Valley of the Moon

by Melanie Gideon

  Benno did not get straight A’s. He did okay in his classes, but what he really excelled in was the arts. Drawing and painting, and of course photography. He was never without his camera. It hung from his neck now.

  “Smile,” he said. He snapped my photo. “For Joseph.”

  How I loved his optimism.

  —

  By the fifth month I couldn’t hide my pregnancy any longer, and Rhonda brought me over a box of her old maternity clothes. They were dated, smocks and tent dresses in cheerful madras.

  I tried one on.

  “Looks great!” Rhonda said.

  “Liar. Why can’t I be like you? You couldn’t even tell you were pregnant from the back. Why can’t I have a perfect little basketball of a stomach?”

  I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror. The smock made me look even more pregnant. I was better off sticking to my oversize shirts.

  “Because you’re thirty-five,” said Rhonda.

  We’d spent many long nights discussing my situation. I’d been back to the Valley of the Moon every full moon for the past five months, but there’d been no fog.

  “How are you feeling?” Rhonda asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Morning sickness?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ankles swollen?”

  “Not yet.”

  She folded a shirt. “Lonely?”

  I sat down on the bed. “God, I miss him, Rhonda. I don’t know what to do. Where to put this ache. It hurts so much. It’s like a contraction that never stops.”

  “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. It’s so crazy that he doesn’t know, that you don’t have any way to get word to him.”

  I’d never been more acutely aware of the inequity of the difference in the way time unfurled in each of our worlds. In three of his weeks, I could not only find myself pregnant but quite possibly have his baby.

  She sat down next to me and put her hand on the swell of my belly. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not right. This baby is your fate, Joseph’s fate. She’s going to be the bridge that links the two of you together.”

  I looked down at her familiar hand. The shell-pink nails. The slightly crooked middle finger. Her unadorned gold wedding band.

  “You really think so? Really?”

  “Really,” she said.

  —

  I named her Vivien, Vivi for short.

  “Where’s the proud father?” asked the maternity nurse.

  I’d listed Joseph Bell as the father on the birth certificate.

  “He’s on his way,” I said.

  Vivi! Twenty-two inches; seven pounds, six ounces; from the breaking of my water to the final push—three hours and twenty-two minutes. A full head of black hair, eyes blue. She was perfect in every way except one. Her heart beat a little too fast.

  The doctor listened intently with his stethoscope, then abruptly pulled the instrument out of his ears and smiled.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about, but just in case, let’s get an EKG and a chest X-ray, and set Mommy’s mind at ease.”

  Mommy’s mind would not be at ease. Mommy suspected why her daughter’s heart beat a little too fast, and if she was right, there was no medicine in this world that could fix it.

  They wheeled her away. Benno, Rhonda, and I sat in my room in silence. An hour later the doctor brought Vivi back himself.

  “There’s nothing to be worried about. She’s got something called supraventricular tachycardia, a fancy name for arrhythmia. Nine times out of ten they outgrow it.” He handed a swaddled Vivi to me. “This gal is just in a hurry. She’ll be an active one.”

  “Can I bring her home?” I asked.

  “Of course. But let’s keep an eye on her.” He scribbled a name on a prescription pad and gave it to me. “Tim Walker—an excellent pediatric cardiologist. Set up an appointment with him in a month’s time.”

  Another prickle of worry ran down my spine, but I quickly banished it.

  “Can I hold her?” asked Benno.

  He took her in his arms. I’d never seen such an unguarded look on his face. A fierce, protective tenderness. Joy.

  —

  I’d finagled three months of maternity leave. Pease had not been happy when I’d told him I was pregnant; I’d never forget the look of contempt on his face.

  “Who’s the father?” he asked.

  “That’s none of your business,” I said.

  I knew what he assumed—that I’d stupidly and carelessly got knocked up again—but I didn’t care. I owed him nothing.

  —

  I didn’t want Joseph to miss out on anything, so I began keeping a journal, a record of Vivi’s daily activities.

