The Exact Same Moon

by Jeanne Marie Laskas

The rest of the words are these: I know her. I just … know her. Those enormous cheeks. Those fiercely focused eyes. That funny arch of her left eyebrow. I know her! She is she and I am I, and just like that, in the blink of an eye, we belong.

  I can’t believe this.

  I stop trembling. I am instantly and thoroughly … calm. This is not at all how I imagined it would be.

  Alex finally speaks. “I just see little pink dots everywhere,” he says. “Just speckles everywhere.”

  Oh. There is something wrong with the screen resolution on that old laptop. Oh, poor Alex. “She is beautiful,” I tell him. “She is bald! She is frowning. She has chipmunk cheeks. I don’t know how to tell you … This is so weird, honey, but I know her.”

  He says he’s getting in the car. He says he’ll be home in an hour.

  I tell him hurry home. I tell him: “Pretty Like Jade.” I tell him hurry home, I’m waiting.

  And I better get used to waiting. It’s going to be six or eight weeks before we’ll be allowed entry into China to go get her.

  I think: How can I wait?

  Well, I can’t.

  That’s all there is to it.

  I’m a mom. Here’s my baby. What do you mean I can’t hold her? What do you mean I have to wait? I’m a mom. Here’s my baby. I have to get to her. I have to take care of my baby.

  I sit here staring at her picture, my feet digging into a snoring beagle, and I start calculating. I think about digging to China. I think about getting Billy in here with a backhoe. I think of packing myself in a big wooden box and mailing myself to China. I think of the satellite dish on my roof, beaming TV in from outer space. Couldn’t I rig it to somehow beam me up, and then down to China? I think of Bewitched.

  I think of Samantha and I Dream of Jeannie and My Favorite Martian and so many of the friends I grew up with who could just click and go.

  I think of the moon. I wonder if anyone has even shown her the moon. I think of writing her a letter immediately and telling her about the moon.

  I sit here overwhelmed with thoughts, stupid and huge. I sit here discovering everything and yet only the tip of all there is to know. A mother’s love doesn’t begin with the mother, or the child, or anything having to do with the mind. A mother’s love doesn’t begin with a smell or even a touch. A mother’s love comes on like a thunderstorm. You may or may not hear the rumble as it approaches, you may or may not have time to close your windows and call in your cat. But when the storm comes, the storm is all there is. The sky opens and weeps and howls and devours.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  And don’t I feel like a gym teacher, holding this clipboard. I should have a whistle. Tweet, tweet! “I want to see you kids hustle!”

  But I am not a gym teacher. No, I am a mother. I am a train. I am the mother of all trains. I am packing to go to China.

  On this clipboard I have a color-coded packing list: my stuff written in green, Alex’s in blue, Anna’s in purple.

  The purple thrills me. “Diapers.” “Formula.” “Bottles.” “Bottle Liners.” How exhilarating it is to have baby-gear words in your life.

  “Anyway, I’d love to stay and chat,” I say to Alex, apropos of nothing—and everything. “But I have to go pick up Anna.”

  Alex is on the floor, hunched over the suitcase. “You’re just going to keep saying that?” he asks.

  “Apparently.”

  I just keep saying it. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to go pick up Anna.” I love these words. Words I’ll probably be saying years from now, when she’s at school, or at piano lessons, or over at her best friend’s house. But words that I now get to say for the first and second and third and fourth times as I run around like a gym teacher with a clipboard but no whistle.

  But I am not a gym teacher. No, I am a mother. I am a train. I am the mother of all trains.

  We leave for China in the morning.

  It’s already February, three months since we got the referral. Three months! It wasn’t supposed to take this long. But between the backlog of paperwork at the U.S. Consulate’s office in China, and the astounding number of government holidays the Chinese government seems to have, and all the complicated scheduling of appointments at all the various government offices we’ll need to visit in order to adopt Anna—well, it took three months.

  But it’s over now. The wait is just about over.

  I hand Alex a bag full of toothbrushes.

  He looks at them. “You want me to pack the whole bag?”

  I nod.

  “You really think we need, like, twenty toothbrushes?”

