Ask the Moon

By C.M. Barrett

Sometimes when you slow down, the past catches up with you.

 

Finn thought she'd rebuilt her life after being raped when she was twenty, getting pregnant, and giving the baby up for adoption. Thirty-five years later, when her lover decides to have a baby, Finn tells both herself and Dolores that she won't agree to a decision she had no part in making. Dolores accuses her of being afraid to face the past and leaves her.

 

When Finn sinks into an unshakable depression, her friend, Gabriel, convinces her that she needs to leave Manhattan. She moves to upstate New York and tries to adjust to a world without crowds, corner delis, and the countless distractions that kept painful memories at a safe distance.

 

Traumas resurface when she dreams about her baby and her mother, who died of a miscarriage when Finn was four years old. The past becomes present when Finn receives an unexpected email from her daughter. Although she has no memory of a mother's love, she must learn to give love to a daughter whose spirit is as wounded as her own.

 

Finn hopes that moving to the country will help her forget her faithless lover. Instead, buried traumas from the distant past become present. When her daughter, conceived through rape, shows up in her life, Finn fears that they'll be unable to find comfort in each other—and suddenly nothing seems more important.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.M. Barrett
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393979869

Book preview

Chapter 1

New Year’s Eve made Finn think of endings, not beginnings. Already afraid that the Y2K bug would end life as she knew it, she tried to veto her lover’s proposal for a party to celebrate the new millennium. Finn hated the idea of adding auld acquaintance melancholy to the death of civilization.

Dolores, however, rarely abandoned a plan. We never have parties. Do you object because it’s my idea?

Finn bypassed the invitation to sink into the mire of accusations and counter-accusations. Do you want to be pushing maudlin drunks out the door and have a few guests so wasted they have to crash on the living room couch and maybe vomit on the rug?

That can happen after any party, Dolores said, but she glanced at the pale green carpeting.

It’s more likely on New Year’s Eve. People make resolutions they know they won’t keep. They get depressed and drink too much.

Dolores frowned, eyes still on the carpeting. What about a late afternoon party? Everyone will be starting off sober. You can’t object to that.

Finn could, but, after gauging her prospects of victory, chose retreat. Remember, this is the bookstore’s busiest season, so it’s your project.

Not that it would ever have been anything else.

Like everything Dolores did, the party was a success. Conversations bubbled in every corner of the apartment, and no one got too drunk.

On her way to the kitchen with some dirty plates, she heard Dolores whispering with someone in the spare room. Secrets? Finn paused at the closed door.

Yes, I’ve decided, Dolores said, her voice moderately slurred. I’m going to have a baby before it’s too late.

What’s Finn going to say? the other woman asked.

Nothing. Finn was going to stand there, her mouth hanging open, and try not to drop the dishes.

It’s my baby, Dolores said.

Only if you live long enough to get pregnant. Fury dissolved the ice of Finn’s shock and welded together some of Dolores’ recent strange behavior: her depression after seeing babies, how she paused whenever they passed a playground, the study of pregnancy she said was research for a client who owned a holistic prenatal clinic.

Finn walked away from the door before she burst into the room and murdered her lover.

When she forced herself back to the living room, she made certain that no one saw through her set smile and cheerful repartee. Every now and then, she’d say, I had no idea it was so late, and, after far too long, the last of the guests left.

In the empty living room, Finn gathered glasses and plates, barely resisting the urge to hurl them at Dolores. Outside, people in varying stages of celebration laughed and sang, but the festive atmosphere that earlier filled the apartment had melted in the heat of imminent battle.

Dolores finished washing the dishes. Wasn’t that a wonderful party? Finn, you’re glaring at me. Is something wrong?

Now that it was time to launch hostilities, Finn hesitated, her emotions dancing a fevered tarantella. She longed to stab Dolores’ heart with the dark words piercing her own, but she was sane enough to remind herself that such sentiments couldn’t be unspoken.

If she began by reviewing the facts, she’d take longer to turn into a screaming harpy. You have some plans I hadn’t heard about.

Her lover’s olive skin paled to camellia. You were eavesdropping.

Dolores had a gift for redirecting blame, but she couldn’t compete with Finn, who’d learned from her father how to shape her tongue into a bow for guilt-tipped arrows. I heard my name mentioned as I was passing the spare bedroom. Let’s talk about what I heard.

