Once in a Blue Moon

by Vicki Covington

  She hadn’t cried when they confronted her, but rather sat perfectly still, absorbing the knowledge that she was not as clever at keeping it together as she had hoped. She knew, of course, the symptoms of bipolar disorder. She treated patients with this diagnosis. How could she have missed it in herself? The stay in the hospital, the dual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse—by the time Robbie asked for a divorce, she had been sober for a year, but it was too late.

  Moments like this, running once again through the litany of mistakes that had led to the demise of her marriage—failure to recognize her illness, finances, infidelity, wanderlust—Landon wanted to toss her prescriptions along with Chelsea’s letters. Overwhelmed by guilt and shame, she longed for the joy of mania.

  ABI

  Abi sipped on her beer and smoked a cigarette, staring out at her family’s pond. Ever since her time with Marcia in Tennessee, she had been drawn to the muddy little pond, a short walk down a dirt trail from her mama and daddy’s double-wide. Whenever she got out of school as a teenager, she went straight to the water without even dropping her backpack off in her bedroom. Now, she was grown. Her daddy had cancer. Her mama was working. It all seemed sad.

  She heard footsteps moving through the tall weeds behind her. She turned. It was Daddy.

  “Sorry about all this,” she said, gesturing to the beer can and lit cigarette she was holding in her hands.

  “No need to apologize,” he said, and sat down next to her.

  His eyes were fixed on the water. Neither of them said anything. She looked at his jeans and the sleeve of his flannel shirt. His hands were big and strong.

  “Next time I come, I’ll bring you the weed,” Abi said, breaking their silence. “Let me smoke with you the first time because it isn’t like it used to be. It’s much more potent.”

  He patted her on the knee. “That’s sweet of you.”

  “When was the last time you smoked?” she asked.

  “Right after I came home from Nam.”

  “So how old were you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  It was then that she noticed something in his shirt pocket. At first, she thought it was a pack of cigarettes, but she realized it was a small book.

  “What’s that?”

  He looked at her, studying her eyes like he was trying to decipher what to say.

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about.” He took the book, a tiny New Testament, from his pocket. “I’ve been saved.”

  Abi’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no,” she said without thinking.

  “I would have told you sooner, but I knew it would scare you.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say. Nobody in her family went to church. Certainly, nobody got saved. Growing up, she sometimes had tagged along to services with her friends, but that was only to see the boys. She was never comfortable with ceremonies. There was always an ingratiating, prolonged altar call at the end of the service, the congregation singing five or six verses of “Just As I Am.” She’d watched a few friends walk to the altar, but she knew it was only because they’d just lost their virginity—or were at least to third base—and were feeling guilty. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why sex had so much to do with Jesus. When she lost her virginity, she felt emboldened and happy. Why would her girlfriends want to spoil it all by asking for forgiveness? Surely, that took away the thrill of it.

  “Who did this to you?” she asked Daddy. “Some preacher?”

  “No, no,” he said. “I was just cleaning out some drawers a couple of weeks ago, and I found this.” He looked down at the book, cradled it in his palm. “I’ve had it all my life. My parents got it for me when I was born. That was something people did back then. I started reading it and, I don’t know, something came over me, something long forgotten.”

  Abi guessed this had something to do with his cancer.

  Daddy put the Testament back in his shirt pocket. She was relieved. She was scared he might try to save her, and that was impossible. But then he pulled something from his jeans pocket—two nails welded together in the shape of a cross.

  “I know you don’t like this kind of talk . . . ,” he began.

  “That’s right, I don’t.”

  “. . . but I wanted to ask you if you would carry this around with you. Think of it as a good luck charm or something. If you ever pray, you can hold it in your hand and think of me.”

  The knot in her throat made it hard to talk. “I don’t pray, Daddy. I don’t think I ever prayed.” She remembered a single exception, when she thought she might be pregnant. And even then, it was only because she didn’t want to hear Mama holler about a bastard child.

  She looked around her, spotted a robin pecking the ground for worms. Two ring-necked doves were strutting together along the bank like newlyweds. She was always hoping to see a bluebird, but that was rare. She’d learned how to recognize birds and their songs from Daddy. She was particularly interested in mockingbirds, the way they lived by repeating what they heard. They had no song of their own. She looked at the sky. It was clear, without a trace of a cloud. It was pure blue.

  She turned to Daddy. “I don’t mind carrying the cross in my pocket,” she told him. “For you, though. Not for Jesus.”

  He put it in her palm and closed his hand over hers. “Thank you. I know this isn’t your cup of tea.”

  She thought of the towhees and their song, which he had taught her—Drink your teaaaaa—and managed a smile.

  “Give me one of those cigarettes,” he said.

  “Oh, Daddy, don’t start back now.”

  “What have I got to lose?” he asked her.

  She gave him the pack, and he took one. She always liked the way he lit a cigarette with a match, drawing in hard, then letting the smoke out the corner of his mouth in a languid, thin line. They sat together by the pond, seeing who could make the best smoke rings, laughing at each other’s failed attempts, until Mama called down to them from Sister’s place, her voice splitting the air like an ax.

