded like hooves against the hardwood floor.

  They passed a doorway to a bedroom and proceeded through the kitchen to a sunroom facing the backyard, where the dog was investigating something under a tree. Beyond the yard was a steep embankment, at the top of which Julia could see pedestrians and cars passing. Luna gestured toward a love seat. All of this without saying a word. Julia and Carmen sat down side by side.

  Luna moved to a chair across from them, her features still set in stone, her lips slightly pursed now. The brightness of the sunroom revealed her to be older than Julia had first thought. She wore no makeup, and her hair was threaded with gray. Something in Julia had to admire a woman who would do that—seat herself at close range in unflattering light. She wondered if Luna had a husband, if he lived here, too. She had seen none of the telltale signs of a man’s presence—little piles of clutter, men’s shoes in places they shouldn’t be, dishes in the sink.

  The sunroom seemed to be tightly sealed against outside noise. A large old-fashioned alarm clock sat on a low white table beside Luna’s chair, its vigorous tick-tocks reverberating in the small room.

  A few magazines were fanned across the top of a square wooden chest that sat between the love seat and Luna’s chair. Luna studied the magazines first, then stared at Carmen’s knees for a few moments before slowly lifting her eyes to the girl’s face.

  • • •

  SHE didn’t die, did she, Luna?” Carmen’s voice was soft and pleading. “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  The slightest intake of breath, the faintest flicker of an eyelid, but Luna remained perfectly composed, sitting erect. Slowly her gaze traveled upward to a point just above Carmen’s head. Her eyes swept back and forth, as if watching the cars. Perhaps she was wishing she were inside one of them.

  She looked back at Carmen. “How did you find me?” Again Julia heard the Southernness—the long deep scoop of how, the flatness of find.

  Carmen answered calmly, evenly. “That doesn’t matter right now. Please, Luna. You’ve got to help me—where is she?”

  Julia caught the change in the question. The first two had been so neatly sidestepped—She didn’t die, did she? Do you know where she is?—that they had answered themselves.

  Luna’s eyes suddenly filled. “I always knew this day would come. I didn’t know how we would meet up”—there was that loose, gaping how again—“but I knew we would, sometime, some place.” With one hand she fidgeted with the tassel of her robe. “I had nightmares about it—looking up and seeing you in a restaurant or on the sidewalk or in a store. I don’t know why I never once thought about you calling me on the phone and coming to my house.” She looked up at the ceiling, blinking away tears. “I want you to know I’ve been haunted day and night about what happened. You have to believe that.”

  To Julia the words were too easy, had probably been practiced many times in the event of a face-off like this. “Carmen has had plenty of bad days and nights, too,” she said.

  Up to this point Luna had barely acknowledged Julia. She flashed her a hard look now, then addressed Carmen once again. “I knew God would judge us all someday. I told the Shelburns so. They said all they wanted was to give the babies good homes and the girls a chance to start their lives again. But that’s not all they wanted.” She bowed her head. “I guess you know what happened to them.” She looked up again. “But I knew my day of accountability would come, too.”

  Carmen stood up. She walked around the wooden chest and dropped to her knees in front of Luna. “I know the agency closed down and the Shelburns are both dead. But we didn’t come here to talk about all that. All I want to know right now is where she is. You know, don’t you? You’ve got to tell me.”

  Luna stared down at her hands, which were tightly clasped
in her lap. Big, capable-looking hands with an enormous topaz ring on one index finger. Lips clamped together, she started nodding, barely perceptibly but keeping perfect time with the loud tocks of the clock. At length she sighed deeply and said, “Yes, I do know.”

  Carmen touched her hand. “Where?”

  Luna looked at the clock. “They should be finishing their lunch about now, and then she’ll be going down for a nap.”

  “How . . . do you know that?” Carmen said.

  “She lives two doors down. In the green house.”

