Envious Moon(50)

I turned down the street that ran parallel to the one I had lived in with Berta. Halfway down it, I brought the truck along the curb and killed the engine.

“This will only be a minute,” I said to Hannah.

I took her hand as we both climbed out my side of the truck. A few houses away a dog started to bark. I remembered the dog. A dark-colored pit that its owner kept on a short leash tied to a tree in his front yard. Beyond that, the neighborhood was quiet.

“This way,” I said.

Holding hands, we crept between two dark houses. We walked on sandy earth, more sand than dirt. We came to a steel fence and a gate and I opened it and we stood facing the back of the house I grew up in. I brought Hannah right to the back of the house and we stood against the clapboards and I looked around the corner to the front and the street. I did not see any cars and the house itself had no lights on. This was what I expected.

The lock on one of the living-room windows that faced the back had been broken for as long as I remembered and I pushed on the window and it gave way.

I whispered to Hannah, “Climb through and wait for me.”

I looped my knuckles together to give her a boost and she stepped on them and then slid herself over the sill. I pulled myself up and slid over myself and we stood in my living room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but everything was exactly the same. There was the couch, and the rocking chair, the television, the painting of Madonna and child on the wall. Light from the streetlamps came through the front windows. It was enough to see by. I took Hannah’s hand again and led her to the stairs.

We climbed them carefully and at the top we stood side by side, looking into the room where Berta slept. She had a night-light on in the outlet on the far wall and it spread a small amount of yellow light across the carpet and up the wall. My mother was on her back on the bed, and we could hear her soft snores.

We moved into the room and stood at the edge of her bed, looking down on her. She stirred slightly, as if sensing our presence, but then she continued to snore.

I leaned down and I kissed her on the forehead. I could make out her sweet wide face in the dark. I came up and looked at her again, and then I leaned down once again and kissed her wrinkled skin. Her eyes opened and I thought she might scream. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. She had no reason to expect anyone in her house. I put my hand over her mouth just in case.

“Mama,” I whispered.

She stared at me blankly. I took my hand away from her mouth. “Oh, Anthony,” she said, and her voice dripped with sadness.

“Mama,” I said. “I want you to meet Hannah.”

I stepped to the side and let Hannah step forward so that Berta could get as good a look at her as she could in little light. I saw Berta’s eyes move up to Hannah’s face. I wondered if she found it as lovely as I did. Hannah said, “Hello.”

Berta ignored her and tried to sit up. “Don’t get up, Mama,” I said.

“What are you doing, Anthony?” she said. “You have to stop this madness.”

“I just wanted to say I love you,” I said.

Berta swiped at her dark bangs that fell across her forehead. “You need to stay here, Anthony,” she said. “For me. There are people who need to see you.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Please, Anthony, stop this. I beg you. Do it for the girl.”

“I can’t, Mama.”

“Do it for your father’s memory, then,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Anthony,” she said. “My baby. What has happened to you?”

“We have to go, Mama,” I said. “I love you.”

I leaned down and I kissed her a third time, this time on the cheek, and I felt her arms on my arms but we could not stay. I took Hannah again by the hand and we left my mother in the bed. I heard her rising behind us but we moved quickly down the stairs. We went out the front door this time and the street was deserted. There were no cops. We ran around the backyard and across the sandy lawns and between the other houses to where the truck waited for us.





I kept the headlights off until we reached the main road in front of the harbor. It had to be three in the morning and the streets were deserted. It wouldn’t be long before the fishing village woke up. I parked the truck in front of the co-op. We climbed out of the truck. The air was redolent with fish and fuel and all the smells of the harbor. I could see Victor’s place from here and I was tempted to go wake him but I did not dare risk it.

Hannah and I cut between the co-op and the cannery and out onto the wharves. The full moon was still out and in a sky of high clouds. Its milky light spread across the docks. In front of us the commercial boats sat in rows with their birds up high. I wondered if the Lorrie Anne was in.

“This way,” I said.

We walked briskly past the boats to the far side of the harbor where all the small skiffs bobbed on the water. We were partway there, when I heard the siren. It was still in the distance, near Route 1, but it was growing louder.

“We have to go,” I said, and Hannah looked behind us, toward the road, and for a moment she seemed frozen. I took her by the arm. “We can’t,” I said.

We broke into a run. I didn’t even know if my skiff would be there. For all I knew they had taken it, anticipating we would need it, or they considered it evidence. But as we came charging on the wooden slats, past bail barrels and stacks of pallets, there it was, the little boat of mine, the boat that had once belonged to my father.