Entangled Moon

by E. C. Frey

  “Excuse me? Why wouldn’t it be my business? You’re my husband. Besides, I was just curious, Brandon, making conversation. You hadn’t mentioned you would be out this morning. Normally, we share that information in case day care needs us.” I latch onto that bit of truth to cover my lie.

  His eyes turn a livid blue. Must be a tropical reptile. His voice cuts through the air. “You haven’t been interested in my work or, for that matter, my world for a long time now, Heather.” He spits my name like a toxin. “It wouldn’t have crossed my mind to tell you my agenda. This thing came up and I had to deal with it. End of story.”

  “That’s not true. I’m always interested in what you’re doing. And, anyway, what’s all the mystery about?”

  “Something that has no bearing on you.” He lifts his utensils. “Look, we’ve both been consumed by our jobs lately. It suits me fine to not discuss it at home.”

  I should heed and accept his attempt to end the conversation, but I’m not ready to let it go. “I think it’s healthy to share.”

  Shannon looks from her father to me.

  His jaw hardens. “I don’t think there’s anything healthy about the extent to which you are willing to be completely consumed by everything except what really matters. Whether it’s a project at day care that you think will win you brownie points or it’s your plans to meet your friends for a bitch session. You’re selfish. I’m surprised you notice anything else—unless, of course, it affects you.”

  My cheeks redden. “What do you mean? That’s not fair. I couldn’t give a damn about day care, and if I’m so very consumed by my job then why do I take care of everything around here, including the plumbing?”

  “You don’t like day care, Mommy?” Shannon mashes her little fork into her food.

  “That’s a damn lie and you know it, Heather. You’re so hell-bent on your own agenda that you haven’t got the time of day for anyone else’s. Did you even ask me if I had any plans while you run to Charleston?”

  “Charleston was planned a year ago. You knew this. I take a trip at this time every year. This has never been an issue before. I don’t know where this is coming from. I only asked you about your meeting this morning and it’s turned into a personal attack.”

  “This isn’t about my meeting. You and I both know you have something else on your mind, your agenda. Instead of skirting around the issue, why don’t you just ask what you want to ask?”

  There it was, the truth of it. Do I really want to know? He’s opened the door. Do I dare go in? Can I bear it? I know a form of death hovers somewhere on the other side. Drums pound in my head and the sweat, which has traced a line between my breasts, now bleeds through the weave of my red cotton blouse and pools at my navel, spreading and darkening the fabric to crimson. I want to free myself, but freedom is a very dangerous thing. It can kill you in more ways than the act of dying.

  I force the question through my teeth, but it comes out soft and muted. “Where were you this morning?”

  He looks straight at me, straight through me. “None of your fucking business.”

  Shannon’s breath hisses, her mouth and eyes widen in shock.

  The pounding in my head matches that in my chest. “It is my business. Because we’re married. And because I care. I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t. You and Shannon are my life. Everything I do, I do with you in mind.” A liquid veil obscures my surroundings. Terror squeezes my insides. My eyes plead with his. But it’s only partially true. Part of me wants to be free and the other part seeks the lie, needs the comfort of it. It’ll become complicated.

  He pushes his chair back and stands. “You’re full of shit.” Through clenched teeth, he continues. “Maybe we should discuss this later.”

  “When?”

  He glares, clenches his fists, turns, and throws his plate into the sink. It shatters against the porcelain. He storms from the room.

  Thunder, low and far away, cannot mask that of the fan and crickets whose continued onslaught deafens me. I press the palms of my hands tightly against my ears. Shannon’s little mouth trembles.

  Why didn’t I force him to come clean? Force him to say it?

  My chest aches. I clutch at it, and the fabric of my blouse yields and soaks my hand. The questions swirl like tiny blood-sucking insects, devouring all reason.

  Why did I take the call?

  Do you know him? I was stricken but calm. He had been intimate with someone who I had unwittingly helped fire. I’d been forced to handle the situation, a situation that violated a code. A conflict of interest, and I was totally blind. Betrayed from every side, including my own. A million ways to betray and I had tapped them all.