  “Twelve,” I say.

  “You really think we need twelve toothbrushes?”

  Sigh. Surely he knows I’ve already worked this through. “Sweetie,” I say. “You can’t drink the tap water in China. So what if you forget? You just absentmindedly wave your toothbrush under the faucet … That toothbrush is a goner.”

  “We’re going to do that twelve times?”

  “Six times for each of us,” I say.

  He holds his lips tight. “Well, you sure are thinking of … everything.”

  “I am,” I say smugly.

  “Everything and beyond.”

  I flop my head to one side. “Honey, I’d love to stay and chat, but—”

  He throws in the toothbrushes.

  I look down at my clipboard. Check.

  It’s now eight o’clock. And the thing is, it’s snowing outside. This, if I allow myself to think about it, bothers me. Snow is not on my checklist of something I would have to deal with. I have decided that this means I don’t have to deal with it.

  Well, I am not dealing with it for other reasons, too. There is, of course, the thing about snow as it pertains to airports and airplane runways with too much of it on them. But this is a gentle snow. So far just a dusting over the barn roof. So the airplane worry has barely even kicked in.

  Mostly, the snow I am not dealing with puts a sadness in my heart. The more I work on not dealing with it, the more I drift toward a barely iced-over sorrow.

  Damn it.

  Snow.

  Snow means: cold. Snow means: freezing cold. And no matter what your feelings of winter and cold blasts may be, this is just not the kind of environment you like to imagine when you imagine a missing dog.

  Sparky.

  He’s missing.

  What was that I said? Everything is connected. Everything fits. From a distance you can sometimes see the blueprint, or at least the traces of one.

  It helps to try and see the blueprint. It helps when enough of the pieces of a puzzle fit together and the picture starts to reveal itself and you can just sit and think about the picture.

  Well, it’s easier. Keep your brain working! Put all your energy into brain work! Forget about the snow and think about the picture, or think about your packing list, or just keep thinking. I’m telling you, if you can accomplish this, you dramatically decrease your chances of feeling anything.

  So here is what I think. I think that it makes a kind of beautifully sad sense that Sparky would go—go right when he did.

  It was the day after we got the referral.

  Yeah, the day after.

  It was a normal enough morning—as normal as anything seems to get these days. I’d had a fitful sleep; all night I kept having to turn on the light to look once again at Anna’s picture, to remind myself that it was real, that she was real. My heart was like a big happy frog, hopping and bopping with abandon.

  But in every other way, it was a morning like every other morning. I woke up. I pulled my feet out from underneath Sparky, who was stretched out like a log on the bed. I brushed my teeth. I put the coffee on. I went back into the bedroom to see if any of the snoozing lump of mammals known as my family was even beginning to stir.

  “Good morning, gang!” I said. And Marley, first Marley woke up. He stood, did his dog shake, which woke Sparky up. Sparky jumped off the bed, did his dog shake, which woke Betty up. I swear do
gs have a whole dialogue going on with those dog shakes. I opened the door to the yard just as I always do, and the dogs filed out.

  Ten minutes later Alex was getting up, and I called the dogs in for breakfast. Marley came in, Betty came in, but Sparky did not. On the face of it, this was not a giant worry. This, I figured, could be one of those days he’d spend sniffing through the great outdoors. It had happened plenty of other times. I’d always hear his A-roo! A-roo! in the distance, and I’d feel comforted by the knowledge that he was probably onto something good.

  But on that day last November I didn’t hear any A-roo! A-roo! All day I was listening for it, and I never heard it.

  The next day I went out looking for him. I went to all his favorite places. I hiked clear over to the cedar-shake house on Needmore Road with the collie mix that Sparky had taken a shine to. I saw no signs of Sparky. As the days progressed, so did my heartache and so did my understanding.

  I called every animal shelter from here to Pittsburgh and down to West Virginia. I posted signs everywhere, in the post office and the hardware store and even up at the Wal-Mart.

  Nobody called.

  Sparky, it seemed, had vanished.

