To See the Moon Again (10 page)

She looked away, her eyes landing on an old road sign on the wall:
Danger Ahead—Bridge Out.
Too bad there hadn't been a sign on Ivy Dale this morning when she had come home with her groceries:
Danger Ahead—Girl on Back Porch.

T
HE
D
EEPEST
P
ART
OF
N
IGHT

Carmen had already eaten almost half of her sandwich, but she paused now and set it down on her plate as if suddenly aware that she was violating the rules of etiquette by eating so fast. She wiped her mouth carefully and took another drink of water, then picked up a few French fries. “Do you have any children?” she asked Julia. “Daddy didn't think you did.” She bit the tip off a French fry and chewed it, then ate the rest of it quickly in small bites, her eyes fixed on Julia the whole time.

“He was right,” Julia said, and before Carmen could respond, she asked, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Carmen bit into another French fry. “Not any that really count. Lulu was married before she knew Daddy, so she already had two kids, but they lived in Casper with their grandmother, so I didn't know them. Their daddy was mean to Lulu. To everybody, really. He was Effie's stepbrother.”

She picked up her sandwich again. “So I was the only one at home. With Daddy and Lulu, I mean. Until Daddy died, and then relatives I'd never heard of started showing up, most of them from Arkansas. That's where Lulu was from.” She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed it slowly. “Some of them overstayed their welcome. It was pretty . . . horrendous at times.” She took another swig of water. “Lulu was older than Daddy. I guess you already knew that.”

More information Julia didn't want, but that was what came of asking questions. The facts were hard to sort out. Effie was Lulu's half sister. And Lulu had once been married to her half sister's stepbrother? So where did Ida fit in? She wondered how much older Lulu was than Jeremiah, but she wasn't going to ask any more questions. She would just be quiet and try to think of the next thing to do.

“Does Aunt Pamela have curly hair, or is it straight like yours?” Carmen asked.

“Straight, like our mother's. Jeremiah was the only one who got the curls.” She wished the girl would quit talking and just eat.

“What was she like—your mother?”

This was not a subject Julia wanted to talk about in Del's Deli or anywhere else. “Your daddy must have told you about her,” she said.

Carmen nodded. She set her sandwich down again and took a crunchy bite of her pickle spear. “But not much. He cried one time when he talked about her. I remember that. Said he couldn't forgive himself for abandoning her. That was the word he used—
abandon
. I'd never heard the word before, but it was so lonely-sounding I never forgot it.” She finished the rest of her water. “I never knew either one of my grandmothers. Lulu's real mother died a long time ago. She was . . .” She broke off suddenly and leaned closer. “How did Lulu die? Did they tell you?”

“I didn't get all the details,” Julia said. “It happened suddenly, Ida said.” And then, in case the girl had forgotten, “Effie may have died by now, too.”

Carmen went back to her sandwich. Presently she continued. “Lulu was always making excuses for her. Poor Effie—nothing but hard knocks all her life. She was sick as a kid, she had a lisp, she was picked on in school, men treated her dirty, on and on. It was always something. Effie couldn't be held responsible for anything she did.”

Julia didn't know what to say to any of this. This whole family dynamic sounded like a low-class reality show. How her intelligent, talented brother could have gotten involved with people like that both mystified and saddened her.

There was a sudden commotion as a young woman and small child entered Del's Deli. The child was crying loudly and trying to wrest himself away from his mother, but she managed to pull him inside so that the door could shut, at which point his wails were amplified. The woman's face was impassive as she held him firmly and looked toward the menu board. It was a tolerant yet embarrassed look, the same kind of look Julia had seen on the faces of pet owners holding their dogs on leashes beside mailboxes.

The boy in the red T-shirt came out from behind the counter bearing a lollipop. He stooped down and waved it in front of the child, who stopped crying immediately and snatched it.

Carmen took the lid off her cup and got up. She had eaten the last of her sandwich by now, and only a few French fries and half the pickle remained on her plate. “You want more to drink?” she asked Julia. She took both cups for refills, and when she came back, she said, “So let me get this straight. Ida said Lulu died, but she didn't say how?”

An idea came to Julia. “No,” she said, “but it could have been the result of a doctor's error or something that went wrong at a hospital. If so, there might be a malpractice suit under way.” Though good taste forbade going further, she did it anyway. “Families often get large settlements from such things. You would want to be there if that happened.” And she couldn't resist adding, “Anyway, Lulu must have had a will of some kind. There's probably some money that's rightfully yours.”

Carmen shook her head and spoke as if it were a closed subject. “No, no money. Even if there were, they'd make sure I didn't get any of it. And why would I want it?” Though Julia could think of several good answers, she said nothing.

When the girl's plate was clean, Julia said, “I can't eat the other half of my sandwich. Do you want it?”

Carmen nodded. “Sure.” She ate it quickly, then said, “Thanks for lunch.” She picked up the long toothpick on her plate and twirled it between her fingers, then touched the little red cellophane ruffle around the top of it and laughed. “Very funny. A fancy toothpick.” On their way out, she spotted the cowbell mounted on the wall beside the door, a piece of rope tied to it. There was a printed sign above it:
Ring me if you like Del's Deli.
Carmen pulled the cord, and a loud clank resonated.

As they walked to the car, Julia noticed the girl's ripped shirt again. Okay, that could be the next thing. She could take her somewhere and buy her a new shirt. And after that maybe the next thing would come to her.