  She woke at 5. Nibbling toes. Laughing. One curl plastered to her cheek. Cranky morning. Gas? A trip to Dolores Park. Put her on a blanket under the trees. She stared up at the leaves and cooed for nearly twenty minutes. Suspect she’s thinking deep thoughts. Suspect she’s highly intelligent. Fell asleep on the breast. Stayed asleep through the evening news. Woke at 9—gave her a taste of smushed-up banana. Surprise, disgust, and yum flickered across her face.

  The days were a year long. The days passed in a second. I’d forgotten how time slid when you had an infant. I caved to its rhythms. The only thing fastening us to reality was breakfast with Benno and his return after school.

  Vivi was a movie that was always running; a life preserver, bonding Benno and me together in a profound way. She was a fragile thing to be protected at all costs. And she was, of course, a source of great delight. An actress, a natural comedian. She had us in constant fits of laughter. Gurgling and burbling. Inviting us to poke a finger into her Pillsbury Doughboy belly. She’d do anything for attention.

  She had a Mohawk of ebony hair. Her eyes hadn’t yet settled on a shade. At breakfast they were light blue like Joseph’s. At lunch, a green-blue, similar to mine, and at dinner, navy. Her resting face was a half smile, as if she were about to be tickled. She was merriment incarnate.

  She wasn’t an observer like Benno. She was a doer. An investigator. The first day she learned to crawl, she got her hand stuck under the fridge. She had to be watched constantly, and watch her we did. She was a one-baby show.

  Every day after school Benno would run home and sweep her up in his arms. She called him Ba. She had a special laugh just for him. A high-pitched hee-haw-hee that brought tears to his eyes.

  Only two things disrupted the routine every month. A fruitless trip to the Valley of the Moon and a visit to Tim Walker, the pediatric cardiologist. I dreaded both.

  —

  “Is she sleeping more?” asked Dr. Walker.

  “No,” said Benno. Benno accompanied me to every appointment.

  Dr. Walker smiled at me. At times Benno acted more like Vivi’s father than her brother. He’d taken his role as man of the house seriously.

  “How long does it take her to fall asleep?”

  “Depends,” I said. “If she’s tired, boom, she’s out. But if she’s awake, which is most of the time, you can’t keep up with her.”

  “She has fifty words already,” said Benno.

  “Well, there’s no doubt she’s a smart girl,” said Dr. Walker. “But tell me what you mean by ‘boom, she’s out.’ ”

  Benno and I exchanged glances.

  “I’m exaggerating,” I said. “She’s like any kid. If she’s tired, within five minutes her eyes are blinking shut.”

  “No, Mom,” said Benno. “It is boom. One second she’s awake, the next second she’s asleep.”

  My stomach roiled; I had been intentionally understating things. “Is that a bad thing?” I asked.

  “It is if she’s fainting,” said Dr. Walker.

  “But she’s not fainting, she’s sleeping.”

  “It might look like sleeping. But it could be that her heart has sped up so much she just sort of passes out. A baby can’t tell us what’s happening. When she’s older, she’ll be able to report t
o you and let you know if she feels dizzy or light-headed.”

  When Vivi had an episode, her heart rate could elevate to a staggering 250 to 300 beats a minute.

  Dr. Walker looked at the chart. “Let’s see, she’s eleven months and two days. Her resting heart rate when she was born was 160 beats a minute. Each month, it’s gone up a beat or two, and today we’re at…180.” He looked at me over his glasses. “Normal for a child her age, almost a year old, is 80 to 130. The number should not be increasing, Lux. It should be decreasing as the heart muscles get stronger, as she gets older and stronger.”

  He squatted down next to Vivi, who was buckled in the stroller, chewing on her stuffed monkey’s tail.

  “Hey, cutie pie,” he said. “How about you cut down on your coffee intake and give up smoking? Can you do that for me?”

  She promptly yanked his glasses off his face and flung them across the room. We all heard the plastic frames crack.

  “Vivi!” I yelped.

