To See the Moon Again (4 page)

Julia was convinced that too many things were made easier for students these days. If they couldn't figure out how to take notes from a professor's lecture, they didn't belong in college. Besides that, she knew what happened with technology. Something new would come along and PowerPoint would become passé. It probably already had. But she might give it a try anyway. First she would need to retype all her notes and handouts—that would be a good way to take up time.

And she probably ought to travel some, even though she had no urge to do so except on a very limited basis. For example, she did want to drive to Milledgeville, Georgia, again to visit Andalusia, the home of Flannery O'Connor—a trip she had taken several times in the past. There was something inspiring about the house and farm, something that reminded her that a plain, confined life could count for something, or rather, that what appeared to be a plain, confined life could in fact be spacious and well furnished if one kept her mind active and open.

She felt the splash of a raindrop on her arm and looked up, startled that she could have been oblivious to the clouds gathering overhead. She wondered if there had been thunder she hadn't heard. Further, how could she have missed the forecast, something she usually consulted morning and night? More proof that her thoughts were in disarray.

More raindrops were falling, leaving dark splotches on her shirt. She began walking faster. An old chapel stood back from the road just ahead. She could wait out the storm there. The wind suddenly picked up with a fury. If she hadn't been witnessing it with her own eyes, she never would have believed the sky could burst open so suddenly. By the time she reached the covered entrance of the chapel, actually running the last hundred yards, she was soaked.

Standing against the door, panting, she watched the rain fall in sheets and felt the spray against her face. She had never liked being out in the rain the way some people did, had never really liked rain at all, not even from indoors.

A tired old memory came back to her now, across the span of nearly fifty years. It wasn't her worst memory, but one of her earliest and most vivid. She was standing with her back against the door of an old brick building, just as she was now. It was the last day of school, so it must have been early June, and her mother had just dropped her off at the front door of the elementary school in Nadine, Alabama. There had been more angry words and tears at the breakfast table, then only the two of them riding silently in the car, neither offering comfort to the other, and now she was late to school again.

It was raining heavily that day, and Julia had stood at the door of the school, first watching her mother drive away and then turning to look at the soggy playground, where flags and markers were set up for races and games. It was a day she had looked forward to for many weeks, barely able to concentrate on anything else, not even on her achievement tests, which, though only in first grade, she understood to be very important to her father. But she had tried to rise above her excitement and do her best, for she knew the test results would be included in her final report card, which the teacher would hand out at the end of school on the last day.

Before that, however, there were prizes to be won during the Field Day activities, an event that had already been rescheduled once for inclement weather. A fast runner, Julia had pinned all her hopes on winning a race and bringing home a blue ribbon. She had imagined a look of pride and approval spreading across her father's face, a hand laid on her head, maybe a word of praise.

But it was raining and showed no signs of letting up. The sky was gray, the playground full of puddles. And it was the last day of school. Even at the age of six, she knew a lost cause when she saw one. She didn't know certain words, but she knew the concepts. She knew this meant wholesale cancellation, not postponement. Time had run out. There was no contingency plan, and there would be no prize to take home.

Out on Chapel Road now, cars had slowed. The rain had slacked off some but was still falling steadily. She had no umbrella, of course. She had her cell phone but could think of no one she wanted to call for help. Marcy would come, she knew that, but she didn't want to hear her cheerful, idle chatter all the way home—“You're all wet, girlfriend!” and “What in the world were you doing all the way out here?” and all the rest of it.

So she would stay here and watch the rain until it stopped. Then she would slosh her way back home, change out of her wet clothes, and . . . well, she didn't want to think past that. There was nothing to anticipate at home, nothing good.

But what of it? She had known dreary days before and would certainly know them again. There was no sure way to plan for the unforeseeable, no way to avert misfortune or guarantee shelter in the event of rain. At least this time she had found a small, dry place for refuge.

N
OTHING
S
OLID
AND
S
URE

Days later, as Julia turned onto Ivy Dale after giving an exam, she realized that the phone message from Carmen had completely changed the way she arrived home.

Gone was the sense of breathing more easily as she proceeded down her quiet, shaded street, of slowly shedding the carefully calculated way she conducted herself away from home, of letting her eyes settle on the stone house, dropping whatever worries she had at the time to admire yet again the steep pitch of the roof, the dark red shutters and front door, the way the two ends of the house angled politely toward each other, the stone walkway Matthew had laid, the lamppost by the circular driveway, the ivy-covered mailbox.

She still saw all of these things, but only in an absentminded way. They gave her no sense of well-being. Not even the gnarly trunk of the Japanese maple afforded her much joy, or the irises unfolding daily under her bedroom window.

Now, from the moment she turned onto Ivy Dale, she strained forward, looking for a car parked in her driveway or someone at the front door. All looked safe right now, however, so she pulled into the driveway, not the circular one in front but the original one that shot straight to the garage at the rear of the house.

In the kitchen the red light on the answering machine was blinking again. Carmen's phone message was having its effect here, too. No more waiting till later. A phone call might require immediate action. She walked directly to the phone. Unlike only days ago, she was now relieved to hear her sister's voice. Though still hoarse, it sounded better than it had last week.

