The Last Romantics(76)

A third type of siren began, a sound I did not know. Fast, piercing. It roused people to hurry. The pace quickened, I felt Luna pulling me forward, and then, at the moment I thought I could not walk any farther, that I might fall, Henry was there to catch me.

“Thank you,” he said to Luna, “thank you for getting Fiona out of there. Let me pay you.”

“Henry, no,” I said. “I’ve invited her to come with us. Home.”

Henry looked at me quizzically. The noise of the new signal rang in my ears and in my head, a thudding that I felt on the inside.

“Ms. Skinner,” Luna said. “Thank you, but I can’t.”

Henry opened the car door and motioned us inside. In the backseat of the car, the signal was muffled, distant. Tinted windows shielded us from the view. People were moving faster now, some breaking off and running. Henry slid into the front seat.

“I think it would be best if you came with us,” I said to Luna. “Really, my dear. It’s the most sensible course. The shelters will be so crowded, and they’re hardly protection. You do realize that.”

I wanted Luna to stay with us, with me. I wanted to look at the ring around her neck, to ask her questions about her mother. An old ache returned. Age had not lessened its force.

But Luna shook her head. “My husband, he’s at home with our son. I need to get back to them. But please, Ms. Skinner, tell me what happened. Tell me about the other Luna.” She leaned forward. “I want to know the story so I can tell it to my son someday. The great Fiona Skinner! It will be such a thrill for him when he’s older. I’ve started reading some of your poems to him before bed. ‘The Last Tree’ is his favorite. He’s a climber.”

Her fingers played with the ring around her neck. So many years had passed, it was impossible to say if it was the same. Perhaps if I looked at it closely, in better light with glasses on my nose.

“My sisters and I searched for Luna Hernandez,” I began. Henry was turned halfway around in the seat, listening. He had not heard this part before. “I told myself it was because of the ring, but of course it was more than that.” I paused. “Where are you from, Luna?”

“Oh, around here,” she said, and circled a finger. “About twenty miles north, a small town. But originally, years ago, long before I was born, my great-grandparents lived in the Pacific Northwest. The islands, the ones that disappeared in the western tsunami—”

“Yes, I remember that storm. Horrible. No one had expected it. And then everything gone.”

Luna nodded. “Everything.”

I considered telling Henry simply to drive, to take us away. A desperation seized me. The crowds had thinned enough that he could get through with some care. The doors had driver-operated locks. But of course I couldn’t take her away from her family, I would never do that. I looked at this Luna and thought how much I would miss her when she opened the car door, exited to the street, disappeared. Lost and found and lost again.

A buzz came from Luna’s pocket, and she retrieved her device. “Excuse me,” she said, and answered, her face breaking into a smile. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m safe.” She listened for a few moments, nodding. “Good,” she said. “I’ll be home soon. I love you.”

Luna turned back to me. “It’s an elevated practice drill, that’s what they’re saying on the channels. Can you believe it? All this, for practice?”

Henry looked relieved. “Consider the alternative,” he said, and then regarded me with a short shake of the head: he was telling me to give her up. “Luna, would you like me to drop you somewhere?” Henry asked. “With the crowds gone, I should be able to pass through.”

And so we drove through the city streets, still busy with people, but their movement had changed. It was relaxed, relieved, almost giddy. Danger confronted and surmounted. The worst had been imagined and now had passed.

It’s so difficult to let some things go, to watch them walk out a door, get onto a plane, make their way in a dangerous unpredictable world. I didn’t ask more about Luna’s family, I did not reach out to examine the ring around her neck. Questions arise no matter how hard you strive for certainty. On the remainder of our drive, I told Luna and Henry the rest of the story. I told them about Luna, the first Luna, and about the secret I kept from my sisters. Henry listened without comment, though I could sense from the tenor of his coughs, the tension in his shoulders, that he yearned to discuss it. There would be time enough for that; we had a long drive home.

We arrived at Luna’s address, a narrow old brick building, not one of the newer builds, and sat for a few moments outside. The blue-black sky was just beginning to color with the dawn.

“Fiona, will I see you again?” Luna asked me.

“Perhaps,” I said. “Though this has been enough excitement for me for a while. Henry and I will stay put in the mountains. You’re always welcome to come visit of, course, but it is a journey.”

Luna demurred in the polite way of someone with the best of intentions. I would never see her again, this I knew.

“Good-bye, my dear,” I said as she opened the car door.

Luna hugged me awkwardly, a grasping sort of hug, the ring pushing painfully into the soft spot at the base of my throat, and then I released her into the morning.