The Moon of Letting Go

by Richard Van Camp

  “Oh, Aunty,” Shirley said and covered her mouth, “I’m

  so sorry. Forgive me. I had a daughter once…” but she could

  not finish.

  “I’m sorry,” Aunty said. “I could tell you were hurting, but I didn’t want to ask. What happened?”

  “One time,” Shirley said, “I had a good home: good man, good money, good town, and we had a daughter. Oh she loved to swim. So my Harold, he bring home a swimming pool one day and I didn’t like it. Well, my girl loved it so what could I do? Well, she knows not to swim without me around. She knows that. One day, my show was on, and I was watching it. It was only a few minutes but that’s all it took.” She waved her hands in the air and the tears come now. “God took her.” Oh those women they cry even harder.

  “That’s why when I see your Mary, I think of my girl. I never thought I would ever love again. Now I see her and I’m happy, me. I want to have another baby.”

  “Well, you need a man for that,” Aunty said. And they burst out laughing.

  “Well,” Shirley said. “Maybe what we can do is help each other find hubbies. I’ll baby-sit when you need help and you ask your boyfriend if he has any buddies.”

  “How did you know I had a man?” Aunty asked. Shirley pointed to her neck where she had a small hickey. And they laugh and hug and wipe each other’s tears away and laugh again.

  Well, everything went good for a month but the presents started appearing again and Aunty noticed that Mary was spending more and more time alone in her room. That’s no good when there’s company and everyone’s telling good stories, so what she did was she got up and peaked into Mary’s room and see that Mary has four new Barbie dolls that she’d never seen before. What made Aunty sad was she told Shirley she wanted to get the Olympic Barbie for Mary for her birthday but now she couldn’t. Shirley beat her to it.

  “Where did you get those dolls, my girl?” Aunty asked Mary.

  Mary was scared and tried to tell her first lie: “I found them.”

  Aunty became so sad. Here was her girl trying to lie and she was only five. “Don’t lie, my girl. Tell me.”

  “Well,” Mary said. “Shirley gave them to me. She said I was her daughter now and that she was my real mom.”

  “What?” Aunty asked in shock. “What did you say?”

  “Shirley is my real mommy,” Mary said. “You are the lie.”

  Oh now Aunty got mad.

  She took her girl by the hand.

  “Let me go,” her daughter said.

  “Look,” Aunty said as she pointed to the hallway of pictures she’d designed. “Look at all these pictures. This is you when you were a baby. You were one hour old here. Look, this is when you were baptized. Who’s holding you? Me. There’s your first day of school. There’s when you lost your first tooth. Who held you? Who comforted you? Me.”

  Her girl shook her head. “No,” she said. “My real mom said she was holding the camera and that she was only taking pictures of you because you’re so lonely, you’re so pitiful.”

  Oh the breath left Aunty to hear this.

  She put her girl to bed early and went into her bathroom and fell to her knees and she cried and prayed, cried and prayed. Shirley has been brainwashing her girl when she was babysitting her. This had all been an evil trick. She waited ’til Shirley come over that night to baby-sit and she gave her an earful. Aunty told Shirley to stay away from her daughter and that she didn’t want her around the house anymore. Aunty was so hurt by what Mary told her that she could never forgive Shirley for lying to her girl like that.

  “She’s my girl!” Shirley yelled. “What kind of mother are you anyway? You don’t have money. You never buy her what she wants. I can get her anything she wants. She doesn’t even love you half as much as she loves me—”

  Aunty slapped Shirley and yelled at her to get out of her house forever. Shirley did. She turned and she slammed the door but Mary went running after her. “Don’t go, Mommy!” she yelled and Aunty could not believe her ears. Here, I guess, Shirley had told her that Aunty wasn’t Mary’s real mom and that Aunty was just babysitting Mary until Shirley could come and get her

  for real.

  Oh, it was a sad time. Sad, sad time. Aunty told me she had to take Mary for help because her girl would not believe that she was her real mom and that Shirley was wrong for saying that.

  Here now, Aunty goes to the police and gets a peace bond against Shirley. And now they are rebuilding their lives.

  One night, a few weeks later, there was a knock at the door. It’s the police. Aunty goes to the door and they say they need to talk to her. They say that Shirley’s gone now. She’s passed on so Aunty won’t have to worry about her anymore. Aunty can’t believe it! It turns out Shirley, she flip her car over the road and she was drinking. Sorry business... sorry, sorry, sorry business.

  Oh, Aunty’s sad. She can’t believe it. How will she ever tell Mary? Well that night she have a dream. In this dream Shirley knocked on her door and asked to say goodbye.

  “You passed on,” Aunty said. “I heard you passed on.”

  “I have,” Shirley said. “I came back to say I’m sorry. I’m at peace now and I asked to say sorry to you and Mary.”

  Aunty doesn’t trust her and says, “Well, you go where you have to go now, but you leave us alone.”

  Shirley nodded and said, “I’ll go, but can I give you a hug goodbye?”

  And Aunty said okay.

