The Moon of Letting Go

by Richard Van Camp

  “No.”

  “I asked. I asked him. Maybe you were already in the hall but I asked him and he said it was one in a million.”

  “One in a million?”

  “He said it was one in a million. I know you don’t want to talk about adoption, but … if you want to start talking about a sperm donor….” He couldn’t finish.

  “A what?”

  “A sperm donor. I was looking into it.”

  “Oh, Lance!” she said and hugged him. “I can’t believe you!”

  “What?” he said. “Baby, if you want to, I’d consider it.”

  “Lance Charlie,” she said. “I want your baby. I want to bring your son or daughter into the world through my body. Any doctor who says pregnancy is one percent pregnancy and ninety-nine percent the rest of your life has his head up his ass, and I want your baby. I want you and your beautiful balls to give me what I want so I can be your wife and the mother of our children.” She burst out laughing. “I love you, Lance. I love you and only you. I don’t want a life of wondering ahead of us. I want us. I want us. I want us.” She started to kiss his face.

  Lance smiled and sank into her kisses. She had not been this affectionate in forever. “My beautiful balls?” he said. “I like the sound of this.”

  “Baby, I love your balls. They’re smooth and they’re all mine and I have been praying for them for months in the sweat and in ceremony. Do you know we have a prayer circle for your balls right now?”

  “What!”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “There are women you have never met—aunties and grannies—praying for your beautiful balls. They are praying and dropping tobacco for them to heal properly so we can have a baby.”

  “Jesus!” Lance said.

  “Sweetie, there is no sweeter sound to me in this life than your balls slapping against me as we make love.”

  Lance burst out laughing. “Holy shit! Are you frickin’ stoned, or what?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m in love with you and I’m just so sad to see you like this. Thank God you got stoned tonight because we’ve been worried about you. You’re getting too skinny. I don’t want to cuddle up to a little bag of antlers. You’ve got to get strong. You’re going to need your strength for our future. I won’t give up on you, but don’t you dare give up on our dream, okay?”

  “Holy shit,” Lance said again. “I’m the luckiest guy in the fuckin’ world, you know that?”

  “Yes you are,” she said. “You think I drank all that stink tea and ate all that rabbit for nothing?”

  Lance burst out laughing. Stink tea. That was what Shari called it every morning when they had to drink it together. She’d plug her nose and wretch as she chugged it. Part of the acupuncture and fertility treatments was to drink a Chinese tea and eat foods like rabbit. There was a theory that rabbits could get pregnant when they were pregnant so eating them would promote fertility. They also were to eat a lot of seeds, so they ate spits, sesame and hemp seeds with just about everything.

  “Now let’s get home,” She said and drove back into the street.

  My beautiful balls, he thought. Goddamned straight they’re beautiful! He loved this! It had been so long since he felt adored. He wanted to make love to Shari and pull her close and vanish with the smell of her with the gentle brushing of his thumb against the smooth skin of her tummy. He wanted a daughter. Lance realized over the past year that a daughter was his secret wish. He wanted a little version of Shari. He wanted to see Shari holding their baby, her eyes saying, “Look at what we did. Look at what we’ve created together.” He could see the picture. He’d place it in their first photo album as parents. Shari had created twelve photo albums that were displayed proudly in their living room. All twelve of those albums contained photos taken of them as a couple in love, as a couple with hope. They were gorgeous photos highlighting their journey together, but her photography had stopped since his reversal. Lance realized that she had not taken a single picture since the cold panic moved into their home. She patted his knee before taking the steering wheel. “We’re just about home. Let’s talk in the morning.”

  “Can we go for a walk on the beach?”

  “Tomorrow?” she smiled. “Are you up for walking?”

  He nodded. “I want to. I want to with you. Even if I hobble around. I want to see you in the wind.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’m sorry you lost all your photos. I’m sorry about the house fire. Thank God you were all okay.”

  “You’ve never forgotten that story, hey? That’s sweet of you.”

  “It’s sad, hon. I can’t imagine it. But you know, when you were telling that story, I could see you. Like, I could see you in flashes. You growing up. You becoming such a beautiful woman. I loved it, sweetie. I did.”

  She was quiet. He could feel her listening.

  “Can I make you breakfast tomorrow?”

  She laughed. “You may.”

  “Would you like it before or after your massage?”

  “My massage?” She smiled. “I need one. Wait. Let’s talk about this doorway thing of yours.”

  He smiled. “Not now. I’m still stoned. I adore your feet, sweetie. Remember how you used to sweep your hair all over my body? You used to take me to heaven and back with that. And I’m not sure if you read the headline in the paper today but your nipples wanted me to know that they missed my constant and loving attention.” She let out a little laugh but she knew it was true. “Sweetie,” he said. “The truth is you look fantastic with short hair. Can you let me massage your feet tomorrow after

  our walk?”

  “You may.”

  Lance brushed the back of his hand gently against her cheek, where it had once been shattered by her ex. “What was his name again?”

  “Who?”

  “The soccer ball.”

  “Nelson Crummy,” she said as if playfully annoyed.

  He nodded and smiled. “One more time.”

  “Nelson Crummy.”

