Valley of the Moon (39 page)

B
enno and I were completely absorbed into the community. July in Greengage was my favorite time of year. I worked in the garden, harvesting sugar snap peas and melons; Benno spent most of his time helping Matteo in the vineyard. We rose before first light and fell into bed the moment it got dark.

Oh, the incredible luxury of not having to leave a few days after we arrived. We began to talk about the future as if we had one. The following Wednesday. Next Saturday. A week from Sunday. I couldn't stop staring at the three of them. There, in front of me, my family. Eating, walking, laughing, playing cards. I hadn't realized how starved I'd been for this. Forget jewelry, or vacations, or a new car.

The most precious gift you could give somebody—time.

“T
he flower clock,” said Lux. “What happened to it?”

She sat between my legs on the porch step. Tomorrow was the full moon. She and Benno had been here a month and we still had a month to go.

When Lux and I first became a couple, I agonized over what Martha would have thought about us. Would she have felt betrayed? Once a week I went to her gravesite with a pair of clippers. I kept the grass neatly cut and the stone free of moss, but really I was searching for a sign. I looked for her approval in birdsong, in a squirrel scampering up a tree, in a particularly beautiful spider web. Eventually I realized I was making this far more difficult than it needed to be. Martha loved me. She loved Lux. She would have been happy for us.

“It never really worked, no matter how much attention I gave it. So finally—I just decided to let it go,” I said. I still felt guilty when I looked at it. The weeds had taken over. The plants, so carefully chosen, had dried up and browned.

“It never made sense to me,” said Lux. “The whole idea of it was the antithesis of Martha. Forcing flowers to open and shut at a certain hour. Trying to control time. To control nature.”

“Martha didn't show it, but sometimes she felt desperate, just like all of us, trapped by our circumstances,” I said. “The flower clock was her way of fighting back.”

“Do you think she knew it wouldn't work?”

I nodded. “Yes, but working on the clock kept hope alive in her. That was reason enough for the undertaking.”

Lux tipped her head back and smiled. “Aren't you going to ask me?”

“Ask you what?”

“If I'm staying. Tomorrow.”

“Why would I ask you if I know the answer?”

“To make sure I hadn't changed my mind.”

I gave her braid a gentle yank. “Have you changed your mind?”

She smiled. “I'm staying. We're staying through the full moon. Can you believe it?”

No, I couldn't believe it. I was so used to getting her in bits and pieces. A day here. An overnight there. A week, if we were lucky. This month had felt like a dream. Similar, in a strange way, to how I felt that first month after the earthquake, when we realized we'd been trapped by the fog. A drifting, but a drifting toward something. A shared future.

“You're sure?” I asked.

She gave me a long, sweet look. There were no words.

“S
o how are you feeling?” I asked Benno after dinner that same night.

We were sitting on a boulder down by the creek.

“About what?”

After spending a month in Greengage, Benno was the color of teak and had muscles in places he hadn't before. My beautiful boy. Dressed as usual in Levi's and a flannel shirt. Scuffed Timberlands. A leather cuff around his wrist.

“Tonight. Staying through the full moon. Having you around full-time, I've never seen Vivi so happy.”

“I've never seen you so happy,” he said.

“Yes, well.” Somehow my happiness felt disloyal to Benno.

He grinned at me and jumped off the rock. “Gotta go.”

“Wait. Where are you off to? Do you have plans for tonight?”

He shrugged noncommittally; he always wanted to keep his options open. He was quite popular in Greengage, just as he was back in his own life: I'm sure he had lots of invitations.

For a split second the boy surfaced in his manly face. His dark eyes glittered. A vulnerable softness around his mouth.

I slipped off the rock, hoping to get a hug, but he was eighteen, I couldn't just thrust myself upon him anymore.

He made no move toward me.

“Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See ya, Mom.”

He loped off.

I woke after midnight. The room was spinning.

“Joseph!” I cried out.

He bolted up, immediately awake.

“Is it an earthquake?”

“No, it's not an earthquake.” He drew me under his arm. “Stay still.”

“I feel dizzy. It feels like I'm falling.”

“Just close your eyes.”

