Moonglow

by Michael Griffo

  “Stop!”

  The voice comes from behind me, but I refuse to listen to its command. Ever the obedient student, Caleb does, and releases his hold on my fist. His mistake. I let my arm fall to my side, but only for an instant before I throw another punch that lands on Caleb’s forearm. I was aiming for his shoulder again, but he must have sensed that I wasn’t ready to give up and at the last second he raised his arm to block my punch. Now we’re just staring at each other. I have no idea what my face looks like, but his forehead is scrunched up like he’s trying to figure out my next move or his next move. The next move actually doesn’t come from either one of us.

  “Dominy Robineau! I told you to stop!”

  This time the voice is too loud and demanding, and once again the spell is broken. I feel light-headed as I whip around to see Mr. Carbine staring at me with an expression similar to the one Caleb is wearing. At the moment I can’t remember if Mr. Carbine teaches science or gym; doesn’t matter, he’s a teacher and that means that he can get me into trouble. And no one, not even Caleb, is worth being sent to detention on the first day of school.

  “Everything okay over there?” Mr. Carbine asks.

  He’s a complete fool if he thinks everything is okay, but I understand that he’s giving me a chance to escape a trip to the Office of School Security and Discipline, so I grab it. I smile, perfectly and beautifully, the embodiment of everything Caleb thinks I am. “It’s all good,” I reply. “Just fooling around.” Then I turn to Caleb. “Right?”

  Dumbfounded would be the correct adjective to describe Caleb’s expression. I have to repeat my one-word question to get Caleb to speak, but he proves he’s loyal to me and still my boyfriend when he agrees.

  “Yes,” he says in a strong, flat voice, nothing like the sound of his laughter. “Just fooling around.”

  Mr. Carbine tells us to knock it off and get to class. Caleb looks concerned as he asks me what’s wrong. I ignore them both and run off to the ladies’ room.

  I hear the class bell ring just as the bathroom stall door slams behind me. I lean back against it and press my foot into the side of the toilet bowl and kick it a few times. Nothing’s working, and the adrenaline and tension and whatever else is locked inside my body won’t relent; it won’t disappear or even subside.

  I start to walk from one side of the stall to the other, then in circles, like a caged beast, like a wild animal that’s just been caught and is trying to make sense of its new surroundings. Even though the stall isn’t enclosed and there are openings at the top and bottom, I feel like I’m suffocating. I kick the door open, and when I catch my reflection in the huge mirror that takes up the entire wall, I freeze. I don’t know who I’m looking at. I don’t recognize this girl. She doesn’t even look human. I close my eyes, and when I open them I’m staring back at myself.

  I’ve returned.

  And now it’s become official: The first day of school sucks.

  At lunch it gets worse. I explain to Jess and Archie how Caleb not only broke our date for tonight, but lied to me as well.

  “He didn’t lie to you, Dom,” Archie says.

  The tater tots on my tray are about to make a new home on Archie’s face, but I take a deep breath. I take another one, slower this time, and the urge to hurl food dissipates. My anger at Caleb does not.

  “Yes, he did! He said he has homework. Nobody has homework on the first day of school!” I pound my fist on the table, and Archie’s milk carton jiggles; it doesn’t fall over, but some white liquid spills over the spout and onto Archie’s fingers. I’m mesmerized by the sight of white spilling over onto white. I’m so focused on watching the milk dribble over and in between his fingers that I don’t realize he started talking again. “What?”

  “He didn’t lie,” Archie explains as he wipes the white milk off his white fingers with a white napkin. “Mr. Lamatina gave us homework in world history.”

  First Caleb, now Archie. Why is everyone lying to me? “I had world history third period, and Lamatina didn’t give us homework!” I respond.

  “You have regular history,” Archie says softly. “Caleb and I have honors.”

  I have no response to this logical explanation, so I remain silent, which Archie takes as permission to keep talking.

  “We have to write a paper comparing the end of the Vietnam War to the end of the Iraqi occupation,” he explains. “Five hundred words, due tomorrow.”

