Undressing the Moon

by T. Greenwood

  “Want to see something neat?” she asked, her eyes bright like a kid’s.

  “Yeah.”

  She went to one corner of the room and squatted down, inspecting the floor, running her fingers across the floorboards. Then she pried up a loose board and pulled out a coffee can. It was rusted, but you could still read Chock Full o’Nuts on the side.

  “What’s inside?” I asked, suddenly thrilled.

  “Let’s see,” she said, raising her eyebrows, teasing me.

  “Open it!”

  “Okay, okay,” she said and peeled back the plastic lid.

  Then she poured the contents on the wooden counter that ran the length of one wall. Sunlight was streaming through the one window now, and it caught in all the colors in the pile.

  “What is it?” I asked, moving toward the counter.

  “Just glass,” she said. She carefully picked up a small piece of brilliant green glass and set it gently in the palm of my hand. “I found this one at the access area. Luckily, I had shoes on.”

  “What about this one?” I asked, picking up a circle of amber.

  “It was buried under a rock at the Pond. I think someone hid it.” It looked to me like the bottom of a beer bottle, but she handled it as if it were a gem.

  We went through the entire pile until there was a story attached to each piece. And then she carefully put them back in the coffee can and put the coffee can back under the floor.

  “What will you do with them?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. What do you think I should do with them?”

  “I think you should make windows like the ones at that house,” I said, clapping my hands together.

  “What a good idea.”

  When we walked back to our house that afternoon, I started to look at things differently. I was looking for something instead of wandering blindly. I felt like Magoo must have felt when the sun finally set. My eyes were open.

  I went to the Pond by myself that afternoon while Mum took a nap. I brought a spoon with me, and my own coffee can. I searched for three hours before I finally saw the sun glinting in a broken piece of glass, but that simple shard of cobalt made me cry out, its beauty as sharp as if it had cut the bottom of my foot.

  I brought it home to Mum, waking her from her nap, and she examined it like it was a diamond. A ruby. Or an emerald. “This is a good one,” she said. “This may be the best one yet.”

  I still look for glass. It’s something I no longer think about. A lot of the wedding dresses I’ve made have been sprinkled with it. Glass buttons and beads. Not sharp, not able to cut, but faceted to catch the light.

  The dress I am making for the widow is full of glass, too. When we got home from the library, while Becca organized her research into files and later made something green and healthy for dinner, I sat in the living room, curled up on the couch, sewing glass beads so small you could barely see them into the edges of the dress. They’re a secret. You won’t even see them unless she turns the right way in the sunlight. I imagined making a dress completely of glass someday. But not this time. The bride is too fragile herself for a dress of glass.

  Quinn came bursting through the door to our house like a storm. Snow swirled around him, and the cold wind blew a pile of bills off the kitchen table.

  “Hey,” I said, scooping up the papers and setting them back on the table. “Close the door, will you?”

  “Guess what?” he said.

  “Chicken butt?”

  “Piper, I’m serious.”

  “Okay,” I said, making a serious face. Becca and I had been at rehearsals all morning, and I was feeling silly.

  “I got approached by two scouts today,” he said. “At the mountain.”

  “What’s a scout?” I asked, imagining Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts.

  “It’s someone who recruits athletes for the colleges,” he said. He was still out of breath.

  “UVM?” I asked, excited. I’d been thinking a lot lately about what would happen when Quinn went to college. The way I figured it, I would go live with him in Burlington, finish high school there, and then after graduation Becca would move to Burlington, too, to go to college with me at UVM. I already had ideas about what an apartment would look like.

  “Yep. UVM and UC Boulder.”

  “What’s UC Boulder?” I asked.

  “Colorado.”

  “Oh,” I said, confused. “I thought you wanted to go to UVM.”