  LANDON

  Landon was spiraling.

  A knock on the door saved her, snapping her out of it. She was thrilled when she opened the door and saw Abi.

  “Come on in,” Landon offered. “I haven’t finished unpacking, as you can imagine, but this is my place.”

  “It’s amazing,” Abi said, looking around. “And you have a piano. Do you play?”

  “I took lessons for twelve years, but I haven’t played since college. I keep it around, though.”

  “Didn’t you tell me you were a shrink?”

  “No, but close. A psychologist.”

  “Oh, my God.” Abi’s face lit up. “Just what I need.”

  Landon tilted her head. “Why’s that?”

  “I just got back from visiting my family. I need professional help.”

  “Well, it’s all free here.”

  Landon led her to the next room, which was less formal but still full of remnants from other lives—the old TV, stacks of vinyl, the blue leather couch and wingback wicker chair where Alejandro slept, her brother Nick’s gold trumpet on the mantel alongside a framed photo of the two of them as children.

  “That’s me and my twin brother,” Landon said, picking up the photo. “He was killed in a car accident when we were twenty-five.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Abi said as Landon set the photo back on the mantel. “Look at your music,” she continued after a beat, and walked over to the vinyls.

  Landon was grateful for the change of subject, knowing she had some great albums for sure. Jazz and R&B, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, and the Kinks. Her favorites and Nick’s favorites, too.

  “If you see one you like, it’s yours,” Landon offered.

  “Oh, I couldn’t!” Abi said.

  “No, please. Take one. I appreciate your help this morning.”

  “It was my pleasure. I never pass up an opportunity to yell at a man. Have you met anybody else from the neighborho
od yet?”

  “Just the ones you introduced me to this morning, although I can hardly remember anyone.”

  Abi nodded an acknowledgment. Landon looked at her own hands, at the empty ring finger, at the light polish on her nails. She was waiting for Abi to tell her why this morning at her parents’ had been so stressful. If she were in a clinical setting, she could and occasionally did say nothing at the onset of therapy, until the anxiety of silence finally forced the patient to say—or even shout—something.

  Once when she herself was in therapy, she had a male psychotherapist do this to her. They sat in his office for thirty minutes in utter silence until she finally exploded, “You are just like my father!”

  “How so?” he’d said.

  “You’re not talking to me. You don’t care about me. I’m nothing to you.”

  She hated hearing herself because, of course, she knew that this was projection. Any man could have been sitting silent in the chair; any man she couldn’t read became Daddy to her. And the fact that the silent treatment had worked made her feel like a scared child. She didn’t like the technique, either as a therapist or a patient. And she certainly wasn’t going to use it on Abi.

  “Would you like a beer before you tell me what went down this morning with your parents?” Landon asked her.

  “Yes, please,” Abi replied. “You read my mind.”

  Landon went to the kitchen and got Abi a beer.

  “None for you?” Abi asked when Landon returned with only one can.

  “Oh, no, I’m sober. Can’t mix booze with my meds.”

  “But you keep beer around?”

  “For company,” Landon answered.

  Abi popped the top of the can and took a long sip. “I think I hate all of them except for my daddy. Is it okay to smoke in here? I can go outside.” “No, it’s fine,” Landon said. Abi gave her a quizzical look, so she continued. “It really is. I’d tell you if it bothered me.”

  “My daddy has cancer,” Abi told her while lighting up.

  “How long have you known?”

  “About a week.”

  “Is it treatable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Still, it must be hard.”

  “Well, it’s not just the cancer.” She reached in the pocket of her denim skirt and pulled out the metal cross. “He’s never been religious, but now he’s saved. He asked me if I’d carry this around with me and pray for him.” She leaned across the table and whispered, “I can’t, Landon. I don’t believe. What should I have told him?”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I would, but I don’t intend to. But what if there is a God? What if praying for Daddy would help?” Abi paused and took a drag from her cigarette.

  Landon nodded, gesturing for them to take a seat on the couch.

  “You’re a believer, aren’t you?” Abi continued as she sank into the blue leather cushions. “When you were getting me the beer, I saw about ten Bibles all together on one shelf.”

  “Mostly inherited. Received as gifts or bequeathed to me. When my grandmothers died, my aunts, my parents. I couldn’t throw them away.” Landon felt it a sacrilege to toss anything that belonged to a family member who’d died. In fact, it was almost a superstition, if not quite OCD. She wasn’t a counter or a checker, but she was a hoarder.

  Landon stood to get the ashtray for Abi. Even that used to belong to her granddaddy. It was small and square, made of bubbled glass.

  “Why did he have to ask for this?” Abi pleaded.

  “Do you mind my asking what kind of cancer it is?”

  “Kidney.”

  Landon reached out for Abi. Abi put her cigarette in the ashtray and let Landon hold her hands.

  “Do they have a prognosis?”

  “You mean, when will he die?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “We didn’t talk about that. I don’t want to know that because I can’t believe he’s going to die. If he dies, there will be no one I’ll ever speak to again in my family. But he’s not going to die.”

