Page 30 of The Moonlight Healers

“I think I’d like to stay here with Grandma,” Louise said. Shetried to keep her voice steady but she knew her mom would see right through her. She wasn’t ready to leave, to pack for college, shop for her dorm room, pretend nothing had changed. “For another day or two.”

Bobbie’s face showed a concerned surprise. “But you’re leaving on Friday.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

Bobbie opened her mouth to argue but then seemed to stop herself. “Okay, Louise, if that’s really what you want.”

Louise gazed past her mom at the garden as Bobbie got up and kissed Louise on the cheek, once. “I love you, you know?”

Louise nodded but didn’t reply.

“What do I tell Peter?” Bobbie asked as she straightened up. “He’s going to be looking for you. You guys have plans tonight, don’t you?”

“I’ll call him.” Louise felt a twinge of guilt. She knew Peter would be disappointed, maybe even hurt, but she wasn’t yet ready to face him. She didn’t know what to tell him about the accident, if she was ready to be honest. But she also didn’t know how to be around him and openly lie. “He’ll understand.”

Bobbie put a hand on Louise’s arm. “I am sorry, for all of it. For how this all happened. You know that, right?”

Louise nodded again, biting her lip.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said, squeezing Louise’s arm before making her way back through the house.

In the silence of the porch, Louise heard her stomach growl. After her grandmother burned the French toast earlier, they never ended up eating breakfast.

She waited until the front door slammed before going inside. The house was quiet, her grandmother likely down at the market or warehouse, checking in with Jim. She grabbed a bag of open pretzels off the kitchen counter. She needed to walk, clear her head, sort through all the confusion and noise. She was turningto leave when the red journal on the table caught her eye. She grabbed that too and went back outside.

She dialed Peter’s number and headed into the orchard. He answered after only one ring.

“Are you back yet?” he asked, a tentative hope in his voice.

“No, I’m still in Crozet.”

“What time are you getting home?”

She came to a stop as she reached the edge of the yard, where the land sloped down and the rows of fruit trees began. “I’m not coming home. Not today.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

“What’s wrong? Are they fighting?”

Peter knew the details of her mother and grandmother’s broken relationship as much as anyone. He had been there, a few months after they moved to Richmond, as Louise sat coloring in the kitchen while Peter’s mom fixed them an afternoon snack.

Peter had just gotten back from a week at the beach with his grandparents and extended family, and was sunburnt and full of stories, the hours spent playing in the waves with his cousins, catching crabs off the dock with his grandfather.

“Do you have plans with your grandparents this summer, honey?” Marion asked Louise as she set a plate of apples and peanut butter in front of them. She was always gentle with Louise, her tone dramatically different than when she was talking to her three rowdy boys, who were usually either wrestling or jumping off of furniture.

“My mom is in a big fight with my grandma,” Louise said, the truth spilling out. There was something about Peter’s boisterous, chaotic house that made her feel less guarded, at ease in a way she wasn’t even in her own home. “My mom won’t even answer the phone when she calls,” she blurted.

She had been immediately horrified that she had told them, that it was somehow a betrayal of her mother. Louise felt her eyes sting in the bright kitchen at the silence that followed.

“My uncle Dan drinks too much beer,” Peter said. “Right, Mom? And my cousin Ellie has her tongue pierced. And…and sometimes my other cousin, Henry, wets the bed, even though he’s nine.”

Peter’s mother had smacked him gently on the head, even though she smiled as she did it, and Louise giggled. After that, she knew she would always be safe with him, that he would always find a way to make her feel better. But now something fundamental had shifted.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Louise finally said, trying to keep her voice light. “I just needed a little more time with my grandma. I promise I’ll come back tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. And we’ll be able to make the midnight movie at the Byrd before I go.”

There was another pause.

“Okay,” he said, though she could hear disappointment in his voice. “You’d let me know, though, if something was wrong?”

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