  “I did. I do. But, the guy from Colorado said I might be able to get a full scholarship to ski for them. Do you realize how many guys on the Olympic team went to school in Colorado?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know exactly, but way more than UVM. Plus, the snow’s completely different out there. It’s not as cold as it is here. Not so much ice.” Quinn was still wearing his ski clothes. He sat down at the kitchen table and untied his boots.

  I was starting to feel shaky, like having the flu all over again. “But, if you go to Colorado, then where will I go?”

  “To live with Boo,” he said, as if he’d already thought this through.

  As he pulled off his parka and ski pants, I felt my face growing hot.

  “But what about Burlington?” I asked.

  “What about Burlington?”

  “I thought if you went to UVM, I’d come live with you until it’s time for me to go to college, too.”

  “If I got a scholarship, I’d have to live in the dorms,” he said. “You’d have to stay here with Boo anyway.”

  The heat had spread to my ears and fingertips. I didn’t want to cry.

  “I thought you knew that,” Quinn said, his face full of concern.

  “Well, I didn’t,” I said, my voice trembling. And then I couldn’t stand it anymore. Everything was about to burst inside of me. “I didn’t know you planned to leave me too!”

  Quinn reached out for me, but I rushed past him, yanking my coat off the rack and shoving on my boots. I opened up the door and went outside. It had been ten below zero for three days now.

  “Where are you going?” Quinn asked. He was standing in the doorway in his long johns.

  “To Becca’s,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything, but I could feel him standing there watching me as I walked away from the house as fast as I could through the ice and snow.

  I thought about going to Becca’s. I knew she was at home, going over her lines again. Mr. Hammer had been right; we’d all gotten rusty over the holiday. Becca’s mom didn’t like me very much. She never had. Becca would never say so, but I think it was because Daddy worked at the dump. Becca’s dad’s job wasn’t much more glamorous (he worked at the John Deere equipment rental store, renting out tractors), but at least he didn’t come home stinking of other people’s trash. Mrs. O’Leary always wrinkled her nose when I was around, as if I stank simply by association. Becca feigned ignorance, but I knew she just didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

  So I walked past the turn to Becca’s house and continued toward Gormlaith, trying not to think about what would happen if Quinn went to Colorado. Colorado was one of those places like Alaska and Japan. I couldn’t even picture it, it was so far away. And I wondered what would happen to our house. If Quinn was in Colorado, and I was at Boo’s, then what would happen to Sleep? Boo didn’t even like dogs. Maybe with both of us gone, Daddy would move back in. Maybe he’d bring Roxanne and Jake with him. I thought about Roxanne going through my mother’s things, throwing everything she had left behind into the back of Daddy’s truck and then making him take it to the dump. I thought about my mother’s drawers filled with glass, her records, the clothes she’d left hanging in the closet. I thought about the mountains of broken appliances and cardboard boxes and garbage at the dump, Mum’s things getting buried. And then I thought about what would happen to me. What would happen if Boo didn’t want me? I couldn’t even stay with Becca because her mother thought I was trash.

  By the time I got to the lake, I w
as running and crying. The tears were freezing almost as soon as they came out of my eyes. My lungs hurt from breathing such cold air. I bent over to try to catch my breath, and it felt as if I’d swallowed knives. My legs were tired from running. My whole body was tired. I kept walking, but I just wanted to fall asleep. If I could just fall asleep, maybe I would wake up and none of this would be happening. I’d felt relief from a dream upon waking before.

  And so I sat. I just let my legs buckle, and I sat down in the middle of the road. The ice was cold through my jeans, but I was too tired to care about the cold anymore. I sat down in the middle of the road and cried. Like a baby. I cried until there was nothing left.

  When I heard the car coming, I scrambled to my feet, embarrassed, jerked back into the reality of soaking wet clothes and numb skin. I moved to the side of the road and pulled my hat down farther over my ears. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop, I whispered.

  But as the car came up behind me, I knew it would stop. Only crazy people like Casper went out in cold like this. And I wondered whether whoever was in the car would think I was crazy, too.

