The Moon Sisters: A Novel

by Therese Walsh

  Asked me, Jazz Moon.

  I’d said no.

  Why didn’t you go out with that nice boy? Babka asked.

  Because he’s too much like all the things I hate about Tramp. That’s what I believed but could never say—not to my grandmother, who’d built a business and raised a son here, who’d chosen to stay. I told her I was picky.

  Can you try to find your sister? my mother asked one day after a long nap, and off I went. But I couldn’t find her. After searching the town as well as I could, I went home to report that I didn’t have a clue where Olivia might be hiding.

  I found my mother in her bedroom, on her hands and knees, and with her head under her desk. She flushed when she saw me. Sorry for the wild-goose chase, she said. Your sister came home a few minutes ago. She’s fine. But thanks for looking, Jazz. You’re a good daughter, and a good sister, too.

  I strained to get a glimpse of what my mother had been doing, as she shifted the thin cloth that covered the plywood top back into place.

  Curiosity warred with decency for the rest of the day, and later, when my mother left for Babka’s with Olivia, I went straightaway to peer under her desk. The edge of one of the floorboards beneath it lacked nails and jutted up on one side. When I lifted it, I found the letters. Letters that weren’t addressed, only dated beside my grandfather’s name. The first: five months before I was born.

  That’s when curiosity beat decency to a pulp.

  I opened that envelope with as much care as I could, tugging tenderly on the flap. I made one or two small tears, left behind a few flecks of glued paper. But overall it wasn’t too hard to open; this was an old bond.

  I read the letter, learned it just like that: My mother had married my father because she had to. Lost her father. Lost her comfort, her money, her education. She’d had bamboo in her house, and a cat named Fat Lizzy. She’d lost all of it, everything.

  Because of me.

  I’m sorry for getting into trouble out of wedlock. But I would never have quit college. I would never have chosen one over the other: you or Branik, college or motherhood. Those things were your doing. It’s not too late to undo them. We can raise this baby between the three of us, can’t we?

  Under your influence, this child will strive for greatness. I will do better with your grandchild, Dad, than I did with myself. I promise. I promise I’ll be a good daughter from now on, the perfect daughter.…

  One letter for nearly every year since that time had been stuffed under the floorboard. I reached for the next one:

  Yes, she was born—pink, healthy, crying as she should, and with a wickedly misshapen head.

  Jazz is a good baby, I guess, in the way of babies. She eats well; she is growing. She’s a good baby, but when I look at her I feel nothing.

  She has your eyes.

  I dug my hand into the center of the pile this time, opened a third envelope:

  You may think I’m crazy for it, but I feel in my gut that if I can do this—when I do this!—this book will fix us. It will be evidence of the highest order that I’m okay. Not ruined at all.

  I’d read enough.

  My mother lived her entire adult life thinking she’d have a reunion someday with her father. That if she finished the book he’d forgive her for sleeping with a man she’d loved and making a baby—making me—and getting married without his express consent. She believed it with everything in her.

  It was just another fairy tale.

  I found a bottle of glue in a kitchen drawer, so old I had to pry the hard seal off the cap with a butter knife. I smeared thick paste along the envelopes’ open flaps, tried to reseal them even though my hands shook with a sort of fever, because I was standing—stupidly—right there in the kitchen, and my mother might’ve returned at any moment and found me there. Who knows, maybe I wanted to be caught. But I wasn’t.

  I went back upstairs, returned the letters to their place under the floorboard. And then I, Jazz Marie Moon, age seventeen, called Henry and asked if he wanted to hang out. He said yes. Henry was too much like all the things I hated about Tramp—he was happy enough to grow roots in the shit around him, never question the set course of his mediocre life. But that night I gave him my virginity beside a bougainvillea in deaf Mr. McDuffy’s backyard.

  It was the last time I can remember crying.

