Moon Dance (13 page)

Padding back through the kitchen on quiet feet still wrapped in dark blue socks, Matt paused to open the refrigerator and study its contents, and was pleased to find a forgotten bowl of leftover spaghetti on the second shelf behind a container of sour cream.

"Ah, the breakfast of champions," he beamed as he reached for the bowl of spaghetti, which he ate cold.

Feeling better but still tired, he walked back through the living room, unbuttoning his dress shirt from the night before. The light on his answering machine was blinking, and he hit it as he passed by. The only message of any note was one from Laura, telling him that she'd found a tenant for Pumpkin Hill and Matt could call her for the details. Matt paused in midstride. He didn't need details; a tenant was a tenant. Matt had not been the least bit happy over the prospect of renting out the family farm, but after the break-in at the ba
rn
the week before, he had been forced to face the fact that leaving the property vacant could well be a heartache waiting to happen. Although
he tried to drive out to O'Hearn
once a week, his responsibilities at the clinic sometimes prevented him from making the trip.

But there was another trip on his agenda once a week, one that nothing ever deterred him from taking. And this morning, he would take that trip out to Riverview to see his mother. Hopeful that perhaps this week she'd know who he was, Matt pulled off his shirt and headed for the shower.

M
att stood in the dayroom of the nursing home— the brochures called it a "total care facility"—and studied the delicate face of the woman who sat
staring out the window, and he felt his heart break just a lit
tl
e more. He'd come to know by the look on her face what to expect from any given visit. Today, he knew, she was in a world all her own. He wished that she could take him there with her. Anywhere with his mother would have been welcome, if only just for a little while. He inhaled sharply and stepped into the room, making his way around the other residents, who sat in no particular order in wheelchairs here and there around the dayroom.

"Mom," he said as he knelt down next to her chair.

She blinked, then turned and looked at him blankly. "Hello," she said pleasantly.

"It's me, Mom. It's Matt."

Just as pleasantly, she said, "Oh. Hello, Matt."

His heart sank. He hated when she didn't know him, hated the fact that he could be anyone stopping by and he'd get the same response from her. He hated the disease that had taken his mother and left this stranger in her body. He knew that, if she could
know
—could be aware of what had happened to her—that she would have hated it, too.

"Did you have your breakfast yet?" he asked as he pulled up an orange plastic chair to sit close to her.

"No." She shook her head.

"Would you like me to ask the nurse to bring you something?" He took her tiny hands and rubbed them gently with his own.

"That would be nice," she said and smiled, melting his heart.

"You wait right here, and I'll see if I can find someone." He patted her hands and placed them in her lap, where she left them.

"Excuse me," he flagged down an attendant in the hallway. "I was wondering if I might get some breakfast for my mother."

"Ev
eryone's already had breakfast,"
the young male orderly told him.

"My mother says she hasn't."

"You better check with the nurses, then." The young man pointed to the nurses' station down the hall.

"Excuse me
…
" Matt approached the desk.

The pretty brunette nurse looked up and smiled.

Matt smiled back.

"I'd like to get some breakfast for my mother."

"Breakfast was served at eight this morning," she told him.

"My mother said she hasn't eaten
…
"

"Who's your mother?" she asked.

"Charity Bishop."

"Mrs. Bishop ate in the small dining room with Mrs. Hanson and Mr. Samuels and a few others," she told him, then added gently, "It isn't unusual that she'd forget."

"But are you sure
…"

"Oh, positive. I saw her there when I came on my shift at eight. She definitely ate. She has an excellent appetite, I might add."

Matt thanked her and, shoving his hands into his pockets, walked back down the hall to the dayroom.

"Mom, the nurse said you ate breakfast with your friends earlier," he told her as he sat down.

She frowned. "I don't think I did. No, I'm certain I did not."

She was so sincere that, for a moment, Matt thought perhaps the nurse had made a mistake. But then he recalled how many other things she had forgotten—like the names and faces of her children—and realized that she simply could not remember.

"She'll bring something in a while," he told her, patting her hands again.

"Thank you." She smiled sweetly.

"In the meantime, while we wait, how 'bout if I get you some tea, and we can visit for a while?"

"That would be very nice." She nodded.

He went back into the hallway, down two doors to the small snack bar where he purchased two overpriced cups of tea and some shortbread cookies in a red plaid wrapper.
Maybe she had eaten, but if she feels as if she had not,
he rationalized,
perhaps she's hungry.

He took the tray back to the dayroom and placed it on a nearby table. Her eyes had a faraway look, and he bit his bottom lip to hide his disappointment.