  But could it be someone else? Another Collings? The investigator had more.

  Tanya Garrison had been found dead in her apartment. She was sorry. Detectives would be visiting me as they had visited her. The whole affair had become . . . complicated. The death was suspicious, and everyone who’d had anything to do with her would be looked at differently.

  Suspicious? How suspicious?

  Homicide suspicious.

  The words kept replaying: Dead . . . Homicide . . . Same Name. There have to be other Collingses. But is there another Brandon Collings? Another Brandon Collings who works for his company? And who killed Tanya? Is he capable of that? I’m no longer sure. What was the thing he had to do? I don’t want to think. I push my fists into my eye sockets until I see stars, but it doesn’t stop the questions. Can I sleep next to a man who, at minimum, slept with someone else, and possibly even murdered her? Can I trust the most important person in the world to his care?

  And will they figure out I was the one, the one married to her lover, who signed off on her dismissal? The jilted woman.

  But there was more. Tanya was pregnant. Did he kill her and his own baby?

  Shannon whimpers.

  “I’m sorry, baby. Do you forgive Mommy?” Shannon’s quiet tears turn into sobs and her body heaves with emotion. Thunder rumbles closer. “Mommy and Daddy sometimes fight over stupid stuff, but it doesn’t really mean anything, sweetheart.”

  Shannon looks up and her blue eyes glisten through her tears as she breathlessly whispers, “Why is Daddy so mad?”

  “Daddy’s not that mad. It’s just we’re all so hot. Sometimes the heat gets to people.”

  “But Mommy, why would the weather make Daddy mad?”

  A flash of light pierces the darkness. A thunderclap follows, silencing the crickets. Another flash of light catches the entire landscape. Thunder follows. Shannon jumps from her seat and crouches under the table. The air pulses. Another flash of light outlines the silhouette of the garden. Drops of rain streak the windows. A loud thunderclap immediately follows a streak of lightning.

  I jump.

  Shannon peers fearfully from under the table. Her tear-streaked face is etched with fear. Tiny tufts of hair lift from her scalp, drawn to the electrostatic charges in the air. I smile and extend my hand.

  Torrents of rain thunder along the roofline and in sheets against the panes of the windows and sliding door. The old oak tree in the backyard moans under the weight of the downpour.

  A blinding white light fills the space around me as a deafening noise rends the air. Wood splits as if the Earth itself has cleaved in two. A huge blow tightens my chest, and even as I draw away from the light I am filled with tiny needles of pain. Glass shatters around me. A high-pitched wail, frightening and familiar, fills the space around me. Shannon!

  I swim. The sound of water is familiar. My mother turns on both faucet knobs right before she pours the bleach. Thunder and down-pours—pain always follows. I can’t open my eyes in the bleach-tainted water, but I need to surface to catch a breath. If I accidentally swallow, I will lose. The tightness in my throat asphyxiates me. My lungs will soon burst. I have to open my eyes. I must find the surface.

  I am drowning.

  The weight crushes my breath.

  I open my eyes.

  Brandon
hovers, his fingers wrapped around my throat. His face contorts as he exerts pressure, a mask of hatred and something far more intimate. I squirm but my limbs are caught. I don’t have the strength to equal his. It’s like every other time. I’m helpless against the will of others. Others have the power and I have none. Stars dance.

  “Why couldn’t you let it alone? Why can’t everyone leave it alone? I’ve lost everything. Everything. You are nothing to me. Do you hear me? Your mother was right. You’re weak and pathetic. You make me sick. God! You make me want to vomit.” Tears stream from his eyes and splatter. “I’ve lost everything that matters.”

  The light recedes.

  Shannon!

  A scream pierces the darkness.

  I wake.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

  I struggle. Shannon needs me.

  The sound of shattering dishes terrifies me. I raise my hand to my throat. A knife of searing pain throbs against my vocal chords. I lift my unwilling head an inch. It is enough to see.

  Brandon clears the remainder of the counter with his arm. His sobs are thick. “How could anyone think I did it? I loved her.”

