Moon Shadow: The Totally True Love Adventure Series (Volume 1) (32 page)

He’s also working on a proposal for NASA to fix the moon problem. The deadline for submissions is December 31. I don’t fully understand Daniel’s theory, but it has something do with redirecting the flight of a rogue asteroid so that it passes close to the moon and influences the moon’s orbit with its gravitational pull. I hope the moon problem gets fixed by next year because the future depends on it, the future of Daniel and me, our limitless future, the endlessness of our love.

Sometimes Daniel works mornings on his proposal at the store. Evenings, I love helping him learn Spanish. He’ll be eighteen in four months, and that seems old. I’ll be married to a guy of legal age, but that’s okay because it’s Daniel. I’ve been thinking of writing a book about us,
Adventures in Togetherland
, when I grow up a little more—but I’m pretty grown up now. At least it feels like there’s not much room to grow up anymore.

The piano music has stopped, and the man I love appears at the back door. I look at him and smile invitingly.

“Y
ou’re feeling better,” Sarah tells me, as with precision, like usual, she diagnoses my mood. Although I’d bought the keyboard weeks ago, until this morning I was having difficulty putting together what it takes to let loose with a tune like Dr. John’s “City That Care Forgot” from memory. The remnants of despair are still with me, but I’m beginning to learn how to deal with it.

“I have unpacking and stocking to do,” I say. “Come with me after church?”

“Sure,” Sarah replies. She adds, “Cristala and Juan are coming at four. We should have plenty of time.”

The bookstore we purchased from Russ and Maggie Shapiro in October, after the wedding ceremony, is a godsend. It fills our lives with the joy of hard work. Since we began to stock English-language items, and to advertise in Mérida’s English-language newspaper,
The Times
, business is booming. We might even show a profit this month. There’s a large contingent of Americans residing in the region, and the decision to bring them into the store is paying off.

Russ and Maggie have really helped us settle in. We first met them at the Episcopal Church. Russ is a retired physician and has arranged for Sarah’s medical treatment, during and after her pregnancy, at the Clínica de Mérida.

Of course, I never thought I would become a father at this age, but I’ll have to make the best of it. I had the worst father in the world, perhaps, so that will serve as a blueprint for “what not to do.” I’ll give our baby plenty of attention and plenty of love, and the rest will take care of itself, I’m sure.

I say to Sarah, “Remember, Juan and I are doing the fishing thing tomorrow morning. Will you be all right at the store for a couple of hours?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, with a kind of studied unconcern. “Just don’t drown in the Gulf.”

I laugh in honest delight. I am so absorbed in the future we’re constructing, that I can hardly contain myself.

Early morning sunbeams shine adoringly in Sarah’s dark hair. She’s an angel, with the faith of a child, I think, in the beauty she is destined to bring forth. There’s a certain lightness in her, and thus a lightening of my spirits. I will make her my queen in this world.

“I have a riddle for you,” she says.

“You and your riddles,” I reply lightheartedly. “Isn’t it a little early in the day for that?”

“Never too early for a good riddle.”

“All right,” I relent, “Go ahead.”

“Sometimes I’m taken lightly and sometimes darkly. Most everyone wants to embrace my wonders, but only a happy few ever have. What am I?”

“I have no idea,” I answer.

“Life would be very different without me—perhaps nonexistent. Human survival depends on me. I’m capable of permanently changing lives; as I move dangerously close, I bring with me the power over life and death.”

“That’s easy, the moon.”

“Wrong,” says Sarah, dismissively. “All right, here’s your final clue, your final chance to get this right: When I show up in full splendor, people tend to behave strangely.”

“Like I said already, the moon. It has to be the moon.”

“Well,” Sarah says, that may be a possible answer, but what’s the best answer?”

“I don’t know. What else could it be?”

Sarah gazes into my eyes with a look that melts my heart. “True love, silly.”

Again I feel that pleasing sense of my being a dominant key in Sarah’s life. I kneel beside her and run my hand gently over her expanding mid-section. “All my life I wanted ... Didn’t you?” I say cheerfully.

We look at each other, and then we both cast down our eyes, perhaps with the acute self-consciousness of young adults. Sarah’s happiness seems to blend well with the dazzling clear light, absorbed and refracted.

I close my eyes and kiss her softly. Her lips are always warm and always seem to bestow upon me a magical energy that sweeps through me, such as a sorcerer might feel when he touches some life-renewing amulet.

For the first time in all my years, I know more than just the fact of being; I know the passion to exist. Now is actually itself, and I care only about the girl in the pale blue dress. I’ve learned the worst lesson life can teach—that it makes no sense. But I’ll always try to make sense of it anyway.

Though I know I can never entirely forgive myself for Mike’s death, I will forget the dreadfulness of my past. It’s as if I’ve been born again, luckily, in Sarah’s arms, her touch keeping me from falling too far into myself. “It’s no use going back to yesterday,” she’s told me.

Sarah looks at me tenderly. We kiss again. A robin perches on a tree branch and begins to sing. The sound is as delicate as a caress. It seems Sarah and I have reached a point where we can work from some small faith in ourselves, a place from which love may be able to heal even the deepest of our wounds. Perhaps for each of us a scab will form, and then fall away, leaving new skin.

— The End —