  “Five hundred words?” Jess asks, utterly appalled. “In one night?”

  “Ladies,” Archie replies, raising his milk carton, “that’s why they call it honors.”

  Simultaneously shaking her head and chewing on tater tots, Jess replies, “I loves me my school, but I’m so glad I’m only slightly above average.”

  All the energy, the good and the bad, leaves my body. I’m no longer angry or passionate or outraged; I’m just empty. I don’t feel stupid or foolish; I’m curious. I feel like an observer, like I’m someone watching my life, not the person living it. People make mistakes, but I don’t feel like I made a mistake with Caleb; I feel like someone made the mistake for me. And according to Jess, it was a big one.

  “You really went ballistic on him,” Jess says, now chewing on a fish stick.

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  Jess stops chewing and stares at me, her expression all surprise and skepticism. “Because I was standing next to Mr. Carbine,” she informs me. “You didn’t see me?”

  “I can’t believe I missed it!” Archie shouts. “I would’ve totally bailed on chem if I had known you were going to fine-tune your Roller Derby skills.”

  Ignoring them both, I shove a slightly burnt fish stick in my mouth. I reply, “Guess I overreacted.”

  “You guess?!” Jess exclaims. “Dom, it was reality TV, live and in person. And the good reality TV, like a train wreck. I was totally looking around for the camera crew.”

  As Archie and Jess engage in a debate over what constitutes good reality TV, I’m overcome by a huge sense of grief that far outweighs the event by which it was inspired. I’m sure I hit Caleb in a fit of unwarranted fury, but I didn’t kill him; I doubt if I even really hurt him. I’ll apologize, he’ll cringe when I blame it on my period, I’ll let him cop a feel, and we’ll be over it. He’s a guy; he isn’t complicated. But I get the feeling I’m another story.

  After school, locked in my bathroom, I try to push the events of the day from my memory, but I can’t, so I decide to face the enemy head on. My reflection stares back at me blankly, and I wish my mind were as uncluttered as my expression. Lying to my teachers isn’t the end of the world, but it’s unlike me, and physically assaulting both my best friend and my boyfriend and then wishing I could do them even greater harm is completely unacceptable. The first day of school didn’t suck; it was a disaster. Of epic proportions. It’s like someone took my body hostage and went to school in my place.

  Could this be the start of a whole new me? Is this how people turn bad and go crazy? They start by doing little things that are easily explained and quickly forgotten and then catch everybody by surprise by bringing a machine gun to school or a shopping mall and opening fire on strangers. Then they kill themselves before they have to explain their actions or take responsibility for the horror they’ve caused. Is this what I have to look forward to?

  My reflection is too difficult to look at, and I shut my eyes tight. I clutch my head and run my fingers through my hair; the pressure feels good against my scalp, calming, and I keep doing it for a few minutes. I stare into the mirror, my hands still holding my hair away from my face, and I see a few wispy strands of red hair growing by my ears where a guy’s sideburns should be. The hair is soft to the touch and there isn’t a lot of it, but I don’t think it was there this morning. No, I’m sure it wasn’t.

  What the ef is happening to me?! I can’t look at myself any longer, but I can’t turn away. Jess was right; I am a train wreck. I drop my hands to my sides, and my hair falls down, covering the
new strands, but I still know this new, unwelcome growth is there. Not only is there possibly something wrong with my mind, but now there’s possibly something wrong with my body too?

  I watch the tears well up in my eyes, and they look like the sky during a rainstorm. Gray with only the slightest hint of blue. Despite how I feel about myself, I can’t help but notice how beautiful my eyes are, only because they’re just like my mother’s. If only she were here. If only she could tell me that everything was going to be okay. I close my eyes and feel the tears run down my face. Her image appears before me, and she looks as radiant as always, but her presence isn’t soothing, and I’m not comforted; if anything I’m more disturbed and more agitated. Because the truth is that she isn’t here, she isn’t coming back no matter how badly I want her to, she’ll never help me again, and I simply have to accept that fact.