Panicked, I cupped my ears with my hands, trying to slow the whirling.

“You're safe here. We're safe together,” he murmured.

In the morning we walked to the dining hall and Joseph seemed distracted. I held Vivi's hand and she toddled along slowly, stopping every five minutes to examine something. A ladybug on a blade of grass. A rock flecked with mica.

“God, I must have eaten something bad last night,” I said. “I still feel like my equilibrium is off.”

“Hurry,” Joseph said.

“Why?”

He didn't answer.

“Why?” I pressed him, picking Vivi up.

She made a cry of protest.

“Give her to me,” said Joseph. He carried her piggyback, her fat little hands clasped tightly around his neck.

“Do you feel dizzy?” he asked me.

I stopped. “Yeah. Sort of. It's the weirdest sensation. It's like I'm standing still but everything is flying by me.”

He pressed his lips together grimly. “Time is speeding up.”

“What?” I gasped.

“I'm sorry, Lux. I'm guessing more than a day passed outside the fog last night.”

It took me a moment to process this information.

“But you said on full moon days time had been passing regularly. It's been that way for months,” I protested.

“It was—until last night, I think.”

We walked into the dining hall. He deposited Vivi on the floor and she ran off to join Gennie and Fancy. He scanned the room.

“Where's Benno?”

“I don't know.”

“Who was he with last night?”

“Joseph, you're scaring me.”

“I don't see him. He's not here.”

“I assumed he was sleeping in. His door was shut and I didn't want to wake him.”

“He's not in his bedroom—I checked. And all his friends are here. There, at that table.”

All his friends
were
there, laughing, spearing sausage links with their forks.

“What did he say to you yesterday? What did you two talk about?” he asked.

“I don't know. It was just chitchat.”

“Come on, Lux. Think. There had to be more.”

I got a mental image of Benno's profile. Once, he'd let Penny put mascara on him, and his lashes were so thick and long they'd nearly touched his brow bone.

He said he'd never seen me so happy.

We went back to the house. It was Joseph who finally spied the note on the mantel in the parlor.

Mom, went to meet a friend. Don't worry, I won't leave you stranded. I'll be waiting for you in the parking lot on August 30th.

He hadn't stayed through the full moon. He'd gone through the fog.

“You have to go,” said Joseph.

“What about Vivi?”

“I'll take care of her.”

“What if—”

He put a finger to my lips, silencing me. “Go find him.”

B
enno wasn't in the parking lot. Neither was my car. Déjà vu. Only this time there was no payphone, no piece of paper taped up on the side of the phone booth saying
Have You Seen This Woman?
The only thing there was a bus stop.

I ran out to the road. What was my plan? To flag down a car? To hitchhike? Everything was eerily quiet. Judging by the deep blue shade of the sky, I surmised it must be early in the morning. Just after dawn.

I went back to the bus stop and sat on the bench. Okay, how bad could it be? How much time could have passed? Three, four months? Longer than that? I let myself imagine a year. Jesus, what if it was a year? What if I'd missed another year of his life! But it would be different this time. First of all, Benno was eighteen, not nine. Second of all, he wouldn't have felt abandoned, because he'd have known exactly where I was, in Greengage—exactly where he was supposed to be. I took a deep breath. A year, okay, a year, his first year of college. My mother would have kept an eye on him; she would have moved into our apartment. Made sure he ate well. She would have taken him to the cathedral on Christmas Eve. To Stinson Beach on Labor Day. She would have made a cake for his birthday.

His birthday!

Oh, Benno—what were you thinking? How could you have done this? I never would have stayed through the full moon if you hadn't agreed to stay, too.

A bus pulled into the parking lot, a San Francisco express. I hadn't even heard it approach. No squeal of brakes. No roar of a diesel engine. It was silent. The door opened, beckoning me in. I hesitated. Just as the door began to close, I ran up the stairs, reaching for my wallet.

“How much?” I said, but there was no driver, only a panel of electronics. I clutched the handrail. “Oh God,” I whimpered.

“Please take a seat,” said a disembodied voice as the bus pulled onto an empty road.

I made my way down the aisle, my anxiety skyrocketing. There were three people on the bus, all sitting in the back: a sleeping man buttressed by two suitcases, and a young couple who were making out.

