The Pull of the Moon

by Julie Paul

  Buddy gave Andrew looks all afternoon, and he deflected them all with blank smiles, busying himself with the Johnson account.

  “So that was her,” he said when they were getting their last coffee in the staff room.

  “Yeah,” Andrew said. “She’s pretty, hey?”

  Buddy nodded. “How long you known her?”

  “Uh, well, about a year. When our girls started taking ballet in the same class. But we just, you know, last night—”

  “Yeah, you told me.” Buddy opened a package of digestive cookies and passed it to Andrew.

  “No, thanks. I’ve gotta watch this now,” he said, hands on his little belly.

  Buddy took three and set them on top of his mug. “Don’t go changin’,” he half sang.

  “To try and please me,” Andrew half sang back. Oh, it had been a wonderful day.

  When he arrived home, Maddie was already there.

  “I thought you had volleyball.” Again he’d come upon her with her head in a book, this time on the front porch, right on the step where he and Joni had sat before moving inside. He didn’t know if the flush in his neck and cheeks was from the memory or for mixing up Maddie’s schedule again.

  “My coach was sick, so Jane’s mom dropped me off.”

  “Ah,” he said, relieved. “But you could’ve called me.”

  Maddie shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m really into this book and I wanted to read.” She stuck her face back into the pages.

  Andrew slowly looked around, at the porch, at the yard. “I have an idea,” he said. “Let’s hide you a key.”

  She closed her book. “Really? Like in a secret compartment?”

  Andrew smiled, but not beyond what she would tolerate. He had learned the hard way to hide his amusement at her reactions. Often she closed up like an anemone, humiliated. “Something like that,” he said. “Help me find a spot?”

  They examined every nook and cranny, and eventually decided on the pot that held the rosemary, at the end of the porch. They put the key right in the dirt, in a Ziploc bag Maddie had raced in to get from the kitchen.

  “Only for emergencies,” he told Maddie. “And times like these. And, it’s a secret, so no telling friends. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said and gave him a spontaneous hug. Apparently this new freedom was a big deal. He was ready to give the freedom to her, if she could show she could handle it.

  The next day after school, Maddie went to a friend’s to work on a project. But when Andrew got home, his front door was unlocked, and jazz piano was coming at him in waves. Shit, shit, shit. He’d been watched. Invaded. And only a day after he’d hidden the key!

  Just before he called the police, he wondered: Would a robber play the radio? Had Maddie’s schedule changed again?

  “Hello?”

  “Hello!” a voice called back.

  Joni. She was lying on the couch in a sundress—or was it a nightgown?—reading the book he kept on the coffee table: The World in Photographs.

  “Welcome home!” she said and closed the book. She opened her arms like she was a showgirl. “Voilà!”

  “How did you—”

  “Well, I figured you might be the kind of guy who keeps a key hidden, so I just had a little look around.”

  Andrew perched on the arm of the couch. “That’s so weird,” he said slowly. “I just put the key out there yesterday.” He was still holding his cellphone, 9-1-1 keyed in but not sent. He looked at her, smiling on his blue blanket. “How did you know?”

  She laughed. “I didn’t, silly. I just wanted to surprise you, and there it was!” She got up on her knees and kissed him. “I thought we could have fun together.”

  She smelled like oranges. He loved oranges. They reminded him of Christmas and Florida and mornings. He had to ignore the memories right now.

  “But, Joni, what if I’d walked in with Maddie? Or what if she came home alone and found you here?”

  She sat on her heels and smiled. “I would’ve hid in a hurry.”

  “And then what? Slipped out the door when we weren’t looking?”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “Joni,” he said. “We are not on television. It’s just—just too weird, coming home, finding you here. Not that I don’t like seeing you, but it’s just odd, you know? Like yesterday, you just being there on the street when I was out for lunch, and the other night . . .”

  He stopped. He felt like he was disintegrating as he spoke, the space between his cells growing, as if he were more empty than full. Porous, like coral. And in those spaces, the truth came flowing through.

  She was on his couch, no longer smiling, but fixing her eyes on him with a sort of animal stare, as if she’d been cornered but still felt confident that she could get out alive. Or maybe he was making that part up. Maybe the look on her face meant she’d misjudged him, couldn’t believe he’d jump to such a crazy notion, a woman chasing him.

  He looked back at her, matched her gaze, and waited for her to speak. He was waiting to hear the words that would make everything go back to normal, a return to where they’d been just a few days ago, eating sandwiches, talking about their children.

  She started to cry. And try as he might, he could not just sit there and watch her, waiting for a decent explanation. That explanation did not exist, and never would. He pulled her to his chest.

  To stalk was to pursue, to track, to chase and hunt—it meant you were in pursuit of something worth following. There was so much risk these days, with privacy all but gone, cyberstalking, identity theft, and fraud of various types, that Andrew had never given it a second thought. But who really did? Who walked around expecting someone to be hunting them? Who felt worthy enough of this sort of behaviour, except criminals and celebrities? Could this woman, a mother, sobbing against his shirt, really be guilty of this? Did he give off some sort of scent she could track, the same way her husband had? No, Andrew was just an ordinary guy. Not worth any sort of pursuit, least of all with this kind of determination.