  • • •

  IN keeping with her skepticism of marvels in general, Julia was slow to take this one in. She heard Luna’s words, replayed them, doubted them, replayed them again. Two doors down. In the green house. In her mind she saw the six town houses all in a row on the same side of the street, across from the park. She ran through the colors in order. Taupe, red clay, sage, mauve, sand, blue. Then backward. Blue was the last one, then Luna’s before that, the color of sand. And they were sitting inside that one right now, their rental car parked at the curb in front. The house on the other side was mauve.

  And then one the color of sage. Or cactus. Not a grassy green, or the color of lime sherbet, not even as green as avocados or moss or olives, but more muted, a grayish sort of green. But compared to the other five houses, definitely green. Two doors down. In the green house. What else could it possibly mean?

  That this qualified as a marvel—their search for Luna so mercifully brief, so rich in dividends—was undeniable. If what Luna said was true, that is. Julia was stalled in disbelief.

  Carmen, on the other hand, had evidently processed the miracle with astounding speed. Only a moment of stunned joy, then, “Can I see her?” followed by an immediate revision: “When can I see her?” A slight tremble in her voice was the only evidence that such swift success was the last thing she had expected.

  Indeed, on the flight down she and Julia had talked about the possibility of having to travel many miles at great inconvenience, perhaps to another country, to see the child—“if by some chance her whereabouts can even be traced,” Julia had said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew what was coming.

  And it did. Another speech on the subject of chance, luck, accidents, and so forth, a speech delivered, as always, with the conviction of an Old Testament prophet, though a shorter version today than usual. Obadiah this time rather than Isaiah. “When we find her,” Carmen had said, “it will be by design, not by chance. We’re not rolling dice or flipping coins or playing the lottery here.”

  When we find her, she had said. Oh, the certainty of youth. And as the flight attendant rolled the drink cart down the aisle toward them, Carmen had wrapped up her speech: “A man devises his way, but the Lord determines his steps.”

  Julia had looked out the window at the billowy expanse of white clouds below them and tried to imagine the miles and hours that might be required to track the child down. Or to try—she didn’t possess the certainty of youth, only the mistrust of middle age. Money wasn’t worth a thought. She knew she would sell all she had if necessary. It came to her that whereas she had once worried about how she would fill up a whole year of sabbatical, she now wondered if it would be long enough.

  • • •

  LUNA cleared her throat and looked at the clock again. “After her nap, she usually . . . goes to the park,” she said hesitantly, “unless it’s bad weather.” She lifted her eyes to scan the sky, as if hoping to see a storm moving in. “She’s normally awake by three. Her mother will be taking her to the park today. Her father is returning this evening from a business trip. You can see the park from the front window. Upstairs has the best view.”

  Still on her knees in front of Luna, Carmen shook her head. “No, I want to see her up close.” Though courteous, it was a statement of intent, not a request.

  Luna placed her fingertips together and studied them a moment. “Of course you do.” She paused again, nodding. Her topaz ring glittered in the sunlight. “I like to go to the park when they’re there. Sometimes they let me take her by myself, but not often. I need to tell you something else.” She looked away and spoke to the corner of the room. “They’re not just my neighbors. Her father is my son.”

  So, another piece of the puzzle.

  She looked back at Carmen. “We have to be so careful. They’re very protective of her. They went through so much. Four miscarriages and a stillbirth. So many lost babies before they got her, and they know they’ll never have another one, so if they thought someone was here who wanted to . . .” She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I know—you lost a baby, too. In the worst way possible.” She shook her head slowly. “How can I sit here and say these things to you? You’ve waited so long and been through so much yourself.” She looked toward the door into the kitchen. “I could go to jail for what I did. There’s a telephone in there. You could call the police right now and tell them.”

  Carmen said, “I wouldn’t know what to tell them, Luna. Joyce and Milo told me my baby died. That’s all I know. You weren’t the one who lied to me.”

  “No, I just . . . took your baby. In a sense.” She closed her eyes.

  Somewhere in the distance a siren wailed. The dog set up a ruckus in the backyard and another dog from nearby joined in. Julia glanced up at the overhead fan and wished it were on. It was getting warm in the sunroom.