  So Shirley comes to Aunty and hugs her. “I’m so cold,” she said. “Hold me.”

  Aunty holds Shirley and she’s cold.

  “I’m too cold to go,” Shirley said and closed her eyes. “I just want to sleep.”

  “Shh,” Aunty said. “You have to go now. Heaven’s calling you.”

  “I know.” Shirley lay on her side. “Come hug me one more time.”

  Aunty didn’t like this and tried to stand but Shirley grabbed her. Boy, she was strong. She pulled Aunty down and held her so tight.

  “What are you doing? Let go!”

  “I’m so cold,” Shirley said. “Just warm me and I’ll let go. I promise. I’m too cold to leave.”

  Aunty tried to get away but realized that Shirley was too strong so she said, “Okay, okay. I will. I can’t breathe. I’ll hug you.”

  So Shirley let go and Aunty hugged her and they lay on their sides and Shirley was happy, “Oh I’m getting warm. I’m getting warm. Soon, I’ll be strong to leave and go to heaven.”

  And Aunty didn’t know what to do. She was hugging Shirley but she was so cold and, here now, she could feel struggling under her in the back of her mind. She didn’t know what it was. Shirley felt it too and started to hug Aunty hard. “What is that?” Aunty asked.

  “Nothing,” Shirley said, “just hold me. I’m almost ready

  to leave.”

  But Aunty felt it again. Someone was under her and fighting to breathe. It was Mary!

  Aunty used all of her strength and pushed Shirley off of her and opened her eyes. She was lying on top of her daughter who could not breathe! They had been smothering Mary!

  Her daughter’s lips were blue!

  Luckily, Aunty knew CPR from all of her bush cook training and gave her daughter CPR and the whole time she was thinking, “Shirley came back for my girl!”

  Thank God Mary lived but Aunty had to take her girl to

  the hospital.

  “Why did you come to my bed, Mary?” Aunty asked her.

  “Mom,” Mary said. “I was so cold I couldn’t get warm and someone told me to go lie beside you, so I did.”

  So that was a story she told me long time ago when I was eating at her house. Oh I got scared! That’s why it’s no good to bring kids around someone who just passed on or to bring kids around someone who’s dying because, sometimes, even the dead get lonely.


  Don’t forget this.

  The Power of Secrets

  This one guy told me of a time in his life when he would go out with his flute to play in the forest, and a little porcupine shyly climbed out to the branch of a tree to watch him, one eye at a time, as the man played his heart out. I think this was in northern Ontario. This man told me he played for the little guy every day, and each day the porcupine came out on the same branch. It was a little game for them, hey. Well, one day this man was showing off and took a bunch of kids and the kids were loud and rowdy and so the porcupine came out but was very scared. He looked at the man only once with both eyes and what the man saw was so sad, as if the man broke something special.

  The porcupine never came back.

  The man felt such loss.

  And that got me thinking, if you have something special that sometimes it’s best to just keep it for yourself. Like if you fool around with someone, that’s a good secret, hey? What you shared together was magic, special, fun. That’s a good one. Your secret is held in two hearts. This will give you strength for the tough times ahead and when you see each other it’s okay if you can’t stop smiling. That’s a good life, when you have a few of those. Not too many, though. I think if you fool around with too many honeys then you’ll have weak kidneys. I think I heard that once. Weren’t there some priests somewhere that thought if you don’t ever fool around once that when they dig you up one hundred years from now that in between your rib bones there will be a pearl? It lets everyone know you were the patron saint of something. Well, I think that’s a hard road, myself. Aren’t we here to have a good time and help each other through the night? I think so.

  Someone told me that Indians can only keep a secret for five years tops and then everyone spills the beans. Well, maybe that is true for all the races in our atmosphere: a five-year moratorium on the goods, hey.

  • • •

  My friend, let’s call him Freddy, told me one night that he was painting a drum and one of his co-workers called him.

  “Hi, Freddy,” Stella said.

  It was late. He glanced at the clock. It was after eleven.

  “Hi,” he said. His son was asleep and it was a work day tomorrow. “Is everything okay?”

  “Um, yeah,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Having tea, painting a new drum.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I was wondering if you could come over and help me out.”

  “Help you out?” he said. “Everything okay?”

  “Well…” she said.

  “Is Sam giving you a hard time? Want me to come over there and tune him up?”

  (Stella had been having problems with her ex, eh. The whole town knew about that.)

  “Oh … no … no … Sam’s outta town.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is your power out?”

  “No … I was just wondering if you could come over and help me out?”

  “Help you out,” he repeated, putting his paintbrush down. “With?”

  “Well,” she said. “You know….”

  And that’s when it hit him: she was asking for help in the Love Me Tender Department.

  “Oh!” he said. “Oh. Oh! Oh….”

  “Well?” she asked with a smile that he could hear over the line.

  “Oh, ah … whoah … Whew!”

  “……”

  “……!”

  “…..?”

  “…..!!”

  “So?”

  “So?” Freddy stood up. “So, ah, well, ah … my boy’s asleep.”

  “So what? He can sleep on my couch.”

