Even the Moon Has Scars

by Steph Campbell

  And honestly, I can’t handle that.

  My sister looks up from her cup with red-rimmed eyes and says, “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Are you and Dad still going to go?” I ask my mom.

  Mom looks from me, then back to Kaydi. She pulls her bottom lip in and her eyes are wide as if they’re pleading with Kaydi to say the thing she so desperately wants her to.

  “I guess…I guess I’ll have to check when your father gets home,” Mom finally says after Kaydi refuses to give in.

  “I’m okay alone,” I offer. “If Kaydi isn’t up to watching me.”

  I know it won’t fly, but it’s worth a shot. It feels so stupid. I’m sixteen, yet I have a babysitter. It’s just a quick weekend trip for my parents, of course I’ll be fine on my own.

  “Absolutely not,” Mom shoots me down.

  “I’ll still watch her,” Kaydi says, raising her chin and straightening her posture. Always the martyr. “Not like I have anything better to do now that my boyfriend—my ex-boyfriend—hates me.”

  She slouches back down and makes this strangled-cry type of noise that sounds like some kind of wildlife when a poacher takes their young. I try not to roll my eyes, but I don’t think I’m successful.

  “Why does Brian hate you?” I ask.

  Both Kaydi and Mom ignore my question. It’s clearly beyond my comprehension.

  “I don’t know, Kaydi, you’re pretty upset, leaving you wouldn’t be right.” Mom says the words, but her half-grin cancels them out.

  “I said I’d watch her,” Kaydi says. She’s still sobbing. I swear I just saw some liquid fall back into her teacup. I can’t be sure of where it fell from. Gross. And they’re worried about my germs.

  “Can I get you anything, Kayd?” Mom asks, rubbing soft circles on my sisters back. Always the comforter.

  “A tissue?” I suggest.

  “Why don’t you shut up, Lena Claire!” Kaydi yelps.

  “I was just trying to help.”

  “You’re making fun of me,” Kaydi says.

  “Lena, you can go upstairs now,” Mom says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Back in my room I hear my dad come home, listen to Kaydi cry some more about the unfairness of life and the loss of her love—who she’s maybe only known for three months and, yet, has devoted two pens worth of ink to drawing ‘Mrs. Whateverhislastnameis’ doodles on the notepad near the phone in the kitchen.

  Despite this Romeo and Juliet level tragedy, Dad and Mom decide to take their trip and after kisses goodbye, I am left alone. I pull my hair back into a long ponytail, then pull out the water colors from under my bed and set up my easel.

  The canvas on the easel is already stained with a blend of blues around the outer edges that get deeper and deeper—almost purple. It looks like a dark cave until halfway to the center, where the colors explode into shades of red and orange. It’s abstract, and maybe that’s why when Mom, Dad, or Lily come in and look at my paintings, they don’t understand them. Maybe they aren’t meant to. Maybe unless you’ve lived your life in a cave and haven’t yet found anything in your life that resembles an explosion of colors, you can’t.

  The center of the painting is still empty. Colorless. I want to fill it in so badly, but nothing feels right. I just don’t know what belongs yet.

  “Get up,” Kaydi barks from my doorway, just as I’m tying my apron around my waist.

  “I’m sorry?” I ask.

  “Don’t get out your paints, don’t get all comfortable. You need to pack a bag.”

  “For what exactly?” I ask, tapping my chin with my No. 6 brush. It’s going to paint the bottom of the canvas into what I hope will look like a sparkling lake. It’s dry on dry—a technique I’ve been working on for weeks and haven’t yet mastered.

  “Please, I’m begging you Lena, for once.” My sister presses her palms to her temples. “Please don’t make my life difficult.”

  “I—I wasn’t trying. I was just going to paint.”

  Kaydi shakes her head.

  “No way. I’m taking you to Lily’s,” Kaydi says.

  “What? I thought you were staying here with me?”

  “Change of plans,” Kaydi says.

  She’s glancing around my room, probably looking for a bag or suitcase or something of that nature. Except I don’t ever go anywhere so all of those things are piled in the garage, not in my room for easy access.