  As the weeks turned into months, my heartache softened with thanks and forgiveness. Sparky. A bumbling, stinky angel. He’d shown up when I needed him. And then, the day after I got the photo of Anna, well, I guess his work here was done.

  It was the only way I could find to think about it. I needed to find a way of thinking about it. Not that the thinking has made it all that much easier. This, of course, is the main problem with thinking: You just can’t keep it up. Sooner or later your brain needs a break and then, BAM. Your heart takes over.

  I’m probably way off the charts with this missing I feel. He is, after all, just a dog. But a dog that for a time filled the shoes—well, the stroller—of my baby. A dog escorting me from sorrow to joy.

  “He’s moved on to his next home,” I tell people who ask about him. “He wandered off just as he wandered in.”

  I try to make it sound like I’ve let it go. I don’t mention the fact that I still drive to our local animal shelter once each week, just in case. I do this in lieu of calling them on the phone. Because nearly every time I call they say yes, they say, “We have a male beagle, just came in this morning!” And so I hop in the car with all my hope, and then I get there and it’s not Sparky. There are, I’ve discovered, a lot of male beagles that wander off. And none of them is Sparky.

  He isn’t coming back. I really do know this. I really need to let this go. I’ve got a baby to go get. And I’ve got to pack.

  But you know, it’s snowing.

  Snow must be one of worry’s most efficient fuels. Damn it.

  I put down my clipboard. “I’ll be right back,” I say to Alex. I head into the hall, find my coat. I open the door, step out onto the porch.

  The snow has poured a hush over the farm. The moon is hiding. The sky is dark as ink.

  I cup my hands, yell “Heeey, Spark!” into the darkness, as I have been doing for the past three months, since he first left.

  “Heey, Spark!”

  Nothing.

  And to think not long ago I was calling Skippy in from his big adventure. At least I found Skippy. I’m starting to think of scaling back on pets. On love. The more you have, the more you just have to lose.

  “Heey, Spark!”

  I imagine Sparky trapped somewhere, shivering, too cold to let out an A-roo! for help.

  But snow is a blank canvas on which any imagination can run wild.

  So give me a second. I mean, let me work on this. I fold my arms, hug my chest.

  Okay, here we go: Instead of outside shivering, at this moment Sparky is warm and snug inside someone’s house. That’s it. Right now Sparky is doing a happy dog shake in the bedroom of some otherwise sad little girl, or in the kitchen of some otherwise sad old man, or in the basement beside a TV being watched by an otherwise sad and pimply teenager. Stinky Bumbling Angel does it again. Stinky Bumbling Angel to the rescue!

  He’s working on someone else’s heart.

  Good for you, Spark. Good for you.

  We are, each of us, managers of our own imagination. There really are choices we make.

  But still.

  “Heeeeey, Spark!” I yell, one last time, just in case I’m wrong about this.

  Okay, now listen up, team! Tweet! Tweet! This packing list is five pages long. There is still so much to do.

  Let me just say it is not easy getting two weeks’ worth of clothes for three people—plus two weeks’ worth of baby formula and diapers and toys; plus a dozen gifts for orphanage personnel, MADE IN USA, individually wrapped in red paper; plus piles of clothes and toys to donate to the orphanage; plus pounds of official paperwork, and, well, a living room’s worth of STUFF—into two checkable bags measuring no more than sixty-two linear inches apiece and two carry-ons of no more than forty-five linear inches apiece.

  Whew. Okay. I have Ziploc bags. No, not the kind with the little slide thingy. I tried those. I need a tight seal. Because air, I am discovering, takes up too much room. So I put Anna’s little PJs into a one-quart bag, then seal it all the way up except for a little space to stick a straw in, then, fwooop, I suck out as much air as I can, and then I quickly finish the seal. Voilà! Vacuum-packed clothes! This is really working. I wonder if I can fit my sweater and Alex’s jeans into this one-gallon bag. And these little dresses, oh, look at this outfit Kristin got for Anna, the one with the rabbit on it, oh, I can really see her in this one.

