Georgie's Moon

by Chris Woodworth

  Georgie pulled the sheet out of the drawer and signed in. Lisa’s name wasn’t on the list. Georgie wondered if she would come at all. Lisa must have gone home after getting sick in gym class yesterday—Georgie hadn’t seen her since.

  “You’re a little early for the open house, aren’t you?” Camille asked. “It doesn’t start for another hour.” She had changed from her uniform into a colorful floral dress and high heels.

  “Lisa’s plan. She wanted us to get Sophia gussied up before the guests came,” Georgie said.

  “That’s awfully nice of you girls.”

  “Well, it’s our last visit,” Georgie said, wondering if that plan had changed.

  The door to room 17 was open, so Georgie walked in. Sophia’s chin rested on her hand as she looked out the window.

  “Hey there, Soph,” Georgie said.

  Sophia jumped. “My goodness! I thought you would be here later.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you we were coming early, but everything’s okay.” Before she could say another word, the door opened and Lisa walked in, carrying a small suitcase.

  Georgie was surprised by how much relief she felt.

  Lisa ignored Georgie and said, “Hi, Sophia!” She kissed her cheek. “Look what I brought.” She opened the case and gently lifted out a pink orchid corsage surrounded with baby’s breath.

  “Oh, my!” Sophia said. “Such an extravagance!”

  “You always look pretty in pink. You’re going to be the belle of the ball today. I brought nail polish, and, if you’ll let me, I’ll have your hair looking like a queen’s.”

  Sophia seemed to relax. “Well, how could I pass up an opportunity to look like a queen?”

  Lisa began brushing Sophia’s hair, completely in control, as if nothing had happened yesterday. Georgie knew she should be relieved, but Lisa’s attitude rubbed her the wrong way. She’d expected Lisa to be devastated, and Georgie had felt bad about hurting her. What a waste that had been.

  “Girls,” Sophia said, “you are the sweetest things to do this for me.”

  “It was all Lisa’s idea,” Georgie said, because taking credit for something she hadn’t done felt like wearing a coat that was three sizes too small.

  “But you’re here, too, Georgie. Thank you,” Sophia said. “Now, who’s painting my nails? I feel like I’m at a luxury salon!”

  “You don’t want me to,” Georgie said. “I’ve never painted a nail in my life.”

  Sophia dug the bottle of nail polish out of Lisa’s case. “It’s just like they taught you in kindergarten, Georgie. Try your best to stay inside the lines.”

  Georgie was almost finished when Aggy came in. She was wearing the same red dress and green hat that she had worn the first time Lisa and Georgie saw her.

  “Guess what, Sophia? They have cake and punch,” Aggy said. “Do you like cake, Georgie?”

  “Yeah, Ag, but we’re not staying.” Georgie frowned as she tried to paint Sophia’s thumbnail.

  “I’ll get you some now! How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?”

  “Sure,” Georgie mumbled.

  Aggy pulled back and punched Georgie in the arm, sending a trail of nail polish up Sophia’s arm.

  “Hey!” Georgie yelled.

  Aggy giggled and sang, “Fruit juicy Hawaiian Punch.” Then she skipped out of the room.

  Sophia’s hand flew to her mouth, trying to cover her laughter. “Well, you did say ‘sure,’ dear,” she said.

  Georgie laughed. “She caught me off guard.” Then she forced a bland expression because she didn’t want Lisa to think she was in a good mood. She busied herself by wiping the polish off Sophia’s arm.

  Sophia held up her hands. “Georgie, you did a fabulous job! It’s been forever since I’ve had a manicure. I might have to start getting one regularly.”

  Lisa held up a mirror.

  “And, Lisa!” Sophia said, “I don’t think my hair has ever been so fashionable.”

  Sophia tenderly patted her hair so she wouldn’t smear her nails. Tears welled in her eyes when Lisa pinned the corsage to her dress.

  “Girls, I can’t tell you what a treat this has been for me.”

  Lisa kissed Sophia on the cheek and whispered, “You look regal.”

  Georgie felt uncomfortable with all the gushy thanks and kisses. She needed to get outside, so she said, “See ya, Soph.”

