Losing the Moon

by Patti Callahan Henry

  “No news on Oystertip?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I haven’t seen you since the Christmas party.” So much garbage lay stagnant below what she just said that she could almost smell its stench.

  “Yes, eighteen days ago.” He paused. “Did you read them?”

  “Yes. I read them.”

  “Do you still have them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  The truth that flowed now brought new truth with it. She whispered—the only way she could say it. “It breaks my heart . . . that I wasn’t there for you.”

  “You didn’t know. Amy, Eliza had them. She hid them, told the lawyer she called your dorm, called your home and mailed those telegrams.”

  “I . . . thought so.”

  “I’m so damn sorry about all this—that it was my wife who kept us—”

  “It doesn’t change what happened.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But can it change anything else?”

  Carol Anne’s voice echoed down the hall in unison with the sound of her boots hitting the pine floors. “Amy, what in the living tea bags are you doing—drying your own leaves?”

  The kitchen door swung open and Amy turned her back on her friend and spoke into the phone. “Listen, I gotta go. But you might try their cell phones. Do you need Jack’s number?”

  “You just give Carol Anne a great big hug for me. We’ll talk . . . later.”

  “Okay, bye now.” She reached for her cheery voice and pushed the OFF button, hung the phone back up on the hook.

  Amy turned to Carol Anne, held out her mug.

  “Here ya go, just as you like it.”

  “Who was important enough to leave me waiting?”

  “Nick was looking for Lisbeth.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “He was.”

  “Nothing about telegrams, or love, or begging you to see him.”

  “Nothing about any of the above.”

  “Bullshit. Double bullshit.”

  “He asked if I read them. I said I did. End of conversation.”

  “It’s not the end of anything. I just know it.”

  “He was looking for his daughter. She and Jack are in some huge fight—breaking up.” Amy walked to the bar stool, sat down. “Jack said she was needy. I heard him talking to his sister about it, too. Said she was real demanding, clingy.”

  “Wonder where she got that from?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. But it’s probably a very good thing that they’re breaking up.”

  Amy gazed off at a lone chickadee staring through the window at her, accusing her of not filling the bird feeder when food was scarce in the cold weather.

  “Yeah, but there’s no real reason for them to break up. I don’t know why they’d break up when no one’s leaving or cheating or dating someone else or . . . whatever.”

  “Or going to Costa Rica?” Carol Anne punched her lightly on the shoulder.

  “Exactly.”

  “This is Jack and Lisbeth, not you and Nick.”

  “I know that.”

  “You think that if Nick hadn’t gone to Costa Rica you would’ve never broken up, that you would’ve married him, had little Nickies, lived happily ever after?”

  Amy looked at her best friend, then around her own kitchen. “I don’t know.” She leaned against the counter and lowered her voice. “Don’t you think some things were, or are, just meant to be—that there’s nothing you can do about it? If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, no matter who tries to stop it or even start it?”

  “No, I don’t think that and neither do you. You didn’t get him arrested, you didn’t hide the telegrams and you didn’t start any of this.”

  “I know, I know. That’s my point. There’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing.”

  “I don’t understand, Ame. I don’t know what you’re saying. Since when have you been so fatalistic? What about choice?”

  “There are some things we have no choice about.” Amy sighed. There was a relief in just saying this, in knowing it.

  “But there are some things we do have a choice about,” Carol Anne said.

  “Doesn’t seem to me like there are very many of those these days.”

  Carol Anne groaned. “Amy, you don’t need to know what would’ve happened. It didn’t happen.”

  “Do you have to be so God blessed perfect? Don’t you ever, even a little, wonder what would have happened if you’d married Bill or Zach? Or what was his name, Darwin?”

  “Of course I wonder, only wonder. For about two and a half seconds max.”

  “But you broke up with every single one of them. You chose to . . . move on.”

  “So did you.”

  “No . . . I was . . .”

  “When you fell in love with Phil, you chose. Yes, you did.”

  “It’s different. Totally different. I do not want to talk about this anymore. At all. I wish Jack had never brought home that weepy girlfriend of his. I wish I hadn’t gone to that tailgate party. I wish I could take a nap.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I can’t. I can’t sleep.”

  “Oh, Ame.” Carol Anne came over, set her mug of tea on the counter and hugged Amy close while she let silent tears roll down her face.

  “He wasn’t worth crying over then, and he’s not now.” Carol Anne wiped at Amy’s face. “Let this go.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Well, I actually came over to talk about me. But that’s all shot to hell now.”

  Amy wiped her face. “Something wrong?”

  “No . . . I just quit my job yesterday. Just up and walked out on Farley.”

  “Yeehaw! It’s about time. Come in the living room, sit down, tell me all about it so you can cheer me up. This is the best news I’ve heard in three months.”

  They sat down on the couch and Amy hugged Carol Anne, spilling warm tea on her sweater. “I am so proud of you.”

  “Thank you. I have a very fine line to walk now. My clients want to come with me, but they can’t. I might not have work for a year, but I’ll be able to breathe.”

