The Moon Sisters (40 page)

“We’ll give you better, too, Papa,” Olivia said.

She stood on the stoop with a letter in her hand, half in the shadow of a tall oak, half in sun.

“You have another one, Liv?” my father asked her. “Let’s read it.”

“I can tell you what it says.” She held the letter to her chest. “It says, ‘Dear Dad. It’s cold today. I’m going to put the oven on to warm the room, and close the door to keep the heat in so I can write this letter in private.’ ”

I closed my eyes.

“ ‘But I feel sleepy,’ ” she said. “ ‘And the pilot light … The pilot light …’ ”

Her voice drifted off. The fire crackled.

“ ‘But I feel sleepy,’ ” my father continued, and I opened my eyes again, centered myself on him—my parent—and his sturdy gaze. “ ‘And the pilot light just went out.’ ”

Olivia walked over to us, her quiet tears a reflection of our own. “I don’t want this anymore,” she said. “I haven’t wanted anyone else to want it, either, so I kept it to myself. That was wrong, and selfish, and I’m sorry. You should have the choice, if you want to, if you need to read it.…”

Dear Family …

Olivia laid the letter on the table before us, still sealed, and I noticed what else she held: her glasses.

My heart felt bruised, as if I’d been flung from a tree, made to see the grass up close. The reason Olivia wouldn’t wear her glasses was that she didn’t trust herself not to read our mother’s letter, feared what she might learn if she did.

“I didn’t mean to hurt either of you by keeping that,” she said. “I don’t want any of us to hurt anymore.”

Must’ve hurt like hell to stare at the sun
, Hobbs had said.
Tells me it hurt even more not to. She says she doesn’t even know why she did it
.

Blind people couldn’t read pen-written letters. Was that why Olivia had stared at the sun in the first place? Would she have done that? Had she wanted to hold to hope so desperately that she would have? I thought of everything I’d learned about my sister, her
fears over having a hand in our mother’s death, her strong sense of responsibility for her mental wellness, and knew that it was possible, whether Olivia realized it consciously or not.

“I don’t need to read that letter, Liv,” my father said. “I think you’re right about what she wrote that morning. That’s what I want to believe.”

He looked at me with new spine in his expression, and for the second time in my life the earth seemed to falter on its axis. We could choose this—how we would remember her, how we’d think about the way she’d died—and embrace the uncertainty of this bag-of-marbles life.

And maybe it wasn’t impossible.

It had been a cold winter day, after all, and the stove was old. If Mom had been tired, might it, could it have happened the way Olivia imagined?

Some of the anger I’d carried over my mother’s death loosened in that moment, and I knew then that I could let it go. Honestly. Completely. Not just for my sister and my father, to avoid becoming the boot that could crush their hope, but for me. Jazz Marie Moon. And for Mama. Maybe especially for her.

I slid a hand up to cover my right eye, grateful for a gesture that spoke enough for me just then.

Olivia’s glasses were firm on her face when she fed my mother’s last letter to the fire. Together we watched the paper curl and turn feathery, until wisps of solid ash floated above it all like gray ghosts. My father added other letters, too—not all of them, but some. Dropped them into the flames, until the fire consumed them, greedy as a starved child.

If they noticed when I stole away into the house, they didn’t make mention of it. And when I returned with my grandfather’s obituary in hand, I added it, without a word or a second thought, to the fire.

Minutes later, when my father went inside to make up a batter, Olivia pulled the poster of Hobbs out of her pocket. I sat across from her at the table, watched with anticipation as she smoothed the paper out, print-side down, and then turned it over.

“Well? Change your mind about him now that you’ve seen that mug of his?” I asked, and surprised myself by holding my breath, rooting for Hobbs and his face full of art and scars.

“He really is beautiful.”

I nodded, despite myself. The photograph, and the negative.

“I dreamed about him last night,” she said, looking again at the poster. “It was so real. We were in bed together and—”

“Okay, stop.”

“We weren’t
doing
anything,” she said. “He was by my side, telling me about cranberry season, how the berries were ripe now and we should travel again to the glades. How he missed me and wanted to see me again so bad he could taste it. And then he said—he said he was … attached. That I was his missing part.” She flicked a tear away. “I used to think I could be satisfied with a pizza shop, but now I can’t imagine life without Hobbs. I really thought he’d call, but now … What if he never calls?” Tears streamed in earnest now, and she let them go, pushed her fingers against her nose as she shook her head, the very picture of doubt.

I walked to her side of the table and drew her face up with my hand on her chin. “What are you saying, Olivia Moon? What happened to
believe, believe
?”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore. Why? Do you believe?”

“I believe in you,” I said. “I also believe I just gagged from saying that, even though it’s true. Now you’d better stop with the waterworks, because as far as I can tell you don’t have windshield wipers on those things.”

We giggled together, as my father returned with his batter and ladle.

“I guess we can’t control life, or the people in it,” I said, settling on the bench beside her. Not how they might or might not read a
letter, or what they might feel or do about it if they did. Not who might have a heart attack while holding a pan of warm brownies, or get kidnapped in a robbery gone wrong, or drop from a buttery tree thanks to a tangle of events you never could’ve foreseen. Not death, not most of the time. “But we can control ourselves—right now, in this moment. That’s something. Maybe it’s everything.”

Olivia clasped her hands together and sniffed. A breeze blew through the branches above our heads, and sunlight flickered over the table.

“I still see the light sometimes when I close my eyes,” Olivia told me. “When I do, I catch her scent. I think it’s her way of telling me that it’s okay to move on and that she’ll always be with us. Do you think that’s stupid?”