Dolores’ eyes flashed, and her cheeks flushed a passionate rose. I wasn’t trying to betray you. I love you. These have been the happiest two years of my life. Honestly, I never thought about a baby until a few months ago. I laughed about the idea of a biological clock.

They’d both laughed.

Then . . . . She looked at her hands, curved as if they were caressing an infant’s downy head. It became real. A picture of a baby in a magazine or a commercial makes me cry. And it isn’t just in my head; it’s a physical longing. I need a baby.

And you couldn’t tell me? Instead, you crawled around in a funk for three months, while I kept on asking what was wrong. There’s a way to do this. One woman says to the other, ‘I want to have a baby.’ Better yet, she says, ‘I want us to have a baby,’ and they have a discussion.

One fragile tear adorned Dolores’ cheek. But you wouldn’t have discussed it. You would have said, ‘Absolutely not,’ and I might have given up even thinking about it—but I would have resented you.

"Because anyone who doesn’t give you what you want when you want it is responsible for ruining your life. Did you think that once you made up your mind, I’d give in, because Dolores has spoken? Or did you plan to say to me one day, ‘Hi, honey, I’m pregnant’?

Dolores’ silence confirmed Finn’s suspicion, and she thought about the friends who told her she was an idiot to let Dolores run their relationship. She’d dismissed them because things like New Year’s Eve parties didn’t bother her. Now she saw how giving in on the little things could lead to big trouble.

She was opening her mouth to scream when Dolores dissolved in a shimmer of tears, crumpling onto the couch (covered in rose velvet that grubby fingers could ruin). Her dream was encountering turbulence as it descended into reality. If Finn said nothing, it might simply crash.

Finn, I’m so sorry. I know I was wrong. Could you please try to forgive me, and maybe we could have the discussion you want?

Dolores’ voice, soft and tender, encircled Finn’s wounded heart, promising relief from pain, a promise backed by parted lips and by eyes that radiated megawatts of warmth. She made herself as receptive and welcoming as a flower, but her species was the Venus flytrap, and Finn had been consumed before. She vowed to unscramble the contents of her sex-addled brain.

Let’s begin with the assumption that I might have some valid reasons for not wanting a baby, I’m fifty-five, you’re forty-five. It takes energy to raise a baby and more to raise a child. Have you thought about teenagers? I’ll be collecting social security before this hypothetical kid gets a driver’s license. Time-wise, the maternity ward and the nursing home may not be so far apart.

Dolores thrust her shoulders out, which made her breasts quite noticeable. Oh, Finn, you’re one of the most energetic and passionate people I know. If you only knew how I love the idea of my—our—child growing up in the presence of such spirit.

Finn might have ignored this blather, but Dolores was now amping up her erotic voltage to the point where resistance became close to impossible. If Finn weren’t careful, Dolores would get her sufficiently deranged to decide that keeping her was worth turning the spare bedroom into Baby Central. On the other hand, if this conflict proved fatal, it would be nice to have one last sexual interlude to remember.

Dolores opened her arms. It was probably a terrible mistake, but Finn fell into them and forgot about winning and losing—for a little while.

* * *

They lay together in a cozy tangle on the living room rug. Let’s not go to the party in Hoboken tonight, Dolores said.

If it meant more lovemaking, Finn would gladly stay at home, but she suspected they’d hit their peak for the evening. As their mutual glow faded, they’d start thinking about babies again, and Dolores would try to win her over. They would probably exchange hostilities. Better to leave the house while still bathed in a sexual haze and spend the evening with entertaining people who didn’t talk about breast-feeding.

Let’s go to Ofelya’s, Finn said. Everly’s going and all our friends. It’s only a few blocks away.

Dolores pulled on her caftan. Now that she had no need for seductiveness, she’d tucked passion into the secret place where she stored it for emergencies. The stiffness of her shoulders suggested not just her refusal to go to the party but determination to re-ignite the wall of fire that smoldered between them.

Finn, I enjoyed our intermission, but we haven’t resolved anything. You can’t just walk out now. Our entire future is at stake here.

And I can’t talk about that right now. You’ve been thinking about it for months. Surely I’m entitled to a few hours of contemplation.

Right, you’re going to go to a party and contemplate.

A banshee scream pulsed in Finn’s throat. She had to leave before she said something irrevocable.

* * *

Finn called Everly at their store. Hoboken is out, and Dolores doesn’t want to go to Ofelya’s party.