  “When you do the right thing like this, it always works out. Always. Remember when I had no idea how I would buy this home, or work at SCAD an hour and a half away, and it all just fell into place? Even though Phil hates when I spend the night there—he complains about it, tries to get me to change it every semester. He doesn’t understand how important it is to me. But when it matters that much . . . it all works out.”

  “I know. I feel like I’ve lost a hundred pounds—or if we’re going to be literal in the case of Mr. Farley, three hundred pounds. I finally told Joe we weren’t getting a Christmas bonus and I kinda broke down. He told me to do what I needed to do.”

  “So . . . you left. Wow. You knew exactly what to do.”

  “Amy.” She leaned closer. “Hear me—that is because I knew exactly what was bothering me. I didn’t blame something else, or pretend I loved something I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I faced the real problem.”

  Amy looked away; some echo of truth rested in what Carol Anne was saying, but Amy couldn’t or didn’t want to find it. Time slipped past them and the sun descended to the rhododendron bushes in the backyard, the tips lit like miniature green torches. Amy leaned back against the couch cushions, forgetting about telegrams, Jack and Lisbeth, and the dull longing burrowed in her chest; she was thankful for the bushes Phil had planted in the backyard, for her best friend, for her cushy couches.

  Amy reached for Carol Anne’s hand. “Can I say it again? I am so proud of you.”

  “Yes, you can. You know, Amy—you’ll get mad at me for saying this, but you have to find out what’s really bothering you—not just look at the old stuff to . . . I d
on’t know—feel better.”

  Amy closed her eyes and hugged her friend goodbye. Carol Anne had attempted to impart some truth, but there was no way anyone could understand the tug-of-war her heart and mind played all day. Wise words, quotes and her friend’s metaphors weren’t going to solve this pain and she didn’t know what would.

  After Carol Anne’s car puffed white smoke down the driveway, Amy grabbed her winter parka off the back of the kitchen chair, then walked outside to watch the sun set behind her dormant rose garden. She sagged into a lawn chair and stared at the sky, admired the overblown and shrouded sun behind the yellow and pink striated clouds. She watched and let her mind wander, once again, to the past invading the present.

  A loud bang caused her to jump; Phil walked into the backyard. “What’re you doing out here in the dark?”

  “Watching the sun set.”

  “Babe, the sun set half an hour ago. Get inside. You’re gonna freeze.”

  She glanced up at the ink black sky: no moon, no stars, no setting sun. How had she not noticed when she was watching the entire time? How could she have missed the final sinking of the sun, or the shudders of her life? She’d been watching, but obviously not carefully enough.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Nick slid down in the chair, hoped the dark, greasy-haired boy in front of him was tall enough to hide his own too-long hair from Amy’s sight. The classroom was shaped like an amphitheater, rising from a podium in curved rows of blue padded spring-back chairs overlooking a chalkboard wall. A musty smell, like an old gym locker mixed with chalk dust, filled the room. The floor was sticky under Nick’s feet, where another student must have spilled some caffeine-laden drink, trying to stay awake during class. The name “Megan” was carved in crooked lettering on the wooden flip-down desk, which pulled up from the side of the chair like a meal tray on an airplane.

  He wanted to sit in on Amy’s class and listen to her teach, hear her voice, watch her body move across the room. The girl next to him wore a black turtleneck sweater, baring an inch of her tummy above her too low-cut jeans; she looked at him, wrinkled her nose. He smiled at the girl, hopefully letting her know he was completely harmless before she raised her hand and asked Mrs. Reynolds who the old geezer sitting next to her was.

  Dim and dusty light illuminated the podium more than the room itself. He hoped the low light would assist him in his mission of obscurity.

  Amy entered the room, making him feel warm, safe. She wore a pair of brown corduroy pants with high-heeled boots and a tan sweater with fringe at the sleeves. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, but when she turned around to pull down another chalkboard, he saw she had tried to attach a tortoiseshell barrette in the waves. She looked like just another student, not a forty-something-year-old teacher with two grown kids. She plopped her books down on the podium and smiled at the class.

  “How was break?” she asked in the general direction of the slouched and rustling students who were opening their notebooks, searching for pencils, girls opening and closing their purses.

  “Fine,” “Great,” “Too short,” “Cold.”

  It sounded like they all answered twice as the various replies echoed off the brick walls.

  Amy squinted against the faint light. “Steve . . .” She motioned to a student sitting by the far wall. “Will you turn on the auditorium lights? I hate when I can’t see everyone.”

  “Sure, Mrs. Reynolds.” A tall blond boy stood and sauntered toward the light switch. Nick slouched further down in his seat.

  Amy turned to the chalkboard. “Let’s start with the syllabus for the semester.” She began to pass out a pile of papers. “We’ll begin with the Greek-revival period and how it made its way into the architecture of Lowcountry South Carolina.”

  She wrote “Greek Revival” on the board and turned to the class. “Melody, you were in my last class. Do you remember where we left off during this period?”

  “I think it was with an eggnog on the back porch of the historic Calhoun Hall.”