  “Oh well, ah, it’s a school day tomorrow. I think they’re taking pictures or something?”

  “That’s next month,” she said flatly.

  “Oh, well, ah … this is a bit sudden, isn’t it?” Freddy asked. “I mean, well….”

  “Sudden?” she asked. “For who?”

  “Well, come on,” Freddy said with his low secret voice. “We work together.”

  “So?” she said. “Just come over and help me out.”

  Freddy shook his head. He’d worked with Stella for over a year and, yes, they enjoyed each other’s company. Yes, they shared a few good laughs, but he was so surprised.

  “So?” she asked.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Really….” He tried hard to think of what to say. “This is very flattering, but I don’t think of you that way.” This wasn’t necessarily so. Stella had been hitting the gym pretty hard and was letting her hair grow out, so he’d had some Dirty Town thoughts these past few months.

  “Oh come on,” she said. “It’ll be our secret. No one has

  to know.”

  “Ah,” Freddy started pacing. “Ah. Ummm. Ah….”

  “Please?”

  “Oh that’s so sweet,” Freddy said. “But I have to say no. My son’s sleeping.”

  “I could come over there,” she said.

  “Ho-la,” he said. “You’re a brute, eh?”

  “I can be,” she giggled.

  “No,” he said with his whiny voice. “My son could wake up.”

  “I’ll be quiet if you will,” she said.

  Freddy blushed. “Holy!”

  “Come on,” Stella said. “I could come over there and help you….”

  At this, he started laughing and she started laughing, too. “Come on,” she urged. “You’ve been on your own for how long now?”

  “Oh,” he thought about it. “Eight months now.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Don’t you need a little help?”

  Freddy’s face flushed with embarrassment. He secretly called Stella The Hickey Monster as Sam’s neck had always been covered in monkey bites or passion bruises when they were still married. And Freddy was no fashionista, but he knew that he was all out of turtlenecks. “Well, ah….” What could he say to that? “Well, I….” What could he say? “I, ah, am taking some time to take care of me.…”

  “And I could help,” she said. “I could help you take care of you very nicely.”

  “I’m sure you could,” he grinned.

  It had been eight months all right. Eight months of learning to bake cookies for his son’s fundraising events. Eight months of meetings with teachers and the optometrist to get glasses for his boy. Eight months of learning to cook supper and prepare sandwiches for his son’s lunch every day. Eight months of waiting for his wife, to see if she’d ever return.

  “Stella,” he said. “I want to thank you for calling me. It’s been a tough go.”

  “I can tell,” she said.

  “I’m really honoured that you called. Can I think about this?”

  “You may,” she said and she said it sweetly. Sometimes a woman can be tough on a man in a moment like this, but she could tell she’d disarmed him in a good way.

  “I really need some time to think,” he said. “I’ve been so focused on being a single dad and taking care of my boy that I’ve just gotten in touch with me.”

  “I’m really proud of you,” she said. “You’re a great dad.”

  “Thanks,” he said. Because of his son’s swimming lessons, Freddy had gotten over his own fear of the water. Because he was a single parent, he was now learning new recipes from his aunties. He could now cook a mean stir-fry and prepare salmon and halibut just the way his boy liked it.

  “You’re a real catch,” she said. “I wanted to make my intentions clear.”

  “Well, they’re greatly appreciated,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “So?” she said. “Will you call me sometime when you know what you want?”

  “I will,” he smiled. “I will. I really want to thank you for

  the call.”

  “Okay, good nigh
t. It’s nice to hear your voice.”

  “Yours, too,” he said.

  And she hung up softly.

  And that was when Freddy decided that he wasn’t waiting for his wife anymore. That was the night he decided that it was time to move on, that any woman who would leave her family behind without any explanation was a woman he could no longer trust for himself or for their boy, and that was the night Freddy went from being a passive good-hearted guy to an active participant in his life, a real mover and shaker.

  So, did they ever get together? That’s a secret. We just have to mind our own beeswax on that one. But let’s get back to the spirit of this story: the medicine of secrets.

  My buddy Trevor told me once that a long time ago the Crees used to go into the forest with a spear. And what they had to do was they’d sneak up on a bear and tap him on the bum with it—not the sharp side, but the flat side, I guess, and the bear would scoot away in fear. Then you would come out of the forest and never tell anyone about it. But that’s what made you a man. If you could do that then you were a man. But the key was to never tell anyone, not even your wife. You keep it inside and you know it yourself, that you did that, hey.

  So, my question to you all is do you have any secrets that you haven’t ever told anyone? Good. Keep them inside you. If not, you better run out and start gathering some so they can keep you warm inside when you’re in your golden years. The bad secrets should be talked about, I think, but the sacred ones, the special ones, the good time ones, I think you should keep them inside—not all, but some. Because they are medicine. They’ll get you through the hard times. Plus, no one wants to fool around with you if they think you’ll tell all your buddies and coworkers, hey! And whatever happened to kissing but not telling? Now that’s a dying art (right up there with flirting, the four-hour makeout session and French kissing, in my opinion).