  He felt warmth spread again through his thighs, through his tubes, through his scars. “Sweetie, I just love the way you say it. I’ve always loved your voice.” His acupuncturist told him every session to imagine a clearing blue light pouring through him, to travel up his body and to blast through anything that blocked his chakras, tubes and spirit. He’d tried but every time he did, the light was green. Now, now it was blue and it poured through every artery, every vein, every passage with the speaking of the soccer ball’s name.

  “I love you,” he said. “With everything. I am so proud to be your man.”

  “I love you, too,” she said. “I’m glad you got stoned tonight. I’ve been hard on you, hey?”

  He started to feel a freeze up so he nodded slowly. Speak through it, he thought. Don’t freeze. “Baby?” They pulled into their parking lot and Lance held up his left hand. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  She turned the car off and turned to him. “Is it about cumming in doorways?”

  He grinned. “No. It’s a secret and it’s only for you. I’ve never told you this before.”

  He pointed to his left hand, to the cup of his palm. “This is my second favourite place in the world.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “That first night I met you, like really met you, you were a consideration.”

  Her voice became guarded. “A consideration?”

  Lance nodded. “Well, you and I were aware of each other. You were seeing what’s-his-name.”

  She pushed his arm gently. “Yeah, yeah. Go on.”

  “Well, you’d come back from the bar and you were sipping coffee and it smelled great. It was midnight and you’d just finished singing. You stood by me. There were no other places to sit, so you stood beside me.”

  “I remember.”

  “You stood by me and you w
ere coming back from getting another coffee and I wanted to smell it on your breath. It was fresh. You came by and I turned. I turned to ask you about the night, the band, where the gang was going, and I decided to place my hand on your hip. It was just the way we were standing. And I touched your hip, and you were so soft. I was cupping you with my left hand and you leaned into me and you even placed your hand on my shoulder. You answered me. You were holding your coffee and as we spoke you moved. You were moving to the music and I could feel your hips, the muscle, the softness of your skin underneath your shirt and then we got separated. The gang went one way. I had to go to work early. But when I went to bed that night, my hand was burning with how smooth you were. You and I have always been aware of each other. I’d been checking you out for months.”

  “Stalker,” she grinned. “Checking me out for months, hey?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Sweetie, I went to bed and wondered about you. I wondered why the hell hadn’t we dated? I mean, there were times you and I were single at the same time. But I went to bed and when I woke up and my hand was still burning with the memory and the wonder of what was beneath. I drove. I remember I had to work in Abbotsford the next day and I’d look at my hand, where I’d cupped your hip and it was burning. It burned for a week until I saw you again and that was when I made my move.”

  “You mean when I let you make your move.”

  Lance nodded. He took her hand in his and kissed it. “Here’s what I’ve never told you. When I went for my reversal—”

  “You touched me there again,” she said. “I wondered about that. You did it before you went under.”

  Lance nodded. “I did. And when I woke up I asked for you.”

  “And you did it again,” she said. “It was the first place you touched.” Lance saw a single tear fall down her face, surprising them both.

  “To this very day,” he said, he could feel tears well. “I have never stopped feeling you in this hand.” He looked to his open palms. “I never told you this, but I’m magic.”

  She laughed. “And stoned.”

  “No,” he said. “No. I’m serious. You know my grandparents were medicine people, too, and that they never spoke a word of English. I wish you could have met them. They would have loved you. Treasured you.”

  She whispered, “I’m sorry I didn’t, sweetie. I know you

  miss them.”

  He nodded. Lance had been raised by his grandparents. His own parents were alcoholics who refused to change. They weren’t close at all. Getting a vasectomy was about not passing on what he had been born into, and this is why he didn’t drink. “I do. You know, when I was growing up, there’s a lot you still don’t know about me, I was looking forward. I mean … I had this idea that I could spend the rest of my life telling you and showing you how magic I am.”

  He looked to her. She glanced at him. “Go on.”

  “And I just trusted that you would spend the rest of your life with me, astonishing me with all the little things you do without even knowing.”

  She smiled.

  “When I was a kid. Every Canada Day we used to go out to Pine Lake. Remember when I took you there?”

  She pushed his arm, playfully. They’d had the whole beach to themselves, and in broad daylight on a picnic table on sand the colour of cinnamon, he’d gone down on her over and over all afternoon, drinking her, lapping her and making love to her only with his tongue, breath and lips. She’d been astonished at how hungry he was for her and she was both exhausted and speechless with how wonderful it was, to have him between her thighs, him knowing exactly what to do and her looking up to clouds as white as snow, the sky so blinding in blue. She smiled. “Go on.”

  “We used to go on these expeditions called bison creeps,” he said. “You can’t do this now. But back then, we used to go in the bush and we’d creep towards the bison. Our parents and elders used to wait on the highway in their trucks and I was like seven or eight. There’d be about forty of us. And what we’d do is we’d move slowly with the shadows towards the herd. There’d be fifty to a hundred bison in the shade, and we’d move with the sun to take the fur that they’d rubbed off onto the bark of the trees. The game was whoever could grab the fur on the trees closest to the herd and make it back to the elders without disturbing the bison would be the winner. You’d have bragging rights for a whole year.”