  “Piper?” Mr. Hammer said through the passenger window. He was leaning from the driver’s side, rolling down the window closest to me as he spoke. “Quinn’s car not starting again?”

  At the mention of my brother, my shoulders started to shake again and I couldn’t stop them. I turned to look at Mr. Hammer and he was leaning to open the door. “Piper, get inside. It’s too cold, and you don’t even have mittens on.”

  I looked down at my hands as if they weren’t attached to my body. I must have forgotten to put on mittens. They were red, my knuckles swollen. I held them to my face, and got in the car.

  At Mr. Hammer’s house, he sat me down at the little table by the kitchen, put a blanket around my shoulders, and handed me a cup of hot tea. I could feel the steam thawing the frozen tears, and they started flowing again. Mr. Hammer didn’t try to stop me from crying. He didn’t even ask what was wrong. He just sat across from me at his kitchen table and let me cry until there was nothing left inside except for some dry sobs. They made me cough, so he pushed the mug of tea closer and I sipped on it slowly.

  After all the tears were gone, the words came. He must have known they would. I showed him the necklace my mother had sent from wherever she was, told him about the coffee can buried in the sugar shack in the woods. I told him about the way the light shined on the pile of broken red glass after she smashed the vase at Gray Wilder’s house, and the way I mistook a pile of empty blankets for her at the foot of my bed. I told him about the stitches in Daddy’s cheeks, about the wounds shaped like the rings on Roxanne’s fingers. I told him about Becca’s mother not letting me into the house unless I took my shoes and socks off, because she was afraid I had garbage stuck to my socks. And how even then, she looked at me as if I were filthy. I told him that was no wonder: I’d dug through mud for three hours just to find a broken piece of blue glass.

  While I talked, Mr. Hammer sat and listened. And when I told him that Quinn might go to Colorado and that I would finally be completely alone, he lifted my chin with his finger and looked me square in the eyes.

  “It’s hard to be alone,” he said.

  I let him hold my head up, thinking that maybe his hand was the only thing keeping it from falling permanently to my chest in shame.

  “It is the hardest thing in the whole world.”

  I nodded and could feel the bones in his fingers under my chin.

  “You have to be very strong to be by yourself. Most people aren’t that strong. But I know you, Piper,” he said. “I know you.”

  He leaned forward, as if to kiss my forehead again, the way he’d done when I was sick, and I leaned into his kiss, as if my world depended on it. And when his warm lips touched my skin, I felt everything begin to thaw. Even the tea had not been this warm.

  I lifted my head, raising my eyes to meet his, and his lips lingered and slid down the bridge of my nose. An accident. He pulled his face away, but he was still touching my chin with his fingers. His eyes were the color of amber glass. He looked terrified. And I wanted him not to be afraid. I wanted to make all that terror go away. So I closed my eyes and pushed my face closer to his, until I could smell his skin and his breath. It stuttered, like a clumsy breeze, and I felt everything quicken. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew what I was doing. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know what I was doing. And then his lips were pressed, closed and warm, on my lips. Or maybe it was mine on his.

  I knew this wasn’t supposed to happen. I knew everything about it was wrong. But my life had turned backward and upside down now, and what I believed I didn’t believe anymore. And what I knew, I didn’t know anymore. And what I didn’t want, I wanted.

  In that room, I was transformed. Inside those four walls, I became old. I entered the door a girl and emerged (and emerged, and emerged) a woman, weathered and wise.

  I was out of tears and out of words, so I didn’t use words. I didn’t ask. I only stood up and went to the piano, closing the lid. And I looked at him, the amber glass of his eyes, softer than any music, and reached for his hand, as if he were the fragile one, as if he could break. When I pulled his hand, when I took him into that room, I didn’t know if he would follow. I didn’t know what I would do if he did.

  The room was that of an ascetic, a monk, someone who has committed a crime. There was a single bed, without a headboard or a footboard, only a steel frame to elevate the mattress and box spring from the floor. The sheets were plain. One wool blanket. A plain white chenille spread, pilly and soft. One pillow. Everything smelled clean.

