To See the Moon Again (26 page)

She couldn't begin to guess how many hours she had spent here, but whenever she wasn't at the Shelburns' house or visiting Sheila and Hope or roaming about the fields and hills, this was where she came. She sat in the same old leather armchair every day, beside the same window looking out toward the Housatonic and the hills beyond, and read straight through book after book.

“I wonder if Mrs. Orliss still works there,” she said, still gazing at the library. “She was like a hundred years old, but you'd never guess it. I think she knew the call number of every book in the whole library. She had this long gray braid of hair and wore a little blue felt hat every day. She could quote whole sections of
Beowulf
from memory.”

Julia said, “Well, before you tell me about her pet bird and her rock collection, let's review the plan again.”

There wasn't much to review, but saying it aloud calmed her. To start with, they would stay on the two-lane highway, which Carmen said would take them right past the church. Carmen would get out at Sheila and Hope's house and stay there while Julia drove by herself a mile down the road to pay a visit to the Shelburns.

The plan from there would necessitate some misrepresentation, of course. Julia was still trying to decide what she would actually say when the door opened and she was face-to-face with Joyce or Milo. She had considered several ways to start the conversation—which lie to lead with.

It suddenly occurred to her that whereas she had rarely wished ill of anyone in her life, except her father, there were now numbers of people upon whom she could inflict suffering without compunction. She could picture it—every person who had failed or misused Carmen in any way since Jeremiah's death, standing in a row like targets, and herself with dead-eye aim, armed with a dart gun. There was no question that she would have made a horrible parent. For every offense her child suffered, she would have wanted to avenge it tenfold.

Carmen drove past the scattered houses on the north end of Danforth. No more talking now. From the look on her face, only deep thinking, or more likely deep praying, with some fear mixed in. They passed stands of trees ablaze with fall color, fields with a few cows, a shabby barn. Carmen slowed as they approached the church. The parking lot was empty. Next to it, the front door of the yellow house stood partly open, and a mud-splattered white Subaru sat in the driveway.

“They're home,” Carmen said. She pulled onto the shoulder of the road and looked at Julia. “Remember, second road on the right about a mile down. There used to be a sign, but it was hard to see. Old Mill Road. Watch the odometer. If you go much over a mile, you missed it. I'll be waiting for you back here.”

“Do you want to make sure they're here first?” Julia said, glancing at the yellow house.

“They are,” Carmen said. She gave Julia's hand a quick squeeze before getting out of the car. “You're not afraid to go by yourself, are you? I could ask Sheila to go with you.”

But Julia said no, she was fine. The Shelburns might disgust her, but they didn't scare her. Before pulling away, she looked back at the house. A tall, stout woman was standing on the front stoop now, head to one side, hands on her hips.

•   •   •

J
ULIA
found the turnoff easily and followed a narrow, winding road until she came to the house. If Carmen hadn't told her it was the only house on Old Mill Road, she would have thought it was the wrong one. The road was a dead end, Carmen had said, two poles and a chain blocking the way to the mill, which had long ago fallen to ruin.

Julia saw the poles and chain, but the house was nothing like she was expecting. From Carmen's description, she had imagined something tidier. This house had a tired, sprawling look, as if some force of nature had picked it up and slung it back down. A pickup truck with a smashed tailgate was parked next to the side door, and bedsheets and pillowcases were flapping on the clothesline.

She pulled up behind the truck and got out of the car. It felt colder and darker amid all the trees. The solemn faces of two children stared at her through a front window. A man pushed open the side door and stood at the top of the steps. He appeared to be in his thirties but was wearing the clothes of an old man—a baggy pair of faded overalls and what looked like the top to a pair of dirty long johns. In one hand he held a kitchen knife covered with something. A large black dog materialized from somewhere and approached Julia with a throaty growl. Through the screen door a thin, witchy voice spoke. “Bobo, you behave!”

The man gave a single sharp whistle and said something. The dog slunk under the truck and lay down.

