More Perfect than the Moon (2 page)

“Anna wants to talk to you, Cassie.”

My sister’s voice sounded faint and faraway.

“Cass? I know you’re worried, but Sarah will be fine. Don’t worry. Sam will take care of her.”

I started to cry again.

“It’s all right, Cassie,” Grandfather said.

“No,” I said, looking up into his face. It was as pale as Mama’s.

“Maybe it is my fault. She told me not to watch her. I wish I hadn’t watched her!”

I cried until Grandfather’s shirt was wet with my tears.

Grandfather and I fed the cows and the sheep while we waited. I tossed grain to the chickens, the chicks of Mama’s chickens from long ago. I liked the sounds they made, happy and peaceful clucking, the same every day. Comforting. I remembered the first time I’d fed the chickens. I was so small, and when I was scared Papa lifted me up and up and up above the chickens and Mama laughed.

All of a sudden I remembered my papa’s words: sometimes the hopes and dreams we write about may come to be. I tossed the last of the grain to the chickens and ran to get my journal. I lay on the daybed and wrote.

Mama and Papa and Caleb drove to town because Mama was sick. But she isn’t sick. She is well and happy and her cheeks are rose colored again. When she comes home, she brings me a small gift. A perfect gift. More perfect than the moon.

I laid my head on the pillow and read my words.
A perfect gift. More perfect than the moon.
I liked those words. They were good words.

I slept then. I dreamed about a perfect gift.

“Cassie. Cassie.”

Grandfather was shaking my shoulder.

“You’re dreaming, Cass. Wake up. Anna wants to talk to you.”

“Is Mama all right?”

“Sarah’s fine.”

I ran to the phone.

“Anna?” I could hardly catch my breath.

“Cassie, she’s all right. She just left.”

“She’s coming home?!”

“Yes.”

“Did Dr. Sam give her medicine?”

“She’ll tell you, Cassie. When she gets there. I have to go now.”

“Wait! Anna?”

“What?”

I took a deep breath.

“Is Mama bringing home a perfect gift?”

There was the sound of surprised silence on the phone line.

“Maybe,” said Anna, her voice soft. “Maybe. Good-bye.”

Before I could say good-bye back to Anna, she had hung up.

Grandfather took my hand and together we walked outside.

“Well now, I’d better get back to the chores,” he said. He began to walk to the barn. He turned.

“Are you all right, Cassie?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m going to pick a bouquet of flowers for Mama.”

“Perfect,” said Grandfather, smiling.

Perfect.

More perfect than the moon.

4

“C
assie! They’re coming!”

Grandfather’s voice seemed to float from far away over the prairie grasses.

I stood in the fields with a handful of violets and yellow star grass and watched the wagon come up the road. Papa was driving, Mama sitting next to him.

Caleb waved from the back of the wagon. I waved back and began running through meadow grass and flowers. I jumped over the small stream that was filled with water, startling the cows. One of the sheep, Mattie, I think, began running beside me, and I could feel myself grinning. It felt strange to grin. I had been so sad and scared this morning.

The wagon stopped and Papa helped Mama down. Caleb began to unhitch the horses.

“Your cheeks are rose colored!” I cried, making Papa smile. “You’re not sick. It’s just the way I wrote it!”

I handed Mama the flowers.

“Thank you, Cassie,” Mama said.

“Let’s get inside,” said Papa.

Mama was silent. I looked sideways at her. Her lips were pressed together as if she didn’t want to let words out.

“Aren’t you happy that you’re not sick?” I asked.

Mama took off her coat and sat down. She put my flowers on the kitchen table.

“I’ll put these in water in a minute,” she said.

Caleb came into the kitchen. Mama looked at him for the longest time.

“You’re so tall, Caleb,” she said softly. “I remember when I first came here. . . .” Her voice faded.

“I was little,” said Caleb. “I was very little, and Anna and I were very scared that you wouldn’t stay. I wanted everything to be . . .” Caleb searched for the word.

“Perfect,” I said quickly.

Everyone looked at me, and I could feel my face flush.

