Remember The Moon (27 page)

“I don’t know that either. Just a feeling.” The kettle clicked off, startling them. I enjoyed making my presence known.

“A feeling? Do you know what this painting represents to me, Marcus?”

“Not really. Maybe something about Jay?”

Maya looked surprised. “How did you know?”

Marcus shrugged. “Just guessed, since you didn’t want to sell it.”

“I keep seeing blackbirds and ravens in really strange places and in unusual circumstances, and so they’ve come to represent Jay to me in a way. They have such knowing eyes. I tried to capture that in this painting.” Maya held the painting up to look at it more closely.

“You did a great job. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Something made me buy it and I guess circumstances allowed that to happen. And now circumstances are bringing the painting back to you.” Marcus looked serious as he spoke.

“Yeah. That is pretty odd, isn’t it?” Maya said.

“Maybe not. Perhaps it’s all a grand plan to get us back together,” Marcus said with a smirk. Maya rolled her eyes.

“Are you going all woo-woo on me, Marcus? That’s not like you.” Still holding the painting, she walked over to the other side of the kitchen, placed it on the floor, and leaned it against the wall. She removed one of the paintings hanging on the wall and put it on the floor. Then she hung the crow painting in its place.

“Looks like it belongs there,” Marcus said.

Maya stepped back to take a look. “Yeah, he seems pretty at home there. I think I like it. He can watch while I paint and make dinner.”

“Do you miss him?” Marcus looked down at his hands, picking at a well-manicured fingernail.

Maya turned and poured hot water from the kettle into the teapot. “Of course I miss him. But it’s been two and a half years now, and I’m learning to live my life without him.” Maya looked up at Marcus as she answered.

“I’m sorry, Maya. I really am.”

“What are you apologizing for exactly?”

“I don’t know. Jay’s death. Our infidelity. How I treated you all those years ago.”

“There’s no need. But thank you. That means a lot.”

Maya distracted herself by pouring the tea into cups, pushing Marcus’s cup toward him and adding milk and sugar to her own. She took the stool next to Marcus and they sat together in silence, sipping tea, each in silent contemplation.

What’s going on here?
Her thought startled me.

Maya, he’s still in love with you.

This is crazy.
She looked over at Marcus’s hands and noticed they were trembling slightly as he brought the cup to his lips.

Marcus can’t be in love with me. After all these years?

He’d be good for you, Maya.

You always hated him, Jay.

Yeah, well now I don’t. I’ve grown up.

Maybe you’re finally growing up.

Finally.

Well I believe you’ve grown up if you’ve brought Marcus back into

my life. The question now is, am I in love with him?

That is the question. I think you already know the answer.

Calder came crashing through the door, Owen following in his wake. They both ran over to Marcus.

“Hey dudes, back so soon? What’s going on?” Marcus said. Jericho, who had been lying under the table, got up and walked over to Calder, who started patting him absently.

“When Owen found out you were here, he wanted to come and see if you can come over to his house with us so we can play,” he said.

Owen nodded vigorously. “Pleeeease! You can say hi to my mom and dad.”

“Whoa. I just got here. Can’t you guys play here?”

“No! All the instruments are at Owen’s place!” Calder said.

“Please, Marc, plllleeeeaaaase?” The boys begged in unison. Marcus looked pleadingly over at Maya.

“Go. I’ll clean up here and then put something on for dinner. You’ll stay?”

“If you’ll have me,” Marcus said as a boy on each hand led him toward the door. Jericho followed, his tail wagging. Maya looked up at the crow painting and smiled. Through his gleaming yellow eye I smiled back.

Very cunning, you. Very cunning.

Thank you. I’m pretty pleased with myself.

Maya took another sip of tea and headed to the sunroom to clean her brushes. Outside the window in the twilit sky rose a perfectly round, salmon-colored moon. Maya stopped dunking her brush in turpentine and watched the moon rise for a long time. She looked back at her painting in progress - the entry to our grotto, its interior dark and mysterious while outside its entrance waves crashed violently around the flat rock where Maya lay in her red bikini. Thick slabs of paint slashed through the wispy shades of white, gray, and purple that created the waves. A lavender sunset similar to the one we had witnessed that evening at the
pensione
brushed across the sky.

Maya wiped clean a brush on a cloth and dabbed it into some paint, and as she peered out the window, she smiled as she painted the pale coral moon that now glowed in the inky sky.

If you enjoyed
Remember the Moon
, and are inspired to post a review on Amazon or Goodreads, the author would be eternally grateful.

Also by Abigail Carter:

The Alchemy of Loss: A Young Widow’s Transformation

Like
A Year of Magical Thinking
, this powerful and touching book is both an inspirational read and a comfort to those who are looking for help in overcoming loss.

“What an eloquent, brave and (even) occasionally comic account Abigail Carter has given us of her zigzagging odyssey through the country of mourning. No mourner has it easy, but Carter’s tasks were daunting — to mother two suddenly fatherless children, to find her own way through the strife that bereavement brings to her parents and mother-in-law, and to disentangle her personal grief from the national mourning. Through it all, she is a generous, nuanced and admirably honest guide.”

