Page 6 of The Moonlight Healers

A memory hung between them at her mother’s words, a lifeless cat bounding back to its feet, Helene’s squeal of delight, her mother’s horrified expression.

Agnes held Helene’s gaze. “Promise me.”

Helene forced the memory away and nodded as her mother released her. “Yes, Maman.”

Agnes looked toward the enormous round clock on the station facade. “Go on then.” She handed Helene her valise. “You’ll need to find your train. A seat by the window.”

“Yes, Maman,” Helene repeated, but her legs wouldn’t move.

“Go on,” Agnes said again, with a light push on the small of her back. “We will see each other again soon, very soon.”

Helene gripped the journal as she studied her mother’s face. She knew its landscape better than any other, could trace its peaks and valleys in her mind. Her mother wasn’t soft, or delicate. Her jawline was sharp, her nose angular, her cheekbones prominent and almost masculine. But when Agnes was in her element, doing the work she believed in, or simply drying herbs with Helene in the kitchen, her hardness became its own kind of beauty, as formidable as the cliffs that ran along the coast, gleaming with the moonlight that reflected off the sea. Helene had never felt that kind of purpose, never seen in her reflection the grace and determination her mother exuded. All she ever saw was her own uncertainty.

“Of course, Maman,” she said.

And then, before Helene could say anything else, before she could even say goodbye, Agnes pivoted and walked away, her steps leaving pale imprints on the dirt road.

Helene watched her mother’s form fade into the old streets, the sidewalks growing busier. She stood with her valise in one hand and her ticket in the other until Agnes was gone, until there was nothing left but the town and its hazy sky, the glint of sea beyond it, still and deep and waiting.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

2019

3

LOUISE

The streets were dark and empty as Louise’s mother, Bobbie, drove her home from the hospital. By the time the doctors agreed to release her, after what seemed like every possible test and scan and evaluation, it was nearly midnight.

Louise watched numbly as the familiar sights of her neighborhood flashed past, the quiet storefronts, restaurant patios with chairs stacked neatly, 1920s bungalows lined up in rows.

It all kept playing on a loop in her mind. The ambulance ride, the hours in the emergency room, her mother’s shocked, horrified face. And the minutes right before the crash, the fight she’d had with Peter. They rarely argued, and yet he had been distant when he picked her up to go to the pool that morning, his features strained as he stood at her door, holding a grease-stained bag of fast food.

She thought it was because of what happened at Kyle’s party, even though he’d told her he remembered nothing from the night. But as they drove away from their neighborhood, he looked at her and asked the one question she wasn’t expecting.

“Do you really want to go to NYU?”

Louise hadn’t known what to say at first, was relieved that it wasn’t about Peter’s confession the night before. But she also didn’t understand the question. NYU had been her plan for years, an idea sparked in a tiny hotel room on Louise’s sixteenth birthday, after a tour in which Louise’s mother had gushed loudly over every library and dorm and class building. She and her mother had sat up in their hotel bed that night poring over the course catalog on her mother’s phone.

“Look at all these econ classes, economics of media. Economics of innovation. Microfinance and calculus. Your big nerdy math brain would be in heaven,” her mother said, half teasing. But her eyes were so bright and alive that Louise could feel the excitement take root inside of her own body.

“Yes, come on, you know that,” she said to Peter. “I leave on Friday.”

“And then what? Major in economics? Go off to conquer the world of finance?”

The bite in his voice surprised her. Peter had been uncharacteristically quiet about her plans for college ever since she told him she had chosen NYU, but she had tried not to take it personally. He hadn’t gotten into a single college, not even his “safety” school, and even though he tried to laugh it off, she knew he was deeply embarrassed about it.

“What is your sudden problem with NYU? It’s a great school.”

He chewed on the nails on his left hand, a nervous tic. “It is a great school. For some people.”

Louise’s head pounded from her hangover. She didn’t want a fight. She only wanted to enjoy their last few days together in Richmond. “What is your point, Peter?”

Peter continued to chew on his nails, even though they were already worn down to the skin. “It just doesn’t…it doesn’t seem like you.” He checked the mirror as he merged onto the traffic going over the James River, which churned beneath them, high from the previous months’ rains.

Louise rubbed her temple. She didn’t know what he was talking about, who exactly he thought she was. Every single moment of the last two years, every class, every extracurricular, had been mapped out to lead her to NYU. “We’re not six years old anymore. Playing dress-up in your basement. From what I remember, you wanted to be an astronaut. How’s that going for you?”

Peter’s mouth twitched at the memory, but he kept his eyes on the road. “Point taken—it’s just…” He took a small breath, as though steeling himself. “Tell me this isn’t just for your mom,” he said. “Say it once, and mean it, and I will never bring this up again.”

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