Moondance

by Black, Karen M.

  How could he know that.

  She froze, and backed out of him and as she did, his jaw stiffened. He couldn’t. She felt the fury rising within her and she pushed it down. He had been delving into her life as clearly as she was penetrating his consciousness, masking it with caring and it was offensive, an abomination. Her confession lodged in her throat and she wanted out of the car, wanted out now, but didn’t move because she dreaded the crowds outside more than his feigned interest in her.

  She spoke barely above a whisper.

  “Are you finished?”

  He nodded.

  “Then fuck off and mind your own business.”

  chapter 46

  ALONE INSIDE SOPHIE’S HOUSE, Althea poured herself a glass of wine with trembling hands and finished it leaning over the kitchen sink. She poured herself a second, finishing the bottle. The crunch of Foster’s tires gathering speed had faded away, but not the memory. When she felt inside of Foster, she had seen herself.

  Althea moved to Sophie’s couch, thankful for the silence. She allowed her anger to soften. The wine warmed her chest, her limbs felt molten. More of that. Could use more of that. She concentrated on dissolving the anger inside of her. Feel nothing. She hoped that Foster didn’t come back. If he did, she didn’t know if she’d be strong enough to ask him to leave.

  As her anger receded, her restlessness grew. Vince is gone. Job’s gone. Sophie’s gone. Celia’s gone. What now? She wanted to get drunk. She wanted to sleep and never wake up. She wanted Him. Outside, she heard a metallic clatter and jumped. She got up from the couch, and opened the door. The wind gusted, and though it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was like bruised velvet. It would rain soon and possibly storm.

  “Princess?” She looked left and right, the wind whipping through her hair. Nothing. She noticed a patch of red sticking up out of the mailbox and jumped when the wind caught its lid, slamming it against the brick with a clatter. As it rained, she grabbed the letter, which was addressed to her in Sophie’s handwriting. No postmark. Her skin crawled. She put the envelope on the counter, and poured herself another glass of wine. Then she opened the letter, handling it carefully, as if it was a piece of evidence at a murder scene.

  Red. Handmade paper. Fountain pen.

  Sophie had taken care to create this. Althea felt dread, but this time, there was no one around to blame for the feeling but herself. She leaned against the table and the kitchen slid and spun, an effect created by more than just the wine. She ripped open the envelope, the paper rough under her fingers. She held it away from her as the room moved, and she unfolded cream paper with red flecks.

  Althea scanned the letter from corner to corner and end to end, the rich perfume-paper scent distracting her, the words coming at her in fragments. Gave, her eyes scanned center left, Desire further up, You down and right. She blinked, the tears coming, not understanding, Chosen in the center, the paper blurred My Love the swirling ink, Forgive and then, at the bottom of the page, the familiar curve of the S trailing left Sophie.

  No. Not true. Backing into the living room, she scrunched up the letter and dropped it, falling forward as the room continued to spin. It tumbled end over end, and Princess, who had been watching her from the corner of the kitchen, batted the ball of paper across the hallway and skidded into the dining room, accepting Althea’s invitation to play.

  Sophie’s words weren’t specific. But now, Althea knew things. She felt it, the dread, the emptiness that teetered on the surface, the certainty, the grief. Still, her mind fought it. It didn’t make any sense.

  She stumbled to the refrigerator and plucked off the post-it note with Sophie’s swirling handwriting, the information that Althea had insisted she provided the morning that she left. She picked up the phone and dialed. The number was not in service. She looked at Sophie’s writing and tried the number again. Nothing.

  Princess sat upright on the kitchen counter staring at her, motionless, the scrunched-up letter forgotten. The wind rose to a howl, the rain pelted against the windows and the mailbox clattered. The lights flickered, and went off. She went to the solarium and pulled the windows shut. No moon tonight, she thought. No light, no wishes, no dreams. No job. No Vince. No Celia. No Sophie.

  No life.

  She swayed slightly as she surveyed her childhood home in the darkness. She salivated, nauseous, and stumbled to the bathroom.

  Her stomach empty, Althea surveyed her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She looked like a ghost. It was how she felt. An unemployed ghost. A ghost who drank too much, and who was going a little bit nuts.