"The tea will be cool enough to drink in a few minutes," he told her as he sat down. "Now, I'm sure it isn't as good as the tea that Hope used to make—"

"Who?" she asked.

"Hope." He sighed. "Your sister."

"Oh."

"Do you remember Hope?"

She looked confused, and did not answer.

"There was a break-in at the ba
rn
," he told her, waiting to see her reaction to the news.

"Oh?"

"Yes. Nothing was stolen—actually, it was just a
bunch of kids who got in through a window that Laura left open. They climbed a ladder to the second floor and spent the night drinking beer and having a little party for themselves." He paused. When she did not respond to this news, he added, "Chief Monroe has convinced Laura and me that the best thing to do would be to rent out the farm. So that's what we're doing. There will be a tenant living at Pumpkin Hill, Mom."

"Do you live there
…
"

Matt could tell that she was struggling, so he told her his name again. "Matt."

"Matt," she repeated, adding, "That's a nice name."

"Thank you." He smiled weakly. "I live in Shawsburg. With Artie. Do you remember Artie? My dog?"

"No," she told him, her eyes brightening just a little. "But someone
…
"—she appeared to struggle, then shrugged it off—"has birds here. Would you like to see them?"

"I'd love to. Where are they?"

She frowned. "We'll have to find them. Would
you like to push me in this…
" She tapped the arm of the chair, searching for the word.

"Wheelchair," he helped her out.

"Yes." She pointed to the door. "I think the birds are out there somewhere. Maybe they'll be singing. I do love it when they sing
…"

All the way home, Matt thought about a canary a neighbor had given to him on his seventh birthday. That bird sang from the second that Charity removed the cover from its cage in the morning until she
covered it up again at night. Nonstop. All day. Every day. It drove everyone crazy. Except for Charity.

"It's all that poor thing can do," she would tell them when they complained. "All it knows is how to sing. And as beautiful as his song is, as much as I love to listen to him, I can't stand to see him in that cage. I wish Mrs. Carsen had asked before she bought it for you. It bothers me to keep wild things in a cage."

Charity would linger for a moment at the side of the cage and watch him. The bird would watch her, its head bent slightly to the side as if it understood that she was the one who not only appreciated his music, but sympathized with his captive plight. Then the bird would begin to sing again. It wasn't long before Charity was letting the bird out of the cage for a few hours every day. And it wasn't long after that, that the bird had flown straight out the front door when Matt had come in after school one day.

Matt thought of that now, of how she had offered to buy him another birthday present to replace the bird, but she had never apologized for having set it free.

He thought of the days after his father had died, when he had watched her wander up onto the beach at Bishop's Cove, where she would walk along the water's edge—a shoe swinging from each hand, the wind whipping her hair around her head—lost in her grief.

Charity had been a woman who had appreciated freedom for all things, and who had celebrated her own. That she was now restricted to the confines of a room or two, with only an occasional trip outside,
brought tears to his eyes. It seemed so unfair that age and disease had taken so much of what she once had been; of all she had loved and treasured.

The only good thing, he realized, was that she had no idea of how much she had lost. If she did, he suspected, it would probably kill her.

eight

U
pon waking early that first morning in the front bedroom at Pumpkin Hill Georgia had been slightly unnerved by the unfamiliar sounds that enveloped her new surroundings. In place of the street noise she'd become accustomed to back in Baltimore—the cars, the sirens wailing off in the distance signaling that some unfortunate soul was on his way to jail or to the nearest emergency room—she heard only birdsongs that wafted into the room on a morning breeze. All in all, she thought, it was not a bad trade.

She lifted her arms over her head in a healthy stretch, then sat up, dangling her legs over the side of the ancient poster bed with its lumpy mattress and feather pillows that felt as if they could have been original to the farmhouse. Standing, she tried to work out the kinks in her neck and in her back, mulling over the inevitability of buying a new mattress, even if she was planning on staying at Pumpkin Hill for
only a limited time. She couldn't start every new day
feeling as if she'd slept on the floor.
^:

Leaning on the wide ledge of the side window and looking out at the first minutes of the new day, she grinned, lured by its prospect. The sun had risen
gently—certainly not with the spectacular flair one might find on the beach at Bishop's Cove—but with the same promise of a fine day ahead. The weather report had predicted temperatures would rise close to sixty—a veritable heat wave—which would be just right to do some exploring. She changed into jeans and a flannel shirt and sat on the edge of the bed to put on her sneakers. She groaned, swearing she could feel the bed rails through the quilt.

She would definitely have to look into a new
mattress.

Breakfast was coffee and two of Mrs. Colson's biscuits left over from the night before. She would have to drive into O'Hea
rn
and do a little food shopping before lunch, she thought as she dribbled some of Hope's delicious apple butter onto first one, then the other biscuit, or lunch would be a repeat of breakfast.

