Pack Up the Moon

PRAISE FOR
PACK UP THE MOON

“Don’t forget
Pack Up the Moon
when you’re packing your bags—it’s the perfect vacation or staycation read. It’s filled with fiercely honest emotion, a celebration of the power of love to heal even the most broken of hearts.”

—Susan Wiggs, #1
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Apple Orchard

“A superlative architect of story, Rachael Herron never steers away from wrenching events, and yet even moments of deepest despair are laced with threads of hope. It’s impossible to stop turning the pages, breathless to discover the fate of beautifully drawn characters who are ravaged by loss and rescued by their devotion to each other. Herron is an inexhaustible champion of the healing power of love.”

—Sophie Littlefield, national bestselling author of
Garden of Stones

“Rachael Herron has created a work of intense beauty in
Pack Up the Moon
. Here is love and fear, hope and deep longing. Here are people trying their best, and falling short, and trying again. Here is unthinkable loss, and its aftermath. Herron’s beautifully rendered novel boldly shows us people at their lowest and then makes us fall in love with them.”

—Cari Luna, author of
The Revolution of Every Day

Written by today’s freshest new talents and selected by New American Library, NAL Accent novels touch on subjects close to a woman’s heart, from friendship to family to finding our place in the world. The Conversation Guides included in each book are intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.

Visit us online at www.penguin.com.

PRAISE FOR THE OTHER WORKS OF RACHAEL HERRON

“A warmhearted hug from a talented author. . . . The story will stay in your heart long after the last page is turned.”

—Susan Wiggs, #1
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Apple Orchard

“Insightfully genius,
A Life in Stitches
makes me grateful that Rachael Herron put down her needles long enough to pick up a pen.”

—Josh Kilmer-Purcell,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Bucolic Plague

“Rachael Herron seamlessly blends romance, friendship, and laughter.”

—Barbara Bretton,
USA Today
bestselling author of
A Soft Place to Fall

“A charming story whose characters captivate your heart.”

—BookLoons

“A riveting tale.”

—
Booklist

“An emotional story of two people discovering who they really are.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“
Wishes and Stitches
will take you home to a place you’ll never want to leave.”

—Christie Ridgway,
USA Today
bestselling author of
Bungalow Nights

NAL Accent

Published by the Penguin Group

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A Penguin Random House Company

First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Copyright © Rachel Herron, 2014

Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014

“Funeral Blues” copyright 1940 and copyright © renewed 1968 by W. H. Auden; from
W. H
. Auden Collected Poems
by W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House LLC for permission.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

Herron, Rachael.

Pack up the moon/Rachael Herron.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-698-14800-0

1. Family secrets—Fiction. 2. Children—Death—Fiction.

3. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 4. Grief—Fiction.

5. Domestic fiction. 6. Psychological fiction.

I. Title.

PS3608.E7765P33 2014

813'.6—dc23 2013037401

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For my favorite teachers, Perry Pederson and Al Landwehr.

Acknowledgments

M
any people make a book, but my greatest thanks go to my agent, Susanna Einstein, for listening to the idea, holding up her hands, and saying, “Go. Write. I want to read
that
.” (And then for reading it. Over. And over. And over.) Thanks to everyone at Einstein Thompson Agency, especially to Molly Reese Lerner for sending me my favorite kind of e-mails, and to Sandy Hodgman for the early and encouraging belief. Huge thanks go to my amazing editor, Danielle Perez, for knowing what to suggest and when to cheer. To Christy Herron, thanks for letting me borrow your Harry Potter books. I’m sorry Clara ate
The Philosopher’s Stone
. To Bethany Herron, thanks for always making time for the emergency reads during my panic moments. I could never have written this book without the plotting genius and specialties of Sophie Littlefield (emotion), Juliet Blackwell (love), Dr. Nicole Peeler (plot), and A. J. Larrieu (character). Thanks go to Write or Die, Mac Freedom, and Scrivener, in that order—I don’t know how writers got anything done before these programs existed (of course, writers who just used pen and paper weren’t distracted by Twitter, were they?). Speaking of the virtual watercooler, thanks go to every single person who’s ever chatted with me at Twitter and Facebook. It wouldn’t be as much fun coming up for air if you weren’t there bobbing cheerily at the surface. To Carolyn Tello, thank you for sharing the hijinks of the gaming industry with me, and to Amy Singer and Phillycheese for the invaluable boat info. Thanks to Moby, who will never know how much his song “Stella Maris” means to Kate. All errors, of course, are mine alone. To Cari Luna, my thanks always to you, for everything. To Lala Hulse, for believing in me and this and us. And for always thinking space aliens are the answer to everything.