  She laughed. “How would they know who won?”

  “They watched from their trucks, using binoculars.”

  “Your parents let you do this?”

  He winced at the memory. “My parents never knew: they were drinking at the Pine Crest or sleeping it off at home. It was the way boys became men. It was a ritual for the town. I loved the way the fur smelled. I can still smell it sometimes when I miss home. I felt like a wolf.”

  She ran her hand over his arm. “Wow.”

  Lance nodded. “One year, I really wanted to win. I did this thing where I moved with the sun. I wasn’t going to leave until I knew I won. I had bathed myself in the smoke of the fire in our backyard, and I hadn’t eaten buffalo meat in ten days. I was dead serious about winning. I had dropped tobacco, and I even asked that we pray together for a week before the event.”

  “Ho-la,” she said. “I’ll never make fun of Fort Smith again. Go on.”

  “Well, I did this thing where I moved so slowly and I prayed to my grandparents. This was when they were still with us. I prayed to them, and I did this thing where I put myself in my own back pocket as I moved, my spirit, I mean. And I moved within the shadows and I knew other kids were turning back, so I had to move in closer. I moved in closer and, as I moved, I could hear my heartbeat. Soon, I heard other heartbeats, like little drums. And I realized that it was the heartbeats of the herd I was approaching. I swear to God I could hear them, feel them. And I moved. I moved and made my way. And I closed my eyes and I trusted. I don’t know how long I moved so slowly but I did and I brushed up against something and it was a bull. We both jumped and he ran away, starting a stampede. I had walked into the heart of them and bumped a bull. Holy cow, you should have heard people yelling for me. They were worried I’d been trampled. I had walked right into the heart of them and had touched the biggest bull there.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “That’s crazy.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “And you know, as they ran away, I looked down and in my hand was a handful of fur. I had been pulling it off of his body and he didn’t even know until it was too late.”

  She looked at him. “Are you telling the truth?”

  He held his palm up and opened it. “I swear to God.” He pointed to the little blue beads in the sheath he had beaded for her on their one-year anniversary. “Those seven blue beads are the heartbeats I heard in the heart of where I stood. I have not felt anything near that kind of magic until I felt you. Not only that night, but on that first night we laid together. I placed my hand on your hip as you slept and that was when I knew that I wanted everything with you: a future, a family, a home.” He pointed to his palm again. “This hand is yours. I’ve never stopped feeling the memory of you in me. I swear. You are the most mysterious woman in the world to me, and I’ve never stopped thinking of ways to amaze you. I live to see you smile. I love pampering you. I do. You got me through that reversal and I did it for you.”

  This was tender ground and he decided to stop because the slingshot answer that often came out in therapy was, “But you got a vasectomy for her.”

  But she said nothing. Lance could tell that response was on her tongue. She nodded and put the keys in her purse. “Thank you.”

  He took her hand and kissed her palm. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”

  She kissed his palm. “Oh, sweetie. Thank you. Thank you for saying this. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say something?”

  “I’m just so scared sometimes you’ll leave me when
I’ve just realized that I want to be a father, and I want to see you as a mother. I’d love to be parents with you and I never felt safe enough with Larissa to ever even think like this before or wish for a family but with you I know I found the right wolf to

  run with.”

  She smiled, astonished at his sweetness. “Well, words like those will always hold me close. So keep talking, okay? You’re a storyteller, but that is different from saying what I need to hear—and from what you need to say.”

  He nodded. “I promise.”

  • • •

  The next morning there was breakfast, and Lance went all out. Even though the swelling was tender, most of his pain was gone. Shari’s ancestors were chanters, she once told him. Maybe the way she said Nelson Crummy was a chant that had begun to work on him. “Nelson Crummy, Nelson Crummy, Nelson Crummy,” he said. “Virility, virility, virility.” He made his Spanish omelettes; he made her coffee just the way she liked it, and he cut up fresh fruit for her. He even made them a smoothie for their expedition. He had three cups of coffee himself as celebration of their big breakthrough as a couple. We’re back! he quietly celebrated. He went outside and dropped tobacco in gratitude for the new day before them.

  After, they shared a slow walk along Kits beach, stopping for tea and muffins, watching the Vancouverites enjoying the day and each other. Then a careful shower. Lance surrendered to the bliss and warmth of her tummy against his as he soaped her body from head to toe. The kissing through hot water, the losing himself into her body where his body became hers was theirs once again. When they used to make love, Shari would run her fingers through his hair over and over, as she grew close to climax.

  “I want you,” Lance said.

  Shari brushed her nipples across his. “Are you sure?”

  “Baby, yes,” he said.

  “Be careful, okay?”

  “Promise.”

  They unplugged the phones, shut the blinds to the house. Lance provided an hour-long body rub and foot massage using coconut oil. He made her moan and took her toes into his mouth. He devoured them with kisses and moaned as he licked with playful nibbles around them. It was delicious. She bucked and writhed in delight at his skill and, after, there was gentle pampering using massage, breath and tongue. He was still too sore to have sex but Shari orgasmed twice and was thrilled with how much she missed him, missed them.