The Exact Same Moon

by Jeanne Marie Laskas

  And my story, at the moment, is a used needle in a Wal-Mart bathroom. I wrap it in toilet paper, put it in my purse to dispose of later. I find my shopping cart waiting outside the bathroom, right here where I left it in aisle six, Women’s Shoes. I’ve found some pink baskets and also some larger green ones. Yes, these will do fine. I pass a shelf of shelf paper. I think, well, maybe I should get shelf paper and line my pantry shelves. I decide, no. The social worker will just have to see me for who I am: a woman with unlined pantry shelves.

  Alex left at the crack of dawn for Little Rock, Arkansas. Just for a few days. He’s testifying in court on behalf of one of his former clients, a man in danger of losing custody of his children. The man, Alex says, is a good father, a mechanic with a big heart and little sophistication in matters of being duped—which is probably why he was. The man’s ex-wife, a lawyer with a lot of bitterness in her heart, took off with the children abruptly one night, moved to Arkansas, and has exercised her prodigious legal might to keep the children’s father out of their lives. The case matters to Alex: It’s a kind of crusade for duped fathers everywhere, I think. I’m proud of him. I don’t tell him often enough how proud I am of him for being such a heroic father, a father who never even wanted to be a father but who accepted the job with dignity and did it right; a father now fighting for fathers; a father willing to go yet another round and who asks for nothing, really nothing, in return.

  Except, okay, a pool table. Right. Well, I’ve started a little pool table fund, and I’m pleased to report that I’m now accepting donations.

  I should put a sign up. I should put a little poster up here on the Wal-Mart bulletin board where they have all these posters of missing kids. Hmm. Maybe not. I roll my cart out the exit door, feel the blast of hot air they throw at you, and think this, yes, this heat is getting ridiculous.

  I’m hot. I’m a bloated chicken. I have to hurry home and clean closets.

  I forgot to mention Christmas. Forgive me, but my brain is hot and waterlogged and not right. I forgot to say, yes, it happened. My mother. Alex. Christmas. A mere six weeks after that visit to the rehab hospital. We went to my brother’s to celebrate Christmas, as we always do. My mom, while getting quite good with the walker, still has a way to go, but she’s an outpatient now. Alex asked my brother to put on some music. He put on Elvis singing “Blue Christmas,” an odd choice, but my brother was in an Elvis stage. He cranked it loud, as is my brother’s way. My mother said, “Oh, John! Do you have to put that music so loud?” as is her way. She had no idea what was about to happen. She has never been through, and will most assuredly never go through, an Elvis stage. Alex walked up to her, tapped her shoulder, and said, “May I have this dance?” My mother tilted her head to one side, smiled. “I don’t know if I really can—” But Alex moved her walker aside and held out his arms. And so she hoisted herself up, and Alex took her into his arms, and she leaned on him, and slowly, back and forth, one foot, then the next, they danced. At one point my mother looked over her shoulder at us all huddled in the doorway and said, “He’s not holding me up, you know. I’m really doing this on my own.” We stood around and took pictures and some of us cried, and by the end of the dance my mom and Alex both had their eyes closed above gentle smiles, like lambs.

  I take the curves on Daniel’s Run Road fast; I’m running a little late for the ultrasound appointment. Fortunately, I could drive this road blindfolded.

  I see a guy ahead, a guy kneeling on the side of the road. He’s waving me over. He’s holding something, an animal. Is it dead? Oh God, I don’t want to see this. And why is it that you run into men holding roadkill on your way to a very important appointment? Why is life this way?

  I pull up slowly next to him, roll down my window. “Everything okay?” But I am not really looking.

  “He’s fine,” he says. “He just likes to lay in the road.”

  Oh. I look down. It’s a little dog. A beagle. It is not dead. It is not even hurt. The man is scratching the dog’s ears. The dog looks too tired to care. That is one sleepy dog.

  “Do you live around here?” the man says. He’s big and square with red hair and a red beard. He has on an orange jacket that says “Road Crew.” “Do you recognize this dog?”