  Not a little, a lot.

  Her limbs were heavy. Princess leapt up onto the bathroom counter and rolled on her back in the sink, her paws boxing in the air. Althea stroked Princess who twisted and purred, straining against her hand and the energy flowed into her want to love I know ... play with me love I’m here I’m here how can I and Althea’s eyes stung, her face crumpled and she stood hunched over the sink, crying in gulping sobs.

  Ten minutes later, she wiped her eyes with the arm of her shirt. Her eyes glowed bright blue, and the skin around them was pink and strained. She rinsed her face and dried it with a soft white towel. Feeling a bit better, she followed Princess into Sophie’s front hall, wanting to read Sophie’s letter again.

  At the foot of the stairs, she inspected the living room, her hands clutching a moist ball of tissue. Where was it? Not on Sophie’s harvest table, not on the hutch that Albert had made. Not under the dining room table where Princess had been playing. She kept looking, at once trying to recall the words which had roused the dread in her heart, creating the certainty from which she now wished she could be released. Nothing explicit. Nothing on the surface.

  But there wouldn’t be. That wasn’t where Sophie lived.

  She went further into the kitchen, carefully rummaging through the stacks of paper Sophie kept to keep track of bills and errands. Nothing. On the way up the stairs, she found the red envelope, dispelling the notion that the letter was a delusion. She picked it up and tucked it in the pocket of her jeans, climbing the main stairs to Sophie’s bedroom.

  Sophie’s platform rocker sat near the bay window, damp from the rain which had suddenly stopped, leaving behind an eerie stillness. She closed the window and blotted the rocker with her shirt, gazing into the silent room, past Sophie’s polished antique bed. Sophie had left her room the way she always did — everything in its place.

  Althea sat on the rocker, understanding that what she was contemplating would be considered by her mother a gross invasion of privacy. But she needed answers, she needed tangible explanations. She was no longer satisfied with Sophie’s silence, her reluctance to talk about their family’s past, about Althea’s real father. Sophie’s letter had given Althea no other choice. She had to find out what was behind it. Come find me. The thought came to her as a seductive whisper and her arms pricked, the fear awake in her belly. She pushed it away.

  She would be calm. She would be rational. She would stay grounded. She had two days before Sophie was scheduled to come home. Com-pared to her workload in consulting, this would be a piece of cake.

  It started to rain again, and the wind gusted violently. The humidity rose, clinging to her skin. Come find me. I want you to.

  She began with Sophie’s dressers.

  • • •

  ALTHEA WORKED STUDIOUSLY. FOR the first couple of hours, there were few surprises. Sophie’s clothes were meticulously folded. In each drawer was a single piece of homemade lilac potpourri. Sophie’s closet, narrow and almost seven feet deep, had a built-in organizer lined with cedar, which she assumed Albert had constructed many years before. Cardboard shoeboxes lined the sides of the closet, all neatly piled and labeled. She pulled out each one and sorted through them. One held family pictures, from the time Albert was alive. Nothing before.

  Greeting cards were bundled and stacked by year. Althea went through each one. Finished with the boxes, she dug further into the close
t, past Sophie’s clothes, most of which were covered in plastic. Her knee exploded in pain.

  Cursing, she groped around in the dark until she felt cool metal. The laptop was closed, sitting on a metal file cabinet, which possessed the offending edge. What was Sophie doing with a laptop? She turned it on. As she dragged the cabinet out of the closet, the laptop cords tangled, the oriental carpet beneath her shifted and she caught her foot, falling on her sore knee with a yelp. Rubbing her knee and cursing, she yanked on the rug, revealing a loose wooden panel a foot square, with a round metal handle. Now we’re getting somewhere, she thought.

  The piece of floor came up easily. Inside was a small space in which she found a number of books. She picked up the one on top which was hardbound with an embossed cover, similar to the one she used at work. Inside the first page, Sophie had written a single word in the same calligraphic style as the letter Althea had discovered and lost: Becoming. Her throat tightened. She flipped through the book and there was a mix of entries, in what looked like cryptic shorthand. She opened another. The books were arranged by year, most recent on top. She opened the most recent one, with last year’s date and a picture fell out. She stared at her own face in Sophie’s back yard, a few months after she moved in.

