Luna (4 page)

“I could … get you the pill, if you want it,” she said. She was surprised at herself for saying this, she hadn’t planned to. Her face felt hot, and she wondered, what am I offering her? The thought frightened her.

“I don’t like talking about this,” Phoebe said into the silence, growing angrier as she spoke, and somehow this relieved Selena. “I
hate
talking about this. If I want the stupid pill, I can get it myself. And anyway …”

Any anyway what? Selena wondered. But she didn’t dare ask, she could feel Phoebe withdrawing, rapidly and inexplicably retreating from her. And Diane, too, she thought sadly, I can’t find Diane anymore either. Surely it will all pass, she thought, it’s just a bad time right now, and glanced at Phoebe again. But Phoebe sat motionless, staring into space. When I was seventeen, she reminded herself, I was sleeping with Kent. Yes, she answered herself, and look where it got you. But this surprised her, too, because where it had gotten her was a home of her own and a family of her own, and that, surely, was all she had ever wanted.

It seemed to her that this was not her husband, not the man she had known as a child and a youth, the one who sat across from her at the table three times every day, every inch of whose body she knew as well as her own, but only heat and weight, thrusting her into that infinite blackness she had come to know so well, the place where she floated bodiless, which had no landmarks, only sometimes a pinpoint of light, or a flash, red or blue. It was a darkness, but with depth and resonance, and it was beautiful. It filled her with boundless joy to be going there, to be there. It was so alien a place, so beautiful, so complete, that she forgot it was her husband who took her there, Kent, a man who had no idea where she had gone. She supposed that to him she was warm, familiar flesh against his body, something he can touch and hold. She imagined though, that in this act he, too, forgot her, Selena, his wife, but only in his moment of climax, while she had long since left him, his caresses sending her to that
black and vibrant other place from which she came back always reluctantly, always surprised to have found it again.

“Jesus Christ, Selena,” Kent said, into her hair. He repositioned one arm and leg and lifted himself to one side while she slid out from under him.

“What?” she murmured, thinking of rearranging her pillow, finding her nightgown, but still too spent to move. Above his shadowed profile the night sky, washed silver with moonlight, glowed and in the trees a pair of owls were questioning the moon. The Indians say owls are the souls of dead people. Beside her she could hear Kent swallow, draw his breath in deeply, sniff. He put one arm up and rested his forearm on his forehead, throwing his face into impenetrable shadow.

“The goddamn moon’s too bright,” he said. “You better pull the curtain.” She got up, naked, and standing in the white light of the moon, pulled the curtains so that the room fell into a homey darkness. She found her nightgown where she had dropped it on the floor by the bed, pulled it on, and got back in beside him.

When she was settled, she said, “What were you going to say?” He put his arm down and turned his head away from her, then back again. She could see none of this, knew it all by sound and memory in the darkness.

“I don’t know what the hell it is,” he said. She waited. “You scare me,” he said finally. For a second she was alarmed, her heart speeding up, fluttering against the thin cloth of her nightgown. “You never used to be this way,” he said.

“What way?” she asked, although she was smiling to herself now in the safety of the darkened room. Again he was silent for a moment.

“You get right away from me,” he said. This time when she laughed ever so gently, he turned his head toward her angrily. “It don’t seem right,” he said rapidly, fiercely. She felt herself retreating from his anger, searching for a way to respond that would give him nothing to use against her later.

“Oh, come on, Kent,” she replied, choosing to make light of what he had said. “Remember when we first started sleeping together? Even up until after Jason was born? Would you want it to be like that again?” She could feel him remembering, the silence filled with their shared memories:
her tears, her shame and her fear; his hurt, his frustration, and finally, his tense, silent anger. He snorted.

“No way,” he said. They lay beside each other, not touching, closer now than they had been in sex, and then the said, half to himself, “I wonder if all the women get this way.”

Selena thought of Lola and Phyllis, young mothers as she had been once herself, of Enid, really still a child, of Diane, and Margaret who was old. And then of Phoebe.

“No,” Kent said. “They couldn’t all be like you are, or the boys wouldn’t do so much complaining.” He laughed, growing sleepy. But Selena thought of the time she had complained to the doctor that she was tired all the time, Jason was a year old then, and he had asked her if she had a regular sex life. You’d be surprised how many of the men around here are dead from the neck down, he said, and laughed. Seeing her embarrassment, he added quickly, the older ones, I mean.