  “Lily’s out of town this weekend,” I say.

  I pop my brush case open and set my No. 6 on top of the others. Beneath the dozens of brushes is the brochure for NYU. My dream. My freedom. Everything.

  When I originally plotted this current painting, I expected to fill in the blank spot with something symbolic. Maybe a New York City landmark. Something exciting. Instead, it remains blank. How can I paint something inspired by the incredible life full of possibility that’s so close—but still too far for me to fully imagine?

  “Of course. Of course she is.” Kaydi throws her hands up in the air, then lets herself sink to the wood floor. “Now I’m stuck here watching you. Like always. Forget the fact that where I actually need to be is with Brian. I need to be fixing things with him. Did you know he might join the military?”

  I didn’t, but if I had to wager, I’d say he’s bluffing. You can’t even get that kid to help carry in a pallet of water bottles from Mom’s car. Then there’s the fact that he nearly passed out at the sight of blood when Kaydi tripped and busted the skin on her elbow open.

  “I’m not there to talk him out of it. He might just enlist and—”

  “So go,” I say.

  “He cannot join the military. He just can’t. He’s got a plan and it doesn’t involve the Navy. This is all his dad’s doing. He can talk him into anything. Brian and I have a plan. Had a plan. It’s all wrong now.”

  “Go.”

  “Truly, thanks a whole hell of a lot for screwing things up as usual, Lena!”

  My sister is a jerk But she’s right. I always manage to mess things up just by being me.

  “Just go,” I repeat.

  She rolls her eyes and says, “Right, so you can rat me out to mom and dad? No thank you. I don’t need them to take my car away again—”

  I want to bite back that at least she’s got a car to take away. Since the day she turned sixteen she got to experience that freedom that I’ve yet to. That maybe I won’t ever experience. I don’t even have my learner’s permit. And I’ve never had to imagine my boyfriend breaking up with me on a whim because I’ve never had anything remotely close to a boyfriend. Truthfully, I’ve never had anything remotely close to any type of romantic experience. As much as my sympathy for her in this situation is waning, what I hate more is that I can’t relate or commiserate with Kaydi in the way that sisters should be able to. And that just plain sucks.

  “I won’t. I won’t rat you out. Just go. I don’t need a babysitter, Kay. I’m fine.”

  “You are not fine.” She rolls her eyes wildly like I’ve just said the most ludicrous thing possible. “Remember that time Mom and Dad went to the movies and left you alone and you were wheezing so you decided you needed a breathing treatment?” I don’t acknowledge her question because I know where she’s going with it. I remember the panicked gasps for air, the tightness in my chest. “ And remember how you screwed it up and doubled your dose? Your heart rate was through the roof when they got home, Lena. They had to take you to the hospital. That’s not fine.”

  “Kay, I’m not stupid. I’m almost seventeen. I know how to work my breathing machine.”

  Kaydi slumps down onto the foot of my bed, looking sad and defeated as she says, “You sort of have a way of ruining things, you know that Lena Claire?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like I’ve got much else to do with my time, right?” The words come out dry and brittle. Cracking into little bits once they leave my throat.

  I wish, I really wish so hard that I hadn’t been so special in everyone’s eyes. That
I could have been normal like my sister. I wish that I wasn’t the reason she couldn’t have sleepovers during flu season-because that meant more germs in the house. I wish that two Christmases in a row I didn’t get pneumonia and need to be hospitalized, so Kaydi ended up having to stay with our grandparents in Rhode Island. She’s wrong if she thinks I don’t know that I suck the life out of things. She’s wrong if she thinks I don’t carry the guilt around my neck like an ten-ton albatross.

  But I didn’t ask for any of it.

  “Please don’t do the whole, ‘treat me like I’m normal’ thing right now, Lena. We can’t treat you like you’re normal. You’re not.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” I say.