“Hey there, Jules. Call me. Butch did find Lulu, and you won't believe it—she's listed as Lulu
Frederickson
. So either she really did marry Jeremiah or else she just took his name without bothering, which wouldn't surprise me.”

Julia called her back at once. Pamela answered after the first ring and began talking as if in the middle of a conversation.

“And the town is Painted Horse, Wyoming. I found it on a map. I've got her address and phone number. You have a pencil? You think she really married him?”

“Who knows?” Julia said. “I wonder if she moved. Seems like Painted Horse is a name I would remember.”

“Well, anyway, it's still a trailer,” Pamela said. “Butch found that out in the personal property listings.”

Julia took down the information and told Pamela she would let her know if she got in touch with Lulu. But Pamela wasn't ready to hang up. Starved for conversation after her long fast, she rushed into a news report about a woman being held up at an ATM. But Julia didn't let her get far. She had to hang up, she told her. She had a phone call to make. There was no time to waste.

•   •   •

I
T
was almost three o'clock, but it would be two hours earlier in Wyoming. She had no idea whether Lulu had a job. Maybe she was still a waitress. More likely she had quit working by now and was on welfare.

She punched in the numbers quickly, and, remarkably, someone answered. At first Julia wondered if she might have called Pamela back by mistake, for it was a woman's voice, low and husky like Pamela's sick voice. But it sounded like an older voice, and not a very cordial one.

As there was no one to impress in Painted Horse, Wyoming, Julia didn't bother with preliminaries. “Hello,” she said in a businesslike tone. “I'm trying to get in touch with someone named Lulu, and I was given this number. Is this Lulu?”

There was no reply at first, then a short laugh, and then, “Nuh-uh, this is Ida. You wanting Lulu? Lulu Frederickson?”

Julia wondered if Lulu was a common name in Painted Horse. “Yes, that Lulu,” she said. She couldn't make herself put the two names together.

“Who is this? What you wanting Lulu for?”

“I need to contact her daughter. It's urgent. I was hoping Lulu would give me a phone number for her.”

Another coarse laugh. “Which daughter you talking about?”

This shouldn't have surprised Julia, but it did. She should have known a woman like Lulu would have several children, probably by several different fathers.

“Carmen,” she said.

“Who is this?” the voice asked again. “Is something the matter with Carmen? You know where she's at?”

Julia spoke briskly as if to convey the need for answers, not more questions. “My name is Julia Rich. My brother, Jeremiah, was Carmen's father. I need to talk with Carmen right away.”

“Jerry was your brother?”

“Yes, I'm Jeremiah Frederickson's sister. One of them. And I need to get in touch with Carmen.” And then, as if someone from Wyoming needed clarification, she added, “I'm Carmen's aunt.”

“Well, you're not the only one that wants to talk to her. I do, too. I got a thing or two to tell her.”

Julia's heart sank. “You don't know how to reach her?”

“Nobody does.”

“Not even her mother?”

“Lulu's dead.”

Julia wasn't sure she had heard right. “But . . . we found a listing for her with this phone number.”

“Folks can die sudden.”

“When . . . did this happen? Does Carmen know?”

“That's what I just got through saying. Nobody knows where she's at. Funeral was a week ago.” It struck Julia that the woman didn't seem particularly sad about any of this, only inconvenienced.

This was bad news, of course. Not because Lulu meant anything to Julia personally but because any hope of contacting Carmen was now dashed. But she couldn't help being curious. “What happened? Was it an accident of some kind?”

“Well, for sure she didn't
mean
to die.” The woman coughed, a smoker's deep, rolling cough. “She give out sudden. Real bad off. Couldn't get her breath.”

It struck Julia that this woman sounded more like a native of the Deep South than the West. She could be one of the people routinely interviewed on the local ten o'clock news here in South Carolina: “Yep, we was a'layin' in the bed sleepin' when they was a loud boom and 'fore we knowed it we didn't have no roof.” These people were usually missing at least one front tooth and often had a bad eye.

She said, “Was it . . . heart trouble?”

“Just up and died,” the woman said.

Julia wondered if everyone in Wyoming spoke so cryptically. She heard a sudden high whistling sound in the background. “Water's boiling,” the woman said. “I got to go tend it.”

“Wait, please. I'm very sorry to hear about all this, but are you absolutely sure you don't have any idea how to reach Carmen? No cell phone? No address? Nothing at all?”

“She used to call Lulu some, but Lulu never did call her. Carmen, she was footloose. Trekked around a lot. She come back here once, just a day, then lit out again. Told Effie she was going to Oregon. Or maybe it was Ohio.” Julia doubted that this woman even knew the two states were in opposite directions from Wyoming.

Julia sighed. “Oh.” Then, though it didn't matter at all, she asked, “Who's Effie?”

“Lulu's sister. Half sister. Lulu was the oldest.” There was a thump in the background, and the whistling sound stopped.