  She dug down into the pile, opening each quickly and discarding them. Inside of each book were pictures of herself. At Thanksgiving, the year she was working in consulting. The weekend she and Kevin split up. One for every year. She rummaged to the bottom until she found the one she wanted: the year her father and brother died.

  This book was faded, with a reddish department store photo of Althea, at age two, her hair wispy and pinkish white. She flipped to the back of the book, where a single circle appeared in red ink. She looked at another year when she was older and more circles appeared, full, round, linked together delicately. When she checked the most recent book, her head throbbed. On the back page, in vibrant red ink, circles upon circles, the design staggering in its complexity, yet simply presented, with breathtaking symmetry. The design was beautiful, familiar, yet it seemed incomplete.

  She went back to an older book. Circles, fewer this time. She sat on her knees in Sophie’s bedroom, looking from book to book. The room felt hot. She narrowed her eyes, placing ten books in a row, by year, opening each to the back page recognizing the progression of the design. Becoming.

  She was finding it hard to breathe.

  She stared at the one from the previous year, the circles interwoven, full of promise. She looked into the space. At the bottom, was an unsealed envelope. Inside was a black and white photograph of a man with thick dark hair parted on the side, falling like a mop over his forehead. He was sitting at a piano, looking over his left shoulder. She flipped the picture over. The writing was loose, with large round loops. I’ll miss you, Love Y. She turned the photograph over again, studying it, her heart tight. Are you my father? She put the photograph in her jeans pocket next to Sophie’s red envelope.

  She stood up and yanked the carpet to expose more of the wooden floor and her stomach turned cold. She dropped onto her knees, and ran her fingers over the wood. She could smell a faint burning scent rising from where her palms rested. Incense.

  The inlay had been intricately crafted. As she stared at it, it swirled, a living kaleidoscope. She was drawn to it, and it terrified her.

  The pattern had a circumference of over a foot, and the detail was astounding. It must have been painstaking to create. She knew that Albert had done the renovations of this house himself. Had Albert laid this floor? We were bendin’ the rules honey chile the words surfaced inside of her and she felt a chill. Look closer. She studied the inlay. Her heart thumping, she scrambled over the rolled up carpet and grabbed one of Sophie’s books.

  Becoming.

  She looked at the book, then the inlay. There was no doubt that they were the same. She remembered where she had seen the pattern before: carved in an oak tree, in that magical place where she spent time as a child, where Sophie and Albert used to dream.

  We were bendin’ the rules.

  Christ.

  • • •

  ALTHEA WAS DOWNSTAIRS AT Sophie’s kitchen table, her head in her hands, the books spread out in front of her. She had no idea what to make of what she’d found. Was this clinical paranoia she was experiencing? Was this related to her sensitivity to others, her recent hallucinations, Him? But the letter.

  Althea pulled the picture out of her back pocket. The handwriting was distinct, with a strong forward stroke. Love Y. Sophie definitely had not mentioned anyone with initial Y. This must be my father, she thought. Who else could it be? The photo had been stored in a box of books about Althea. Sophie wasn’t haphazard about anything. It had to mean something.

  She placed the photo on the table and narrowed her eyes at it. Or was this Sophie’s father? She knew that Sophie’s parents had been strictly religious and had died when Sophie was a teenager. She wasn’t able to date the style of dress. Could be.

  Or maybe not. She looked at the piano. Perhaps this was someone Albert knew, a musician friend. Maybe Althea’s father was a musician. That might make more sense. Might even explain why Albert and Sophie ended up together. There was one place she knew she could check. As she made the decision, the power went back on, and she jumped.

  On Sophie’s second floor, Althea opened the narrow door to the attic and was enveloped by a dank blast of air. The attic was big enough to have been converted into another spare room, but Sophie used it as storage. It was hot there in the summer, and cold in the winter. Today it was humid and musty. The last time she had been up here was when she was a teenager. Althea and Tori, trying on Sophie’s old clothes.