  It didn’t seem like a hard thing: Walk, just walk. We did it all the time without thinking about it. But when you did it all day, in an oppressive sort of heat and humidity, after an unknown amount of shallow sleep, with a bag that felt weightier by the second and sneakers that could’ve been a lot better quality, it wore a body down. My feet ached as if they’d been sandwiched in a vise, and I swear I felt every stone beneath them. My blistered heels were a constant source of misery, even though Red Grass offered two bandages when I mentioned it (a surprise) and I used them both. My face itched, and though I knew that it was probably from pollen, I wouldn’t have ruled out an accidental roll in a patch of poison ivy at some point during the night, either. Not with my luck. I’d also developed an enormous bruise on my arm, and though it didn’t hurt unless I poked at it, it looked like a plum had been buried under my skin.

  Civilization. The one thought that kept me going.

  Once we reached civilization, we’d be in good shape. We’d eat real food. Sit on a real seat instead of a rock or a log or the heaving mechanical parts of a train. Red Grass would make his move. Hobbs would disappear. I’d be free to carry on with Olivia. This was what Red Grass had assured me when I found him in the woods earlier, before we started walking again.

  I’ll take care of him, he said. Trust me.

  I didn’t trust him, of course I didn’t—him with his knife and his hidden gun. But I had to rely on him.

  The day wore on so long that the sky showed the first signs of dusk, and I thought it wouldn’t happen at all—that we’d be out in the forest for another night, and another day, and who knew when this nightmare would end. Then, out of nowhere, it appeared before us: a square brick building, and a lot full of cars and trucks. We’d passed the occasional scattering of houses and trailers near the highway, seen the occasional homeowner out whacking weeds and such, but I was still surprised at the number of vehicles there when it seemed as though we’d been isolated from the rest of the world for the last two days.

  Illuminated by a single cobweb-enshrined lightbulb was a sign that read OUTLANDERS. Boisterous laughter and the gritty beat of a song I didn’t recognize poured out of open doors and windows along with the heady scent of tobacco. Inside was a regular bar, lined with customers staring at a game that played out on a huge television set overhead. Yankees, Red Sox. Smoke curled through the air, clinging thickly to the ceiling, and peanut shells covered the floor. I worried less about how I might look—and smell—after everything I’d been through since leaving Jim’s.

  Despite the crowd, there were plenty of seats available, probably because there was some sort of gambling going on in a corner, where a group had gathered in a huddle. Olivia and I walked off to use the bathroom, where I discovered with a single fleeting and regretted glance at the mirror that my hair had bloated to twice its normal volume thanks to the humidity. Afterward, we followed Hobbs to an open booth and made as neat a pile as we could of our bags on the floor. The plastic-covered bench wasn’t special in the least, but when I slid in beside my sister it felt like I’d landed on a pile of down.

  “Where’s Red?” Hobbs stared at me with eyes like marbles, his face half buried in the hooded jacket he’d slipped on before we walked inside. It had to have been at least twenty degrees hotter in there than it was outdoors, which left only one good reason for him to hide his features: He knew people might recognize his colored mug from a wanted poster.

  “Maybe he’s still in the bathroom,” I said, though I might’ve responded, Removing you from our lives.

  A fortysomething woman with a confusion of highlights took our order of burgers and fries all around. A pitcher of w
ater. A beer for Hobbs. The waitress didn’t ask for ID, though I knew he had to be riding the twenty-one line. The three of us were quiet after that, which was awkward but would’ve been worse if the bar hadn’t been loud anyway.

  Time slurred. Olivia made a new braid in her hair, then poured three packets of sugar into her mouth. Hobbs ripped a napkin into tiny pieces, then tried to build something with them—a napkin structure that failed in all ways. The group in the corner bellowed: a big win or loss for someone. While I watched the door, I traced my thumbnail down irregular grooves covering our table, imagined someone had taken a steak knife to the wood at some point. The heedless act of a child, maybe, or the rebellious act of someone who knew better, who’d forgotten how to be good.

  Twenty minutes later, our burgers arrived—enormous things on sesame-seed-speckled buns. I dug in without bothering over ketchup. And though I felt my body’s gratitude for the meal, I also felt entirely distracted.