“You weren’t born yet, Cassie,” said Caleb softly.

“I know. But I read Anna’s journals. Grandfather and I read them together.”

“We did,” said Grandfather.

“And you brought gifts from Maine for Anna and Caleb, Mama. A smooth sea stone and a shell.”

“I did,” said Mama.

One of the cats, Lily, brushed against my leg.

“And you brought Seal,” I said. “All the way from Maine.”

Mama leaned down to stroke Lily.

“Lily’s grandmother,” she said, her voice low.

“And then you became my mama,” I said.

Mama looked at me then.

“What did you mean, Cassie? That I wasn’t sick and that my cheeks were
rose colored? And it was how you had written it?”

I got my journal.

“Papa said that wishes and hopes and dreams were good things to fill my journal. Maybe, he said, some of them would come true.”

“He said that?”

I read her the part of what I had written:

“‘When she comes home, she brings me a small gift. A perfect gift.

“‘More perfect than the moon.’”

It was quiet in the room.

“I thought if I wrote you weren’t sick then you would come home happy and well,” I said.

“With a gift more perfect than the moon,” whispered Sarah.

Papa leaned down to kiss Mama’s cheek. And suddenly, surprising us all, Mama and Papa both smiled. Not just smiles. They grinned.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

Caleb smiled, too. Grandfather poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.

“Why are you smiling?” I asked Mama.

“Be patient, Cassie,” said Grandfather. “I think they’re about to tell us.”

Now Mama’s face was serious. So serious that I thought she might cry. I could see tears in her eyes.

“What you wrote, Cassie, is true. About a perfect gift,” she said.

“It is?”

I moved over to Mama and she put an arm around me.

“What is the gift?” I asked.

“A baby,” said Mama.

“Baby?” I asked.

Mama took a deep breath and looked at Caleb, then Grandfather, then me. She smiled at Papa.

“Our baby,” she said. “We’re going to have our baby.”

There was a silence all around the room.

“
Our
baby,” she repeated softly.

Our baby!

I moved away from Mama.

“I didn’t want to tell you all earlier because . . .”

Mama stopped.

“Because she didn’t want you to worry,” said Papa. “She wanted everything to be all right.”

When I spoke my voice did not sound like my voice.

“
Everything is not all right,
” I said loudly. “And this is not
our
baby. It is
your
baby. Yours! And it is not the perfect gift! It isn’t!”

“Cassie,” said Grandfather, reaching out for my arm.

I pushed him away and ran out the door and through the yard. Lottie and Nick, sleeping on the porch, lifted their heads as I ran off. I ducked through the fence and ran across the meadow and to the fields and over the hill until I couldn’t see the house anymore.

I sat behind the big tree on the hill, looking over the slough. The slough was filled with water from the summer rains. A family of ducks swam around the edges. Everything was peaceful and the way it had always been.

But things were not the same. Nothing would ever be the same. My throat hurt as if I might cry. I pulled out my journal and began writing to stop the tears from coming.

Mama and Papa should have brought me a new journal, but they didn’t.

A baby is not a gift. Not the gift I wanted. A baby is a bother.

New glass marbles are gifts, blue and green and with cloudy swirls.

A new horse, a baby lamb are gifts.

Books are gifts, to read and read and read again.

The new baby will be ugly and mean.

I will make it do all my chores.

There was a rustle beside me. Papa sat down. Lottie and Nick ran past us down to the water, sending up the ducks. I closed my journal.

“What are you writing about?” Papa asked.

“Gifts.”

“I hope you put a new bridle in there,” he said. “That’s what I’m wanting.”

Lottie and Nick waded into the water.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked.

“No. I’m not mad.”

“Mama’s mad, I bet.”

“No. Mama’s not mad, either.”

“Why not?”

“She loves you,” said Papa.

Lottie came out of the water and when she shook, the droplets caught the light.

“When you were born,” said Papa very softly, “you were wondrous.”

I had never heard Papa use that word before.

“Was I more perfect than the moon?”

“I don’t think anything is perfect,” he said. “Or anyone.”

“Then why did you like me?”