  Amy laughed. “Great memory. Do you remember exactly what we were learning on the back porch of Calhoun Hall?”

  “That the Greek-revival period dominated American architecture during the period between 1818 and 1850?”

  Amy bowed. “Ah, my mission in teaching something, anything, has not been for naught.”

  The class laughed. Nick laughed—too loudly. Amy’s head snapped up and she squinted to the top of the auditorium just as Steve turned on the lights. Her face fell.

  Nick flicked his fingers in a tiny, hopefully inconspicuous wave.

  Amy frowned, continued to talk about plans for the semester in a quiet voice, tucking her hair behind her ears, glancing up and down, left and right, but never at him. Students turned and looked at him every few minutes as if to ask, “What have you done to our fun teacher?”

  Finally, after the students had scribbled across pages and Amy’s nervous movements ceased, she announced, “Okay, let’s end early today. We have our first field trip tomorrow—an early morning. Meet at the front steps of Prentiss Hall with a full list of the four styles of neoclassical architecture.”

  She snapped her book shut, waved a dismissive hand at the class. Nick stayed in his seat, gazed at her until the last student slammed the wooden door shut.

  She looked up at him and didn’t speak.

  “Hi, Ame.”

  “You ruined my class.”

  “I did not. It was a great class.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see you teach. And I have a surprise for you.”

  “Okay, you saw me teach. Now what is the surprise? Did we get the Heritage Trust?”

  “No, nothing on that yet. But I think you’ll love this surprise just as much.”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll have to wait. By the way, you look great.”

  She sighed. “So do you. You need a haircut.”

  He laughed, ran a hand through his hair. “I know. You’re a beautiful teacher. It’s a gift.”

  “I’m trying to let them see how much . . . how interesting it is, without it being just another subject to pass.”

  “Well, it seems to be working.” He touched her arm. “How was your break?”

  “Cold, and except for the trauma of Jack and Lisbeth’s breakup, quiet.”

  “They broke up?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  He didn’t know and didn’t care. He wanted to push Amy up against the black chalkboard, and when he was done with her find chalk dust on her brown corduroys, her tan sweater.

  “Yes, they had quite the traumatic event. Please tell me Eliza told you something about it,” she said.

  “Nothing. I haven’t been home much over the holiday break. A big job in—”

  Amy smiled. “Sorry you missed it.”

  “I came to take you away for the afternoon, the evening.”

  “Nick, you know I can’t do that. No.”

  “Amy, you have to. Trust me on this—you’ll be glad you said yes.” He stepped closer and lifted her chin so she was forced to look at him.

  She jerked away from him; he followed her, then she turned to face him.

  “Where do you want to go?” Her shoulders slumped in surrender.

  “I’ll show you. You’ll love it.”

  “Okay . . . okay. Let me drop off my papers and books at the dorm.”

  Amy’s face in the warped mirror over the wooden dresser was flushed, her eyes wide. It was just the cold, she rationalized, not the anticipation of Nick’s surprise. She looked away from the obvious excitement in her face to the rectangular room standing out in bas-relief—a reverse Polaroid of the dorm room she’d lived in when Nick hadn’t come back for her. Sheer pink curtains, stained with salmon-colored streaks in the pattern of a rising sun, attempted to brighten the room. A metal des
k squatted under the window with a black metal chair whose peeling paint revealed a bright blue undercoat.

  Once in a while she would come back to the dorm to find a burned candle, an open book or piece of clothing and the odd thought “Who has been in my room?” would pass through her mind. Then she’d remind herself the room was nothing but a place to crash one night a week.

  How odd. How many times had she stood in a dorm room that didn’t look much different than this—except with her own 1970s paraphernalia covering the walls-—brushing her hair and wondering what she and Nick would do that night? Without the items that defined family and home surrounding her, she believed that this was just another evening with Nick, just another dorm room. Yet it was a different dorm room, and Nick was waiting for her—which is all he’d ever done . . . wait for her.

  Now there really was nothing left to think about, was there? She just needed to watch it all unfold. Letting go of any control over the situation felt good, a relief warming her middle.

  She grabbed her purse and headed down the concrete stairs to the foyer where Nick stood waiting, just as he had a hundred other times. She smiled at the desk attendant who, for the first time all day, actually sat at her post.

  “Mrs. Reynolds . . . you need to sign in your guest.”

  “We’re leaving. Thank you, Melissa.”

  He’d startled her in class, his voice echoing below her consciousness before she saw his face above the students. When she’d seen him, she’d understood she was the only one who really knew him, who could fill all those wide, empty spaces inside him.

  Nick turned and flashed his “You’ll forgive me for leaving” grin at the cute girl, who waved goodbye to him. He opened the door and Amy walked through, brushed up against his arm; her skin prickled beneath her coat and sweater.

  His pickup truck was parked next to her SUV; a low-lying birch shed its leaves on their car roofs, on the curb and bricked street. The freezing temperatures of the past weeks had risen, but not by much. She shivered and pulled her coat closer. Nick wrapped his arms around her and walked her to the passenger side of his truck.

  “I wish we could just take a walk,” she said.