The whole thing could have been a scene from the backwoods of South Carolina or Georgia. Julia didn't know who these people were, but she felt quite sure they weren't the Shelburns. Still standing by the car, she called over the wind. “I'm looking for Joyce and Milo Shelburn. I thought they lived here. This was the address I was given. Do you know where I can find them?”

The man shook his head and jerked a thumb toward the side door. “We're the Crockers. We live here now. But you can't come in, the wife's sick in the bed.”

“Did the Shelburns move?” Julia asked.

The man laughed and spit something over the railing. “I guess you might could say that.”

An older woman came out the side door, wiping her hands on her apron. “What does she want? She's not selling something, is she?” It was the same reedy voice that had scolded the dog.

The man scowled at her. “Get on back inside. She's just looking for the folks that used to live here.”

The old woman squinted at Julia. “You can't collect from us,” she said. “We didn't even know them.”

One of the children was outside now, leaning against the man. He looked down and snapped a finger. “Go see what your mama wants. I hear her. All this racket has woke her up.” The old woman and child disappeared inside.

Julia's mind was spinning. This certainly wasn't in the plan. They hadn't thought of the possibility that the Shelburns might have moved away.

But there was still hope. “Do you know where the Shelburns are living now?” Julia asked. “Or do you know anybody who might know?” It dawned on her that the post office in town would probably have a forwarding address.

The man licked one side of the knife he was holding, then laughed again. “They're not
living
anywhere. They're six feet under.” He bobbed his head toward the highway. “Little piece down the road in a graveyard.”

Julia was speechless. She watched the man lick the other side of the knife, then finally said the only words she could think of. “What . . . happened?”

“They got shot dead. In a grocery store over in Pittsfield. Some crazy pulled a gun and started shooting. The mister, he throwed his wife down and laid on top of her, they said, but they both got shot anyhow. Right in the middle of the produce aisle.”

Julia was filled with sudden shame at the flippant scenario she had imagined only minutes ago—using the Shelburns and others for target practice. Now she had a sick feeling. “Did they . . . catch him?” she asked. “The one who did it?”

The man shrugged. “He killed hisself at the end. That store was full of dead bodies just strowed everywhere. Didn't you hear about it? It was all over the TV. They called it the Price Chopper Massacre.”

Julia's face must have registered horror because the man softened. He laid the knife down on top of the wooden railing, then came down the steps and stood by the pickup truck. “Was they friends of yours?” From inside the house Julia heard a shrill cry. The man turned his head briefly. “She's in a bad fix.”

Trouble all around, Julia thought. People sick and suffering. Other people going on killing sprees. Others dying in the middle of a grocery store aisle. And Carmen—left without a clue about her baby.

“No, they weren't friends of mine,” Julia said. “I didn't know them, but my niece did. I had some questions to ask them.”

“They auctioned off the house, and we got it,” the man offered. He looked up at the trees. “Away back here all by itself, but we don't mind. Not much. Gets bad in the winter, though. The wife, she grew up around here. Snow don't bother her. Me, I'm from Kentucky.”

“When did all this happen?” Julia said. “To the Shelburns, I mean?”

The man thought a moment. “Just right about two year, same time as now. Maybe a little later.” He looked up into the trees. “We been living here going on a year.”

Julia considered the timing—so it had been shortly after Carmen left. She couldn't help thinking if it had happened earlier, Carmen might have a little girl today. But it hadn't and she didn't.

“The wife took sick in the spring, been going downhill since,” the man said. He put a hand to his ear and listened again to another long anguished cry from indoors. “Her mama's been here a spell helping us out.” He looked back at Julia. “Lost my job going on six month now.”

“I'm sorry,” Julia said. “I'm really sorry.” What else was there to say? This man had his own problems, plenty of them. She looked at the house again. One child was still at the front window. She looked down the road past the house and saw the chain stretched between the two metal posts, with a sign that read
No Trespassing
. A dead end all the way around.

