Ginny Moon

by Benjamin Ludwig

  “Ginny, it’s a warm day for November,” he says, “but it’s still much too cold to go swimming.”

  So I say, “If we go to the wagon can we go for a ride in it?”

  He says no again because the wagon is an antique and there aren’t any horses.

  So then I say, “Well how can I know where I want to go if there’s nothing fun to do in either direction?”

  “It’s not about having fun today, Forever Girl,” he says. “It’s about getting some exercise.” He stops and leans against a big rock. “Just hold on a minute.”

  I look at my watch. He makes a breathing sound.

  “This is really tedious,” I say.

  My Forever Dad laughs. And stands up again. “No, it isn’t,” he says. “I like spending time with you, you know. We haven’t really been able to do that since the summer. Let’s go up to the wagon. It’s a shorter distance.”

  It gets windier as we walk up the hill. I have my red windbreaker on and I am glad. Then we get to the wagon. It is painted bright green. There are three other people there. Their jackets are open enough so that I can see what they’re wearing. None of them are wearing Michael Jackson shirts.

  My Forever Dad sits down on a bench and leans forward with his arms on his knees. I ask if I can climb into the wagon. He says yes. So I climb up into the back. The floor of the wagon is made of six long boards. It looks like a place where Michael Jackson could perform so I start snapping the fingers of my right hand down next to my right leg. One, two, three, four. Then I bend my left knee and start moving my chin up and down.

  I sing.

  I sing “Billie Jean” in a low soft voice and when I get to the chorus I get louder and louder. The wind is blowing and my hair is blowing back. I look out over the fields and at the sky and sing just like Michael Jackson does. I say “Ooh-hoo!” and “Ow!” in all the right places.

  Then I sing “Bad.”

  And “Beat It.”

  I do all the spins and stand on my tippy-toes. When I finish I see the three people who aren’t wearing Michael Jackson shirts. They are standing below me on the ground looking up. Their mouths are open. They have funny looks on their faces but then one of them starts clapping and the other two join in.

  I see my Forever Dad too. He is standing next to one of the wagon wheels. I don’t remember seeing him move there. “That was great, Ginny, but it’s time to get down. We have to go,” he says.

  I stomp my foot and make a frowning face. “I don’t want to,” I say. “I want to do another number.”

  “Ginny, it’s time. Get down now,” he says.

  “I don’t want to!” I say louder.

  I am escalating the situation. Patrice says I do that because it makes me feel in control. I put my face in the wind and let my hair blow back again. I put my hand up in it just like Michael Jackson does and smooth it back.

  The three people smile at my Forever Dad and turn away. It is like my audience is leaving so I stomp my foot loud against the boards of the floor. A lady looks back but then turns away again and keeps walking.

  “Ginny, please,” my Forever Dad says. He puts his hand on his chest and looks away and takes a deep breath. “I can’t get upset about this. I’m not supposed to yell or get too excited. Just come down. Come down now. Get down and we’ll take a walk. Then we can go to the interview and get some lunch. You can pick the place.”

  I climb down.

  I like my Forever Dad a lot because he’s nice. Not as nice as Michael Jackson. Plus he really can’t dance. Or sing. But he’s still pretty okay.

  EXACTLY 10:37 AT NIGHT,

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH

  I am on my hands and knees on the carpet. My Baby Doll is somewhere crying but I can’t find it. I don’t know if it’s in my room. I don’t know if I’m in my room. I am awake but it’s dark out and it’s dark inside my brain. When I’m deep inside there it’s all the same place. All the houses I’ve ever been in are still in my head and so when I wake up at night with my eyes open I can still fall into any of them by accident.

  The crying is getting louder. I can’t turn on the light because Gloria will see me. Or Donald. I have to find my Baby Doll and hide it before they come. I will put my quilt over it and put it in the closet. Or maybe out the window.