  Dr. Walker laughed, walked to his desk, and pulled out another pair of identical glasses. “And that’s why I buy them in bulk.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  He nodded, looked at Benno and me. “Frankly, I’m concerned.”

  —

  Vivi wailed all the way home, batting her chest, trying to pull off the event monitor.

  “How the hell are we supposed to keep that on?” I cried.

  Dr. Walker had given us two choices. Have her wear a monitor or start her on beta blockers. I didn’t want to medicate her, and I doubted the beta blockers would be a long-term solution if Vivi’s heart issues were a result of her being Joseph’s child (which I firmly suspected they were). I had begun to believe the only real solution was to bring her back to Greengage.

  “We have to dress her in layers so it’s impossible for her to get to it. Poor baby, she doesn’t know what it is. But you’ll get used to it, won’t you, Viv?” Benno crooned, reaching into the backseat and holding her hand.

  I looked into the rearview mirror and watched as she calmed, her eyes blinking shut.

  “Did she just pass out?”

  Benno shook her gently.

  “Isn’t that thing supposed to give off some sort of an alarm?”

  “I don’t think so; it just records. Vivi, Vivi.” He squeezed her hand.

  Her eyes opened. “Ba,” she said.

  “Oh Jesus. Jesus, thank God!”

  “Mom, calm the hell down. It doesn’t do any of us any good if you freak out, does it, Vivi? We don’t like it when Mom freaks out, do we?”

  “Nil,” said Vivi, her word for vanilla ice cream.

  “She wants Nil,” said Benno.

  I put on my blinker and turned right, trying not to cry. A few minutes later I pulled into a Denny’s parking lot. Just an ordinary family out for an ordinary meal, I told myself. I’d put her in a high chair. Benno would turn his paper napkin into an origami swan, and we’d order a plate of fries and bowls of ice cream. Salty and sweet. Happy and sad. That’s the way we all liked it.

  —

  “I can’t believe Benno’s a sophomore,” said my mother. “It seems like almost yesterday that I was at the airport waiting for a five-year-old to arrive.”

  She’d come bearing suitcases of presents. For Benno, clothes. For Vivi, she’d just about emptied the shelves at the Toy Soldier in Newport. I told her it was far too much, but she told me it was far too little. She was trying to make up for my father’s absence. He’d flown out with my mother for a visit just after Vivi was born, but we hadn’t seen him since.

  Vivi squealed in her high chair and waved her arms. “Gamma!”

  I handed my mother a banana. “She’s hungry, you better hurry up.”

  What had I told my mother about Joseph? There was a father. He lived abroad. It was complicated. We were in love. What else was there to tell her? Until something changed and Greengage opened its door to us, there was nothing left to say. She’d accepted it just as gracefully as she’d accepted my story of Benno’s origins. She’d asked only one question: was she expected?

  “She wasn’t an accident,” I’d told her. I’d grown into that truth—both Benno and I had. All you had to do was take one look at Vivi and you knew that this baby belonged in the world. She had enough life force for two worlds.

  “Your father wanted to come, but he was feeling under the weather,” my mother said. She gave Vivi a piece of the banana and took a deep breath. “I have something to tell you. We have something to tell you, me and Dad. Your father has prostate cancer, Lux. We’ve known for a few months.”

  My mouth fell open in shock.

  “Oh, no, please don’t look at me like that,” she pleaded. “I’ve been under orders not to tell.”

  “He’s got prostate cancer? Are you kidding me? Mom, why didn’t you let me know?”

  “It was his idea. He didn’t want to burden you. Besides, you have your own medical crisis here.”

  “God, you’ve known for two months?”

  “Well, actually a little more than a year,” she confessed.

  I gasped.

  “Gamma,” said Vivi, aware her grandmother’s attention had wandered. “Harry Dirty Dog?”

  My mother leaned over and kissed Vivi on the cheek. “I’ll read to you in a little while. After you finish your snack. Has she had her medicine this morning?”

  Last month, when it became clear Vivi had been fainting—not often, but often enough to scare the hell out of us—we’d given in and put her on beta blockers. They were helping and I was hopeful.