  There was still no sign of Red Grass.

  I went over my simple plan again. Wait until it all went down and Hobbs was out the door, then convince Olivia—who should realize we wouldn’t be able to manage alone—that it was time to give up and call family. Though I hadn’t yet seen a pay phone, there had to be one around somewhere. Whatever, if I had to ask every stranger at the bar if I could borrow a cell, I’d do it. I oversalted my fries, ate two at a time.

  As I swallowed the last bite of my burger, Red Grass resurfaced. Beside him was a short, thin man wearing a shirt and tie, a pair of black pants; he looked distinctly out of place.

  “What’s this?” Hobbs asked when they stood right beside us.

  “Meetings,” said Red Grass, his voice full of satisfaction.

  Hobbs cursed. I tried not to smile as I dragged my body out of the booth. “Let’s go, Olivia,” I said.

  She kept her seat. “What?”

  “They have business,” I said, “and this is a booth for four, not five. C’mon.”

  When Hobbs didn’t say anything to stop her, she slugged out after me. We settled into a booth that kissed up against the other one, as the men sat.

  “ ‘They have business, and this is a booth for four?’ ” Olivia said, leaning close to me. “Why are you being considerate over Hobbs all of a sudden?”

  “Shh.” I turned my head, focused on the conversation from the booth at my back. Listened as this new man—Beckett, Red Grass had called him—tried to convince Hobbs that showing him the coins was the right thing to do. Didn’t he want to know how much they were worth? Didn’t he want to make a new life for himself if he could—a life off the rails? Hobbs might make a whole lot of money by selling, Beckett teased. But first he’d need to see them for appraisal. He wouldn’t buy them, he clarified, or arrange for a sale—though he could put Hobbs in contact with someone later if he needed a referral. His job was purely to make sure Hobbs had an accurate idea of value to avoid being swindled down the road, in order for him to make the most of this opportunity and his life.

  Beckett was a master persuader; he must’ve been an undercover police investigator or something. Even I’d have fallen into his net.

  “What’s going on, Jazz?” Olivia hissed. Likely she couldn’t hear much from her side of the table.

  Behind me, the familiar clink of coins sounded to my ears like the toll of freedom bells. The wheels were in motion, nothing she could do now to stop them. It was as good a time as any to prepare her for what was to come.

  “Hobbs is about to be brought to justice,” I told her. “Red Grass turned him in for the reward money over those coins.” She started to rise. I grabbed her hand, said, “You’ll stay in your seat, Olivia Moon. Justice is a good thing. Whoever owns those coins for real should have them back, and we’re not going to interfere with the law.”

  Her blue eyes misted over as she sat back down. “How could you have known this was coming and not say anything? You hate him that much? He trusted us, and he trusted me, and trust doesn’t come easy to him.”

  I said, “That’s interesting, considering he’s a thief.”

  “You always do that!” She hit her palms against the table. “You see just a part of people—the bit you want to see, or the bit you can. Why can’t you admit that Hobbs has done nothing but help us?”

  “Help us? The scope of your delusion amazes me,” I said.

  A swell of noise came from the gamblers in the corner. From Hobbs’s table I picked a few words from the ongoing conversation, heard “scam,” “one week.” Adrenaline coursed through me. What would happen in one week? A trial? Would he be in jail until then, held on bail?

  “He has helped me,” Olivia said, starting in again. “He’s helped me see things I didn’t see before. More than that, he doesn’t make me feel like an inconvenience for having a mind of my own, or call me stupid or delusional for—”

  I shushed her again when Red Grass stood, sure Hobbs would stand next, maybe even be led out in handcuffs. Tonight we’d sleep in our own beds. Tomorrow I’d deal with the bus, and—

  “I’ll go get us a round of shots to celebrate,” said Red Grass.

  I blinked. Celebrate?