  I find a bed. I can feel the mattress and the sheets. I check behind it and under the covers. My hand touches a heat register. I crawl around the whole room looking and looking. My Baby Doll is not anywhere but I can still hear it. I want to turn on the light but I’m scared, scared, scared.

  Upstairs I hear footsteps and more crying. Is my Baby Doll upstairs? Because I don’t think I can get up there to find it without getting caught. The footsteps are coming closer. I want to hide but I can’t leave it alone where it is. Wherever it is. I can’t climb out the window by myself because then Gloria or Donald will find it instead of me. So I crawl to the middle of the room and stand. I get ready to go ape-shit so that I’ll be a bigger problem than the crying. I have to make them think about me. Only me and not my Baby Doll at all.

  I take a deep breath. With my eyes still closed I start to scream. As loud as I can.

  The door opens fast. I feel the light turn on. I keep screaming and squeezing my eyes shut. I have to be so loud that—

  “Ginny! Wake up! You’ve got to wake up! You’re safe!”

  I open my eyes but I don’t stop. I hear a different man’s voice but I see Donald. I scream even louder so that Gloria will come down too.

  “Ginny, wake up. Wake up! No one is going to hurt you!”

  And then—

  “Stop screaming!”

  I hear a woman’s voice now. She sounds scared. “Ginny, please! You’re scaring the baby!”

  So I stop and listen.

  “The baby is trying to get back to sleep upstairs. That’s all it is. That’s all it is.”

  “My Baby Doll is cr—”

  I am coming up out of my brain. I see my Forever Dad. He is standing right in front of me. “No,” he says. “It’s Baby Wendy. Baby Wendy is upstairs trying to get back to sleep.”

  Which means I am at the Blue House. I am with my Forever Parents. I am safe.

  I feel my knees and legs. I fall. Someone catches me before I hit the carpet.

  “Can you get back into bed?” my Forever Mom says.

  I nod my head yes. My Forever Dad helps me climb back in. My Forever Mom makes a breathing sound and fixes my blankets. Her mouth is a straight, straight line. She stands up straight and crosses her arms. Then my Forever Dad brings a wet washcloth. And puts his hand on my shoulder. I do not recoil even though he is a man. I lie still and let him wipe my face. “It was just a dream,” he says. “Do you want to come sit with us in the living room? Do you want some company?”

  I shake my head no.

  “All right,” he says. “Do you want to go back to sleep, then?”

  I nod my head yes.

  “All right,” he says again. “If you need anything, come get us. We’ll be out in the living room for a while until the baby falls asleep. Okay?”

  I close my eyes and nod my head yes. I feel the light turn off and they leave.

  On the other side of the door I hear them talking in quiet voices. I open my ears big to hear. “Why the hell do you have to be so accommodating?” says my Forever Mom. “I don’t know how we can do this anymore. When it was just us, it was okay, but things are different now. She isn’t safe!”

  “We made a commit—”

  “Bullshit!” she says. “That’s bullshit! We didn’t—”

  “Shh! And yes, she is safe! The circumstances—”

  “Now you sound like Patrice! Things were different before the kidnapping! Before the baby and the kidnapping. Before all the—She was manageable! Thi
s was manageable! But don’t you remember what she did to that doll? And then she gave that lunatic mother of hers our address, and she came here and threatened—And then all the reporters and police? And you had to bring her to that damn interview and deal with all those lawyers! And then you had to go to the trial! Think about your health! Your doctor said—What the hell would I do if—School counselor or not, you’re barely holding yourself together! I know you’ve got all those sick days, but it’s been too long for me. Now some of my patients are starting to leave! Look, we can’t expose a baby to all this! I won’t!”

  Then their voices get quiet. I know they’re walking away to talk somewhere else. I know that when my Forever Mom said She isn’t safe! she wasn’t talking about my Baby Doll. But my Baby Doll isn’t safe either and I’m the only one who can do something about it.