  I beckon to Shannon. “Shannon.” The sound is raspy and weak.

  “Mommy!” I watch helplessly as she sobs under the kitchen table now littered with broken dishes and scattered utensils.

  I think, but I cannot gather up the threads of my thoughts and stitch them together. Split, they dangle in the elements. I’m dizzy, my breath is shallow; I fight to stay conscious. I can’t succumb. Shannon is alone.

  “Daddy!” Shannon pleads.

  Brandon stoops against the counter. He turns to Shannon. His eyes are full of tears. Seeing them, a part of me breaks too. He would never have cried like that for me.

  “Daddy is sorry.”

  Shannon runs from under the table and hugs him but he pulls away. He looks at me.

  “I’m sorry. You and Shannon used to be enough. But everything’s changed. Everything’s dead.” He puts his face in his hands and sobs. “I’m sorry.”

  Shannon hugs him. He pulls away again, walks to the door, and leaves. The sounds of the garage opening and the car pulling out mingle with that of storm-quenched rain.

  “Shannon. Come here.”

  Shannon crawls next to me, tucks herself into my side, and sucks her thumb, a habit she relinquished a year ago. I don’t have the heart or the energy to remind her of this.

  We lie and listen to the rain, now a gentle patter that subdues the night. We need to go, but exhaustion enslaves my will. It’s not the first time someone’s tried to kill me. I stroke Shannon’s hair. She grabs my hand and tucks it into her body.

  I was alone the first time.

  We had hitchhiked to Tallon Park. I was returning home. I focused on each step to quiet the rising panic. I was late. Walking straight through the deep carpet of newly shed needles, I concentrated on the scent of crushed pine. The terrain was steep and slippery, but I didn’t have to think about tomorrow. Now there was only the forest, the shifting of the trees in the fading sunlight, and the slipping needles that caused my feet to slide. I only had to keep my footing.

  Deep down, I sensed that things were far darker than in that soundless forest. My hair stood on my neck and a chill coursed through my limbs. I felt a set of eyes on my back as I ascended through the trees. I turned. There were only shadows. I watched and listened. Nothing changed. I continued to climb, but the needles shifted under my feet and gave way.

  The force of the fall knocked the wind from my lungs and I slipped helplessly to the bottom. I should’ve stayed there. Let the damp night air take me. I knew it then even as I know it now.

  My pants ripped and I was covered in dirt and pine needle sap. I had been so close to home.

  The air was crisp the following morning. A certain resolve hovered in the cloudless sky. My mother had used her fists, and the purple of those bruises mingled with those from my fall. It was an unspoken knowledge that the signs of the beatings were to remain unseen, but I had ducked and one of the punches had caught me on the jaw.

  I skipped breakfast. My mother accused me of rebelliousness. Absence was rebellion. Part of me wanted the world to see even if it didn’t care. Death would be better. A friend had hung herself from the stair banister with her father’s belt.

  I understood. That was the moment when the pain stopped forever.

  I perched at my window and thought about death. Would my parents cry? Would my father notice? It didn’t matter. Their pain was guaranteed. Society questioned young death. It didn’t fit into an understanding of a world in which people were required to grow old and die naturally. Society would whisper behind my parents’ backs and the words would be unkind. The loss of order demanded judgment. My parents wouldn’t be able to hide behind the lies anymore.

  I wanted death.

  From my window I could see into the expanse of shade-infused gloom punctuated by a lone patch of sun-dappled earth. A rickety fence wedged behind the mature trees separated my yard from Mariah’s. Long ago we’d discovered several attached boards we could flip. I perceived the fence at the border of the garden, and whether by actual sight or by knowledge, I traced the contours of Mariah’s house and the window from which Mariah gazed out to my side of the hilltop. There was love in her house. Not that they didn’t have their own suffering, but they wore it together. I longed to be a part of their world, to be loved simply because I existed. There were times her mother caressed my face and there was never a greater sorrow than leaving her side. But she was Mariah’s—not that Mariah wouldn’t have shared. It was the Indian way. But my mother would’ve found me, ripped me away, and moving again, I would’ve lost everything. There was comfort in knowing my place. And there was comfort in knowing I still had something that could be taken.