  “Joni,” he said softly. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  She pulled herself back so she could look at him. Her face was red and wet; she tried to smile. “You’re not angry?”

  He shook his head. “No. Just confused.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she said. “I can handle anything but anger.” She moved over to make room for him on the couch, and patted the space. “Sit down, Andy. There’s so much to talk about!”

  Something in her voice made Andrew’s hair prickle. Her expression had changed again, from sorry to enthusiastic. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed.

  “I thought we could go here for our first weekend away.” She picked up a glossy brochure from the coffee table. “And then we could go back, for our honeymoon, you know, to reminisce. I know the girls would love it—this place even has a waterslide!” She opened the brochure to a photo of the pool. “Isn’t it perfect for us?”

  Yes, she was definitely wearing a nightie, pale green and covered in tiny leaves. As she spoke, he imagined her buying it with him in mind, because of their picnic under the elm tree. His elm tree.

  He began to count.

  Her Full Name Was Beatrice

  HOW TO PREVENT MADNESS

  (too late)

  Slide your fingers down your arms. Find the pulses at the wrists, the persistent push of your blood wanting to get somewhere, and fast, to deliver what it’s meant to bring: fresh oxygen, nutrients, life force. Imagine doing the same thing to another person, feeling this thrumming, knowing that what lies inside you and what lies inside her is so much more alike than different that you could swap heads and it would be more or less like two universal remote controls. Picture your friend Erica, a woman who smells like pears and wears gold barrettes and has a daughter named Beany who is the same age as your daughter, Angela. Remember the day you took her wrists in your hands to comfort her, over the custody ruling that gave Beany’s father more and Erica less. Feel the pulse under your middle fingers
before you pull her toward you for a hug, for more consolation. Imagine it being you, your daughter in question, sense the shame in not measuring up in the eyes of the law. Go back to the idea of swapping heads. Do it. Take hers off, put yours on her body. Go home (her home). Watch over her daughter as though she is the most precious girl in the world, as though she’s the reason for the battle, as though she deserves only the best from life. See Erica doing the same, only with your daughter, lying beside your husband—yes, dare to imagine even that. Then, swap heads back in the morning. Hug your friend, hug your daughter, agree to meet at the water park that afternoon.

  OTHER WAYS IT COULD HAVE GONE

  David was awarded custody of his daughter, Beany, in the court battle and that was the end of the story. Safe and sound. Erica, his ex-wife, met a new man. Love all around.

  Erica was awarded custody of Beany and that was that. Happy, happy family.

  The little girl did herself in. She poured pills into her mouth like they were pop rocks. She exploded into death having fun. La-la-la, look at me with Mama’s medicine: I’m a big girl now. But everyone knows to keep medicine away from children. Away from the reach of little hands.

  A TYPICAL DAY

  A conversation is a beautiful thing, easily dismantled with two preschoolers in the room. But the girls are playing with glue and beads and glitter. You and Erica are sitting on your deck, enjoying lunch and the last of the September sun, just outside the open patio doors, within sight of the kids at the dining room table.

  Erica asks, “Did Michael want kids?”

  You sit back in your chair. “Not at first.”

  “You convinced him.”

  “No. He just came home one day and announced that he was ready. I just about fainted. It was like a switch was flipped. Three years of no, and then a yes.”

  “What changed his mind?”

  “He was waiting for the first wrinkle, he said. He looked in the mirror one day and saw a tiny wrinkle, and that was it. He never wanted to be a young dad.”

  “Weird,” Erica says. “As if wrinkles make you a better parent.” She finishes her glass of iced tea. “You wanted a kid, though.”

  “More than a husband.” You laugh at this half-truth. You might have gone to desperate measures to have a baby, but it hadn’t been necessary. You will never know.

  Erica looks up when the shadow of a blue heron passes over the table. “David never wanted kids,” she says. “He said he would make a terrible father.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “He thought we were both way too young. I got pregnant only weeks after we moved in together. He wanted me to have an abortion.”

  “And now he wants her.” You shake your head.

  “Now that she’s toilet-trained.” Erica’s voice is flat, deflated. “Now that she sleeps through the night.”

  You pour more iced tea. The wasps are still bad, and despite the jar of honey water on the railing of the deck, there are at least five of them circling the lid of the pitcher. Wasps worry you, but earthquakes are your specialty. You live in an earthquake zone, and every rumble, every quiver, every bass note pulsing through the house from the street makes you nervous.

  “We need a screen door,” you say. “They’re starting to go into the house.”

  “Beany’s never been stung, as far as I know,” Erica says. She calls to her. “Any bees in there?”

  “No, Mama,” comes the little reply.

  “They like protein,” Erica tells you. “If you put some meat at the edge of the yard, they’ll go to it. I’ve seen wasps carry big hunks of meat away.”

  You watch as she tears a piece of lunchmeat from a leftover triangle of sandwich and takes it over to the fencepost.