— Katherine Ashenburg, author of
The Mourner’s Dance

After my memoir,
The Alchemy of Loss
was published, it became evident that a second memoir might be difficult for a publisher to sell. I tried a few different tactics, but in the end I simply poured all that material into this fictional story about a life I imagined Arron might have after his death. I was no more an experienced fiction writer than I was a memoir writer and so many people have had a hand in guiding me along the way. The first of those is Scott Driscoll, literary fiction instructor at the University of Washington Continuing Education Department, who helped me lay down the foundations of this story and encouraged me with his thoughtful comments and ideas in his nearly impossible-to-read scrawl.

The early chapters were also carefully read by the members of my writing group who were all writing memoir, but suffered my fiction gracefully. They helped me eek out the various plot twists. Before you all think that I had an affair on Arron before his death, please know that I place this twist squarely on the shoulders of Paul Boardman who questioned Marcus’s presence at Jay’s funeral with the innocent question, “Was she having an affair with him?” Invaluable feedback also came from Kellini Walter, who was one of the first to read the entire manuscript and had some wonderful ideas based on her own experience with loss. Wendy Colbert helped with her astute comments regarding Maya’s character, Dana Montanari and Linda Bigley were my enthusiastic cheerleaders, and comments from Anne-Phyfe Palmer (Lady Phyfe) and Natalie Singer-Velush always had me thinking hard and re-writing.

This novel might not have ever seen the light of day had it not been suggested by Margaret Bendet, my advisor during the Whidbey Island Writer’s Association Lockdown Retreat, that I put away the paranormal memoir I was struggling with and return to
Remember The Moon
instead. A few of her simple plot suggestions had me off and running again after my long stall.

All the writers at the Seattle Daylight Writer’s Group who listened as I stumbled and sometimes cried as I read passages out loud, who always provided me with ideas and thoughts that were valuable for their immediacy and authenticity. In particular, the founder of this group, Kelsye Nelson, who is another ardent cheerleader and my astute business partner at Writer.ly, wisely suggested I intersperse scenes into Maya’s letters to Jay.

I was heartened when I put out a call on my blog for Beta readers and had 37 people sign up. Of those, 17 actually provided me with incredibly insightful feedback from which I made several major and minor edits. I would like to thank those 17: Nancy Orlikow, Nancy Schatz Alton, Marganne Glasser, Kerry Donahue, Kylie Eklund, Melissa Schwartz, Tony Kwok, Karen daSilva, Kim Nymark, Alexandre Rocha Lima e Marcondes, Lisa Norley, Rachel Kodanaz, Margie Waldo Simon, Tammie Lewis, Susan Wong, Barnaby Guthrie, Marny Williams-Balodis. I am indebted to you all. A special thank you goes to Nancy Orlikow, one of my dearest friends and great Beta reader – any likenesses found in this book are purely subconscious.

My angel-sister Sheri Bakes found me after she read
Alchemy
. Her beautiful paintings inspired all of the descriptions of Maya’s paintings in the book and when on a whim I asked her if I could commission her to do a painting for the book cover, she graciously obliged and insisted it be a gift. I now have the pleasure of seeing her work on both my office wall and on the cover of this book.

Jennifer Munro, my valiant editor whose invaluable suggestions, edits and questions all contributed to making this a profoundly more cohesive and engaging book. And Michelle Dias, my valiant copyeditor (discovered on Writer.ly) whose effusive comments made me smile and bolstered my confidence at the same time.

Deirdre Timmons, my best friend, reader, cheerleader, and inspiration helped me realize that dead husbands watching their wives having sex was downright creepy, advice perhaps only a good friend would be brave enough to say.

An early manuscript undertook a motorcycle trip across the country with Jim Evans who proudly pulled it out of his bag and read it at greasy spoons and diners along lonely highways. I received it back beat-up and coffee-stained, his insightful comments scrawled in margins and shyly articulated (coaxed by me) during cherished moments.

And finally, to Carter and Olivia who suffered a consistent view of my hunched back, but conveyed their pride in my dilatory profession. You are my inspiration, always.

Abigail Carter wrote
The Alchemy of Loss: A Young Widow’s Transformation
(HCI, 2008) as a form of catharsis after her husband’s death in the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Her work has also appeared in SELF magazine, Reader’s Digest Canada,
MSN.com
and
More.com
and she maintains blogs at abigailcarter.com and
alchemyofloss.com
. Abigail is also the co-Founder of Writer.ly an online marketplace where writers can find the people they need to publish successfully. She can be found on Facebook and Twitter (@abigailcarter).

Abigail teaches memoir writing at Camp Widow, a yearly retreat for widows and at The Recovery Cafe in Seattle, a community center for people recovering from addiction. She has extensive Board experience: Executive Board of The Healing Center, a Seattle-based bereavement center for children and their parents; Executive Board, Hedgebrook, a women’s writing retreat on Whidbey Island, WA; Executive Board, The Seattle Freelances Association, a respected professional writer’s association based in Seattle; Advisory Board, University of Washington Digital Publishing Program.

Abigail moved from New Jersey to Seattle in 2005, where she now lives with her two children.