  “I can’t believe this,” I said. “I’m coming back with you. I’ll book the flight right now. Sunite Patel can take care of Vivi, and Benno’s very independent.”

  “No. There is no need for you to come back to Newport. I’m telling you now because he’s doing okay. He’s much better. He’s been through two cycles of chemo. He’s weak, but officially in remission. That’s the good news. That’s what I wanted to share with you.”

  “How long will he be in remission?”

  She gave me a weak smile. “Could be a long while, the doctors say.”

  “That’s good, Mom. That’s really good.”

  A month later she called to say he was dying.

  “Mom.” I opened the screen door and stepped into the living room. “Mama, I’m here.”

  No answer. I heard the water running; she must be upstairs. I put my suitcase on the floor and tried to slow down my jackrabbity heart.

  They’d gotten a new Sony TV and there were stacks of VHS tapes piled on top of it: Jane Fonda’s Low Impact Aerobic Workout, Out of Africa, and Tootsie. The radio still sat on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. Memories came flooding back. The Kinks. My plaid skirt. My fifteen-year-old tanned and muscular legs.

  On the fireplace mantel were three photographs, one of my father and a gap-toothed Benno sitting at the counter at Newport Creamery. The second was a photograph my mother had taken of Benno and Vivi in my kitchen. The third was of me on my first day of kindergarten, Dad holding my hand. My braids so tight my eyes were almond shaped.

  “You’re here,” said my father from the top of the stairs.

  Once he’d had a full head of thick brown hair. Now he was bald, his scalp covered with age spots. His eyebrows were sparse and wiry, his lips thinned to two lines. He looked like an ancient toddler.

  My breath caught in my throat—his appearance was so shocking. Had the decline happened slowly or had it suddenly ramped up in the last month? I hadn’t been here to witness it, to be with him and my mother.

  He clutched the banister.

  “Do you need help?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  I thought of Benno and Vivi and my heart clenched. I could just picture Vivi in bed, clutching her stuffed monkey to her chest. She’d be sleeping in her Winnie-the-Pooh onesie. Sunite was staying with them, but Benno would be the one to retrieve her in the morning. The lucky one to have his cheek patted with he
r tiny hand. “Ba, Ba,” she would say, a dazed look in her eye, the same look she had on her face every morning. I’m still here? She was so new.

  My father walked carefully down the stairs and sat on the couch.

  “Can I get you some water?”

  “I have a favor to ask,” he said.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “Your mother has gone to the store.”

  “At nine o’clock at night?”

  “We’ve run out of whiskey. It’s my last vice.”

  He sounded so grave. Was he going to ask me to give his eulogy? Help him pick out a plot?

  “What is it, Dad? What do you need?”

  He looked down at his lap. “Would you come with me to Lapis Lake one last time?”

  —

  The next morning, my mother raced around the kitchen. She packed a cooler full of sandwiches, some cut-up celery, and grapes. She poured whiskey into a flask and filled two thermoses, one with tea, one with orange juice.

  “Is the whiskey for him or me?”

  “It’s for whoever needs it. If his blood sugar plummets, we’ll give him the juice.”

  “We’ll give him the juice? You’re coming with us to Lapis Lake?”

  “Well, I suppose that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Am I invited?”

  “Jesus, Mom, of course you are. You don’t need an invitation.”

  “Then I’m coming.”

  She was coming. My mother was coming to Lapis Lake. I tried to imagine her using the outhouse. Knowing her, she’d hold it all day and make us stop at a gas station on the way back. Well, we’d have a picnic and be back on the road within a few hours. That’s all the excitement my father could tolerate anyway.

  —

  My father slept all the way to the New Hampshire toll booths, then he woke with a start.

  “We’ve crossed the state line?”

  “A few miles back,” I told him.

  He shifted around, trying to find a comfortable position.

  “Do you need another pill, George?” asked my mother. The two of them were sitting in the backseat. He’d stopped chemo a month ago. The only thing he took now was pain medication.