  Back when I believed in Santa Claus, my parents took me to see the one at Dad’s office, because it was just a small Christmas party and there weren’t many children. When it was my turn to tell Saint Nick what I wanted, I told him a new paint set and french fries with salt. Normal kids get to go to a fast food place and order french fries and start eating them right away. But not me. My parents were trying to keep a firm grip on my sodium intake, which meant I always had to wait for a special batch to be cooked without salt. I rarely got fast food at all, but one time, a week after Christmas we drove thru, and the worker said the fries were salt free. In a hurry, my mom tossed the bag into the backseat for me without checking that day. I devoured every last one of them before she could realize the mistake. They were golden, salty and delicious even if they were the temperature of molten lava. I took it as a delayed Christmas miracle.

  My sister is whining about not being able to go suck face with her boyfriend.

  I just wanted normal french fries.

  And all I want right now is for her to go.

  “I’m telling you to go. Just go. I don’t want you here. I don’t want to sit here for the next three days listening to you cry over him. Just go. Do whatever you need to do.”

  She raises a brow like she’s waiting for confirmation, so I give in and say, “I won’t tell Mom and Dad.”

  “You don’t get it,” she says through the choked tears that have made another appearance. “You’re so lucky that you don’t understand what it’s like to have your heart broken like this.”

  She winces as the last few words tumble out of her mouth. She paws at her throat like she’s trying to stop them, but they fall anyway.

  I can’t help but pull back.

  Not because I’m insulted by the broken heart comment. It’s not like my mom hasn’t said “you’re going to give me a heart attack” dozens of times and then apologized profusely afterward. It’s just a slip. I don’t need them tiptoeing around me. It’s not that at all. It’s bigger than her stupid words.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles, looking at me through the dark brown bangs that are matted to her face with tears. Our features are so similar, but Kaydi’s are sharper, more serious. When she cries, it’s hard to see that she’s sad, and not just mean.

  I wave her off like it’s no big deal, but what my sister doesn’t realize is that I’d much rather have a broken heart like her than a miraculous one. What’s the point of having a heart stitched with such precision and care—where every beat is a precious gift—only to be stuck living this dull, stagnant life?

  “Just go,” I repeat.

  She finally gives a quick nod.

  “I’ll be back soon. I promise,” she says.

  The first twitch of a smile I’ve seen from her since she got here pulls at the corner of her mouth as she adjusts her purse strap on her shoulder and then bolts for the door.

  Finally.

  When the I hear her car back out of the driveway and her breaks squeak at the end our road, I still don’t wholly believe it. She left. She really left.

  I watch her car turn the corner and still wait another five minutes after that, face against the cool glass of my bedroom window before I start to believe it’s true.

  I’m alone.

  I rush down the stairs, tug on my wool-lined boots and grab a cardigan of Dad’s off of the hook by the door. I hold the handle for a minute and listen. Absolutely nothing. Stillness. Silence. No one asking me what’s wrong. No one asking what I’ve eaten. Just quiet. I open the door and pull in a couple of deep breaths. I’m alone. I’m really alone.

  She was late.

  Maggie was just late.

  Inside the mailbox there’s a stack of ads that are going to go straight into the recycling and two standard sized envelopes. One is a bill of some kind. But the other is for me.

  I run my finger over the raised return address of the one addressed to me. Endicott College—Mom and Dad’s first choice for me and just eighteen miles away.

  A gust of wind blows through our narrow street. Our house sits down away from the others on the street and the cool breeze stays trapped in our alcove. My legs burn from the goose bumps that prick up on my exposed skin. The lightest flurry of snow floats silently down from the trees, then swirls around me. I take inventory of my choice of clothing: Pajama shorts, a t-shirt and a thin cardigan. Not exactly winter attire. I start back toward the house, the crunch of the shell and snow under my boots, and the mail clutched close to my chest.

  I know before I get to the door.

  I know before I try to turn the knob.

  Still, I pause with my hand on it and take in a deep breath, hoping I’m wrong.

  I’m not.

  The door knob won’t turn.

  Ten minutes home alone and I’ve locked myself out.

  “Gabriel? Is that you?” my grandmother asks from the other room. I stop in my tracks in the kitchen, near the pea green cabinets, and back up into the living room.