She tried again. “Do you know who cleared out the house before you bought it?”

The man shook his head. “It was empty when it come up for auction.”

She knew what the answer would be, but she had to ask. “No papers or file cabinets left behind by any chance?”

He shook his head again.

Julia opened the door of her car and got in. The man started back to the steps. Julia pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse and got out again. “Wait,” she said. She put the money in the man's hand. “This won't buy much, but maybe it will help.”

He stared at it, nodding. “It'll help. It sure will. I'm obliged.”

Julia turned the car around and headed back toward the highway. In the rearview mirror she saw the man walking back toward the house, his head bent. Above her, the roof of trees hid the sky, their branches thrashing in the wind.

L
ONG
, P
URPOSEFUL
J
OU
RNEYS

Carmen was waiting at the front door of the yellow house when Julia returned. She waved her inside. She had already told Sheila and Hope why she was here in Danforth—about her dream, her suspicions. And Sheila had told her about the Shelburns. The girl looked dazed. “So much has happened since I left,” she said. “Come on in. They're in the kitchen.”

Julia had never been in a house with so little space for moving around. The living room looked like a used furniture store. Two couches sat back to back in the center of the room, and lined up against one wall were assorted chairs, stools, tables. Dozens of cardboard boxes and a massive mahogany china cabinet took up most of another wall. A rocking chair was pulled up to face the bay window, in which a veritable jungle of houseplants thrived, long snaky vines spilling down to the floor.

Across the dining room table was spread a mishmash of pottery, linens, record albums, carpentry tools. An old phonograph cabinet, its lid propped open, stood near the doorway into the kitchen, and an LP was playing—a woman's voice, soulful and slow, with a saxophone accompaniment, something about a starry night and a broken heart.

In the kitchen, a plate of pumpkin muffins and mugs of hot cider sat on the table, and Sheila was clearing off one end to make more room. She was a big-boned woman, with a broad, serene face and a thick hank of washed-out auburn hair. After introductions were made, they all sat down and Julia told about her visit to the house on Old Mill Road. When she stopped, no one spoke for a moment. The song finished on the phonograph and a new one came on, something livelier with maracas and bongo drums.

“We didn't know he'd lost his job,” Sheila said. “We took a meal down there after we heard she was sick. Then they had a kitchen fire on top of that.” She glanced at Hope. “We need to take something else to them. Maybe some of your beef stew.”

“His mother is there helping out,” Julia said.

Sheila blew lightly into her mug of cider. “She's got her hands full.”

Hope got up and brought a blue teapot and a jar of honey back to the table. In spite of her brusque actions, she was a small, delicate woman, no doubt pretty in her youth. Her hair, streaked with gray, was pulled back loosely from her face. She was wearing jeans, an oversized tweed sweater, and suede boots. She set the jar of honey down hard and slid the teapot over to Carmen and Julia. “Echinacea mint,” she announced darkly. These were the first words Julia had heard her speak.

Carmen drained the last of her cider and refilled her mug with tea, then drizzled some honey into it. “I can't believe they're really dead,” she said, stirring her tea slowly. “What a horrible way to die. That's the last thing you expect to happen when you go to the grocery store.” She sipped a spoonful of tea, then added a little more honey and stirred again. “That was a nice thing Milo did—trying to protect her like that. I guess he really did love her.”

Hope stood up again suddenly and went to the stove, where she yanked open the bottom drawer and made a racket pulling out a large pot.

Carmen looked at Julia. “Guess what they told me while you were gone? Babies First Mission closed down. Not long after I left. The Thorntons moved away. Mr. Thornton was the director.”

“They retired,” Sheila said. “Somewhere in Europe, we heard.”

“So I guess we won't be talking to them either,” Carmen said. She took another sip of her tea. “But the adoption records have to be somewhere. How does that work?”