And you got some heartache to unload before you can put yourself into a sociable mood. Okay, but if I don’t eat something, I’m going to o.d. on plantanos and chicharrones, and that’s lethal to my best intentions. I’m ready to close up. Let’s meet at Marie’s.

Finn put on her coat and said goodbye to Dolores, who didn’t answer.

* * *

Marie’s, a neighborhood diner and bar, was open twenty-four hours a day. The clientele was mostly gay, and its busiest hours began after the bars closed. Only a scattering of people occupied it now, and Finn easily spotted Everly, hunched up in a booth, eating.

Salad? Finn asked.

Told you I had intentions. Since the lights stayed on in Australia and Europe, I assume we have a few more years to live, and I want to live them a little lighter. Don’t tell me I’ve made the same resolution for the past thirty years.

Finn wanted to support Everly. Some years you’ve kept it.

And this is going to be one of them. It’s also going to be the find-a-lifetime-companion year. Damn if I’m not tired of spending New Year’s Eve, not to mention my life, without a date.

You can be with someone and still not have a date.

And that’s what has you looking like the widow McKenna?

As Finn recounted the pending blessed event news, Everly twisted a dreadlock so tightly Finn was certain it would snap off. At the end of the story, Everly shook her head. Girl, you got yourself a pile of trouble.

Finn signaled the waitress and ordered a Jameson’s. The first few sips encouraged melancholy. Dolores has always been trouble. I’ve never fought so much with a lover, but the fights always ended so well.

Sex fiend.

Guilty as charged, but the sex is worth the aggravation. When I think about the relationships where I coasted along for years—

Coasted along the road of infidelity, you might add.

Why should I? I can always count on you to mention it. I never did that until things started to get bad.

Everly rolled obsidian eyes. Up until now, neither you or I have been exactly the marrying kind. Maybe only age has made either of us think about that awful word, ‘commitment.’

If I had to grow old, I wanted to do it with Dolores.

And Dolores doesn’t want to leave you.

No, she wants to run me, as you’ve often kindly pointed out. I don’t mind if she tells me I need a vacation or a new pair of shoes, but she’s not going to redesign my life through maternity.

You’re not hearing any argument from this side of the table. And much as I think Dolores likes to remodel you, I shudder at the idea of her with a kid. I wouldn’t want to be around to watch—and that’s all you’d get to do.

I hadn’t even thought of that. Finn imagined herself trying to suggest so much as a sandwich choice for Dolores’ child.

You may not have thought about the details, but you couldn’t know Dolores and not envision the big picture. What’s her big picture? Does she think raising a kid is eternal playtime? Have you thought of mentioning that motherhood will age her twenty years?

At first, Finn liked this line of reasoning. Dolores dyed her hair often enough that incipient gray was intimidated from emerging. She had rows of anti-wrinkle creams and gels and lotions in the medicine cabinet and a punishing fitness regime. Menopause was not going to make her a happy lady.

Further contemplation of this trial balloon, though, deflated it. I’ve already spoken the ‘old’ word in connection with this. She didn’t even flinch. I think this is the last hurrah of the hormones.

Pretty small hurrah at this stage. The odds are heavy against her getting pregnant.

That thought only cheered Finn for a second. Her criminally indulgent parents left her enough money to have a dozen children by in vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers, or whatever technology is out there. If she decides to do it, it’s going to happen. Somehow, I have to convince her to decide not to do it—because . . . .

The anger that had fueled her ran out, leaving her stranded on a dead-end road of misery and regret. I can’t have a baby in my life.

Everly looked fierce. I know you can’t, and no one has the right to ask it of you. If Dolores can’t grasp what you went through, she should do the decent thing and walk away. If it were up to me, I’d give her a good kick in the right direction.

Despair began to creep up on Finn. You think it’s hopeless.

Everly hesitated. It all depends on whether Dolores is willing to see sense. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt—for now. Let’s go to the party.

* * *

Ofelya greeted them at the door of the loft she shared with Rennie, her lover of ten years. Finn, weren’t you planning to go to Hoboken?

I changed my mind. Grateful that Ofelya didn’t mention Dolores’ absence, Finn entered the high-ceilinged living room and immediately felt comforted. Many of the women here had been at her party, but now that she wasn’t the hostess, she could relax and hang out with the people who had been her family for most of her life.

They’d been there for Jackie when her lover overdosed on smack; they had raised bail when Loretta was busted for hooking and, when she ended up doing ninety days, took care of her little girl. Most of them had struggled into dresses when Ruellen’s son graduated from college summa cum laude. When Owen had gotten her B.A. a few years later, they’d torn up the place.