  I tell him I live around the corner, and no, I don’t recognize the dog.

  “I’ve been working on potholes,” he says. “This dog has been here every day for the past two weeks.”

  “Aw,” I say. “Well, it’s nice to have a companion!” I’m about to roll my window up. I’m late. I don’t know the dog. My work here is done.

  “He sleeps on the road,” the man says. “He seems to like asphalt; I don’t know.”

  I smile politely but without conviction.

  “I don’t know,” the guy repeats, cupping his hand to keep the morning sun out of his eyes. “But I gotta keep him off the damn road or he’s gonna get run over.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve stopped every car for six days,” he tells me. “Nobody recognizes the dog. I’ve knocked on doors. I’ve done all I could.”

  “How about the post office?” I say. “Did you ask there?”

  His face brightens with recognition. “Caroline said she would pass the word,” he says.

  I smile. Everyone knows Caroline.

  “Well, Caroline gets things done,” I tell him. “If anybody can find the dog’s owner, Caroline can.”

  “Yeah,” he says, leaning back on his knees. “She tell you the post office is moving?” Oh, dear. It appears we’re settling in for a … chat.

  “Yeah,” I say politely.

  “She tell you about the delay?”

  “Um—”

  “They had to get bids on the sign.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Right.” It’s as if we’ve been watching the same TV show.

  “I could have made a damn sign. Did you hear the bid went to a company in Canada?”

  “Canada?”

  “Canada!” he says. “After all the fuss about it being a U.S. regulation sign.”

  I laugh. It’s as if we’ve been watching the same TV show, and he’s an episode ahead.

  “Well, I really have to be heading off …”

  “Well, what about the dog?”

  Um. What about the dog?

  “Do you have a pet?” he says. “He would make a great pet.”

  I look at him, tilt my head sideways with apology. He’s looking at the wrong person. Wrong! I don’t do the poor-needy-dog thing anymore. I’m way, way out of that racket. I’m in my … bloated chicken stage. “You have really, really, really asked the wrong person,” I say. “I mean, I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, but …”

  “I am too,” he says. “But I have three cats and two dogs and a wife who would kill me.”

  “I have three cats and three dogs and a husband who would send me to an insane asylum,” I say. He flashes a knowing smile. It’s a kind smile. A smile that says, I get you. Well, it’s nice to meet a stranger you like. It’s nice to be just driving down the road, minding your own business, and meet someone you can instantly connect with.

  “We could take the dog to the Humane Society,” I say. It’s funny how I’m saying “we.”

  “But who would adopt a dog like this?” he says. “He’s old.”

  Maybe he’s just dirty. He sure is a mangy thing. He’s got the longest ears you’ll ever see on a dog, and a head much too big for his body. His legs are too short, and his tail is way too long. A child could draw a more convincing dog.

  “Well, he’s got a collar, so he’s somebody’s dog,” I point out. “Maybe put an ad in the paper?”

  “But we have to get him off this road,” the man says.

  It’s funny how he’s saying “we.”

  I think a minute. I tell him, well, I could put the dog in my yard, which is way off the road, until the owner is found. And yeah, I could put an ad in the paper. Yeah. How hard is that? Forgodsakes. It’s the least I can do for a lonely
old dog who’s lost his way.

  “How long will you be here?” I ask. “Why don’t you keep the dog here until I’m on my way home, and I’ll pick him up and put him in my yard.”

  “I’m off at noon,” he says.

  Oh. Well, there is no way I’ll be back by noon. I tell him okay, here’s what we’ll do. “When you get off work, just drive the dog to my house, drop him in the yard.” I give him directions.

  “That’ll work,” he says. “Thank you. You’re the first person who offered to help.”

  “I’m a sucker for this kind of thing.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Just drop him off. And don’t worry about my dogs,” I say. “They’ll bark like crazy, but they’d never hurt a flea.”

  “Well, should I knock on the door and tell your husband or something?” he says.

  “My husband is out of town,” I say. “No one’s home. But I should be back by two at the latest. You think the dog will stick around?”