“You smiled right off the bat.”

“I don’t think babies do that,” I said.

“You did that. And you made small snuffling noises. And when I held you, you smelled like something sweet I’d never smelled before. Like spring roses.”

That sounded perfect to me, but I didn’t say so out loud.

“Did Anna and Caleb love me?”

“Yes. When you began to walk, you followed them around wherever they went.”

“Did they hate that?”

“No. They thought you were funny.”

“Well, I am not going to let the new baby follow me anywhere.”

“That’s up to you,” said Papa.

Nick came out of the water then and started to walk up the hill to where we sat.

“I will not speak to the baby. And I will not look at the baby, either,” I said.

“Watch out, Cassie,” said Papa suddenly, taking my hand.

We stood up, but we were not fast enough. Nick shook water all over us. Papa and I laughed and ran back through the fields, dripping water, Lottie and Nick barking and leaping around us.

We jumped over the little brook and ran across the meadow to the house.

Mama’s flowers were still on the kitchen table, dried and wilted. She had forgotten to put them in water.

I threw them away.

No matter what Papa says, I will not love the new baby.

5

H
ot summer days came and the slough dried up. The hay had been cut once, but it was growing fast again. The dogs and I wound our way through the hay fields and through the corn. We made a nest in the shade of the corn. Lottie and Nick slept there as I wrote.

Summer is too hot. I can’t write. I like winter. There is something sharp about winter that makes me think. I like writing all curled up in a corner of the warm house, safe and quiet. Out here in the open there is too much space. My thoughts fly away.

Mama is getting bigger every day. Soon she will float up and up and hover over us like a rain cloud.

“Cassie! Where are you?”

The dogs lifted their heads and thumped their tails. It was too hot to get up.

My sister Anna came through the corn, her face dusty.

“There you are.”

She sat down next to me, reaching out to pet Lottie and Nick.

“You know, I used to hide out here, too.”

I smiled.

“Grandfather says ‘you know’ all the time, too,” I said.

“So do you. I remember when you didn’t like Grandfather,” said Anna.

“I was scared of him.”

“Not anymore,” said Anna.

“Grandfather knows everything,” I said. “Sometimes
that’s
scary.”

Anna’s long hair was the color of corn. She had caught it back in a blue ribbon.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Just came to visit. I brought some
medicine for Grandfather. And to check on Sarah.”

Anna lived in town now and worked for Dr. Sam. Once I had hidden behind the Russian olive bushes and had seen her kiss Justin, Dr. Sam’s son. It was a long kiss and I had counted twenty-seven full seconds.

“And to see you, Cassie. And to tell you a secret.”

“I’m tired of secrets,” I said.

“You’re never tired of secrets, Cass, you know.”

Anna and I laughed at “you know.”

“They told you about the baby?”

I nodded.

“It made me think about when you were born,” Anna said.

“Papa said you loved me.”

“Oh, not in the beginning, Cass.”

I was surprised.

“But Papa said so.”

“Well, I didn’t tell Papa that I thought you were ugly and wrinkled and took too much of Sarah’s time. I was about your age, Cass. I was very grown up and I didn’t want any silly baby around.”

I nodded.

“I will not look at or speak to this baby when it comes. I told Papa.”

Anna didn’t say anything.

I looked closely at her.

“What made you love me?”

Anna burst out laughing.

“I couldn’t help it!” she said. “I just couldn’t help it.”

“Tell me,” I said.

Anna shook her head, still laughing.

“I can’t tell you why, Cass. You’ll see.”

No. I won’t see.

The sun moved over us. Lottie and Nick crawled into the shade, panting. Anna and I lay back on the ground. There was a sweet smell of corn and earth all around us.

“What is the secret?” I asked.

Anna smiled.

“I knew you really weren’t tired of secrets.”

She held out her left hand for me to see. On her third finger was a gold ring, a sparkling stone in the middle.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means Justin and I are getting married,” said Anna. “No one else knows yet. I told you first.”

I turned my head and smiled at her and she smiled back.

“I saw you kiss him for a lot of seconds once,” I said.