Moondance

by Black, Karen M.

  By the time she turned onto her street, the grief and exhaustion flowing into her body, she had analyzed it, questioned it, rejected it, and finally, transformed the encounter into pure imagination.

  She entered her apartment. Kevin was waiting for her in the darkness.

  chapter 6

  AFTER HE LEFT THE red-headed woman by the side of the road, Michael’s afternoon didn’t turn out the way he imagined.

  It turned out worse.

  Five minutes from his in-laws, his cell phone rang, and he knew it was Lara. He ignored it. She had been at her parents place since last night, and had already called him four times without leaving messages. He looked at his watch. He was running about forty-five minutes late. Talking to her wouldn’t get him there faster.

  Time awareness was one of those details in life that slipped by him now. Decisions, no matter how small, had become complex. It was becoming more difficult to sleep, but when he did sleep, he slept deeply, time passing in an instant, waking early, his memory wiped clean.

  He pulled into his in-laws’ winding lane, which was lined with a thick nest of pines and spruce. He and Lara had chosen their Christmas trees here. The small pond on his left shimmered as the wind passed over it.

  He had already recorded each detail of his in-laws’ property like an archivist, knowing that after today, it was unlikely he would see this place again. He was too tired to care. He parked the car in a place reserved for guests and sat quietly, the dread welling up through the fatigue, tugging at his limbs. He stared at the white bag beside him. Impulsively, he ripped open the bag, opened the container and swallowed a tablet dry. No better place than here. No better time than now.

  He walked to the front of the house, and rang the bell. Though he had known the Bradshaws for over ten years, he’d never walked into their home unannounced. He heard two quick footsteps on the other side of the door, and was surprised when Lara opened it, even more surprised when she put her hand on his chest, and pushed him back outside.

  “Come with me, okay? I want to talk.”

  She took his hand and led him past the drive and toward a gazebo overlooking the pond. At first, he thought she was angry with him. I’m not that late. Even if I am, then what are you going to do, leave me? Her usually calm face was strained. She sat down on a bench inside the gazebo. One shriveled yellow balloon bobbed in the wind, remnants of their last birthday gathering. A white wooden rowboat was docked just a few feet away. The Bradshaws weren’t boaters. Michael had brought the boat from his childhood cottage.

  Lara was talking. Michael couldn’t take his eyes off the shriveled balloon. She stopped talking. Michael looked at her and her pale blue eyes searched for his acknowledgement.

  “I said I don’t want to talk to my parents today,” she said. “There’s a reason. I’ve told them I’m not feeling well, so we can leave now and talk on the way home.”

  He didn’t understand, but he did what he always did: he went along with her, in part because he was too tired to fight. Mostly, because his wife looked more distraught, more fragile than he had ever seen her and that frightened him.

  • • •

  AFTER SOME AWKWARD GOODBYES, Michael and Lara were on the road heading home. The sun was sinking into red.

  “Thanks,” Lara said. Her voice was small and childlike. Michael, usually so talkative, said nothing. He had never seen her this way before. She was the strong one, cool, calm and refined in any situation. This Lara was foreign to him. Part of him wanted the old Lara back, the strong Lara, even the Lara who was leaving him. Instead, her breaths were labored sighs, and she ritually clutched and un-clutched a tissue in her shaking hands.

  “Talk to me.” His voice was soft. She had always been strong, yet he was the one that initiated the emotional discussions. He usually had a sixth sense about how she was feeling.

  “This is going to be hard, Michael. Really hard.”

  A chill passed over him. “Okay,” he lied.

  “I’m pregnant. Two months. The child may not be yours.”

  He did his best to stay calm, though he felt like he had been pushed spinning into viscous, black water. So this is how it ends? Their entire relationship, more than ten years, all leading up to this moment.

  “But I don’t want to raise the child with Jack. I want to raise her with you.”

  Jack. The name came at him from the depths, floating there, then rising just out of reach. Her words seemed far away, and came out in a disjointed stream. Jack.