  Grief and fear of dying were not Landon’s expertise, clinically speaking.

  Abi leaned in closer. “I have to lie to him, don’t I? I have to tell him I’m praying for him. I hate it when people say that because they don’t mean it.” She lit another cigarette. “Like, on Facebook, somebody will post, ‘Sitting in my car, afraid to go into the store,’ and people will comment, ‘Praying for you.’ I mean, really! Or ‘Burnt my casserole in the oven,’ and somebody comments, ‘Give it to Jesus.’ Like he likes it that way—burnt.”

  Landon smiled, understanding exactly what Abi meant.

  “So, tell me,” Abi continued, “do you believe any of it?”

  “Yes,” Landon replied after a pause. “But I’m not one for public religion. In fact, I’m not one for religion, period. I don’t go to church. But things have happened to me that make me believe we’re either humans trying to be spiritual or spirits trying to be human. No, no, that’s not any kind of answer. Just . . . mystical things have happened to me.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve just felt it.”

  “Felt what?”

  “The spirit,” Landon replied.

  Abi got up, and Landon was afraid she was leaving. But instead, she walked around the room smoking her cigarette, letting the ashes fall where they may. She looked up at the ceiling, then back at Landon.

  “You know, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Abi said.

  “I know.”

  “So do you believe some people are going to hell?”

  “No, I don’t believe in hell. Sometimes, I think this is hell, with all the shit we go through.”

  Abi nodded in appreciation.

  “I once heard a progressive pastor say that going to heaven was like going to a symphony,” Landon continued. “Some people will have studied God, and I don’t mean just read their Bibles, but they’ve seen God in nature, have tried to love instead of hate, have been open to people’s differences. So when they get to the symphony, the music will be familiar to them. Others might not recognize the music at first, but they will in time. The thing being, we’re all going to the symphony.”

  “I like that, Landon, even though it’s a stretch.”

  “It’s a nice metaphor . . . or it’s bullshit,” Landon replied.

  “But I went to church a few times with friends, and didn’t Jesus say that nobody was going to heaven unless they believed in him?”

  “Yes, but he was quite a young man when he said it. We’re all a little self-involved in our twenties and thirties. Maybe if he’d lived longer, he would have thought better of it.”

  Abi sat back down and rolled her cigarette in the ashtray until the burning end was a fine point. She took a deep breath. “What do you know? I actually feel better about everything. I mean, I really do. Listen, I know you don’t know anybody in the neighborhood, so I was wondering if you would walk to Sam’s place with me. Just two houses up.”

  “Sure,” Landon replied.

  “But I need to tell you something first. Well, let me start by saying that Sam is a good guy—from Greene County, one of the biggest extended black families in Alabama, or so he says. Both his parents were schoolteachers. And he is studying engineering. But he does sell a little weed. It’s more of a bartering business. For example, I’m a waitress. Sometimes, I bring him nice dinners from the restaurant, and he gives me some weed from his drawer.” She paused and put her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask if you get high.”

  “Not in about twenty years,” Landon said.

  “Well, if you ever want to, let me know. I’m gonna smoke with Daddy because it’s been awhile for him, too.”

  The idea of smoking weed didn’t seem so far-fetched to Landon. She remembered those early days when she and Robbie—conspiratorial and tender—shared joints at home, in the park, in the car, at the beach, in bed after sex.

  “Okay,” Abi
said, “want to come?”

  “You will think this is silly,” Landon began, “but I have to tell Alejandro that I’m leaving and I’ll be back soon. I read this in a book by some Tibetan monks, about how to make your animal feel safe—that you should tell your pet that you’re coming back.”

  Abi laughed. “Go ahead.”

  When they stepped outside, a man’s voice rang out from across the street. “Hey, there, girls!”

  Abi turned to Landon, “That’s Roy.”

  He hollered, “How’s it going, new girl?”

  “She is fine,” Abi shouted back, “considering the frat boy who helped welcome her to the neighborhood this morning.”

  “I’m picking the last of the okra and tomatoes. I’ll bring y’all some in the morning.”

  Abi waved to Roy and took Landon by the elbow. “Walk faster,” she whispered. “He’ll talk for an hour if you let him.”

  “Later, Roy,” Abi called over her shoulder.

  Landon followed suit, waving goodbye to Roy and walking swiftly with Abi.

  SAM

  Abi had texted to say she was bringing the new tenant over, so Sam grabbed a big plastic bag and quickly started emptying ashtrays filled with lipstick-stained cigarette butts. In the kitchen, the counters were stacked full of dirty takeout containers. He stuffed them into the trash bag. Then he stood on the high porch of his upstairs unit overlooking the alley and tossed the bag into the open dumpster right below. He knew that if his girlfriend were there, she would have given him a talking to about carrying the bags downstairs and doing it the right way. But his method was so tempting, and he never missed.

  Although he had met Landon earlier, after the break-in, he was uncertain how she might feel about his lifestyle. She was, he thought, old enough to be his mother, and he knew what his own mom would think of his business. He patted down the cushions of his lumpy couch. It had seen too many parties.