Alice Sebold - The Almost Moon

“Your grandmother is dead,” I said.

“What?”

“She died last night, and I called your father.”

Sarah grabbed my arm.

“Mom, that’s huge. Were you there?”

“We’re not walking,” I said.

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

Sarah dragged me toward her and tried to hug me. Despite her bloodline, she had always been one for touch. Emily had called her “Face Invader” when they were teenagers because Sarah didn’t know when close was too close.

“You’re all bones,” she said.

I pulled back and looked at her. I felt the tears in my eyes and knew they would fall.

“And you’re my beautiful child,” I said.

“Mom, it’s okay. You did everything for her.” She offered me her beer, but I shook my head.

“I killed her, Sarah.”

“That’s ridiculous. She sucked you dry.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry she’s dead, but come on, you sacrificed yourself to her.”

“You’re not understanding me,” I said. I turned out of her embrace and looked back in the direction of the car. We were so far down in a hollow I could not see the main road.

The fields were wheat or barley. I had spent my life surrounded by them, but they were only various colored patches of earth to me, things that were good mainly because they were not buildings being built. I’d never known a farmer in my life.

“Listen. I’m sorry. I know you loved her, but Emily and I both think she’s why you never had a life.”

“I had a life,” I said. “I had the two of you.”

She paused. “Dad came all that way because Grandma died?” Something had twitched in her brain.

“Yes.”

“But he hated her.”

“That’s not why,” I said.

“Then what?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you. Because I,” I said, pointing to myself and waiting a beat, “ killed her.”

I could see it begin to sink in. I could not make it go away. No Bactine for this wound, no soothing salve or spray.

“You what?”

“I suffocated her with a hand towel.”

Sarah backed away from me and dropped the beer can.

“She was very out of it,” I said. I thought of my mother’s eyes looking up at me, of her ruby rings flashing in the porch light, and of the sound of her nose as it snapped. “I don’t think she even knew it was me.”

“Stop talking,” Sarah said.

“The police are investigating. Mrs. Leverton died this morning after they took her away in an ambulance.”

“Mom, shut up! What are you saying?”

“That I killed my mother.”

Sarah picked up the beer can and started walking back toward the car.

“Sarah,” I said, “there’s more.”

She pivoted.

“More?”

I felt suddenly heady with it.

“Your grandfather killed himself.”

“What?”

“My father committed suicide-your grandfather.”

“You’re smiling,” Sarah said. “Do you know how sick you look?”

“I’m just happy to finally tell you the truth.” I walked toward her. A butterfly-shaped barrette was coming lose from her hair. “Your father knows, but we agreed never to tell you and Emily.” I reached up to fix her barrette. She flinched.

“Honey?” I lowered my arm.

She felt for the barrette and ripped it out, a clump of her hair coming with it.

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“How?”

“He shot himself.”

“And you blamed her for that?”

“At first.”

“And later?”

“She was my mother, Sarah. She was ill. You know that.”

“I don’t know anything,” she said. “You said something about police.”

“The thing is,” I said, “Mrs. Castle found her, and she was, well…”

“Yes.”

“I washed her.”

Sarah’s face distorted, her lip curling as if she might soon be sick.

“Before or after?”

“After.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she said. She walked away from me but this time across the potted road and into the edge of the woods on the other side.

“Ticks,” I said.

She walked quickly back. “You killed Grandma, and you’re worried about Lyme disease?”

“She had soiled herself. I knew she wouldn’t want anyone to see her like that.”

She stared at me. It took me a moment, and then I realized.

“Not afterward,” I clarified. “She soiled herself that afternoon. I was trying to figure out how to clean her before I called hospice. That’s why I had the towels.”

“I want to see Dad.”

“I wanted to tell you myself. I thought it was important.”

“You’ve told me.” She threw the beer can down, smashed it flat with her foot, and then tucked it inside her coat pocket. “Now let’s get out of here.”

She turned too sharply and a second later was down on the ground. I saw her lying there. I thought of my mother. I thought of tiny Leo bouncing off the back of the chair.

“Honey,” I said, stooping over her.

“It’s my fucking ankle.”

“Is it broken?”

“No,” she said. “That is, unless you’re in the mood for more.”

“Sarah?”

“It’s a joke,” she said flatly. “Get it? Ha-ha.”

“You can lean on me until we get to the car,” I said.

“I sort of don’t want you touching me right now.”

I helped her to stand regardless, but within three or four hops, I knew we should sit.

“Can you make it to that log? We’ll rest awhile first.”

It would be dark soon, and the animals, who had slept all day in the woods behind us, would come alive. I had always preferred the fall. In providing shorter days, it was more merciful than spring or summer.

The two of us sat on a long fallen tree that looked as if it had once blocked access to the road but had been shunted to the side. Part of me wanted to keep walking, to see who or what lived at the end of Forche Lane.

We were quiet. Sarah took out her stowed beer and popped the tab. While she sipped, I looked at the ground between my feet.

“Emily doesn’t know yet,” I said. “Your father told her that Grandma was dead but not how. I went to Natalie’s house afterward, but she wasn’t there. She’s dating someone pretty seriously. Hamish thinks they’ll get married. He was home. I needed someone, Sarah, and so I made love to him. I’m not proud of any of these things.”

I could hear her breathing beside me. Imagined what my life would be like if she chose never to speak to me again. Thought of the pain I had once put my own mother through.

“But I’m not ashamed either. I don’t know how to explain it. I knew that she was at the end, and when I realized that, it just seemed a very natural thing to do. Her eyes opened, but it wasn’t her; it was her amphibian brain-pure survival instinct. I know it was wrong, but I’m not sorry.”

“Do the cops know?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll stay here if you want me to,” Sarah said.

“What?” I looked over at her. She too was keeping her eyes trained on the ground.

“Things aren’t working out for me in New York.”

“But your singing,” I said.

“I’m broke. I could help out and be here for you. The cops and stuff.”

In a day or two, I would slip out of the house, put the duffel bag in my car, and back out of the driveway, claiming I would soon return.

I had a flash of myself walking down the streets of some foreign city. Children frayed by poverty were begging me for money by holding out old plastic bags. Slapping against my emaciated body underneath voluminous clothes would be bags too, bags of all kinds, holding my fluids, giving and receiving, an in/out system of effluvia, shit and urine, saline and blood, and illegal remedies-the ground bones of animals, the pits of stone fruits mixed with liquids in someone’s mortar and pestle, and broths that I would drink that would never slake my thirst.