  Carmen dropped from her knees and sat on the floor at Luna’s feet, as if it were story time. “Will you tell me what happened?” she said. “I need to know. I don’t remember much about that night, but you were there, and you were . . . kind.”

  “Kind!” Luna turned away and took a moment to collect herself. At length she looked back at Carmen and began. Though her style of speech was slow and languorous, and the story full of turns, she kept it moving.

  She had gotten the call from Joyce that Carmen’s time had come. “Milo wasn’t happy you were early. He liked things to run on schedule—his schedule. You were in labor a long time, but you already know that. But you were brave. Teenage mothers aren’t always. You did very well.” Very way-ell.

  She swayed from side to side as she talked.

  She had delivered numbers of babies at the Shelburns’ house, so she knew the routine. The girls were always young, often younger than Carmen, and the babies were always being adopted through the Babies First Mission. Sometimes the girl’s parents were there, sometimes the adoptive parents. Occasionally Thornton or his wife dropped by, too. But that night it was only Carmen, the Shelburns, and Luna.

  Luna stayed by Carmen’s side, coached and comforted her for hours on end. For days it had been raining off and on, and that night it was coming down in sheets, with gusty winds and lightning. There was no window in the birthing room, but she could hear the storm as a distant roar. Sometime during the night a tree went down, somewhere close to the old paper mill, and the fall had shaken the house. The lights flickered but didn’t go off.

  Joyce was in and out, Milo too, both of them more visibly fretful than usual. When the baby finally came, Luna checked her, then handed her to Joyce to clean up. “She was perfect,” she told Carmen. “A beautiful, beautiful baby.”

  After Joyce left the room, Luna turned her attention back to Carmen. She would have called a doctor right away had there been complications, but her vital signs quickly strengthened, stabilized, and all was normal.

  “You kept calling out, saying you wanted to see your baby,” she said. “It surprised me. I assumed the girls were instructed not to ask.” Not to eye-esk.

  There were things she didn’t like about these births at the Shelburns’ house, but Babies First paid her a set fee that included prenatal visits, delivery, and postpartum. She usually took care of filing the paperwork for the birth certificate. Her duties didn’t include giving her opinion about the way things were handled. She kept quiet and did her job. Milo liked the appointments to be as short as possible, didn’t want a lot of interaction wi
th the girls.

  “But my heart went out to them,” she said. “So young and so frightened, most of them. And not built for childbirth. Little girls having babies—it was hard on them in every way. Sometimes the girls’ mothers were there. Sometimes it was harder on them than the girls. Not a happy time at all. The babies whisked out one door and the girls out another, more or less.”

  In many ways, however, these births were easier for Luna than regular home births, with family members present in the room, sometimes even little brothers and sisters, and the sounds of everyday living just outside the door. So much activity, so much joy. They had become harder for her over the past few years, to the point that she had been accepting fewer and fewer private patients.

  Whenever she handed a mother her newborn and witnessed that first bonding, saw the happy faces of the father and siblings, it made her ache a little more than the last time. To be reminded that her only child, a son, and his wife so deeply and desperately wanted this but would probably never experience it—well, it was getting harder. She often thought of other kinds of work she could do. Or retirement. She had some money put back, and she could start drawing social security soon.

  “You had every right to see your baby,” she told Carmen. “You were her mother. So I went to the door and called Milo. Then I tried to keep you calm. I told you the baby was fine but you needed to stay in bed. I sat by you and held your hand. I should have done more, but I didn’t.” Her voice broke. “I should have asked you some questions.”

  Another adult, Julia thought, who could have intervened but didn’t. She wanted to be angry about it but couldn’t. She knew firsthand that getting involved was a hard thing to do.

  Milo had come in then and told Luna to go. She hesitated because she didn’t like to leave a new mother so soon, but he said it was late and she had been here a long time. He told her again to go. Not just go out, but go. She checked Carmen once more and left the room. As she closed the door, she heard Milo tell Carmen to lie still and be quiet. It wasn’t just a suggestion, but a command.