“And you're . . . their mother?” Julia asked.

“Practically same as.”

Julia decided not to follow up on this. She had a sudden vision of the three women—Lulu, Effie, and . . . had she said
Ida
?—soft-fleshed, disheveled, and slack-jawed, sitting on a dilapidated sofa in a trailer, engrossed in a soap opera, eating nachos and beef jerky. She knew she was being unfair, assuming the worst about people she had never met, but she also knew she was probably right.

She couldn't resist one last try. “So you can't think of anyone at all who might know how to reach Carmen? Or how about a place she might have worked recently? Or maybe Effie would know something?”

There was a sudden frantic yipping in the background, along with loud thuds, as of someone trying to kick down a door. “He's not allowed in!” the woman shouted. “You let him in, you'll be the one cleaning up his nasty turds.” She coughed another deep, racking cough. To Julia she said, “
Nobody
knows where she's at. Nobody means
nobody
. Effie can't help. She's bad sick, half out of her mind.” There was more barking in the background, then the sound of breaking glass. “Now look what you've gone and—” And suddenly the line was dead.

Julia slowly closed her cell phone and stood in her kitchen a long moment, trying to absorb the setback, trying not to think ahead to the eventual, inevitable slam of a car door, the sound of a knock on the door or the chime of the doorbell, the sight of a stranger on her front step.

•   •   •

W
HEN
at last she came back to herself, she was still standing in the same spot, staring at the backsplash above the sink. It was something she often found herself doing—studying the rows of small multicolored tiles, looking for but never finding a repeating pattern. The whole length of it was just a random mix, though something Matthew had “designed,” as he had liked to say. In Julia's opinion, such a design could have been drawn up by a child—a blind one.

She knew there was a parallel here to the course her whole life had taken, except there was no one to claim the role of designer for that sad piece of work. Hers was a life of echoes and shadows. No pattern, nothing solid and sure.

Slowly she walked back toward her bedroom, trying hard to think of something, just one thing, she could latch on to as the dimmest flicker of hope in this whole situation with Carmen. Only one thought presented itself: At least if Carmen did call her back or, worse, did show up in person, Julia could get rid of her by saying her family needed her immediately back in Wyoming. She could hustle her to the airport, buy her a plane ticket, and get her on the next flight out.

In the meantime, she would fill up the next days and weeks with comings and goings, as many as she could think of, until enough time had elapsed that she felt safe again. In case Carmen did come sometime soon, Julia was going to try her best not to be at home. And if she did happen to be here, she could always pretend she wasn't. There was no law that said you had to open your door if someone knocked.

Julia changed out of her teaching clothes into a crisp pink shirt and a pair of tan slacks. As afternoon seemed a particularly likely time for an out-of-town visitor to arrive, she had already devised a plan for the next several hours. She would run by the library and get a couple of books she had put on reserve as well as a movie Marcy had recommended, then go to the mall for a wedding gift for Dean Moorehead's daughter. She would take her time selecting it and having it gift-wrapped. Then she would stop somewhere to eat, and if she read one of the library books as she ate, the way she saw other people doing in restaurants, she could stretch it out even longer.

She ran a brush through her hair, dabbed on some lipstick, and left the house a few minutes later. As she backed cautiously out of the driveway in her Buick, an ancient pickup truck lurched to a stop at the curb. No clutching at the heart, though, since she recognized it at once as belonging to Gil, her yardman. Gil did a lot more than mow the lawn. A “lawn sculptor”—that's what he called himself on his business card. A droll little man with a luxuriant mustache, he had a disconcerting habit of blinking constantly whenever he spoke, which thankfully wasn't often. But he was very fastidious, very dependable, not to mention reasonable in price, so she was willing to allow him any eccentricity.

Though Matthew had made a hobby of puttering in the flower beds himself, he had hired Gil years ago, one of several forward-looking arrangements he had made for upkeep at home when his job started requiring him to travel more. Julia sometimes thought of such arrangements as credits on her husband's ledger page, though they in no way canceled the long list he had left in the other column after his death. It was a conflicted sort of gratitude she felt even now, colored as it was by the discovery of his many debts, which had become her debts.

She still remembered the day after Matthew's funeral, when certain financial horrors were beginning to come to light. Pamela had gone through Matthew's desk and dug out bills, statements, receipts, and one insurance policy, ironically small considering the fact that Matthew was in the insurance business. Pam had sorted through them all and put them in order, then entered everything on a spreadsheet. As Julia stood at the desk and stared at the figures displayed on the computer screen, she heard two things simultaneously: first, Pamela's voice saying, “I'll help you get through this, Jules, but I have to tell you it looks like he left you in a mess,” and, second, a lawn mower starting up right outside the window.

Looking out the window that day, Julia had seen Gil in his baggy work pants and red suspenders, his broad-brimmed hat pulled down low over his eyes, maneuvering the mower around the base of an oak tree. And she remembered Pamela following her eyes to the window, then saying, “At least you don't have to worry about your yard along with everything else right now—well, except
paying
him to do it.”