  “Enjoy your day,” Lisa called out.

  Sophia winked at them and waved goodbye.

  Georgie walked quickly to the door and gulped in the cool October air. Lisa came out next and stood quietly beside her.

  Lisa sighed. “I guess that was our last official visit here together.”

  “Right,” Georgie said. “No reason for us to be together anymore. Just write your report, I’ll write mine, and we’re through with each other.”

  Lisa threw up her hands and said, “Fine!”

  Georgie trudged toward her house. She was free of Lisa and free of the Sunset Home. She knew she should be happy, but her insides felt as empty as a deflated balloon.

  She was almost at her house when she sensed someone following her. She turned and there was Lisa, the little suitcase banging against her leg as she hurried.

  “Georgie!” Lisa set the case down and panted, trying to catch her breath. “Look, it’s not okay that you don’t want to write the report with me. We started this together and we’re finishing it together, whether you want to or not.”

  “That sounds like an order!” Georgie said. If she hadn’t heard it with her own ears, she wouldn’t have believed it.

  “Not only that, we need to get something straight,” Lisa said. “I know you’re mad at me. The whole world knows because you snub me every chance you get. Well, I can’t help that what my brother did makes you mad.”

  Lisa put her hands on her hips. “Kathy’s friendship wasn’t all I lost when Alan sent that letter,” she said. “Dad threw Alan’s stuff away. Ma turned into some kind of robot, just working fast at stuff so she doesn’t have to think about it. Carla became a peace activist, and Dad won’t let her come home.”

  “You know what? I don’t blame your dad,” Georgie said.

  “Then this should make you happy. He moved into the spare bedroom when we got word that Brian was killed. My parents talk about divorce a lot now. All because my mom said she’d rather have Alan alive in Canada than dead in Vietnam.”

  Georgie flinched. “Your brother broke the law! He let down a whole country.”

  “Right. He did that, Georgie. I didn’t.”

  Suddenly Georgie’s anger at Lisa turned to hurt. Weren’t Lisa’s words the same as the ones Georgie had used on Kathy just yesterday?

  “But you should have told me. I told you right up front my dad was in Vietnam. You knew then that we couldn’t have a friendship and you just kept your mouth shut.”

  Lisa nodded. “I know it now and I’m sorry. But I liked you and I— I don’t know. I thought if you got to know me, maybe we could work through all that.”

  Georgie shook her head. They couldn’t be friends anymore. Georgie started to leave.

  “Wait! I was wrong, but I never tried to hurt you,” Lisa said. “I trusted you with my poem. It’s bad enough you used it to humiliate me, but you killed a bird!”

  “Actually, nobody killed it, and I didn’t put the dead bird in your shoe.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Lisa threw her hands in the air. “You’re the only person besides me who had a copy of that poem.”

  Lisa turned to go.

  “Wait,” Georgie said.

  Lisa stopped. She kicked a rock with her shoe.

  Georgie said, “You have to remember how mad I was. I mean, I could have strangled you, I was that mad.”

  “I know that,” Lisa said.

  “So…” Georgie took a deep breath. “I gave your poem to Kathy.”

  Lisa gasped and turned around.

  “I know it was a lousy idea. But how could I know she’
d use it against you? I mean, I was so mad at you! And you acted like your poem was so private. Like you’d just die if anyone read it. So I gave it to her. Kathy was the perfect person because, you know, she hates your guts.”

  “You don’t get it, do you, Georgie? Kathy will probably always hate my family. That’s not something I can do anything about. But you gave away my poem, knowing it would hurt. You did that to me.”

  “To read!” Georgie rose to her full height. “Not to haunt you with.”

  To Georgie’s surprise, Lisa took a step closer. “She wouldn’t have had the chance without you, though, would she?”

  “I said I was sorry!” Georgie yelled. Then she turned and ran up the steps to her house.

  “No, you didn’t!” Lisa shouted. “We’re not finished!”

  Georgie threw her door open, and Lisa was right on her heels. Georgie stomped straight through the kitchen, then took two steps into the living room. She stopped so fast that Lisa bumped into her.