  “Probably. Did you say it’s a left and then a right?” he says, clarifying the directions.

  “No, a right and then a left, but not a hard left, just a soft left onto the dirt road,” I say. And soon I am drawing him a map on the back of an envelope from an old gasoline bill I find in the glove compartment. “Okay? I really have to go. An appointment, you know.”

  “No problem,” he says, smiling. “Nice doing business with you!”

  And so I roll up my window and zoom away. From my rearview mirror I see him waving. Nice guy. I wonder where he lives.

  So I’m zooming. I really have to hurry. I zoom onto the highway, floor it.

  Finally, and only when I stop zooming, when I enter the city, when I pull into the stinky hospital parking lot, that’s where it hits me: I just gave a complete stranger a map to my house. I told him no one is home, that my husband is out of town, and don’t worry about the dogs, don’t worry about anything until I show up at two by which time I suppose you will have had plenty of time to ransack the place which I have just practically handed over to you.

  I can’t believe this! How could I have been so stupid?

  It’s only here, in the city, that this hits me. It’s only here, back in my city frame of mind: Don’t be stupid! Lock your car and lock your house and shut your stupid big mouth!

  And yet in the country, back home, it didn’t seem stupid at all. Why would trusting someone be stupid?

  “Because,” I hear in my head, “because that guy probably does this once a week, probably poses in his road crew outfit with a pathetic dog on some lonely country road and waits for a sucker like you.”

  I can’t believe this. I can’t believe it! It’s all I can do to not turn around and catch him in the act.

  Then again, he did know about Caroline and the post office and everything. Oh, relax. He knew about Canada, for heaven’s sake. I shouldn’t be so paranoid.

  Or I should be more paranoid.

  See, I’m stuck not knowing what to think.

  But on the other hand, I am a bloated chicken with brain bloat, so I think I should be forgiven.

  Blame it on the Lupron. If my house gets ransacked, I’m going to blame it on the Lupron. In some ways, this is a very good drug.

  “Twelve,” says the woman in blue standing over me working the ultrasound machine. “You have twelve follicles.”

  “Twelve!” I say.

  The woman has curly blond hair, and a double chin, and glasses with the kind of oversize frames that were popular in the 1980s. She also has very cold hands. The room is dimly lit, somewhat like the little massage rooms at a spa I once went to, and all you can hear is the whir of machinery. I’m lying here flat on my back, dressed in one of those paper nighties they give you, with the ties in front.

  “Twelve,” I say. “Well—wow!”

  She doesn’t say anything. Shouldn’t we be happy about this? Twelve potential eggs! “How about that for an old bag like me?” I say.

  “I’ve seen women your age with twenty-five,” she says.

  “Oh.”

  “But twelve is good,” she says. “It’s good. We’ll see what we get.” She explains that we won’t “get” twelve eggs in the actual “harvest.” She says usually about half end up being viable.

  “Any guess at how much longer they want me to … incubate these puppies?” I say. Perhaps not the most technically precise lingo. I’m nervous.

  “If your blood work is okay, you’ll probably go Friday,” she says. “I’d say Friday at the latest.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I say. Three more days. “This is getting exciting!”

  She doesn’t, apparently, think so. Well, she doesn’t say anything one way or the other. She’s busy typing on a keyboard, which is connected to the ultrasound machine, which is connected to me. She is … communicating with my follicles? She is sending them some encouraging e-mail, perhaps? I consider asking, but I don’t think I’ll get even a smile out of this woman.

  “Well, I suppose I can make it to Friday,” I say, looking into the TV monitor providing a spectacular view of my ovaries. The overall picture is of black and white swirls, cake batter before the beaters are turned on. “Okay, ovaries? On Friday, girls, on Friday you get yourselves a vacation.”

  The woman looks at me.

  “They’ve been begging for a day off,” I say.

  She pulls her lips back and nods.

  “I must say, I’ve never felt so close to my ovaries,” I continue. I can’t quite seem to stop talking. This is, you have to admit, an odd situation. How much experience does the average person have with lying on a table while a woman with a double chin and big glasses looks at your ovaries on a TV screen? “Yeah, me and the Big O’s have really gotten to know each other over the last few weeks.”

