Page 31 of The Moonlight Healers

“Of course I would,” Louise lied. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Louise hung up and went down the aisle between the first two rows of peach trees. Bees and flies swarmed the peaches that had fallen. Louise remembered collecting the intact fruits from the ground as a child, the ones they used for cider and cobblers and pies. Her great-grandmother was especially fond of peach cobbler. She’d told Louise that during the war it would have been considered the height of decadence, a prize fit for a queen, a sentiment that always made Louise giggle, because nothing about peach cobbler felt extravagant in the parameters of her safe, easy life.

She reached the end of the row and turned toward the next. She wanted to walk for hours, lose herself among the tangled branches of the orchard, pretend life was as simple as it had been when she’d played in these same places as a child. And so she did, weaving her way between the apple and peach trees, cutting through the strawberry and blueberry fields planted in theclearings on the other side of the road, pausing occasionally to rest, her mind drifting and wandering like the wispy clouds in the afternoon sky.

When the sun was directly over the mountains in the west, Louise finally let herself stop. She lowered herself in the middle of a row of unripe apple trees. It was quiet in that section of the orchard, away from the distant noises of the farms bordering the property.

Louise leaned back against a tree, its thick, squat base still warm from the day’s sun. The canopy of branches curved and twisted above her, each heavy with green fruit the size of baseballs.

It had been twelve years since Louise lived at the orchard full-time, but she was comforted by how little had changed, how if she closed her eyes it felt possible that she was still five years old, chasing Caroline up and down the long rows as they played tag or ghost in the graveyard, their faces flushed, shrieking as they darted in and out of the trees. Or in the springtime, when the peach trees blossomed, and she, Camille, and Helene would twirl in circles, as every gust of wind made it rain a thousand petals of pink.

At the vision, Louise remembered the thin journal. She withdrew it from the back of her waistband and held it out in front of her. It was warm from the contact with her skin, the old leather stained and discolored in spots, remnants of water or coffee spills, maybe.

She flipped gently through the first few pages. The writing was all in French, but she studied the illustrations, drawings of flowers and herbs, a chart depicting different phases of the moon, short paragraphs that looked like diary entries. She turned a few more pages, pausing to examine an image of the human form, surrounded by symbols and divided into four quadrants, each labeled with a different word:Flegmat,Sanguin,Coleric, andMelanc.

A breeze rustled Louise’s hair as the handwriting becamemore fluid and slightly less embellished. She guessed it was when Helene took over from her own mother. She felt a little wave of grief as she touched the pen marks on the page, trying to imagine the elegant old woman she knew from memory as the young one who would have written these words.

The journal continued in French, before English began to appear, hints that Helene was now in Virginia, names that were familiar: ginseng and jewel weed, drawings of flowers that grew wild along the hillsides. There were also dosing charts for penicillin and morphine and Pitocin, patient names and addresses, inventory lists of dressings and IV needles, clues of Helene’s transition to home health nursing after she married in the early 1950s.

Louise adjusted her legs beneath her as she reached the point in the journal where Camille’s handwriting began to appear, small and exact, more of a shorthand than the formal script of the women before her. There were drawings interspersed with the written entries, delicate watercolor depictions of flowers and herbs that hinted at her passion for art. But mostly she left notes about patient encounters, a patchwork quilt of the moments in her career that had shaped her.

August, 1979

First day on my own at work after orientation. Working with Hospice of Shenandoah—assigned to Ms. Nancy, a seventy-nine-year-old mother of three, grandmother of nine, with lung cancer. Her family is wonderfully kind, and opinionated. Didn’t much care for the first nurse the agency assigned them. Apparently, she whistled. Have to wonder what they think of a brand-new graduate. But Ms. Nancy knows Mama from town. She was in a lot of pain when I got there—we adjusted her morphine dose but she still struggled. I offered a bath and bed change, and was able to bring her some peace as I worked. Her daughter, Ellen, asked me if I was praying when I put my hands on her. I told herthat no disrespect to the Lord, but human touch brings comfort much quicker than prayer. I think she likes me. I hope they like me.