  A man in an Air Force uniform with a major’s bars on his sleeve was sitting on the couch with Georgie’s mom.

  Lisa saw him, too, and grinned like an idiot. “Georgie!” she said. “Your dad!”

  18

  Georgie couldn’t move. Mom was sitting with him. She had to have known he was coming. Georgie felt so betrayed, she was sick.

  He stood and said, “Hello, Captain.”

  Whatever had kept her from moving was instantly released. Georgie ran past Lisa, made it through the kitchen and over the porch steps in one jump, then dashed down the street.

  She heard him calling her name. She ran faster. She went down side streets trying to lose him, but he kept up a steady pace. After a time she felt a pain in her side. She could hear the soft thud of his boots gaining on her. Up ahead she saw an alley between two lawns. She ran straight, as if to pass it, then ducked down the alley at the last minute, hoping to throw him off.

  The gravel wasn’t as easy to move on as the sidewalk. Still she ran, with the pebbles crunching beneath her shoes. She was just about at the end when her right foot slipped. She wobbled, slid sideways, and fell.

  She was down only a few seconds, but it was enough. He grabbed her shoulders to help her up. When she tried to break free, his grip became as hard as steel.

  “You can fight all you want, girl, but we’re having a talk.”

  “No!” Georgie fought his hold.

  He put one arm across her stomach and pulled her down with him. His hold was so tight it nearly knocked the breath out of her. Then he wrapped his other beefy arm across her shoulders and held her.

  Georgie struggled to get away. Her legs were free, so she kicked at him until she didn’t have any strength left. He still held her. She cried out of sheer frustration. She would have killed him if she’d had the chance.

  Georgie sat panting. Finally her breath started coming at a normal pace. She became aware of the gravel biting into her bare legs.

  “Listen, Captain.”

  “Don’t! Don’t you ever call me that!”

  “I’m sorry, Georgie. I heard it so much, I got used to thinking of you as that.”

  “Stop!” Georgie said, then whispered, “Please don’t say anything.”

  “Honey, I have to.”

  Georgie moaned. The major was still behind her with his arms around her. Holding her. Keeping her helpless.

  God, how she hated him.

  “Your mom told me you won’t listen to her. She says she can’t show you my letters or even say I’ve called. I know you don’t want to believe it. I don’t, either. Your daddy and I go way back, before you were born. He was my best friend.”

  Tears fell down Georgie’s face. She couldn’t fight anymore, but still he held on.

  “I saw his plane go down.”

  “Shut up, Jack! Just stop it!”

  She tried to jerk away, but he kept talking.

  “I was his wingman, Georgie. My plane was flying right beside his and he didn’t make it out of his plane. I’d have seen. It doesn’t matter that they haven’t found the crash site. I know in my heart he never could’ve survived it. I know it, Georgie. If I thought for one minute he’d made it, I’d comb every inch of Nam myself.”

  Now he was crying, too.

  At first Georgie made a mewing sound, like a kitten, then sobs overtook her.

  He finally loosened his grip and turned her around, pulling her onto his lap the way he did when she was little. “It’s okay,” he said, rubbing her back. “Your daddy wouldn’t mind your tears, Georgie. But he would mind that you won’t let him go.”

  Georgie buried her face in the roughness of his jacket. From somewhere deep inside a cry made its way up. She could feel it trying to surface and couldn’t stop it.

  “No!” she wailed. “It’s not true!”

  He rocked her and smoothed her hair, cradling her as she cried. But in the end it didn’t matter. He still said, “Yes, honey, it is.”

  19

  Georgie sat on the steps, listening to Mom’s and Jack’s soft voices coming from the kitchen as she looked at the moon. She felt sad and tired. For months she’d been pushing against a door to keep it closed. Now that the door had been blasted wide open, she barely had the strength left to stand.

  Mom came outside and said, “Jack is sleeping on the couch tonight, sugar. He said to tell you good night.”

  Georgie nodded, then asked a question that had been nagging her. “Mom? What happened to Lisa?”