Unlocking the back door, Georgia stepped outside and inhaled deeply, filling her lungs and sighing with the sheer pleasure of that first cool rush of fresh morning air. She sipped at her coffee as she strolled down the path leading from the back door, then stopped and frowned. The garden gate stood open again. She walked toward it tentatively, then peered over the fence. It startled her to see the plants that Laura had braced up with sticks only the day before lying broken and trampled on the ground.

The vandals had returned while she had slept alone in the farmhouse. The realization made the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up.

She went back into the farmhouse and searched for the telephone book, which she found in a drawer in the front hall table. She called Chief Monroe, who promised he'd be around as soon as the morning rush hour was over. Georgia was tempted to ask how many cars constituted a traffic jam in O'Hea
rn
, Maryland, but decided against it.

That someone had sneaked back onto the farm— maybe even walking beneath the windows of the very room she had slept in—had annoyed and puzzled her. How had someone managed to accomplish this without her having heard? Even if they had come on foot, she'd slept with the window partially open, and was a very light sleeper. Back in Baltimore, she'd often be awakened by the sound of the elevator landing on her floor, even though her apartment had been three doors down from the lobby and her bed was in the far back room.

Maybe Ben was right. Maybe she should think about getting a dog.

She refilled her cup with the last of the coffee and went outside to wait for Chief Monroe.

Early spring really was the best time of the year, she decided. There was a newness that had settled on everything at Pumpkin Hill, and it cheered her even as she paced the farmyard, waiting for the police to arrive.

Maybe it would be fun to have chickens,
she thought as she wandered by the old chicken house. Maybe she would plant something in the big vegetable garden
that Laura said her aunt always planted out behind the ba
rn
. Tomatoes, maybe, and maybe some green beans. Zucchini was a favorite. And cantaloupe
…

She rounded the corn
er of the ba
rn
and stopped in horror. The devastation in the flower garden was nothing compared with the mess she found in the vegetable garden. Everything that had remained from last year's planting had been ripped out by the roots, and the flattened stalks of dried vegetation lay scattered everywhere. She could do little more than stand and stare. Why would someone do something like this?

Maybe,
she rationalized,
there were homeless people living in the woods.
But then, wouldn't they have moved into the obviously vacant house? Or at
least sought shelter in the barn
?

The sound of the police cruiser's tires crunching on the stone drive drew her to the side of the ba
rn
, where she waited for Chief Monroe, wondering what he'd think of this latest bit of vandalism.

"Now, that does beat all." He scratched his head. "And no footprints that I can see. Must be some kind of animal. That'd be my guess. Maybe a raccoon, though I've never known one to make this sort of mess. Deer will raid a garden, but I've yet to see one open a gate. I'll ask around when I get back to town and see if anyone else has had a similar problem. And I'll check in with the kids we picked up the other night. They swear they went nowhere near the garden, but won't do harm if I ask again. Maybe see where they were last night, while I'm at it. In the meantime, just make sure you keep the doors locked
and the phone handy. Don't hesitate to call me,
now."

Chief Monroe patted her on the back as he walked toward his car, whose radio had begun to squawk. "A dog might be a good idea," he called over his shoulder.

"I'll think about it," she told him.

"County SPCA always has some nice ones," he added as he got in the car. "And don't forget to call Laura and let her know."

That would wait, she decided. Laura had enough to worry about. For now, Georgia would clean up the mess in the garden behind
the barn
, then she'd make that trip into O'Hea
rn
for groceries. Then, if there was any time left, she'd relax in that wing chair in the living room and read the book on fortune-telling she'd found on one of the shelves before she went to bed last night. She'd been too tired to read through that marked section on reading tea leaves, but tonight she wouldn't be.

Georgia unlocked the ba
rn
using the padlock key that Laura had given her, and poked her head in just to make sure that no one lurked within. Satisfied that she was alone, she stepped in and took a sturdy rake down from the wall, where it hung alongside other implements used for turning over the earth. She knew what the hoe and the shovels were for, but some of the other implements looked more like weapons than garden tools. She locked the padlock behind her and set off for her first task of the day.

By the time she realized that she lacked the most important tool for the job at hand—a good pair of
gloves—her palms were already red and chafed, her soft hands just about to erupt into the blisters she could feel working beneath the surface of her skin. She looked around to gauge the morning's accomplishment. She'd gathered up all of the tall dried stalks and piled them high for the trash, then raked up the lesser debris. Not quite pretty, but certainly much tidier than how she'd found it. Mentally she added trash bags onto her shopping list, and absently brushed the dirt from her hands onto the seat of her pants.