  Anna is waiting. She is sitting there in the Kunshan Welfare Institute in Jiangsu Province, wondering where I am. Well, maybe not. She is only eleven months old. She is too young to know she even has a mom over here grieving a beagle, a mom posing as a gym teacher, the mother of all trains, or the train of all mothers, trying to condense a family-to-be into two suitcases and two carry-on bags.

  I’m stuffing. I’m cramming. I’m fwooping. I’m zipping. I’m thinking of all the things I’ve forgotten to pack. The things I have no idea how to pack.

  I’m thinking of the baby shower that Eileen and Kristin and Claire threw for me and the generosity of spirit that energized that day. My sisters, sitting there eating cake, sipping punch, armed with presents and eagerness and acceptance for this baby born on the other side of the globe, a baby they regard instantly, simply, impossibly, as one of us.

  There is Alyson in the center of the crowd, wearing a velvet pantsuit, understanding everything.

  There is Amy, who could very easily have freaked out at the idea of a new baby sister coming into her father’s arms, but who was at that shower with bells on, bringing so many presents for Anna, we had to take a break after I was finished opening them.

  I’m thinking of Peter, who might also have simply fled but who is taking a week off from work so he can be at the airport waiting for Anna.

  I’m thinking of my mom and my dad, the two of them taking the picture of Anna all through Riddle Village, bragging about their new grandchild.

  I’m thinking of George and Pat who came over one night with storybooks, gifts for Anna. I’m thinking of the old lady who made a wreath of dried flowers—a gift for Anna. Then she gave us a pillowcase with pink and blue flowers embroidered on it. She told us she embroidered it herself, back when she was grieving the loss of her own daughter in the house fire. She told us embroidery was what helped keep her sane. “But I didn’t know I was making something for a girl from China,” she said. “But why not?” A gift that grew out of a mother’s tears. How perfect that seemed.

  I’m thinking of my Pittsburgh friends who threw the most wonderful “Anna is coming soon!” party. I’m thinking of Wendy making those invitations on rice paper, stamping each with Chinese characters. And Beth making a gourmet meal of Chinese food. And Nancy, who is normally so not the kitchen type, spending days making homemade fortune cookies, each with a fortune she had written herself. “Look!” read mine. “There
are baby-sitters all around you!”

  I wonder how I will ever explain any of this to Anna. I wonder: Just how do you pack this stuff? I wish there were a Ziploc bag that could hold the world’s welcome.

  But there is not. No, when it comes to Ziploc bags, you just have your quart size, your two-quart size, your gallon size, your two-gallon size. I’ve used boxes and boxes of these miraculous bags. It’s nearly midnight, and I am finally zipping the suitcase. Alex is sitting on it. We’ve got just about an inch of zipping here to go. This is unbelievable! I should go on TV and teach people how to cram stuff into a suitcase. Of course, it helps to have a clipboard, and pens with colored ink. And a sturdy new suitcase, a fancy schmancy number with exterior fabric that’s practically bulletproof. We bought the top of the line.

  “Voilà!” I say to Alex, finishing the zip. He’s happy. I’m happy. We’re done.

  “Let’s practice,” he says. “Let’s see how it will be to wheel this monster.”

  “Good idea.” I push the button, and the handle flies up like magic. Then I tilt the suitcase, I tilt it so it can rest on the wheels, which is how you pull it, I am tilting down on the handle, down, down, and the suitcase is not budging. The handle, it goes: snap.

  Snap.

  The snap is echoing through our heads as we try to process the reality of that snap.

  The handle. It just snapped off like a toothpick.

  “Oh, dear,” I’m saying, holding the handle that used to be part of the suitcase.

  Alex is glaring. I think I see steam coming out of his nose. Or maybe from his ears? “How much did we pay for this thing!?”

  A lot. But—well. “We put too much stuff in!” I say. “It’s too heavy!”

  “Why are you defending the suitcase?” he says.

  Right.

  Peace. I need there to be peace. No tension! NO TENSION! It is, okay, it is midnight and we are, okay, we are leaving for Beijing in the morning. Eight in the morning, to be exact. Our flight leaves at eight. And—we have a broken suitcase. We do not have another suitcase in this house, at least not one even close to this size.

  Um.