  Nothing. Not even a smirk. Damn. For a person in the business of creating people, she sure isn’t a people person. None of the people in this clinic seem to be. What is with this place? Everybody’s overworked. Everybody’s tired. It’s all you can do to get a phone call returned.

  This, I know, is a factory. And I’m a customer. That’s the truth of it. I don’t know why I just don’t give in to that. This is a factory and I’m a customer, and if I’m very, very lucky, I’ll get my order filled. My order: for a person.

  “Okay, you’re done for today,” the woman says, hitting the Return key on her keyboard, and with that my ovaries vanish from view. Not even a good-bye. “Someone will be calling you after four with the blood work results,” she tells me. “Make sure you’re all set for the HCG because that’s probably going to be tomorrow.”

  “HCG?” I say. “Can you refresh me on the HCG?”

  She looks at me. Her eyelids fall in a reproving blink. “It’s in your manual,” she says.

  “Right.”

  My manual. It’s a three-ring binder crammed with instructions. I also have a black notebook that I carry with me at all times in which I write down questions and record answers—on the rare occasions that I get to actually speak to one of the doctors in charge of all of this. These doctor moments are actually scheduled talks—sometimes three-minute phone calls—for which my insurance company is dutifully billed. It’s all I can do not to slip in a little editorial now and again, you know, Hey doc, this is quite a racket you’re running here.

  But.

  Well, I don’t.

  I don’t want to get anyone mad at me or my eggs.

  I have twelve potential eggs to protect.

  Driving home, I’m no longer a bloated chicken. I’m a goose sitting on a nest. The difference is: hope.

  I call Alex on his cell phone. He’ll have it turned off if he’s in court. I don’t know what time he’s supposed to be in court.

  He answers.

  “Hey!” I say. “Twelve! I’m hatching twelve eggs!”

  “Wow!” he says. “Well, that’s … great!”

  “It’s actually pretty average,” I say. “Or so I’m told.”

  “Well, I co
uldn’t hatch twelve eggs,” he says.

  “True. You are such a sweetie. How are things there?”

  “I haven’t even gotten to the courthouse yet. I’m in a cab.”

  “Well, I am thinking of you,” I say. “I’m really proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” he says. “So what’s next?”

  “I’m going home. I have to—well, I really have to get home.” I don’t say anything about how I have to check to make sure the house wasn’t just robbed by a guy posing as a road crew worker with a lost dog. It’s just not really something Alex needs to know.

  “No, I mean what’s next with the eggs?”

  “Oh,” I say. “Harvest. They said probably Friday.”

  “Yikes,” he says.

  “Yikes,” I say. “And that means you’ll have to do your part Friday, too.”

  “This is so strange,” he says.

  “I feel like a goose sitting on a big old nest.”

  “I feel like a zoo animal—some kind of endangered ape.”

  “Yeah, but you’re my ape.”

  “You’re my goose.”

  “Good luck, sweetie. I’m proud of you.”

  When I get to Daniel’s Run Road, I take it slow this time. I’m looking for the dog. Maybe the dog is still on the road. Maybe the guy wasn’t a crook, maybe he just didn’t really care the way I thought he did. Maybe he simply went home and left the dog here. The disappointment would be better than a robbed house.

  The dog isn’t here. The dog, I decide, is probably right now snoozing at the guy’s feet, while the guy is scratching his beard and congratulating himself on another score.

  I make the right and then the left, the soft left onto Wilson Road. I approach my house with doubt and longing and an urge in my blood to rescue trust from the land of the stupid.

  It happens. The dog is here. When I pull up, I see him stretched out on the stump of the old willow tree, sound asleep. Betty and Marley and Wilma seem to have long ago accepted his presence and come charging over to greet me. The beagle stays on the stump, lifts his head, looks over at me, and allows his long tail to go thump, thump, thump in as much appreciation as he can muster, poor thing.