She closed her eyes, wondering again who they could be, still only able to half-believe what the doctor had said. Kent heaved himself onto his side, his back to her, and began to breathe deeply. When she was sure he was asleep, she crept out of bed, opened the curtains a crack so that a little moonlight shone in the room, then got back into bed.

I’m going to try to get back in time to check the cattle late this afternoon, at least before dark,” Kent said. “You drive out and see where they are. Save us a couple of hours riding looking for them.” Selena, who was making sandwiches for the kids’ lunch kits and had her back to him, didn’t answer. “Where’s Phoebe?” he asked Jason, who had just come into the kitchen and sat down at the table beside him.

“I dunno,” Jason said, reaching for a piece of toast. “Studying.”

“She’ll miss the bus,” Kent said. “I suppose I could drop her off on my way to Swift Current.” He sounded indifferent, but Selena turned to Jason.

“Did you wake up Mark?”

“He’s coming,” Jason said, his mouth full.

“He got any exams today?” Kent asked.

“History,” Selena replied. “I drilled him last night when you were out in the shop. He knows it. He should do okay.”

Kent pushed back his chair, went out into the hall and called up the stairs, “Mark, Phoebe, hurry up. Get down here. You’ll miss the bus!” In a moment Selena heard them thumping down the stairs, Mark, two steps at a time, and Phoebe’s light, even step behind him.

“My last exam today,” she announced in a voice so breathless and high-pitched that Selena turned to look at her. She was wearing her usual tight jeans, even Kent had given up arguing with her about them, but today she had put on a new white blouse which brought out the freshness of her complexion and made her blue eyes look even bluer. Her father’s expression changed slightly when he looked at her.

“Last one,” he repeated, and shook his head disbelievingly. “Till next year, anyway.” He glanced at Selena proudly, smiling.

“I’m not even going to think about that,” Phoebe said, pulling out her chair. “Everybody says university is really hard.” Mark had sat down silently in his place.

“No way you’ll catch me at university,” he said.

“Me neither,” Jason echoed. Mark drank his orange juice in one gulp, while Selena set the three lunch kits on the floor by the kitchen door, then sat down in her place.

“More coffee?” Kent said, holding up his cup. She got up quickly, apologizing, and got the coffee pot.

“So, you write history today,” Kent said to Mark. Mark nodded.

“Grade ten history’s easy,” Phoebe said.

“Phoebe,” Selena warned her. “It wasn’t so easy when you were in grade ten.”

“Did you study?” Kent turned abruptly to look at Mark, his voice suddenly harsh. Mark nodded again without looking at his father. He reached for Selena’s homemade raspberry jam.

“I said I quizzed him last night,” Selena said, keeping her voice neutral. “He’ll do all right.” Kent grunted, then sipped his coffee.

“We shortened my dress last night,” Phoebe announced.

“Nobody cares,” Jason said, and Mark laughed. Phoebe flushed.

“Boys!” Selena said. “Wait till your grad and we have to go looking for new suits for you. You’ll care then.”

“Leave them alone, Selena,” Kent said, without emotion, so that Selena felt herself flushing, too. Phoebe sprang up, pushing back her chair, then stopped by the door for her lunch kit.

“No more stupid lunch kit after this week,” she said, and went into the hall where they heard her opening the outside door.

“Hurry up, you two,” Selena said, unaware that she had been saying this to the two of them every morning since they’d started school. Jason jumped up and Mark unwound his long legs and rose as they heard the school bus rolling in on the gravel to the front door. The horn honked, once, Phoebe had probably told Basil to do it, and in a rush of activity the two boys were gone, the door slamming behind them.

Then it opened again and Mark called down the hall, “I got a ball game after school and Jason wants to stay to watch. I’ll phone if we can’t get a ride back with Jerry.” The door slammed again before either of them could answer.

“Damn!” Kent said. “Well, that means you’ll have to ride with me.” Selena nodded. Now that the boys were old enough to help they did most of the riding, but Selena found that if she didn’t get out every week or ten days, she began to miss it.

Kent rose then and went out into the hall with Selena following him. It was cramped there, and dark, since the front of the house faced north and never got the direct sun. They could hear the whine of the bus as it turned onto the grid and began to pick up speed. Sparrows were chirping in the trees beside the house and red-winged blackbirds whistled, then trilled cheerfully. Kent set his cap onto his head, felt his back pocket for his wallet, then opened the door.

“Hey,” Selena said softly. He turned, looked down at her.

“Don’t forget to check where the cows are. It’ll save us some riding later. I’ll get back as early as I can.” He bent and brushed her forehead with his lips and then was gone. She stood in the doorway and watched the half-ton pull out of the yard.