  “Hey, Babci,” I say, leaning over the back of the floral print sofa that has been in the house since I was a kid, and plant a kiss on her cheek.

  She startles and shoves her hands under the throw pillow next to her, but the familiar crinkle of plastic wrap gives her away.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks.

  As much as I love my grandmother, I wonder the same damn thing every day.

  “You called me in here.” I say.

  Babci’s memory is getting worse, even since I first got here a handful of weeks ago, I can tell there’s a change. As much as I want to tell Mom, I doubt she’ll make time to deal with it. It’s probable that if she does, Babci will just end up in a nursing home since Dad isn’t around to take care of anything. Even his own mother.

  So instead, I do what I can to help out. I make her meals for her so that she’s not using the stove or anything that she could harm herself on—or burn the house down with. And if I’m gone too long during the day, which isn’t often because there is nowhere in this tiny ass town to go, I make sure Ms. Seale, the nice but mildly inappropriate lady from next door, drops in to check on Babci.

  Babci is still healthy for the most part, she eats too many sweets—like the one she’s just crammed in the cushion of the couch—but mostly, she’s just a little more confused since grandpa passed away earlier this year.

  Maybe that’s what happens when the person who’s been at your side for sixty years, suddenly…isn’t. Maybe it’s less about what she can and can’t remember and more about what she wants to. Who really wants to hang out in a world where the person you built your entire life around has left?

  Then again, what the hell do I know?

  I’m just a punk kid whose mom saw him as more of a hindrance to her glowing reputation rather than a person who might screw up now and then but is still worthy of her love, so she stashed me at my dad’s parents’ house until I somehow manage to get my shit together.

  Not that she cares if I do or not, just as long as I stay out of her way.

  “Babs, what are you hiding?” I grin.

  “Young man,” Babci looks at me from over her thin framed glasses. She grins and the skin around her crystal clear blue eyes wrinkles up. “I don’t think I like what you’re insinuating. I’m just sitting here watching t
hese people on the television.” She waves at the television, but I’m not buying it.

  “Uh-huh,” I say, nodding. “So, what’s going on over there?” I motion to the TV—the volume on the news is set so low I’m not even sure the sound is on at all.

  “Well, see, they’re over there in…” Her voice drifts off as her gaze floats to the fraying pillow where she’s hiding the sweet treat that she really shouldn’t even have. “Ah, hell, I don’t know. Who are these people anyway?”

  I chuckle and grab the remote to turn up the volume, just as she pulls an icing-covered honey bun out from behind the pillow and wastes no time chomping down.

  “Libyans, Babci. Those are Libyans.”

  “Oh,” she says, in between bites. “Like Rosie O’Donnell?”

  “No,” I shake my head. “I’m pretty sure that’s lesbians.”

  Babci shrugs. “Same thing.”

  Maybe I should correct her, but the woman is in her nineties with a memory that’s fading more by the day. I’m not sure she’d remember what I said by the time I make it to the door anyway.

  “Alright,” I laugh. “I’m going out to the garage.”

  She sets the empty wrapper next to the framed photo on the side table. It’s a picture of my father—the asshole who took off just days after my grandfather died. Sure, it was less than a year after my mom divorced him and he was kind of forced to move in with his mom, but that’s no excuse if you ask me.

  I wonder if he keeps in touch with his mom at all, if he knows how Babci’s memory is fading. I wonder if he knows that when he finally decides to make his way back here, she may not remember him, or maybe she won’t even be around at all. I hate to even think of that, but Babci doesn’t need to be alone, and he was too big of a coward to stick around and deal.

  My father was a bailiff at the courthouse, that’s how my mom—who was an associate attorney at the time—met him, years ago when they were young and before she cared about things like status or wealth or what other people could do for her. Or maybe I’m naive and she always did care more about those things—but maybe she actually loved him back then too.

  Hell, I don’t know. I do know that he should have known it wasn’t going to be a forever thing when, after she found out she was pregnant with me, she married him but refused to take his last name— and even more so when I was born and she gave me his Polish last name as a middle name. I became Gabriel Bryk Martinez. And my mom eventually became a District Attorney.