  The attic was rough and unfinished, with wooden floors that creaked. Two alcoves provided murky light in the daytime. In the dark, she stumbled until she found a naked bulb hanging on a wire and when she turned it on, she winced. Dust swirled.

  Boxes were piled evenly against the walls. Each was labeled by year, containing a description: “N.O. 1972” she didn’t recognize. “Albert” she did. Here, she knew, Sophie had kept much of Albert’s music memorabilia. If Sophie had kept any information about her father, it would also be here.

  She surveyed the boxes, wondering where to start. Two pictures hung, lopsided, over a trunk. One, a signed photo of Albert playing piano and a publicity shot of Albert with the Hot Five. She opened the trunk. Inside were photographs, sheet music, photos signed by musicians Althea did not recognize. As she went through the trunk, she began to sweat, perspiration dripping down her back, between her breasts and into her eyes. She dug through the pile, not knowing exactly what she was looking for. Small posters, notices of gigs at small Chicago cafes. A picture of Albert’s group, New York, 1968. Signed “to young Brecht (and his lady friend with the voice).” A younger Albert smiled up at her, his skin bronzed, his eyes warm. Her eyes welled up and she wiped them with her sleeve. No. Concentrate.

  She put the picture to one side and kept looking.

  chapter 47

  SOPHIE SAT IN THE back seat of an air-conditioned cab. Despite the heat, she asked if she could open the window. The bubble of warm air, warm and thick, moved through her hair. Her skin was moist, and the heat coated her lungs. She stared out at the Louisiana countryside, which was lush and wild. Swampland, they’d called it. The setting sun flickered as it passed in and out behind the trees which seemed twisted by the heat. As they drove, the sun changed from ginger to pink grapefruit. Sophie leaned forward.

  “It’s coming up, somewhere on the right — there. That’s it.”

  The driver pulled over and stopped in front of a narrow driveway that was barely visible from the road. A red scarf hung limply from a branch, as if heat exhausted. It was just as Sophie had been told.

  “You wanna be let out here? You know where you’re going, lady?”

  “I know people here.”

  “Well okay, but you stay with them, see, don’t go out wanderin’. You’re way
outside where the tourists go, you know?”

  “I know a few things.” Sophie smiled and paid him, her eyes fixed on the driveway. The driver opened the door for her and handed her a small bag, then turned away. Her eyes roamed the greenery, which was more luxuriant than she remembered. It had been decades since she had been here. A lifetime. Yet it looked exactly as she imagined. Exactly as she’d been shown.

  The cab was gone. Sophie stood in the heat and the rising dust, alone with her memories, the silence as thick and humid as the air. Albert and she had spent the winter here. This was where it all started.

  Sophie walked down the narrow drive slowly, aware of the receding daylight. The compact house at the end of the drive was overgrown, the two small windows peering like black marbles through the thick brush. Before Sophie could mount the low porch, the door opened and a tall woman stood in the doorway, her face black and smooth despite her age.

  “You’re here.”

  “Yes. Your directions were good.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d come.”

  “I said I would.”

  “It’s getting late.”

  “I wanted to enjoy the sunset.”

  “Of course.” The woman stared, her mouth taut, her eyes sharp and as black as her skin. Sophie stared back.

  “I’m here now,” Sophie said. She could feel the wall the woman was putting up, pushing her back. Sophie waited, tried again.

  “I am ready,” she repeated. A few seconds passed and then the woman blinked as if a veil had been lifted, and she was seeing Sophie for the first time. The corners of her mouth turned down.

  “I made a promise,” she said, and stepped aside.

  chapter 48

  IN SOPHIE’S ATTIC, ALTHEA sat on a stool surrounded by photographs, posters, old album covers and hand-written notes. Her head was throbbing, her clothes were wet, her throat was dry and she was sniffling from the dust. She had gone through five boxes already, found nothing about Sophie’s family, and had returned to Albert’s trunk. Something was nagging at her. She was almost ready to give up for the day, but she sifted through the contents again, which were mostly photos and postcards. Near the bottom of the box, she found a yellowed photo of Albert standing over a young man with dark mop-top hair, sitting at a piano.