  My eyes spring open, and I look as frightened as I feel, because even though I don’t have a whole lot of proof, I know with complete certainty that something is majorly wrong with me. My body starts to shake as I cry even harder when I realize that I’m going to have to figure this one out all on my own.

  Chapter 3

  Morning isn’t always better; sometimes it’s just morning.

  I open the medicine cabinet door so I can brush my teeth without having to look at my face in the mirror, then take a quick shower and dress in about fifteen minutes. I think it’s my new personal best.

  Downstairs in the kitchen my brother is pouring milk over his cereal, which looks like some super-sweet mix of artificially colored chocolate and several types of sugar. At fourteen, Barnaby is little for his age, short and scrawny except for his nose, which is huge. Everyone keeps telling him he’ll grow into it; I keep telling him that’ll never happen because his nose is going to grow along with his body, so even if he defies the odds and grows to be over six feet tall, his nose is still going to be too large for his face. It’s a big sister’s job to make her kid brother’s life miserable, and I take my job very seriously. Unfortunately, Barnaby has learned from the master.

  “Did you use the last of the milk?” I ask, holding the refrigerator door open.

  “Somebody had to,” Barnaby replies, shoveling a spoonful of brown mush into his mouth.

  I peer into the fridge and look behind the orange juice bottle and the pitcher of de-chemicalized water, thinking that a gallon of milk is going to miraculously appear. Furious, I pull open the drawer where we keep vegetables and the other one that’s filled with cold cuts, knowing full well that I’m not going to find milk in there. But hiding a brand new gallon of milk in the most inappropriate place is exactly something that Barnaby would do. I fling open the freezer, convinced I’ll find milk among the ice cube trays, frozen meats, and the box of baking soda, but nothing.

  “What am I supposed to do now?!”

  My father walks in right when I shove Barnaby in the shoulder. It’s not a big shove, but he’s so small that he teeters on his chair and has to grip the edge of the table to keep from falling over. Chewed up chocolate cereal spills out of his mouth so it looks like he’s throwing up mud. He looks like a little brother should: pathetic and at my mercy. I forget that I’m pissed off that there’s no milk for my cereal and laugh at my brother wobbling in his chair. I’m so preoccupied I’m not surprised that my father hasn’t screamed at me yet. Until Barnaby reminds me that his silence is unusual.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?!” Barnaby demands.

  Chocolate milk is still dribbling down my brother’s chin, but now I’m more interested in my father’s non-reaction. I know he saw me hit Barnaby, and that’s grounds for a lecture. He hates when we hit each other, which is understandable; his silent gaze is not.

  “Earth to Dad!” Barnaby shouts. “Your freakazoid daughter hit me! Do something!”

  Despite the screech of my brother’s voice and the fact that I was caught red-handed, so to speak, my father doesn’t do anything. And since my father is the sheriff and an action-oriented kind of guy who responds quickly to the scene of a crime, it doesn’t make sense that he’s staring at us like he’s an immobile deer and his children are a pair of headlights.

  “Dad!” Barnaby shouts again.

  At last the sound flicks the headlights off so my father can respond.

  “Apologize to your brother,” my father instructs.

  “I’m sorry,” I say immediately.

  Barnaby recognizes the insincerity in my voice. “You don’t mean it!”

  No, I don’t, but that’s all he’s going to get out of me, and he knows it. He also knows, like I do, that my father didn’t handle the situation very well.

  “If that’s the way you serve and protect,” Barnaby snipes, “you’re lucky there’s never any crime in this town!”

  Something’s definitely wrong with my dad, because he, like me, takes his job very seriously and has never allowed anyone to belittle his profession or his abilities, especially not his kids. Barnaby knows this too and shoots me a look as if to say that he can’t believe he got away with his comment. Nothing like a peculiar parental moment to create a bond between squabbling siblings. Unfortunately, this does nothing to rectify Milkgate.

  “I still don’t have any milk for my cereal thanks to you!” I whine.

  “My fault. I forgot to get some yesterday,” my father says quickly. “I’ll pick up a gallon on my way home tonight.”