  EXACTLY 6:22 AT NIGHT,

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH

  My Forever Dad is sitting with the man in the leather Patriots jacket and hat. Mostly I’m guessing he likes blue and red. They are talking a lot. It is like they are BFFs.

  There is a girl here who pulls her socks up all the time. She reaches down and pulls up the left one and then the right one and then makes two fists and says Yes! when it’s her turn to do a drill or go in the game or practice a layup. She says her name is Katie MacDougall. Not Katie McDonalds. She is visiting with Larry from a different school, she says. Larry is her cousin. And Larry says he is her cousin too. I didn’t ask her which one and I didn’t ask her where she lives or when her birthday is or what her favorite color is but I’m guessing it’s black and gray because that’s what color her socks are. My Forever Parents say when I meet someone new I shouldn’t ask where they live and when their birthday is and how many cats they have because that is a little too forward.

  On the other end of the court Katie MacDougall is pulling her socks up again. I pull mine up too. Having my socks pulled up makes me feel even more ready for anything than tightening the laces on my sneakers. Larry comes over to me on his arm braces and takes his arms out so he can shoot hoops. Katie MacDougall walks over to us. She has her mouth open a little and she is breathing loud. “Katie MacDougall,” I say when she gets here, “I have known you since approximately 5:42.”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “Will you tell me your birthday?”

  “My birthday is September 20th,” she says.

  “September 20th,” I say. “That’s exactly two days after my birthday. No one told me I was older than you!”

  “I really like your socks,” Katie MacDougall says and pulls hers up some more.

  I grab mine and pull them up as high as they can go. Which is higher than hers. “Yeah,” I say. “They are the bomb.”

  I start passing the ball back and forth with Katie MacDougall. She throws the ball too hard and I miss it. It bounces past me and rolls to the bleachers. The man in the leather Patriots jacket catches it. He stands up and I see that my Forever Dad isn’t with him anymore. My Forever Dad isn’t anywhere.

  The man is standing in front of me holding the ball. I am walking toward him. “Here you go, Ginny,” he says. He holds the ball out. I take it.

  “Thanks,” I say. I don’t know if he’s a stranger or not because a stranger is someone you don’t know and I have seen him here before.

  “Great job out there tonight,” he says. “You’re really pretty good.”

  So I say thanks again even though We do not talk to strangers.

  He keeps looking at me like we have been talking for a long time. “Your dad will be right back in a minute,” he says.

  And I say, “He must be in the bathroom.”

  The man in the leather Patriots jacket is supposed to sit down again or say, Well, you better get back out there. He is supposed to act like a regular stranger. But he doesn’t. He just stands there looking at me and when I look at his eyes he looks at the ground. Like he did the other day. I look where he is looking but I don’t see anything interesting or different there. I keep looking.

  Then in the gym I hear Katie MacDougall talking about how she wants to try to be one of the Harlem Globetrotters. I look to the side and see my Forever Dad walking out of the bathroom but I want to know what the man in the leather Patriots jacket is looking at so I pick my head up and ask him.

  “What are you looking at?” I say.

  He swallows and doesn’t look up. “Just a really pretty girl who turned out okay,” he says.

  His eyes look wet. It’s like he’s going to cry which doesn’t make sense because he’s a man. So I’m guessing he has something in them. I look down at the ground again. I see my sneakers and his work boots. When I look up again my Forever Dad is standing there.

  “Excuse me,” he says. “What’s going on?”

  So I say, “This man has wet eyes.”

  The man in the leather Patriots jacket wipes them. “We were just talking,” he says.

  “Not anymore you’re not,” my Forever Dad says. His voice is angry. “This isn’t what we agreed on.”

  “The ball rolled over here to the bleachers,” says the man in the leather Patriots jacket. “I caught it and gave it back to her.”

  My Forever Dad looks at me. I hold up the ball. In my hands it feels as big as the whole world.

  “She’s not supposed to talk with strangers,” says my Forever Dad.

  “I’m a stranger?”