The bus was driving itself? I'd have to readjust my estimate: three years? Five? I started to hyperventilate, then I remembered my father's advice.
If you ever get lost in the woods, the worst thing you can do is panic. Act like a scientist. Observe. Take note of your surroundings. Be patient. You'll find the way back.

The sky slowly brightened. The highway was a vibrant green, made up of hexagons. We were joined by other early morning commuters. Mostly buses and some cars, all of them driverless as well, their passengers in the backseats, reading or sipping cups of coffee. Driving had apparently been outsourced.

Five years, five years.
If I said it loud enough, maybe the fates would hear me and feel sorry for me and I would lock in the five years and be done with it. Five years was not so bad. Benno would be twenty-three.

There was a small screen embedded in the seat in front of me, and advertisements scrolled across it. The weather. A sale at Macy's. An entreaty to ration water.

The screen spoke. “Your destination?”

I was so surprised I answered immediately, like a schoolgirl being addressed by the principal.

“Noe Valley.”

“Address?”

“Four twenty-eight Elizabeth Street.”

“Adding your destination to route. Will arrive at the corner of Douglass and Elizabeth Street in approximately thirty-one minutes,” the voice informed me.

I glanced behind me. Was everybody else getting the same sort of special treatment? Would they be driven directly to their destinations as well? But the man slept. The teenagers sucked face. Maybe the screen had already asked them.

I gripped the armrests. My fingernails dug into the leather.
Ten years. Ten years. Do you hear me? Not a week more than that.
Breathless with dread, I stared out the window, searching for some sign that it was going to be okay.

We stopped just before going over the Golden Gate Bridge to let the teenagers out. They scrambled down the steps, still clinging to each other, and on we went to San Francisco. Downtown looked jarringly different. Gleaming glass skyscrapers thousands of feet tall. Rooftop parks. A building that looked like saucers stacked one on top of another.

The man with the suitcases awoke and got off in Union Square, and then it was just me on the bus. When we got to Douglass Street, I asked the screen, “How much?”

“All public transportation in the city of San Francisco and its environs is free. If you wish to make a donation to the San Francisco Transportation Department, you may do so now.”

I was directed to press my thumbprint onto the screen. Blindly I did so.

“You are not in the system.” A list of countries appeared. “Please input your country of origin.”

Not knowing what to do, I jumped off the bus. Panting, I stood on the street corner for a good fifteen minutes, trying to calm myself.
Please, please, please.
Please what?
Please don't let this be as bad as it looks. Please let this still be the twentieth century.

Please, oh, Benno, please.

My neighborhood appeared much the same. The same Victorians, the same tiny driveways. In the early morning light, the houses looked like they were breathing.

I stopped in front of 428 Elizabeth Street. I'd stood here just four weeks ago and the trim was peeling. Now the house was painted a glossy dark gray. I couldn't shake the sense that it was staring at me. I half expected it to speak as the bus had.

I walked up the stairs to the front door. Was it too early to ring the buzzer?

I needn't have worried. Before I'd done anything, the door swung open and the smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted out. “Just a sec,” said a man's voice. A little scratchier, a little throatier. Unmistakably older. Benno.

I prepared myself for what I might find. My son in his late twenties. I wouldn't be angry at him. There must have been a good reason he left.

It wasn't Benno. A man in his sixties, with rumpled silver hair, came down the stairs to greet me.

“Good morning,” he said, after a pause.

“Um—hi. Is Benno Lysander here?”

He furrowed his brow. It
was
too early; I had probably woken him.

“He's not, but please come in.” He held the door open for me.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked.

“I didn't know, the house knew.”

“And it just opened the door? What if I were a burglar?”

He laughed. “Then it wouldn't have opened the door. Would you like some coffee?”

I must have had a suspicious look on my face, because he gave a small bow. “I promise
I
am not a burglar.”

I was unsure of what to make of him, but I had nowhere else to go, no other way of obtaining information about my son, so I followed him up the stairs.

“Thank you. I'd love some coffee,” I said as we walked into the apartment.

“How do you take it?”