  “She called her mother to come get her.” Mom opened the screen door. “Come sit with me for a minute.”

  Georgie sighed loudly.

  “Oh, I’m not going to tell you to talk about your feelings,” Mom said. “I have something for you.”

  Georgie stood and dusted off the seat of her skirt. She went into the kitchen and pulled out a chair across from Mom.

  “Jack asked me to give you this,” Mom said. “He sent me mine in July, after your dad’s plane crashed, but he knew you weren’t ready for yours. He would have given it to you himself, but he thought you’d had enough of him for one day.”

  Mom slid an envelope across to Georgie.

  Dad’s handwriting was on the front. Georgie picked it up, rose, and said, “Good night, Mom.”

  Georgie sat alone in her room, staring at the envelope. Dad made his letters stand straight up and down, almost like soldiers at attention. Georgie had gone through the mail each day for months, praying for a letter from Dad. Now that she had one, she didn’t want to open it. She knew this was the last one she would ever get.

  She threw on pajamas and brushed her teeth. She put the letter in a drawer, then crawled into bed.

  She couldn’t sleep. The letter called to her. Finally she opened the drawer, grabbed the envelope, and carried it to the window. She slid the paper out and rubbed her hand over it, knowing Dad was the last person to touch it. She carefully spread it open and read:

  Georgie,

  I hope you never see this letter. I’m writing it for Jack to give you in case I don’t make it. If I know you (and I do), then I know you’re mad at him for giving it to you. Don’t be. He’s following my orders and he’ll be the one to look after you and Mom from now on.

  As for you, Captain, we need to add a contingency plan, which is sort of a backup. Your contingency plan has three parts. One is to take good care of your mom. Love her enough for me, too. She hasn’t had it easy living with two hardheads like us.

  The second part is, don’t make me into a hero. I know you love me, but I’m a stubborn soldier who should have retired so this wouldn’t have happened. Think your own thoughts and follow your own mind, girl. You’ve got a good one.

  The most important part is this. You’ve been my whole world since the day you came screaming into it. You’re everything I see and everything I feel. Always remember that my love for you is bigger than life, Georgie. A little thing like dying isn’t going to stop it.

  With love always,

  Dad


  That night Georgie fell asleep on the floor, bathed in the moonlight, with her body curled protectively around Dad’s letter.

  * * *

  Georgie stayed close to Mom the next morning. After months of feeling suffocated, being near her felt as comforting as a bandage on a raw wound.

  After lunch, Mom said, “Since Jack is leaving this evening, he and I need to spend some time filling out papers and doing things that I’ve … put off. Tying up loose ends, I guess.”

  Georgie had a few ends to tie up herself.

  First she went to the Sunset Home. She found Sophia on the patio, reading a book.

  “Hello, Georgie!” She laid the book in her lap, then really looked at Georgie. “Is something wrong, dear?”

  Georgie slumped on the bench beside her. “Soph, remember that letter I read you from my dad?”

  “Of course!”

  Georgie unbuttoned her jacket. “I lied when I said I’d just gotten it. He sent it last summer. It was the last letter he sent.”

  She handed Sophia Dad’s letter. “Until this one.”

  After reading it, Sophia carefully folded it, put it back inside the envelope, and placed it on the bench beside Georgie. She patted Georgie’s hand and waited.

  Georgie said, “Mom told me his plane went down in July. But they couldn’t find his body. I hoped he was still alive, trying to come back. I guess I pretended he was alive because I couldn’t stand to think otherwise. Crazy, huh?”

  Sophia sat back in her chair. “When my husband died, I set the table for two at every meal and I talked to him just like he was sitting there.”

  She tucked her book into the side of her chair. “So, tell me, Georgie. Does that make me crazy?”

  “Nah.” Georgie’s mouth lifted at one corner in a small smile.

  “Time helps with the pain, dear,” Sophia said. “But the hole in your heart may stay. Try to think of it as a good thing—a reminder of how much you love your father.”

  Georgie took a deep breath, releasing a little of the pain she’d been carrying as she exhaled. She carefully slipped the letter into her pocket.