Not so bad for my first morning,
she nodded, grateful for the feeling that for the first time in days, she had accomplished something useful.

Maybe just a quick tour of the farm,
she thought.
Laura said it was ninety-something acres, but so far I've only seen the area around the house and the ba
rn
.

In the field behind the barn
, the ancient tree with the enormous canopy stood proudly.
The wishing tree,
Laura had called it. Georgia headed for the tree, picking her way through the furrows left in the dirt by the last plowing, wondering what had been the last crop Hope Evans had planted there, and wondering when these fields might be planted again.

The wishing tree was an impressive sight from far away, but even more so from directly under its sprawling, leafless br
anches. The bark was deep gray-
brown and closely ridged, like a freeway design gone wild. At its base, roots twisted just slightly from the ground, and the first spring grass sprouted from the spaces between the gnarled elevations of tree root and earth. Georgia sat on one of these outcroppings of root, and gazed around at her new home.

The tree stood l
ike an oasis in the middle of th
e field that spread back to woods on two sides. Off to her left, a pond lay nestled in the fuzzy remains of last year's cattails. Straight ahead were the farmhouse and its outbuildings, as dose to a living postcard as anything she'd ever seen. Laura had told her that by the end of the summer, the apple, peach, and cherry trees would be laden with fruit Maybe, she
mused, she could find Hope's reci
pes and she could make jams to line the cupboard in the basement, to replace the ones Laura had taken back to the inn. Just for this one summer, she could learn to make apple butter and raise her own vegetables. She pictured herself at the end of the summer, tanned and lean from f
arm
work, and she smiled.

Georgia leaned forward and hugged her knees, tingling with an unexpected flush of contentment.
This is a good place,
she told herself,
the right place for me to be. A person could find herself here—could heal here—could learn and grow here.

Hopeful that she would, in fact, be able to do just that, she stood and brushed off the back of her jeans then headed toward the farmhouse. She'd make that trip into O'Hearn now, and when she got back, she'd make a list of things that she wanted to accomplish while she was here at Pumpkin Hill. A favorite Chopin piano concerto began to play in her head as she walked the narrow rows, and she began an extemporaneous dance. A
soubresault
—a sudden leap straight upward and forward—followed a
pirouette
— no small accomplishment in running shoes—and she giggled at the very thought of how she must look in her jeans and flannel shirt as she danced across the
field, choreographing her steps to the silent tune playing out in her head. Her arms reached upward in perfect form
en haut
—high above her head—while her feet found it difficult to
glissade
through the clumps of dirt. By the time she reached the edge of the field she was laughing out loud at her clumsy efforts.

Georgia walked through the back door of the farmhouse in search of her car keys and the cell phone, sobering as she sought to remember the last time dancing had been such fun.

H
aving spent several hours with his mother, Matt felt drained to his soul. It was all he could do to maintain a cheerful attitude while he was with her. Leaving her there in the care of strangers bothered him in ways he'd never been able to express. This was the same woman who had reached in and rescued him from hell; the woman who had taught him who he was, how to love. Every time he walked through the front doors of Riverview, he felt physically ill and depressed. How could he turn his back on her, abandon her to strangers, after all she had done for him?

On a strictly intellectual level, Matt recognized that neither he nor Laura was equipped to deal with their mother's special needs at this stage of her illness. Somehow, even that knowledge didn't make him feel better; did not, in his eyes, let either of them off the hook. All it did was to serve to confuse him even more. He drove back to Shawsburg with the windows of the pickup down, hoping that the March breezes
would clear his head and let him forgive himself for leaving Charity behind. They did not. There was only one thing that would.

He stopped at his house only long enough to pick up Artie before making the drive to Pumpkin Hill.

The old farm never failed to restore him, and he figured he could use a little rejuvenation right now. He was tired and ornery and wanted nothing more than a few hours alone with his dog and the wind that would blow across the empty fields of his family home. Anxious to get there, he stepped on the gas, grateful that it was, after all, Sunday, and traffic would be light. He'd reach his destination in less than thirty minutes, and he'd have the entire day to himself.

Matt pulled the pickup all the way to the end of the drive, and turned off the engine. Eager to romp, Artie flew out of the cab and off into the fields, while Matt checked out the ba
rn
. Satisfied that the kids who had broken in had meant no real harm, he checked the padlock before going up the steps to his apartment. He paused on the landing and looked back down. The ba
rn
was quiet without the rustle of his aunt's pygmy goats. Someday soon, he hoped, they'd be able to bring them home. And someday, he'd set up his own veterinary clinic right here at Pumpkin Hill.