•   •   •

I
T
was during the darkest hours of morning several days later when Julia first heard the sound. It wasn't the sound itself that awakened her, for it was faint and far away, the kind of sound that would go unnoticed if one were asleep. But she wasn't asleep. She had been, but only for a brief time and not deeply. It had become a nighttime pattern long before Carmen arrived on the scene—short, restless naps followed by long wide-awake stretches of lying in bed, trying various methods of getting back to sleep.

She had tried both physical and mental strategies. On this particular night, in the few minutes before she heard the sound, she was trying a technique advocated by a New Age fitness trainer she had run across on daytime television several weeks ago, in which one contemplated his five senses one at a time, listing his own favorite sensory impressions in each category.

She wasn't actually going through the exercise herself, only remembering how ridiculous the trainer had looked and sounded as he lay on a mat with his eyes closed, wearing his red and black spandex, droning on and on with all seriousness about memorable sights he had seen: ghostly clouds snagged like old witches' hair across a haunted mountainside, smooth pearly stones in the burbling brook that ran through his grandfather's pasture, and so forth. Julia felt sure somebody else had written the lines for him. She remembered how funny it seemed for a grown man to use the word
burbling
.

Another idea came to her. Sometimes if she tried to compile lists, she could weary herself into sleep. The Debussy preludes, for instance. She always started with the longer titles, some of which sounded like poetry.
Sounds and Perfumes Mingle in the Evening Air.

That was as far as she got, however, for it was at that exact moment that she became aware of the sound. At first she thought it was coming from outdoors, perhaps from a neighbor's tomcat that often prowled around. The noise stopped for a while but then resumed, softer now. She thought of other things it could be. A dog howling at the moon. Something with a squeaky wheel being rolled down the street. A high-pitched radio frequency. A beginning violin player.

It stopped again, for a longer time, long enough for Julia to start trying to simulate the rapid eye movements that usually preceded sleep. She had read somewhere that if you closed your eyes and then moved them around in circles very fast, you could eventually trick yourself into falling asleep.

But she heard the sound again, and though it was even softer now, she suddenly sat up in bed. Maybe it was inside the house. She waited a few seconds and then slowly pushed the covers back and walked to the door, where she stood listening. She heard nothing. The guest room where Carmen was sleeping was at the end of the short hallway, across from the other bathroom and diagonal to Julia's bedroom.

She opened her bedroom door cautiously and looked out. All was dark and quiet. She stepped into the hall and moved toward the guest room but stopped a few feet away. The hardwood floor was bad to creak at this end of the hall. She stood very still for a long time but heard nothing. Just as she turned to go back, however, she heard it again, from behind Carmen's door—a long, soft wail, as of pleasure or pain past telling. And then a soft bump. Julia hurried back to her room and closed the door. Moments later she heard the sound of water running in the hall bathroom, then the flush of the toilet, and all was quiet again.

•   •   •

T
HE
problem of Carmen had not been fixed. After buying her two new shirts and some underwear at Sears on Saturday, they had stopped by a drugstore for some toiletries. After that, with a sense of defeat, Julia realized that the only thing left to do was to take her home. She made it clear, however, that there was a limit. A week—she could stay that long while she decided “what to do next.” She stated it firmly. Carmen had nodded distractedly but said nothing.

Whole days had somehow passed, three of them, and June had turned into July. But there appeared to be no solution in sight, no evidence whatsoever that the girl was making other plans, even though Julia had left her cell phone out and told her she could use it. She also offered the use of her laptop, but Carmen hadn't touched either one. Each day she stayed in the guest room for long hours with the door closed, even during the daytime. Maybe she was reading the magazines and books she had asked to take from the living room. Or maybe she was sleeping, for there was never a sound from behind the door. Until tonight.

Yesterday she hadn't emerged until well after lunchtime, wearing an old pair of Julia's pajamas. Julia had told her to help herself to any of the things in the guest room closet, her holding place for clothes she was tired of and ready to donate to Goodwill. Carmen came into the kitchen, where Julia was cleaning out the refrigerator, and said, “What day of the week is it?”

A few minutes later she came back out dressed, said she was going for a walk, and disappeared for over two hours. Upon returning, she pointed across the backyard and said, “There's a college over in that direction. I guess that must be where you teach. Especially since I found an office with your name on the door.”

She sometimes looked at whatever was on television but not with much interest. One day she stood in front of the shelves of CDs for a long time, reading the labels, and several times she went into the backyard and sat on the bank of the creek. Another day Julia looked out the kitchen window and saw her several houses away talking to Dr. Boyer, the French teacher, in his front yard, and another time she stood by the mailbox conversing at length with a woman pushing a stroller. She came in later with a cosmetics catalog, which she left on the kitchen counter.

Since Saturday Julia had moved about the house nervously, as if she were the guest. She tried to keep herself busy with small projects but constantly lost her train of thought and failed to finish any of them—she straightened one dresser drawer, sorted through part of the linen closet, polished some of her good shoes, reorganized the top compartment of her jewelry box. Carmen asked once if she could help with anything but didn't offer again after Julia told her no, she had her own way of doing things. The thought of working side by side with the girl made her fearful. It would seem too much like an acceptance of her presence, could perhaps be interpreted as an invitation to extend her stay. Carmen might think of it as payment for her room and board. And, of course, if they worked together, they would have to talk.

Not that they didn't talk now. There were always the inevitable conversations at mealtimes, though Julia tried to get through those as quickly as possible. A few times she had eaten early, by herself, rushing to finish before Carmen appeared in the kitchen, then waving toward the stove and telling her to take whatever she wanted.