“If it was legal, the state would have records somewhere,” Sheila said. “But if it wasn't . . .” She shook her head, then told about a book she had read that told the true story of a black-market baby who tried to find his biological parents, with nothing to go on but a fake birth certificate. “There was no proof, except his living self,” she said, “that he'd ever been born.”

“Did he ever find his parents?” Carmen said.

Sheila shook her head. “People who traffic in human life don't usually leave records lying around.”

So why write a book like that? Julia thought. Nobody wants to read about a failed effort. Or hear about it either. Why had Sheila brought it up?

Hope stalked to the refrigerator and got a lump of something, which she unwrapped and threw into the pot.

Sheila said, “But you hear stories all the time about people finding their real parents.” She put her mug down. “We can find out how to look up birth records and sure give it a try.” She propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “But if they told you she died, they wouldn't have put your name on a birth certificate as the mother. Not even a fake birth certificate.” She frowned. “And death records—we could check for infant deaths on the day she was born, but I'm guessing we won't find anything there either.”

•   •   •

N
O
one spoke for a while. There was a clatter at the counter as Hope looked through a drawer of cooking utensils.

Sheila said to Carmen, “For days we didn't know you were gone. You never even told us good-bye.”

Carmen set her spoon down slowly. “I know. I wanted to. And I should have, but . . . it happened fast. I'd lost track of time. I didn't even know how many days had passed, but all of a sudden I just knew I had to leave. Right then. I couldn't stay another minute. I overheard Milo tell Joyce they had to drive to Briggsville, for her to go get her purse, so as soon as they left, I called a taxi and went to Pittsfield. I had a little money of my own. I took the first bus out; I didn't even care where it was headed. And then I took another one, and I finally ended up in Bangor, Maine, and . . . but none of that matters now.” She reached across the table and touched Sheila's arm. “I'm sorry. I should've told you.”

Sheila looked like she was about to cry. “We could have helped you. We
should
have.” She took Carmen's hand in hers. “There's such a thing as minding your business too much. We should have gotten involved.”

Carmen shook her head. “Oh, Sheila, it's not your fault. None of it. I don't understand it, but none of it was an accident. I ended up here in Danforth at the Shelburns' house—I don't know why, but I did. My steps were ordered by the Lord.”

They all stared at her. Even Hope turned around to glower. Julia couldn't put a name to what she was feeling.
Defeated
was too weak a word. Such a pernicious kind of faith and no way to uproot it. The girl could end up in a slave camp in Outer Mongolia and still think it was somehow God's will.

“We were having all that rain then,” Sheila said. “So when we didn't see you for a few days, we didn't think much of it. And then when it stopped and we still didn't see you, we wondered if the baby had come. So we waited a little more—but we waited too long.” She let go of Carmen's hand and put her napkin to her eyes. “I watched the church on Sunday, but I never saw the Shelburns' car. I waited another day, then drove down to their house. Milo came to the door, and I asked him if you were okay. He didn't like it. Asked me who wanted to know. I told him
I
did. He said you were gone and hadn't left an address.” She shook her head. “They were so strange, both of them.”

Carmen said, “But deep down Joyce had a soft heart. Lots softer than Milo's, for sure.” She took another drink of tea. “But I don't think either one of them meant me any harm personally. They just thought every baby needed a mother and a father.”

Of course. Julia might have expected this, the assigning of a justifiable reason for the Shelburns' evil. Fair-mindedness carried to extremes was the same as wrongheadedness. She sighed and looked toward the window over the sink, which faced the church parking lot and an open field beyond. A cover of mottled gray clouds had moved in, leaving only a pale blue fringe of sky near the horizon.

There was a sizzling sound from the stove as Hope jabbed a spatula at whatever was frying in the pot.

Sheila held up a hand. “Listen to me, honey. People who play God are
bad
. If someone steals a baby—if that's really what happened here—they're thinking of just one thing, and it's
not
what's best for the baby. It's what's best for their pocketbook. Forget that nonprofit thing. Believe me, there was profit involved.”