  And now he’s taking the blame for the whole episode. I pour myself a glass of orange juice and drink it slowly to give myself some uninterrupted time to think about the last few weeks. This isn’t the first time my father’s acted strangely and out of character. He’s been preoccupied with something, absentminded; in fact one night he left his gun on the kitchen table, out of its holster. First time that’s ever happened in my entire life. Being sheriff of a sleepy town is still a stressful job, but until recently he’s handled it without any noticeable repercussions. Maybe the stress is getting to him? Maybe I’m not the only one going through a rough patch.

  “Everything okay, Dad?” I ask.

  I don’t get the response I was expecting. He looks at me like he’s never seen me before, like I’m a stranger who has no right to ask such a personal question.

  “Daaaaad . . . is anything wrong?” I ask again. And again I get an unexpected response.

  “Everything’s fine,” he mumbles as he turns from me.

  Everybody in the room knows he’s lying, but since up until this moment he’s been a man of his word, we accept his response at face value. That doesn’t mean I give up trying to uncover the truth. Digging into some strawberry yogurt—a poor substitute to the cereal I was craving—I watch him as he shuffles around the kitchen, pouring juice into a glass, spilling a little on the counter, wiping up the spill, and I examine his face and his body for signs of illness, but he looks the same. His eyes aren’t bloodshot; he’s not pale or sweaty; his body isn’t hunched over like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders or even the weight of our family; he looks as strong as ever, which makes me even more concerned. Something must be really wrong if he’s going out of his way to hide it from us.

  Barnaby’s freshman-only bus comes first, and he grabs his backpack and runs out of the house shouting a good-bye to our dad just as he slams the front door shut. As a little brother, being annoying comes naturally; as a son, being disrespectful doesn’t.

  Being alone in the kitchen with my dad is unusually tense. I’m not used to this feeling. We don’t agree on everything, we have our spats, we yell at each other from time to time, but my dad is a good guy and, most important, he’s accessible. Whenever Barnaby or I need to talk or vent, he listens. On the flip side, if something’s bothering him, he’ll share it with us. He may not offer up the version that’s rated A for adults only, but he’ll share enough details with us so we feel like we’re a part of his life. I’m not used to feeling like an intruder, and I’m not used to my father acting like someone other than my father.
So of course when I see him open his mouth to speak, I act like a jerk.

  “It’s a bit too early for a father-daughter chat.”

  I throw my spoon in the sink, grab my bag, ignore my dad’s woeful expression, and escape.

  For the rest of the day I feel guilty for acting inappropriately when the whole thing was my fault. I was the one who was wrong, so I guess I’m the one who’s going to have to make it right.

  The police station is walking distance from Two W, so after school I ditch the bus and walk over to see my father so I can apologize properly. The weather doesn’t know if it wants to be summer or fall; it’s still warm, but every once in a while a breeze floats by and brings with it cool air that’s an indication of things to come. Nebraska weather isn’t always predictable, but more often than not it’s severe. When it’s hot, it’s scorching, and when it’s cold, well, let’s just say that it’s hard to maintain any fashion sense when long johns and a parka are required clothing.

  Today I don’t even need a jacket, and the air feels good on my arms. The walk is so quiet, it’s almost meditative. Most of the kids have either taken the bus home or stayed late to practice some sport or extracurricular activity. Caleb and Archie have football practice, and Jess is the president of Broadway Bound, the school’s theater group. I haven’t committed to anything other than cheerleading, and practice doesn’t start until next week, so until then I’m a free agent.

  I leave the main road to take a shortcut into the center of town. I’m hardly the first to do so, and even if I had never taken this route before, if I was a foreigner and not a townie, I still wouldn’t get lost. There’s a well-traveled dirt path that leads from the end of school grounds, from the edge of the baseball field, directly to the back of the Super Saver, Weeping Water’s one and only supermarket. On either side of the makeshift walkway are grass and weeds, more weeds than grass actually, some tree stumps, garbage that keeps piling up despite the town’s many litter-prevention initiatives, and halfway in between the two locations a town landmark—a lone tree in the middle of a clearing that we all call The Weeping Lady.