  “Thank you,” you say. “But why now? Why does he want sole custody?”

  “He’s got a wife now. I think she put him up to it.”

  “A guilt trip?”

  “Or maybe she can’t have her own.”

  You roll up a newspaper and kill a wasp on the first swat.

  “Watch out,” Erica says. “They can smell death. They’ll come back for you, mad as hell.”

  “How do you know so much about insects?”

  Erica laughs. “You can take a girl out of the bush, but you can never erase the memory of bugs. Look at this.” She points to a round scar on her calf. “That’s from a tick bite.” You see other scars, too, below her knee, small, healed gashes, but neither of you brings them up.

  “Ugh.”

  You are quiet for a minute. The wasps hum, the girls chatter.

  “He won’t get her,” you tell Erica.

  Erica shrugs. “It’s out of my hands.” Then she studies the tablecloth, unable to look you in the eye. “But I hope to God you’re right.”

  POSSIBLE REASONS FOR DESTRUCTION

  (even though many have lived through worse and not gone mad)

  See Erica, as a young girl, back in Northern BC, eating porridge for supper and baked potatoes for breakfast because her mother thought it was done that way. This mother had birthed her children with no running water in the house even though it was already the 1970s, a time when all of that should have been over. See Erica, whipped by her father with a chain for forgetting to collect kindling, and Erica, as a baby, set in the oven to stay warm after coming out too soon. See her mother tending to six other children, the father skinning animal hides in a barn.

  See a father in the skinning room who wrapped a scarf over Erica’s face before touching her, dead animals hanging from the rafters. See a mother who could only, eventually, sit by the woodstove and die there, hair on fire. See a beautiful young woman who escaped from this hell to Vancouver, where the potatoes were on the plate with the meat at dinnertime and everyone was so clean and quiet. See this woman as she walked the streets where trees touched over her head, reaching out to one another, and watch as she met a man named David who fell in love with her from his men’s clothing store window. See how she held his gaze and moved out of the hostel, lived with him, got pregnant, then began to raise a baby. See the baby they called Beany. See her eyes, the same burning eyes as her mommy.

  See Erica with the baby. A child-woman, a girl in a woman’s life in a girl’s body, with a child of her own, on her own. A woman struggling in a one-bedroom apartment, waitressing at a fake Fifties diner, but making it work. A woman who plants basil in her small community allotment garden, despite the cool coastal weather, and leaves space for the calendula, because of its beauty in salads.

  SOME THINGS THAT DO NOT SEPARATE YOU

  Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species

  Motherhood, to girls the same age

  Gender

  Geography

  Nationality

  A love of organic lemonade, swimming, old dishes, gardens

  A fear of loneliness, earthquakes, bees

  Language

  Access to poison

  Access to help

  AND SOME OF THE THINGS THAT DIVIDE

  Divorce

  History of family abuse

  Shoe size

  Chemicals in the brain

  A charge of manslaughter

  YOU GET TO KNOW THE ENEMY

  You run into David at the swimming pool later that fall. You are there with Angela one dreary Sunday afternoon, and to Angela’s delight, Beany is in the kiddie pool, too.

  Beany is belly-laughing. She is killing herself as over and over David splashes her and she splashes him back. When she slides down the swirly slide and he catches her, he pretends to get knocked over by the force of her propulsion. She is shrieking with laughter, and soon Angela joins in on the games.

  Once the girls are playing games of their own, you and David crouch in the shallow pool to keep warm. You’ve only spoken once before, one day when you happened to be at Erica’s when David came to drop Beany off. Then, you were surprised at David’s voice, a deep, booming, confident voice. A voice you could be afraid of, in the right circumstances. N
ow, you are surprised at his tenderness.

  “She really likes your little girl,” he says. “She talks about her all the time.”

  “They get along well,” you say, keeping your eyes on the girls, on anything but David, who’s moved a bit closer. They’re sliding down the little slide on their tummies. The chlorine is making your legs itch, and you’re ready to get out.

  Then both girls start calling: “Mommy, Daddy, watch this!”

  And for a second, as the girls go under and then spring up like roaring monsters, it’s as if they are sisters, and David and you are the parents, together. An outsider might assume this.

  “She’s happy now,” David says. “Thank God.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She woke up screaming early this morning. A nightmare. I didn’t know what to do.”

  You nod. “Angie’s done that before. It freaked me out, too.”

  “This back-and-forth thing is too much for her, I think,” David says. “She doesn’t have a solid base.”

  You should say something. Erica is your friend. “Or maybe she has two.”

  David laughs. “Yeah, maybe.”

  You look at Beany, pouring water from a pail onto Angela’s head, pretending she’s watering a plant.

  “She has fun with you,” you say. “That’s obvious.”

  When David doesn’t reply, you look at him. His whole face droops. “I don’t want to be just the good-time dad,” he says. “But Erica has made anything else impossible. That’s why we’re going through so much.”

  “She told me you were interested in custody now.”

  David laughs again. “Now? How about since day one?”