Louise smiled. She enjoyed hearing her grandmother’s voice in this way. It was hard to imagine her ever being new, or nervous, but she followed this thread through her early entries until gradually her passages became more confident, and she sounded more like the Camille Louise had always known.

The orchard grew quiet and distant around her as Louise read her grandmother’s words, tracing the dates. A young woman’s death that hit Camille particularly hard the year Bobbie was born. A long stretch of no entries that coincided with her divorce. There were also mentions of another healer named Naomi. Louise vaguely remembered meeting her as a little girl when she visited the orchard, but she had no idea the richness of her past. Camille described Naomi as descended from enslaved healers, part of an ancient line that went back much further than their own family.

As the years went on, the entries became sparse, and less confessional, until finally she reached the last page. There was a date at the top: August 19, 2007. And underneath, one short paragraph.

It’s yours. All of it. When you are ready. I wasn’t. Please forgive me. But know I always loved you first. Before everything else. That love guided every choice. Every mistake. And it will remain, always.

Why was her grandmother asking for forgiveness, and from who? Was it a man, someone she had been with after her divorce?

Louise searched her memory. She’d been six years old when her grandmother wrote those words, the same year they left Crozet and her mother and grandmother’s relationship had shattered. Louise always knew something horrible must have happened to make her mother so rigid in her anger. But no matter how many times she asked, her mother always refused to give a clear answer, say anything other than it was complicated. Could Bobbie be the “you” in the diary entry?

She turned the page and pulled out a photo that had been tucked into the back cover. It was of Helene holding a small baby underneath the magnolia tree in the backyard. Her expression was serene, her blue eyes bright as she gazed down at the infant in her arms. Louise felt a tug inside of her chest as she realized the baby in the photo must be her, taken shortly after she was born.

Louise squinted into the late-afternoon sun. She felt full with the magnitude of their words, the power of three lifetimes, this long and winding road that had led to where she sat at that exact moment. She studied her hands, which looked so ordinary and unremarkable, and yet held the weight of a long legacy. It hit her with a renewed force, how if it hadn’t been for the car accident, she never would have known. All of this beauty would have remained hidden in that book.

She placed the journal beside her and uncrossed her stiff legs, stretching them out on the soft, red clay soil. Little bees flew in and out of patches of clover, and for the first time that day, her mind became blissfully empty. She sunk into this feeling, letting it envelop her until nothing existed beyond the rows of the orchard.

Then there was a loud crack of branches directly behind her, followed by a low, animal-like sound, part growl and part moan. A thud so close the ground beneath her vibrated.

Louise got up quickly, her heart racing, and peered into the long row of apple trees, trying not to make noise. She couldn’t see anything, her view clouded by tangles of apple branches, but a low rasp came from a few feet away, like air blowing through a straw. Her heart beat harder.

When she was finally able to force her legs to move, Louise stepped forward into the row of trees. She scanned the wide clearing that ran between the rows, until she noticed the unmistakable black mound only a few feet away.

Louise had only ever seen a bear that close once. She was seven years old, visiting her grandmother. They were driving home from the ice cream shop in town when they passed a huge black bear crumpled on the side of the road. Louise had pressed her face into the window as Camille slowed the car, muttering under her breath. The bear tried to rise to its feet, but its legs gave out and it collapsed again.

Her grandmother had called animal control, said they would put it down, and Louise had cried the rest of the way, asking why they couldn’t help the bear, take it the vet, find a way for it to live. When they got home, Camille had squatted down next to Louise outside the car and held her shoulders. And she told her words that Louise had never forgotten, even if she only now began to understand their meaning: “Death isn’t a tragedy, Louise. Not always.”

Back in the orchard, Louise’s mouth was as dry as sandpaper. One of the bear’s back legs was mangled, there was a large patch of fur missing near its neck, mange probably, and bright red blood matted the fur of its injured leg.

She held her breath, frozen with fear, as the massive animal rolled over onto its side. It whimpered, its eyes wide with panic.

She should run. She should go back to the warehouse, find Jim. He would know what to do.

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