  “First, I didn’t want to tell anyone and I decided to terminate. Then, when I made the appointment, I just couldn’t, and then I thought I’d have her on my own, without anyone, Jack already has grown kids, he wouldn’t want to have another anyway, and then I didn’t want him to ... not that way ... and you, we always talked about it someday, but I didn’t know whether I could even ask you, had the right to ... it’s so fucked up.”

  That much out, she cried, a soft moaning sound.

  Jack.

  Michael assumed she meant Jack Kincaid, president of the investment bank where Lara worked: tall, slightly balding, white blond, Nordic, a brilliant academic, with what Michael and Lara used to call the salesman’s twinkle. The twinkle that could charm you one minute, and stab you in the back the next.

  Kincaid inside Lara.

  Michael was swimming backward in rushing water, drowning. He stifled the urge to pull over, grab the bottle of antidepressants and down them all. What happens when you OD on Prozac? You die. But you’re really okay with that.

  Lara was still talking and she sounded far away. Her words blended together, took on a pleading tone. He knew his silence must be unnerving to her, so uncharacteristic of him. The longer he was silent, the more rapidly she spoke. Her voice tuned in and out.

  “... then I was thinking that maybe if we chose to have this child, raise her together, you could put the MBA on hold until we adjusted, just for a year.”

  Put the MBA on hold. The one thing that he thought might help him get back on track.

  “Please talk to me. Say something, Michael, anything.”

  “I don’t —” he said. Know what I want, what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, whether I’ll be able to keep driving.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I just don’t know.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  His gut writhed like a knot of living tentacles. Pain in his chest spread down his body. His mind flicked through his alternative futures like an impatient boy watching too many channels. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, and Lara’s voice came again, words offered to him like tarnished jewels strung on to a necklace of unknown value, her voice staccato, scattered.

  “... a lot to absorb, I understand if you hate me, if you want me to leave and I know you can’t make this decision tonight, but I had to tell you, I was putting it off, and when I thought about it, I thought it might work, you’d be an amazing father, I always knew that, we talked about it a few years from now, this wasn’t the plan, I know, but then I thought that maybe it could be okay, maybe we could try — you know? So take the time you need, take the time, I understand — take the time.”

  The silence between them was a concoction of ominous relief. Michael pulled onto the highway that would lead them downtown to their Harborfront condo. The sinking sun was a laser in his eyes, the scene behind him dressed in black.

  chapter 7

  WHEN ALTHEA SAW KEVIN sitting stiffly on their living room couch, she jumped. His body was perched forward, his amber eyes wide and glassy. With all of the effort she could muster, she wrestled to submerge the rising anger inside her, to stay calm. As her fury grew unchecked, the air around them cooled. She felt dangerous now. Like she was in someone else’s body.

  “Al, I’m so sorry, we never meant to —” His voice was high, child-like, barely a whisper, his words a pathetic litany of excuses. She couldn’t hold on anymore. She let go.

  “Bullshit! Fucking bullshit!” She smashed her fist
on the countertop once, twice, three times, a scorching sensation shooting up her arm. “What were you thinking? Did you think this would have a happy ending? What were you fucking thinking?” She paced back and forth, her hands wanting to hit something else — anything. Her rage was teetering out of control. A set of Henckels knives sat only a few feet away. She could imagine how it would feel — a blade sinking into his flesh.

  Kevin now sat with his head in his hands, his words coming out in great, gulping sobs. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know —”

  She faced him, hyperventilating, her fists clenched so tight her nails drew blood, using all of her will to control the urges rising within her. She was terrified of what she might do to him.

  “What did you think would happen, Kevin? What?”

  “I don’t know. I wanted, we wanted —”

  “What? To ride away into the fucking sunset together? To invite me to your fucking wedding? When did this start? When were you going to tell me?”

  She picked up a book and threw it across the room, knocking over a vase of flowers. Muddy water soaked into the carpet. Her head throbbed, her throat was on fire. She turned away from him, facing the window, stiff with anger, the heels of her hands clamping her temples.