“Well . . . we don't know that for sure,” Carmen said.

Julia said, “But two things you do know for sure. First, they said your baby died. You heard them say that, right? Second, you said God told you otherwise.” She paused. “So now you don't trust
him
?” She could hardly believe she had said such a thing.

Carmen stared into her tea, but it was clear that the words had sunk in.

•   •   •

T
HE
record on the phonograph ended, and there was a crackly pop as the turntable kept revolving. Hope set the pot on another burner and went out of the room. Soon there were sounds from the living room of cupboard doors being opened and closed, of something heavy being dragged across the floor.

All at once Carmen said, “Luna—she might know something.” She looked at Sheila. “Do you have a Pittsfield phone book?”

“Who's Luna?” Sheila said.

“The midwife.”

Sheila asked, “You know her last name?”

“I do in fact,” Carmen said. “I asked her one day, and she told me. Fiorelli. Isn't that pretty? It means little flowers. Her father was Italian. Luna Fiorelli—I loved it. I told her it was
mellifluous
. We laughed about it. It was the only time I remember seeing her laugh.”

Sheila unearthed the phone book from a stack of old magazines and newspapers, but there was no listing for anybody named Fiorelli. Carmen tried different spellings, but still nothing. Sheila called information, but they had no listing either.

Another record was playing now—a bluesy rendition of “Paper Moon.” Hope returned to the kitchen with a folded newspaper, which she handed to Sheila.

Sheila looked at it. “I didn't know we still had this.” She pointed to a small article at the bottom of the page and passed it across the table to Julia and Carmen.

The newspaper was dated two years earlier. The picture was small, but Carmen recognized the man at once. Together, she and Julia read the brief article, which stated simply that Ernest Thornton, director of Babies First Mission, had made a donation to a Pittsfield charity for low-income housing before closing the adoption agency and retiring with his wife overseas.

Carmen said, “That was nice of him to do that.”

“People give money to charities for tax deductions,” Julia said. “And sometimes to salve a guilty conscience.”

All was quiet except for the sounds of something being chopped on a cutting board.

Suddenly Carmen looked at Julia. “Remember when Uncle Butch told us nobody's personal information is secret anymore? He said if you know how to do it, you can find out almost anything about anybody on the computer.”

Julia nodded. It was true, Butch had said that.

“We don't have a computer,” Sheila said.

Carmen said, “I know, but Uncle Butch does. He knows computers inside out. He's pretty much a genius.” She looked back at Julia. “You have your cell phone handy?”

“He'll want to know why you're looking for her,” Julia said.

“I'll tell him,” Carmen said.

Julia dug her phone out of her purse and handed it over.

The girl turned it on. “Hey, good deal, it's even charged.” She stood up. “I'll be back.”

•   •   •

C
ARMEN
walked up and down the length of Sheila and Hope's driveway as she talked on the phone, one hand inside her jacket pocket, her hair whipping around her head. Julia watched from the bay window in the living room, struck by the fact that all it took was a windy day and a little distance to notice how long the girl's hair had grown. And to notice how much more mature she looked now than when she had first shown up at the stone house, though part of that was likely due to things Julia knew about the girl now that she hadn't known then. She stopped to count—not even four months ago. In many ways it seemed more like four years. She looked at her watch again. Time was skewed here, too. It seemed like Carmen had been outside much longer than ten minutes.

It was chilly in the living room. Julia could feel the cold emanating off the bay window. She pulled her cardigan up around her neck and buttoned it. She turned and studied the room—the Old Curiosity Shop, New England style. Everywhere she looked she saw something she hadn't noticed earlier. Late sunlight fell across the floor onto an ornate mirror propped between two recliners. Someone had swiped a hand across its surface, which was thick with dust. A birdcage sat crookedly on a pile of blankets in a corner next to a spinning wheel, and on the mantel sat several large conch shells and a collection of clocks, all of them showing different times.