Page 40 of The Moonlight Healers

“Yes, truly, thank you,” Peter added. “I’m sorry again I just showed up at your house.”

“No need to apologize, sugar. We’re happy to have you.” Camille patted Peter’s shoulder and left.

The buzz of gnats and mosquitos grew louder as the sun sank deeper. The breeze from earlier was gone, the stillness seeming to hold the entire orchard in place, tethered to this moment in time.

“She must like you,” Louise said. She didn’t know what else to say to Peter. She was unsure how to go back to being friends after everything that had happened between them the past couple of days. “She doesn’t ever call me sugar.”

Peter flicked a mosquito from his forearm.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, trying to draw him out. Despite his attempts to act normal, she knew something was bothering him. He could never hide a single emotion, wore every feeling on his face. When he found out he didn’t get into Virginia Tech, he had tried to pretend it didn’t matter, but Louise knew he was devastated. He was so sure that his track performance would be enough to get him accepted, that it would be enough to counter his grades. But it wasn’t enough, not for Virginia Tech or the other four state schools to which he had applied.

“Why are you here?” Peter asked, picking at the wooden table. “Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

For a long, tantalizing second, Louise wondered if she should simply tell him the truth. They could face it together, the accident, their fight, her family’s abilities. They only had a few days left together. But as she tried to form the words, she realized she wasn’t ready. She needed to keep her friendship with Peter, one of the foundations of her world, steady. Too much else in her life was in motion.

“It’s nothing with us. I promise.”

He let out a long breath and leaned back.

“I just needed to come here,” she insisted.

Peter chewed his lip. “Fine, okay. You don’t owe me an explanation for visiting your grandma.” He leaned forward again, placing his palms flat on the table. “But you’ve never been any good at lying. I know something is wrong.”

“I’m not lying. And it’s just…” She searched for a half truth, something she could give him. “It’s family stuff. My mom and grandma. Things aren’t good.”

Peter shook his head. He still didn’t believe her. “I get it. I literally died in front of you. It freaked you out. Don’t you think I was scared, too?” He grabbed her hands. “My heart stopped. I don’t know how to process something like that. And that you…you were the one—”

“To bring you back,” Louise said. It was both the truth and a lie, the two woven together with heartbreaking simplicity.

Louise studied her hands in Peter’s. It was the second time that week he had held her hand, such a basic act but entirely new. She wanted only to sit there in the quiet garden and hold his hand for hours. She could still hear his words in her mind, that he loved her. Impossibly, he loved her.

“Thank you,” Peter said. “I know I already said it. But I should have probably said it again.” He paused. “I probably should start every single conversation with that.”

Louise tried to smile. “Might be a little weird.”

Peter didn’t return her smile. “So come back home then. If what you say is true and you’re okay, then just come home.”

Louise wished she could say yes, go back with him and pretend that everything was fine, go see a midnight movie and eat at their favorite restaurant in Carytown. But she still had more questions. She thought of the journal, her grandmother’s plea for forgiveness, if it was meant for her mother like she suspected. She had tried so many times in the early years after they moved to force her mother and grandmother to interact, invited her grandmother to as many events as possible where her mother would be, birthdays and recitals and debate tournaments. But it never worked. Her mother was always civil, but unwilling to bend or soften. Yet, if she could find out the truth behind her grandmother’s words, discover the root of their fracture, maybe she could finally mend it.

“I can’t. Not yet. One more day. Just one, okay?”

He looked up at the darkening sky. “Okay, so you stay, I stay. I’ll give you a ride home tomorrow, whenever you’re ready. If everything really is fine, then that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

His request, and her pending reply, felt loaded. It would make things harder, to have him there. She wouldn’t be able to speak openly with her grandmother, would have to find opportunitiesto talk to her in private. But she didn’t want to hurt him again by sending him away. And a small but insistent part of her was comforted by the idea of having him there, someone on her side.

“Okay,” she said. “Yes. You should stay.”

* * *

Louise woke at midnight, unable to fall back sleep. She crept past Peter, snoring loudly on the couch in the living room, and made her way out into the yard. Her feet were bare and the ground was wet from dew.

The night sky was cloudless, a black curtain, and studded with stars. Louise was grateful for the full moon as she walked along the edge of the orchard toward the small guest house down the hill.

The little cottage sat near a cluster of peach trees. Her grandmother had rented it out occasionally over the years, to college students and orchard workers, but it was currently vacant.

Louise tried the door, but it was locked. It didn’t matter anyway. She knew what she would find inside: the two small bedrooms and a kitchen and living room, now filled with bland department store furnishings. Her mother had brought baby Louise straight from the hospital to that guest house. She’d been only twenty-two when she got pregnant, when she was casually dating her father. Both were seniors in college and totally unprepared to have a child. Her father moved back to California to attend law school shortly before Louise was born, and though he provided financial support and visited once every summer, Louise saw him more as a distant uncle than a father.

Still, her memories of the cottage were nothing but warm and golden, and she preferred to envision it the way it had been then: the oversize leather couch in the living room, the antique floor mirror where her mother checked her reflection as she dressed in scrubs for work, the trundle daybed Louise slept on. She could see the round kitchen table, where there was alwaysa puzzle or art project out and where they never ate, choosing the coffee table in the living room instead.

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