  My side of the yard was swathed in the shadow of a lone avocado tree that spread its branches towards the light. Mateless, it couldn’t bear fruit, but its broad, waxy leaves made intricate and protective shadows that played across my bedroom walls. Deep in the night, when the old stairs creaked with the weight of their history and unidentifiable noises filled me with dread, I could count on the moon to leave its glistening mark through the leaves. Moonbows crossed my quilted bed and illuminated the dark corners of my room. She was my tree. She belonged to me and I to her. I too could grow into barren loveliness. Large and round, the trunk soared toward the sky even as its branches reached toward the world and its roots cleaved the ground—earthbound and sky-bound. No, one did not have to have a mate in order to be strong or captivating. I reached through my screenless window to pluck a leaf. I turned it in my hands and placed it on my dresser, my altar. It was the one special thing I was still allowed to have besides my friends.

  No. One did not have to have a mate to die. It was the one thing you did alone.

  I gathered my things. I wore my bathing suit underneath my clothing and tucked an old towel into my embroidered Indian purse. Leaving my room, I made sure my door was wide open. A closed door inferred secrets and those weren’t allowed.

  I learned early to live with hypocrisy.

  I crept down the stairs. Mariah’s voice mingled with that of my mother’s in the kitchen. I perched at the bottom step, catching the last scraps of conversation.

  “Where will you be?” My mother’s tone was uncharacteristically light.

  “We’ll be around town. We might go to the swimming pool at the Rec Center and the park. Fiona has some new records so we might go there too.”

  “I see. That’s fine.” My mother’s voice trailed off as she ran out of questions.

  I came off the last step and entered the kitchen. Mariah seemed to have dispelled all misgivings. It was a tricky matter getting out of my house. Today was a good day. It could turn bad quickly.

  I reveled in the excitement of adventure and of something more—a trespass. My stomach twittered. We skipped and jumped down the stairs outside the front door and ran all the way to Esperanza
’s house.

  Walking down Main Avenue toward Hillcrest Park, we received a mixture of catcalls and disapproving looks. I tried to make myself inconspicuous between Eve and Esperanza. Someone I knew might call mother.

  “Quit acting weird.” Fiona clucked.

  “Someone might see us and tell.” I shrank between my friends.

  Eve giggled. “C’mon, Heather. These people are from Sycamore. They don’t care what we’re doing and they don’t know us. It’s totally cool.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mariah, Esperanza, and I caught the first car. An elderly man scolded us on the merits of taking public transportation versus that of catching rides that could end up poorly for us.

  I smiled shyly and thanked him.

  “Say, where did you get all those bruises?”

  “I . . . I . . . I ran into a door.”

  “Uh-huh. Don’t let anyone slap you around, little one. No one has that right. You understand?”

  “Yes sir. Thank you.”

  Mariah was the last one out of the car. She smiled at the man.

  Esperanza frowned. “What a square.”

  Mariah pulled her hair back. “He’s an elder, Espy. He didn’t mean anything. He cares about us.”

  “I guess so.”

  Fiona and Eve got a ride a little later with a recently married couple going for a picnic.

  Our day was carefree. The events of earlier in the year eased under the sun-warmed eucalyptus trees. We laughed and sunbathed.

  The trip back was uneventful, but Eve felt the weight of her brother’s absence as we approached the Grand Hillcrest Theater.

  Before her brother left, she’d spent her summers with him. But then he went to Vietnam. Infantry. Her idol was going off to kill or be killed. There was no ambivalence in war. One always had a 50 percent chance of coming home in a body bag. A classmate of his was going to college on the East Coast. Why was one going and the other wasn’t? She felt betrayed—betrayed by her country. That same classmate was from Upper Sunny Hollow, his father knew a couple of senators. His life would be college and a career. The operative word was life. Eve’s father was a black man from Mississippi via Detroit. It just wasn’t fair. Her voice trailed off. We worried for Terrell. He had always been our protector and now no one could protect him.