  He sat down on the bed and looked at me, waiting. His whole world was in my hands. I stood between his knees and he tentatively put his hands on the sides of my legs, as if only to steady me. And with this gentle gesture, my muscles relaxed, my knees collapsed, and I sat down on his lap, and he cradled me. That’s all. He only held me like an infant.

  Sing to me? I asked.

  And he sang the lullabies my mother had hoarded. The ones she stole.

  It would have ended with this strange embrace, if I hadn’t insisted. If I hadn’t pressed so hard, if I hadn’t wanted (needed) so badly to be enclosed. But I did. I insisted with my words, pressed with my head and body, wanted. Needed. And let him enclose me, under covers, inside arms and legs and breath. Because I was already broken, I knew it wouldn’t hurt. I had already felt his fingers, each time they touched the piano keys. I had been listening to his breathing, too.

  THREE

  Mr. Hammer offered to drive me back home that afternoon, after the sky grew dark outside his bedroom window. He didn’t turn on the little lamp on the nightstand, and in the twilight, I could barely see my hands.

  His voice came out of the darkness so softly it might have been only the wind. “I can take you home.”

  I pretended his voice was indeed nothing more than breeze, and gathered my clothes in my arms. “That’s okay. I’ll walk.” My voice was still hoarse from the flu. I didn’t recognize it anymore. “Quinn will be worried.”

  His shadow stiffened.

  I pulled on my clothes, grateful for the darkness. If I could mistake my own voice for someone else’s, I might not recognize my own body in the light. But despite the safety of almost-night, I had never felt so naked before; with each clumsy attempt to pull on pants and shirt, I felt more vulnerable and ridiculous. I hadn’t dressed in front of anyone before except for Mum.

  I found my way out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where my boots were waiting for me, mouths wide open and laces untied. I yanked them on as hard as I could and grabbed my coat.

  Mr. Hammer stood in the bedroom doorway, a silhouette. “Piper?”

  I zipped my coat and reached into the pocket for my hat. “I better go.”

  He nodded and then in a whisper, “I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged and opened the door to the cold. I gasped, the cold startling my lungs. I almost turned
around and asked if I could please stay, but I knew that if I didn’t leave now, I might never leave.

  Outside, the lake was still, frozen. All of the trees were heavy with snow, burdened and melancholy. I shoved my hands in my pockets, wishing I had asked to borrow some mittens, and started the long walk back to our house.

  It’s incredible how quiet the world can be. It’s easy to forget when you’re busy with other things. But deep in the woods, in the winter, at night when even the birds are sleeping, there is something close to silence. Near the turnoff to the Pond, I stood still, so that even the sound of my boots on the icy road disappeared and the only sound remaining was my own breath. And then I slowed my breathing down until it was as deep as the lake, and as quiet. But after only a moment the silence started to terrify me. I knew that silence was a dangerous thing. And so I stomped my feet on the ground as I walked the last mile to the house, and sang, “The hills are alive with the sound of music. …” as loudly as I could. I sang every verse and arrived at my door winded, exhausted, and laughing so hard tears were starting to freeze in the corners of my eyes.

  Quinn was on the phone when I came in and threw my hat on the table.

  “Oh, forget it, she just walked in the door,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Jesus Christ, Piper.” He came toward me and grabbed my shoulders. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Ouch,” I said. He was still holding on to me, his fingers boring into my skin. “I told you.”

  “You didn’t go to Becca’s. I just talked to her mother.”

  “Let go of me,” I said, trying to squirm out of his grasp.

  “Where were you? Was it that asshole Henderson? Did you go off with Blue somewhere?” His eyes were frantic.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, squeezing my eyes shut against the thought of Blue.

  “Where then?”

  “I went for a walk, and I stopped at Mr. Hammer’s on the way home. No big deal.”