“Cream. Teaspoon of sugar.”

“Cream. Teaspoon of sugar,” he said under his breath, and I heard the beans being ground in the kitchen. “This way.”

I bristled. I knew the way to the kitchen.
My
kitchen.

“I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but what are you doing here?” I asked.

“I live here.”

“In this apartment?”

“Yes, in this apartment.”

“With Benno?”

“No, with my partner, Alejandro. I'm Lucien.”

He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a box of cereal. Froot Loops. The coffeemaker churned, gurgled, and spat a thick black liquid into a waiting mug.

We stared at each other awkwardly. He broke the silence.

“My name means light, just like yours, Lux.”

A ghastly coldness settled inside my breast.

He lowered the boom as gently as he could. “It's 2064. I'm your grandson.”

It was 2064? Seventy-six years had gone by?

I braced myself against the wall, pressing my legs together, trying to keep them from shaking, unable to bring myself to ask the obvious question. Where was Benno?

A figure seemed to appear on the surface of Lucien's left eye. He was wearing some sort of contact lens. I saw a tiny woman sitting at a desk.

“No. Something has come up,” he said, apparently speaking to the woman. “A family emergency. Reschedule the meeting to seven
A.M.
PST tomorrow.”

The woman disappeared. “Everybody wears lenses,” he explained. “We conduct business with them, shop with them—they do just about everything for you.”

My eyes darted around the room, frantically looking for something safe, something familiar. The cereal box. Toucan Sam.
Follow your nose. It always knows. The flavor of fruit. Wherever it grows.
Froot Loops was Benno's favorite breakfast.

“Is—” I sputtered.

He sighed. “I'm so sorry to have to tell you this. My father is gone. He passed away in 2060. My mother, Karen, died a year later.”

I gaped at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. I was confused, my mind grasping. His father?

“Your father?”

He gave me the gentlest of looks.

“Benno,” he said.

“My son? You're talking about my son?”

“I'm afraid so.”

I wobbled and took an involuntary step to the right. He reached out to steady me and I flinched. The last thing I wanted was for him to touch me. This man who was delivering to me the worst news of my life.

My son, Benno, who I just saw yesterday? Who needed to shave his sideburns? Who'd taught his little sister all the words to the Stones' “You Can't Always Get What You Want”? Whose dirty laundry sat in a pile back in Greengage, waiting for me to wash it on Sunday?

“I don't believe it,” I whispered.

“I'm so sorry,” said Lucien.

I shook my head vigorously, as if I could shake out what he was saying. The gesture was all Vivi's—she did this whenever I said no to her.

“But he was only eighteen!” I cried.

“Actually, he was ninety, Lux. And he lived a good, long life.”

“Don't tell me that,” I choked out, as I realized the disassociation I was feeling was because we were talking about two different people.

We weren't mourning the same Benno, because we didn't know the same Benno. I could only speculate about the man Benno would become, as I'd done so often while he sat at the kitchen table doing his homework. Would he marry? What would his spouse be like? Where would he work? What would he name his children? What kind of a grandmother would I be? What city would he finally settle in? Would his favorite meal always be pot roast and mashed potatoes?

That this stranger standing in front of me held all the answers was unthinkable.

No, we weren't mourning the same Benno, because my Benno was not even out of his teenage years. To my knowledge he'd never been in love, never had sex, never eaten Peking duck—never even been out of the country. My son and Lucien's father were as unrelated as they could be. Neither one of us knew the one the other mourned.

I slumped to the floor. Benno was gone? Oh God, that meant my mother was gone, too! I wheezed, my breath shallow.

Lucien crouched down and put an arm around me.

“Breathe,” he said.

Breathing was an impossibility.

“Look at me,” he commanded. “Just look at me.”

I focused on his face.

I thought of that night when Benno was nine, when I'd come home in the wee hours of the morning from the Valley of the Moon. The way he'd clung to me on the couch. I'd promised him I'd always be with him. That we'd always be together.

And Rhonda and Ginger? The Patels? Mike Mulligan? My colleagues at Baytelco? All of them? Dead?

“It wasn't your fault. You have to know that. It was nobody's fault,” said Lucien.