The Almost Moon Read Online Free
the back of the porch and walked back past the latticework. On the next-door neighbor's empty porch, I could see the local tomcat grooming himself. Growing up, Sarah called such cats "orange marmalades." I saw the old metal lid cocked at an angle on top of the neighbor's neatly tucked and rolled paper trash bag and made a mental note to take my mother's trash out. My whole life, she would instruct me about the proper way to fold a bag. "Paper bags, wax bags, are like your sheets. Hospital corners improve them."
The phone rang again and again. I walked up the three wooden steps to the door. My mother's feet extended out over the top stair. She had insisted that the answering machines I brought her did not work. "She's afraid of them," Natalie said. "My father thinks the ATM will eat his arm."
I smelled something as I shoved my mother's body just far enough aside to squeeze back into the house. It was the smell of lighter fluid and charcoal mingling in the air. By this time the ring of the phone was a hammer pounding from inside my skull, or a voice calling me from outside a nightmare.
The first thing I saw when I entered the kitchen was the stepstool chair beneath the wall-mounted phone. The red vinyl was cracked and taped thirty-five years ago, more than a decade after it served as my first high chair. Seeing it in the kitchen was like seeing a lion left standing, ignored. It leaped out at me, roaring with the voice of the phone above it, propelling me back to my father placing me there. I saw the slash of my young father's smile and my mother's wobbly wrist bringing peaches and bananas—
all pureed by hand—up to my lips. How hard she had tried and how she must have hated it from the start.
[19]
Alice Sebold
I grabbed the phone as if it were a life raft.
"Hello?"
"Do you need help?"
The voice was old, feeble, but I was no less startled than if it had been coming from just outside the door.
"What?"
"You've been out on that porch a long time."
I would recall this later as the first moment where I began to be frightened, where I realized that by the standards of the outside world, what I'd done knew no justification.
"Mrs. Leverton?"
"Are you two all right, Helen? Is Clair in need?"
"My mother's fine," I said.
"I can call my grandson," she said. "He'll be glad to help."
"My mother wanted to go into the yard," I said.
From where I stood, I could see through the small window over the kitchen sink and across the backyard. I remember my mother arduously training a vine to grow so that it masked a view of our house from the Levertons' upstairs bedroom. "That man will stare right into your private places," my mother would say, hanging her front half out my bedroom window, which was directly over the kitchen, threading the vines and risking life and limb to make sure Mr. Leverton never caught a peek. Both the vine and Mr. Leverton were long dead now.
"Is Clair still out there?" Mrs. Leverton asked. "It's awfully cold."
This gave me an idea.
"She's waving at you," I said.
"The Blameless One," my mother had called her. "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and stupid as the day is long."
But there was silence on the other end.
"Helen," Mrs. Leverton said slowly, "are you sure you're all right?"
[ 2 0 ]
The Almost Moon
"Excuse me?"
"Your mother would never wave at me. We both know that."
Not so stupid, apparently.
"But that's pleasant of you to say."
I had to get my mother's body in. It was as simple as that.
"Can't you see her?" I risked.
"I'm in my kitchen now," Mrs. Leverton said. "It's five o'clock, and I always start making supper at five o'clock."
Mrs. Leverton was the champ. At ninety-six, she was the oldest fully functioning member of the neighborhood. My mother had been nothing in comparison to her. When it got down to it, the final competition among women seemed just as inane and graceless as all those in between. Who grew breasts first, who scored the popular boy, who married well, who had the
The phone rang again and again. I walked up the three wooden steps to the door. My mother's feet extended out over the top stair. She had insisted that the answering machines I brought her did not work. "She's afraid of them," Natalie said. "My father thinks the ATM will eat his arm."
I smelled something as I shoved my mother's body just far enough aside to squeeze back into the house. It was the smell of lighter fluid and charcoal mingling in the air. By this time the ring of the phone was a hammer pounding from inside my skull, or a voice calling me from outside a nightmare.
The first thing I saw when I entered the kitchen was the stepstool chair beneath the wall-mounted phone. The red vinyl was cracked and taped thirty-five years ago, more than a decade after it served as my first high chair. Seeing it in the kitchen was like seeing a lion left standing, ignored. It leaped out at me, roaring with the voice of the phone above it, propelling me back to my father placing me there. I saw the slash of my young father's smile and my mother's wobbly wrist bringing peaches and bananas—
all pureed by hand—up to my lips. How hard she had tried and how she must have hated it from the start.
[19]
Alice Sebold
I grabbed the phone as if it were a life raft.
"Hello?"
"Do you need help?"
The voice was old, feeble, but I was no less startled than if it had been coming from just outside the door.
"What?"
"You've been out on that porch a long time."
I would recall this later as the first moment where I began to be frightened, where I realized that by the standards of the outside world, what I'd done knew no justification.
"Mrs. Leverton?"
"Are you two all right, Helen? Is Clair in need?"
"My mother's fine," I said.
"I can call my grandson," she said. "He'll be glad to help."
"My mother wanted to go into the yard," I said.
From where I stood, I could see through the small window over the kitchen sink and across the backyard. I remember my mother arduously training a vine to grow so that it masked a view of our house from the Levertons' upstairs bedroom. "That man will stare right into your private places," my mother would say, hanging her front half out my bedroom window, which was directly over the kitchen, threading the vines and risking life and limb to make sure Mr. Leverton never caught a peek. Both the vine and Mr. Leverton were long dead now.
"Is Clair still out there?" Mrs. Leverton asked. "It's awfully cold."
This gave me an idea.
"She's waving at you," I said.
"The Blameless One," my mother had called her. "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and stupid as the day is long."
But there was silence on the other end.
"Helen," Mrs. Leverton said slowly, "are you sure you're all right?"
[ 2 0 ]
The Almost Moon
"Excuse me?"
"Your mother would never wave at me. We both know that."
Not so stupid, apparently.
"But that's pleasant of you to say."
I had to get my mother's body in. It was as simple as that.
"Can't you see her?" I risked.
"I'm in my kitchen now," Mrs. Leverton said. "It's five o'clock, and I always start making supper at five o'clock."
Mrs. Leverton was the champ. At ninety-six, she was the oldest fully functioning member of the neighborhood. My mother had been nothing in comparison to her. When it got down to it, the final competition among women seemed just as inane and graceless as all those in between. Who grew breasts first, who scored the popular boy, who married well, who had the
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