She turned to look at me with her bespectacled eyes, the blue of them magnified in her glasses, her long lashes damp with sadness but prettier than ever. No glancing down to the ground. No blinking. Just one sister connecting with the other.

“It’s not stupid,” I told her. “I think you’re right.”

“I wonder if …”

“What?”

“It’s terrible to think it, but if Mama hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have met Hobbs at all. I’m so glad that I met him. I guess I’ll just have to take this waiting and wanting thing one day at a time.”

“That’s it.” I nodded. “One foot in front of the other.”

We sat together, watching our father burn pancakes.

“Why am I waiting for him to call me?” Olivia said, already out of her seat. “I can call information today, right now. I can track him down.”

“Of course you can,” I said, as my imagination cracked open.

I could stay at the funeral home or not stay. I could stay in West Virginia or not stay in West Virginia. I could follow an impulse. Me, Jazz Marie Moon. I might like that.

“Dad?” I said, as my sister stepped into the house. I noticed that his cakes had drooled all over the pan before burning, and he
was using a stick to push at the bricks, attempting to make them a more even pair, I assumed. “Would it be wrong—I mean, would you mind—?” I cleared my throat. “Would it be strange if I worked on Mom’s story?”

He turned to me with a wondering expression on his face.

“I sort of dreamed about it last night,” I said. “I think I might be able to work up an ending. I mean, I know I won’t be able to replicate her writing style, but maybe I can tell the story in a different way.”

I was stammering, I realized, like an idiot. Oh, good; it had come to this.

“I mean, would that be wrong?” I continued, seemingly unable to help myself. “Do you think she would’ve—”

“I think she would’ve loved that,” he said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

I smiled back at him. These minutes were mine, right now, and there were so many possibilities, I felt anxious over them. Not in a closed-casket kind of way, either, but in a when-do-we-leave kind of way. And maybe writing about everything filling my head would help me to sort it all out.

A clatter and a hiss drew my attention back to the fire, where my father’s makeshift griddle had toppled over completely, taking his charred cakes with it.

“Well, that’s that,” he said, adding his stick to the flames. “I give up.”

“It was a valiant effort,” I told him.

He crossed his arms over his chest, then turned with an eye on the roof. I hadn’t seen that look on his face in a long while.

“You want me to go get your fiddle?” Who cared if it wasn’t even ten in the morning? Our neighbors would have to deal.

“In a bit,” he said, as black smoke billowed behind him. “I’ve still got to feed you two, and myself. I’m starving.”

The phone rang from inside the house. Olivia shrieked.

“You think it’s Hobbs?” His crooked grin added,
This could be interesting
.

“It might be,” I said, thought,
I hope so
.

A quiet minute passed as we stared at the door, and then my father’s stomach growled.

“Let’s go.” I nudged him in the side. “I’ll make you a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
’m glad for the opportunity to thank some of the many people who helped to bring this book into being.

To my editor Christine Kopprasch, for her unfailing support, wise guidance, and kind encouragement; I am more grateful than I can express. And to Kate Kennedy, for an early and important critique that helped to shape this novel.

To my agent, Elisabeth Weed, for her many editorial contributions, for never losing faith in this story—or in me—and for negotiating a two-book deal with Crown in the first place. You rock.

To leading synesthesia researcher Jamie Ward, Ph.D., professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Sussex and author of
The Frog Who Croaked Blue
, and to James Sheedy, O.D., Ph.D., director of the Vision Ergonomics Research Laboratory at Pacific University, for answering questions that helped to define the mannerisms and experience of the most unique character I’ve ever imagined, Olivia Moon. And to heath-care providers Gary Dean, M.D., and Walid Hammoud, M.D., for other medical guidance.

To Sean Day and his superb Synesthesia Listserv. Thank you for letting me snoop about, and for all of the inspiration.

To Cindy Butler, executive director of the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s State Rail Authority, for answering questions about trains and distances, and for providing railway maps; and to both Cindy and John Smith, president of the Durbin and Green-brier Valley Railroad, for a fun ride while pointing out details that helped to make this story come alive.

To followers of my author page on Facebook who leaped in with suggestions when I requested ideas for fictional West Virginia towns, and especially to Rebecca Bussa Saunders (Spades Hallow) and Leah Welsh Lowe (Jewel) for their appealing suggestions.

To all of my friends, and especially my colleagues at Writer Unboxed. To Kathleen Bolton for her unfailing support, and to Jeanne Kisacky for being the first to understand what this book wanted to become. To Marilyn Brant, Keith Cronin, and Jael McHenry for thoughtful observations, suggestions, and encouragement that made an impact. Your perspectives helped to make this a better book and me a stronger author.

To my most beloved readers—my husband, Sean; my sisters, Heather and Aimee; and especially to my daughter, Riley. Riley, your understanding of both human behavior and storytelling is insightful beyond your years, and your tolerance of your indecisive mother—“This word better, or this one?”—is truly commendable. I have no doubt that you will one day take over the world, and your brother will be there to capture it all on film. (That’s you, Liam. Go, New Hamsterdam!)

And finally to my mothers and my fathers. Thank you for all your love and support. You can read it now. (xo)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

T
HERESE
W
ALSH
is the author of
The Last Will of Moira Leahy
and the cofounder of Writer Unboxed, an award-winning website and online writing community. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children. She loves haiku, photography, and tormenting her characters. She has a master’s degree in psychology.