  “We’re trying to help her build good habits. So until you’re introduced at the agreed-upon time, a stranger is exactly what you are. Right, Ginny?”

  I nod my head yes. “Exactly,” I say.

  The man in the leather Patriots jacket steps back one step. He puts his hands up. “Okay. Got it. My bad,” he says. Then to me he says, “It was nice talking with you, Ginny.” And walks away.

  “Go ahead and play some more,” my Forever Dad tells me. So I do. But when I pass the ball to Katie MacDougall I see my Forever Dad and the man in the leather Patriots jacket talking on the bleachers again. My Forever Dad is shaking his head and leaning with his chin out. He is talking loud and pointing but not yelling. I feel bad for the man in the leather Patriots jacket. It looks like he’s getting in trouble.

  I am glad I didn’t hiss at him last week.

  EXACTLY 10:55 IN THE MORNING,

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20TH

  We are in the car going to the park to see Rick. My Forever Parents will be with me the whole time so I won’t be able to just say all the things I want to say. Or ask him to drive me to Canada to meet up with Gloria and my Baby Doll. I have to be careful like I was in the letter. I will have to wait.

  I pulled my socks up nine times when we left the house. I will pull my socks up again once more for good luck when we get there. It’s not very cold out even though it’s November but I’m still wearing my winter coat and hat.

  When we get to the park I wait for my Forever Parents to get out of the car first. They always make me wait for them because I like to get out fast. They open the door. I jump out and pull my socks up one more time and then start looking for Rick. I don’t see him. I see only the parking lot and some trees with no leaves and the monkey bars and the swings moving in the wind.

  Then I see a man standing next to the seesaw. He is wearing a blue-and-red Patriots jacket and a blue-and-red Patriots hat. My Forever Mom leans close to me and says, “There. Do you see him?”

  And I say, “That’s the man from Special Olympics.”

  “Actually, that’s your Birth Dad,” says my Forever Dad. “That’s Rick.”

  So I say, “I’m guessing he likes blue and red.”

  Rick walks over to us. He and my Forever Dad shake hands. Then he puts his hand out for me to shake. “Hey, Ginny,” he says.

  I shake his hand. I can’t see his eyes because he’s wearing
dark sunglasses. But I see two of me reflected in them. One in each eye.

  I don’t say Hello, Rick or Hi or anything. I just shake his hand and stand there.

  “It’s been nice coming to see you at Special Olympics,” he says.

  That wasn’t a question so I don’t say anything. I don’t want to talk because I’m trying to figure out why he didn’t tell me who he was before.

  “We wanted to get to know Rick before he met you,” my Forever Dad says. “We wanted him to see how you get along with other people.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Rick says. “And honestly, it was hard not being able to meet as quickly as I would have liked. I haven’t seen you since you were a tiny baby. We only had one day together at the hospital. Going to see your practice was—It was really great.”

  I am still thinking so I don’t say anything. I think and I think.

  Rick keeps talking. “You understand, don’t you?” he says. “I couldn’t stay away. But your new folks wanted to be careful, after everything that happened. Can’t say I blame them.”

  When he says your new folks he puts his head down a little.

  Rick seems like a nice quiet man. I’m guessing he’ll bring me right to Canada if I ask. He’ll do his very best to try to help me. I just have to find a way to make my Forever Parents go away so I can ask him.

  “Where is your truck?” I say.

  “I don’t have one. I drive a little old Honda.”

  “In your letter you said you drive truck.”

  He smiles and he shakes his head. “I do,” he says, “but the trucks aren’t mine. I drive them for different companies. I’m even getting a special license so that I can haul some really important freight. Yep.” When he says Yep he smiles with his mouth a little on the side and he tugs with both hands on his jacket.

  “So where is your little old Honda?” I look at myself swaying back and forth in his glasses. I wonder which one is Ginny and which one is (-Ginny). I wonder which one is the real me.

  He points to the parking lot. I see a gray car there.