Funeral Blues

W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Sunday, May 11, 2014
7 p.m.

T
he day Kate’s daughter found her was the only day in twenty-two years Kate wasn’t looking.

“Good press showing.” Vanessa’s practiced smile worked like a boat’s rudder steering Kate through the crowd, moving her easily away from the man who’d been trumpeting about Kate’s obvious influences, artists she’d never heard of. “Grab one of those little shrimp things. You have to eat. So we have the
Chronicle, Bay Guardian
,
and Channel 2. That’s not to mention the line I have to a
New York Times
critic who’s in town next week and is coming on Monday for a private showing. She can be a bitch extraordinaire, but she gave me the impression she’s excited about your new paintings.”

“Good,” said Kate, and for once she meant it. The last time she’d had to deal with press had been under the worst sort of circumstances. This time they were hovering, but more politely. They had a different glint in their squinted eyes as they watched her closely, carefully. If she bolted, their merciless prey drive would be activated, so she breathed deeply, keeping her heart rate down. When spotted by a mountain lion, one was supposed to become as large as possible. Kate straightened her back, elongating her neck. Thank god she’d worn the black dress—if she’d worn the red silk she’d considered, the rivulets of sweat running between her breasts and trailing down her neck would have been obvious.

“Are you ready to say a few words?”

Kate blinked. This was the part she’d always dreaded most about her openings, especially now. She nodded.

Vanessa touched her elbow and stepped up to the small podium. Tapping the mike, she smiled quietly while waiting for—expecting—the crowd to quiet.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thanks for coming tonight. I couldn’t be more pleased to present Kate Monroe’s newest installation. If you’re a fan of her paintings, you’ve been as excited as I have about this. We’ve missed your work, Kate. We know you’ve been through a lot in the last few years.”

Kate felt the press’s level of alertness heighten.

Vanessa continued. “We can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, but, as always, collectors, patrons, and critics alike agree on this: your soul shines through this work. And we are the better for it. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m thrilled to present Kate Monroe.”

Kate didn’t hear the applause as much as she felt it, a wave of air that pressed against her skin. They would ask questions, always the worst part. Dread filled her, a green nausea. She glanced right, brushing her eyes over her favorite of the paintings, the one she knew critics would call “important,” meaning, as usual, something they couldn’t quite understand. A deep black swath of land, a gray rotor blade jutting up into a night sky. Stronger now—she was strong enough to paint that. She’d worked her ass off. She could do this simple thing, she could stand in front of people and let them look at her, let them think they knew something, anything, about her.

In the back row, among the dozens of people she didn’t know, she saw Dierdre and Elizabeth from her book club. Dierdre gave a finger waggle and Elizabeth smiled and raised a mini-quiche in her direction. Her heart eased. If they were here, she could do this.

“Thank you.” Kate paused, taking a second to curl her fingers around the edges of the podium. “This show is the result of a year’s worth of work.” What had she been planning on saying again? She hadn’t made flash cards, hadn’t thought she’d need them. “Oh, crap. Just go ahead and ask me what you want.”

The audience laughed, and it almost sounded kind. Kate took a question about process, and then one about her choice of material, why she’d switched back to oils only to stay mostly monochromatic. A thin trail of happiness ran up her spine. Kate knew how to do this. A critic who had panned her work seven years earlier—who had called her “stilted and thin”—seemed to be delighted, as if he could take credit for discovering her.