He was not the same man during the day that he was at night. At night he seemed vulnerable, she could reach him. During the day she was just
another person who worked around the place, who ran to him when he called, like the kids did. Watching the billowing dust swallow his truck she thought she could feel his kiss, too, vanishing from her forehead, and she felt a lassitude creeping through her so that she had to lean on the doorframe. Oh well, she thought, finally, that’s the way it is for everybody, I guess, and pushed herself away.

She went to the back door, kicked off her shoes, and began to pull on the old, muddy pair she wore for gardening, then, remembering, kicked them off again and went to the phone. She dialled and waited.

“Diane? Are you coming over? We really need to talk.” She could hear Cathy crying.

“I don’t know,” Diane said, sounding exasperated.

“Where’s Tony?”

“Gone to see the Pool man in Mallard.”

“Put the kids in the truck and come over then.” Diane was silent. “Come on,” Selena said, coaxing. “Don’t think about it, just do it.”

“Where’s Kent?”

“Gone to Swift Current, he won’t be back before four, and the school bus just left.” Cathy was still crying.

“Tammy!” Diane’s voice was a muffled shout as if she had put her hand over the receiver. “See what’s the matter with her!” There was something, some new recklessness in Diane’s voice that alarmed Selena.

“Diane,” she said, “I am your older sister. Our mother’s dead. I’m telling you to put those kids in the truck and get over here. Now do it.” Diane laughed.

“Oh, Selena,” she said. “I had noticed that our mother is dead.”

“Diane,” Selena’s determination was turning to a kind of impotent, fearful anger, “I …”

“Oh, okay,” Diane interrupted. “I’ll be over as soon as I can get Cathy settled down and pack some diapers and a bottle.”

Selena hung up, then thought, good heavens, there’s no reason why I couldn’t have gone over there.

Hurriedly she tidied the kitchen, put the dishes into the sink, wiped the table, then took the left-over toast to the back door, where she stepped
into her gardening shoes, opened the door, and tossed the toast into the carragana hedge. Without waiting for the birds she had disturbed to fly back to the toast, she went down the steps, took the hoe from where it leaned against the corner of the house, crossed the grass to the garden, which was directly behind the house, and stopped by the rows of corn.

She loved her garden. Each year she began to think about it in February, by March she had ordered and received her seeds, in April she was watching the still snow-covered patch impatiently, until finally, in late May, Kent worked it for her and manured it and worked it again, and then she could at last seed it. She spent part of every day in it, sometimes only making work for herself, tying things up, pulling off dead leaves, or just studying the plants, touching a pea blossom here, or kneeling to smell the scent of a squash there.

It was nine o’clock, and the inevitable wind had risen, rustling the knee-high corn and making the powerline overhead hum. Already the sun was hot, it would be unbearable if the wind died down, fat chance of that, and she noticed how brown her hands and arms were already. She sighed, thinking of the even hotter months to come, of the hard, dry heat of August.

At first she hoed too hard, chopping at the dry ground, the grasshoppers whirling away with every stroke, but gradually she slowed, found a working rhythm, and began to cut at the ground with lighter strokes and more care, even with a certain precision. She concentrated on what she was doing, watching the ground, occasionally going down on one knee to pull a weed she was afraid to chop at with her hoe for fear of damaging a plant. It needs water, she thought, testing the ground with her hoe, but it was no use watering the wind. The water only blew away or evaporated and it was too scarce to waste. She would water in the evening, if the wind went down. She finished the four rows of corn and moved to the beets, letting the hoe rest in the grass at the edge of the garden, as she worked on her knees among the red-veined, dark green leaves.

The wind was blowing harder now, but crouched low and sheltered by the corn and the row of lilacs that ran down the side opposite the carraganas, she didn’t notice it. Forgetting her presence, the magpies came
nearer, and a robin caught grasshoppers on the lawn. As she thinned the row, her fingers became stained a wine colour from the beet stems. She rested, squatting on her haunches, and squinted up at the sky. The inevitable hawk, only a speck against the pale blue, circled slowly. She thought she could hear its sharp cry carried to her on the wind. Behind it, the faint, white outline of the half-moon hung eerily, a shadow in the sky. There’s a killdeer, she thought, surprised at hearing the “killdeer, killdeer, killdeer” cry so far from water. Then she heard the sound of truck tires on the gravel at the front of the house. She rose hastily, regretful, and brushed the dirt from her knees and off her hands. At the front of the house, Diane’s truck had rolled to a halt.