  Kevin was sobbing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we’re so sorry. We didn’t want —” His head was still in his hands. She pictured smashing his pathetic head through the window. She wanted him dead. She bit the inside of her cheek until it bled to stop herself. Her voice was hoarse.

  “What’s this ‘we’ shit, Kevin? Aren’t you and I the ‘we’ here?” He was silent. She remembered their hushed voices. Her worst nightmare.

  No, worse than that.

  She backed away from him, shaking, wrapping her arms around her body, the emptiness inside her filling with searing acid.

  “No, no, no ... don’t tell me ... don’t tell me that ...”

  Kevin looked up from his hands for the first time, and met her eyes. She saw shame, sadness, something else.

  Her knees buckled.

  • • •

  FOUR HOURS LATER, SHE walked up a familiar stone walkway thick with lilacs, and crossed a wide Victorian veranda. This was her heart’s home, the house she had grown up in, the house she hoped would heal her.

  Sophie met her in the solarium, and handed her a glass of Alizé, passion fruit flavored cognac. Sophie wore a loosely fitted pair of jeans and a flowing white cotton shirt that came to her knees. She looked younger than her sixty-one years. Her hair was long and thick and evenly white, wound loose and low on her neck, and held by a brightly colored scarf. Her hands, which betrayed her age, were rough and strong from working in her garden. Blue eyes with a penetrating gaze left no doubt that Sophie was Althea’s mother.

  The cognac was cool in Althea’s hand. Sophie sat quietly across from her and Althea swallowed to ease the lump in her throat. This was going to be harder than she thought. When she finally spoke, her voice was hoarse.

  “Yesterday, I found out I got into Queen’s, so I went to see Kevin as a surprise. When I got to his place, he wasn’t there so I went to get food for dinner.”

  Her face was on fire and she could feel pressure behind her eyes. Jagged shards seemed embedded in her chest and arms, dense and sharp. Her voice sounded to her as if it was coming from someone else.

  Sophie was leaning forward, her eyes fixed on her daughter. Kevin used to say that it felt as if Sophie could read your mind. Althea stopped, wondering if Sophie knew already.

  “When I got back, he wasn’t alone,” Althea said.

  “Uh huh.”

  “And it was Tori —”

  “Oh shit.” Sophie looked away.

  Althea put her hands over her face and cried for the first time, the pain welling up, and it wasn’t as bad as she had imagined: it was worse. Sophie handed her a blanket, which Althea pressed over her mouth to stifle the wail that was building.

  Sophie left her alone.

  • • •

  HER FACE FELT STICKY, her throat was raw, she felt light-headed, and her eyes were swollen. Some hours had passed. She could see Sophie outside, working in the garden. Althea wrapped herself in the blanket and went outside. The air was cool on her face. Sophie stood as she approached.

  “Feeling better?”

  “All cried out.”

  “Did you have any idea?”

  “None. I knew Tori was dealing with something the last time we talked, and she’s private, you know? Kevin has been wanting to get together for the past couple weeks, and I kept putting him off, so —” Althea shrugged.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Silently, Althea studied Sophie as she gardened. Sophie’s cat, Princess, emerged from the trees, her body taut, a fearless calico explorer. Althea found her voice again.

  “When I was driving here, I wondered if somehow, because I’ve been so busy lately, I pushed them together or something.” She began to cry again. “Is that nuts?”

  “No, it’s bullshit. You want to know what I think?”

  Princess butted her head against Althea’s leg. Althea stooped to pet her.

  “I think that what they’ve done is reprehensible.” Sophie’s voice was edged. “It’s betrayal. And it should never be forgiven.”

  “Yeah, well, he has to get the rest of his stuff. He has most of it in Kingston, but —”

  “Throw it out.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t owe him a damned thing. Not after this. You trusted him.”

  “Yes.”

  “He betrayed you. They both did.”