She took another question formed as an accolade, and then pointed, almost carelessly, at the woman from the
Chronicle
. “You, yes?”

“Your palette is astonishingly diverse in its uniformity. You’ve always been known, though, for your color. Did losing your son make you see the world differently?”

There it was. The question. The room gave a low hiss of disapproval toward the woman who’d asked, but Kate also heard the follow-up collectively held breath. They all wanted to hear the answer.

“No,” she said, concentrating. “If anything, this work is about my father. You’ll see parts of his helicopter in some of the pieces, and glimpses of him can be seen in shadow if you look carefully enough. He was a pilot and died when I was ten. The fog was low, and night came in faster than he’d expected.” Kate watched the confusion register. They’d all thought they understood—that the grief on the canvas was the grief they’d read about in the papers. But they didn’t. They wanted to rubberneck her maternal pain, drive by the wreckage, contorting their faces into something that resembled empathy. Instead, they were only witness to a cold loss, a loss sustained so long ago it was practically inscribed on her DNA. Relief surged through her. Her defenses still stood then.

She answered a few more questions; then Vanessa stepped between her and the microphone. “Thank you for coming, and enjoy.” Applause again, different this time, lighter, less worried. Maybe the audience had
thought
they’d wanted to witness a mother’s grief but found themselves as relieved as she was to be spared.

“Good job,” said Vanessa. “I have champagne on ice in the back. Need a little break before the next onslaught?”

“Bless you,” said Kate, holding tightly to her elbow.

In the back room, Vanessa slipped off her heels and perched on her desk as she poured them both a glass. “Just for a couple of minutes. Then I’ll have to get you out there again.”

“I can do it,” said Kate. God, it felt
good
to know that again. It had been such a long time.

“I know you can. I’m proud of you.” Vanessa appraised her, tilting her head to the side. “Can you tell me, though?”

“What?” The bubbles were sharp, prickling on Kate’s tongue.

“Is the work really about your father?”

Kate should tell her no, let Vanessa believe she knew the secret below the darkness of the work. Vanessa would like that. In the long run, it would probably even translate to higher sales as she whispered to buyers what she thought each one meant. Vanessa thought they were friends, and for one second Kate wished to hell it could be true.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s really about my dad.” Because after all, that
was
the truth. She’d never been able to paint her son, Robin. She’d be shocked if she ever could. She’d lost him as irrevocably as she’d lost the right to use color.

Vanessa shrugged. “Okay.”

The door swung open a few inches.

“Private,” Vanessa called. “Restroom is down the hall to the left.”

A girl pushed her head in. “Can I just have a quick word with Ms. Monroe?”

Kate had seen the girl—no, young woman—during the talk. She’d stood in the back, her spine straight, the picture of an earnest art student. She wore a black oversized tunic with red pockets and torn black tights. Her hair was multicolored, stripes of blue and green cascading through her black curls. Kate had looked right at her, thinking she was a pretty girl who probably didn’t know how beautiful she was going to be. An idle thought—that’s all it had been.

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. “Maybe in a moment? We’ll be out in a—”

Kate felt something twist in her stomach, an edge of nervousness, and she said, “No, it’s fine,” even while she wasn’t sure if it was. She held the stem of her glass more tightly. Something was about to happen.

Vanessa gave Kate a sharp, curious look and then nodded. The door clicked behind her.

“It’s me,” said the girl.

Jesus fucking Christ. Kate had looked at the girl.
Right
at her. She hadn’t seen it, hadn’t seen the truth. Always, she’d known one thing—that she would know her when she saw her. And she hadn’t. The one day she should have.

“You’re . . .” Kate’s bravery, so sorely tested already to- day, failed. There was no way in hell she could complete the sentence verbally. The girl looked so much younger than twenty-two.

The young woman’s eyes filled with tears as she nodded. “Yeah.” Her voice was the palest green of the first spring grass.

Kate pressed her fingers to her upper lip. Then she said the only thing she could think of, the sentence she couldn’t keep back.

“Happy birthday.”