  I’d missed something somewhere—an important piece of the puzzle. I shifted my entire body around to stare up at him, make him aware of my presence, waited for him to throw me a reassuring nod or wink, some indication that we were still on track, about to drop a net. But he was too busy glowing at the table he’d vacated to look my way.

  Beckett stood as well. “My wife smells liquor on me before dinner and I’ll be on the couch for a week. But it was nice to meet you, Hobbs. I guarantee you won’t be sorry.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Red Grass told Beckett. “For negotiations of fees and things.”

  Fees?

  Beckett nodded. “One step at a time,” he said, then walked away, weaving through the crowd and back toward the main entrance.

  I waited for something more to happen. Anything. Held to hope that this was part of an elaborate setup, that a league of cops would come crashing in at any moment and make sense of all this. I looked from Red Grass to the door and back again. But Red Grass only laughed, said he was buying those drinks anyway. He pivoted toward the bar.

  Whatever had just happened wasn’t about turning Hobbs in or collecting a reward. I’d been lied to. Duped. Left in exactly the same position I’d been in for the last two days—at the mercy of everyone else’s whims. This was the way life would continue, too, unless I did something about it.

  With slow and deliberate movements, I rose to my feet, stepped in front of Hobbs’s table, and locked eyes with my nemesis. Words flowed like ivy as Olivia scrambled to my side.

  “There’s a pretty picture with your face on it out there, a reward poster for finding you,” I said, over my sister’s protests. “I thought you might like to know that I’m going to call you in myself. Not tomorrow, not in an hour, but right now. Consider this fair warning.”

  His eyes flashed with his own special brand of fury and all the edges came out in his face like razor blades. I wasn’t afraid of that look, or of him.

  I turned to the bar. No Red Grass. Walked right up to the men’s room and pushed open the door. Red Grass stood in front of the corner urinal, doing the shake.

  “God Almighty,” he said when he saw me, fumbling with his pants. “Couldn’t you wait an ever-loving second?”

  “That’s it, huh?” I said as the door swung shut behind me. The room smelled like a neglected horse stall. “That’s you turning him in? Laughing, buying drinks? Collecting fees for your services? What are you, his broker or something?”

  “Now, now,” he said, red-faced, his palms up. A fly buzzed behind him. “Be patient, missy, all in good—”

  “Tell the truth for once in your life,” I said. “Did you ever call that number on the poster?”

  Water dripped into the room’s lone sink—two, three, four times—before he stumbled nervously through a series of vague excuses. “Need to take it
to the next level … better authentication … can’t rush these—”

  “Oh, fuck you and the train you rode in on,” I said. “You played me.”

  I lunged for the poster that I spied jutting from his pocket like my last hope. Pulled it loose even though he surged away from me, tried and failed to evade me, cursed a blue streak. Held it away from him when he made to take it back, and kept it away from him.

  “You’re not going to make that call?” I said. “I will. This ends now.”

  I stormed out like I’d stormed in, and right away spied a phone lurking in the deep shadow at the end of the hall—an old-fashioned booth with a long crack down the glass. A dim light flickered overhead when I stepped in and shut the door behind me. I inserted quarters, flicked open the poster, punched numbers with trembling hands.

  It rang three times. And then, an answer.

  “Hello, Jazz,” came a familiar voice.

  Not possible. I opened the glass door to find Red Grass standing on the other side, a cell phone pressed against his ear. A cell phone! But, before I could ask any of the hundred questions swelling in my mind over this latest sucker punch, he said something that changed everything.

  Hobbs and Olivia were gone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Edge of the Periphery

  OLIVIA

  I knew how my sister saw me—like a child, weak. But that wasn’t how I saw myself, and it wasn’t how it was.

  My father’s favorite sandwich was peanut butter and jelly, loaded with so much peanut butter that it was as thick as the bread. Sour-cherry jelly was his favorite, the kind Babka made every year herself, but he liked other kinds, too—blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, orange marmalade, even store-bought grape sometimes. He stopped eating sandwiches after Mama died, though. Started losing weight. Reaching for the liquor cabinet instead of food, and reaching at any time of day.