  “Yes.”

  “They don’t deserve your compassion. Get angry about this. Stay angry.”

  “I am angry, but I also just feel ... I miss him, I just miss him.” She began to cry again.

  “Of course you’re hurting. Of course. But you don’t have to let them see it.”

  Althea considered. She wasn’t sure if she could throw out Kevin’s things. But that didn’t mean that she had to see him to do it, or talk with him, or be civil. Sophie was right, she definitely didn’t want either of them to feel okay about this. Not at all. She wanted them to feel like she felt.

  “Guess I’ll be doing my MBA in Toronto now.”

  “Good. New people, a new start. Forget them. They’re not worth it, Althea. People like that just aren’t worth it.”

  • • •

  ALTHEA WAS CONVINCED THAT no one had a more organized and better stocked kitchen than her mother. Sophie loved to cook — and to drink. That night, she prepared a feast — barbeque rack of lamb, home-grown swiss chard, late summer corn and roasted sweet potatoes, a pitcher of martinis, an Australian sauvignon blanc, and after that, Sophie’s homemade stash.

  Comfortably numb, Althea settled into the familiarity of her childhood home. For now, her mind wandered from the emptiness in her heart to the ricochet in her head. Overnight, her life had changed completely. When she got back to the city, she had so much to do: finding a new apartment she could afford on her student’s budget, buying books, giving notice at Continuum. She didn’t know if she was up to it. Life without Kevin.

  “Music please,” Sophie commanded, rousing Althea from her thoughts. In the living room, she opened the top of a wooden console, which held an old turntable and three feet of vinyl. She flipped through the albums — mostly jazz, including a few by Albert, the man who was as close to a father as she had ever had.

  Albert Brecht had been twenty-three years Sophie’s senior. He contracted liver cancer when he was fifty-eight and Althea was seven. Althea had many memories of Albert in this house: his huge warm brown hands, the crinkles hugging his eyes. And more than anything else, his piano. He had been a jazz musician from New Orleans who toured in Chicago and New York before moving to Canada in 1959. Albert’s mother, as Sophie liked to say, was a black woman from the wrong side of Canal Street, and it was clear by her tone that Sophie
admired her.

  Albert learned music from his uncle, “Doc” Hayes, a cornet player who couldn’t read a note of music. From Doc, Albert also learned how to drink.

  He developed an early passion for the piano. At age twenty-five, Albert left for Chicago in search of his father, who was rumored to be a Creole pianist who had joined the exodus of jazz musicians to Chicago around 1910. Instead, he met Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. Though he never actually played with Armstrong, meeting him launched Albert’s career.

  After years of playing in Chicago, Albert was thrown in jail one night for being drunk and disorderly. When he sobered up, he learned that his best friend had been beaten to death that same night. He had blacked it out — forgotten the whole thing. After that, he stopped drinking, stopped playing, and moved to Canada to live with his half-brother and apprentice as a carpenter.

  Althea leaned over the console, and flipped through the albums. She pulled out a swing recording from the late 1930s.

  “Good choice,” Sophie said, as Althea returned to the kitchen.

  “Can I do anything?”

  “Set the table and pour us another martini.”

  Althea opened the freezer to retrieve the pitcher of martinis. The freezer was stuffed with meat and Sophie had another large freezer in the basement.

  “You down to half a cow in the freezer? And two cases of wine? Living dangerously are you?”

  “You’re so hard on an old woman.”

  “Sophie, old is not one of the ways I’d describe you.”

  From a young age, her mother had insisted that Althea call her Sophie.

  “It’s up to us to be prepared. For anything.”

  “Eccentric, yes. Stubborn, yes. Even a bit pushy at times. But old — nah.”

  “That’s right and don’t forget it.”

  Althea re-filled their martinis. When she went to fetch the cutlery, she had to move Princess off the counter. She pulled out a dining room chair, and Princess went to it, watching Althea with wide yellow eyes. Althea set the table, and found herself humming along to the jazz.