Finn surveyed the room, her eyes lingering on a woman with soft curves, caramel skin, and waves of chestnut hair. When the woman ran across the room to them, Finn’s heart wasn’t the only part of her thumping.

Remember me?

Finn couldn’t imagine how she’d ever forgotten her. Graciela, how are you?

What happened to housekeeping in Chicago? Everly asked.

Fred was just too cold. As much as I tried to chip away at her stone, I didn’t get one glimpse of a live beating heart. When she got drunk—way too often—she threw things, usually at me. So now I’m back here and teaching at a parochial school in Brooklyn. I can’t tell you how good it is to see both of you.

It had been a long time since Finn had believed in the Devil. Now temptation smiled at her, hoping to make her forget she had a lover or to remember only that she had a lover who might leave her, one who’d pushed the knife of abandonment deep into her heart. Like that of Excalibur, its power belonged to anyone who could pull it out of her.

Everly said, Graciela, honey, I just remembered something important I have to tell Finn about the store.

Graciela smiled, giving her fingers a little flutter. Brandy and cigar time? I’ll talk to you later.

After she swayed across the room, Everly’s jaw jutted forward. Unless you’re ready to shitcan your relationship with Dolores, think twice about making it with Graciela.

Finn sighed, and her sexual steam escaped. You’re right; that was my lowest self crawling out of the garbage. Thanks.

You’ve saved me from disaster more than once, Everly said. And I don’t even know if I’ve done the right thing. That woman is hot, at least for you, and I like her a whole lot better than I do Dolores.

Sirens and horns hailed the death of the old year. The lights didn’t go out, and it looked like civilization would totter on for a few more years, but Finn was haunted by the fear of a different kind of ending.

Finn left the party shortly after midnight. Dolores was asleep in the bedroom, curled up in a position that didn’t invite a gentle touch of greeting. Noiselessly, Finn went to the kitchen and made a drink. In the living room she avoided the couch and curled up in her armchair.

Not so many hours ago, everything had seemed perfect. Disaster had marched, unannounced, into her life so many times that she didn’t know why its sly treachery continued to surprise and outrage her. She finished her drink, had another, and went to bed before the chill prospect of tomorrow could seep through her alcoholic warmth.

* * *

When she woke up the next morning, the bed was empty and the house was silent. She’s gone. Finn leapt out of bed, ignoring the hammered warnings inside her head, threw on a flannel robe, and went into the living room. Dolores, her hair a wild tangle of misery, curled up on the couch, the cats on either side of her, as if they’d cast their votes in her favor.

She regarded Finn with reddened eyes. Good party?

It was all right. Finn slunk into the kitchen for coffee, but on her way to the percolator, she stopped at the refrigerator for a slug of seltzer to ease her churning stomach, which had been through more than any stomach should have to endure.

She’s not gone. If they could sit and look at each other without speaking for three or four hours, they could work it all out. Words destroyed.

She carried her coffee cup back into the living room as if it were the Holy Grail and returned to the chair that had been the scene of her drunken vigil earlier this morning.

Dolores lifted her chin. Last night was the worst night of my life. Spending New Year’s Eve alone—

You didn’t have to.

I did, I couldn’t just run off to a party and forget everything. You’re too good at forgetting, Finn.

Finn burrowed deeper into her chair, holding the warm cup of coffee against her heart. Maybe I’m not as good at torturing myself as you are.

No, you’re very good at that. I say I want to have a baby, and you imagine yourself decrepit and ancient. But that isn’t what really bothers you.

For a moment Dolores hesitated; then, lips narrow as a knife’s edge, she moved in for the slaughter. I hesitated to say this last night, but I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t tell the truth. As full of life as you are, you’ve deadened parts of yourself, and they’ll kill you if you let them. You won’t admit the truth about why you don’t want to raise a child. You’d rather destroy our relationship.

Her eyes blazed. You’re not worried about being an old woman with a teenaged child. You’re afraid of the past. You’re afraid that my having this baby will make you re-experience the loss you won’t face.

You loved a woman, you entrusted her with your deepest pain, and she tortured you with it. Finn was on her feet, her fist halfway to Dolores’ face before she pulled it back and looked at it with horror. She crumpled into her chair and hugged herself. You have no right—

This isn’t about right and wrong, it’s about what works in a relationship.

And what works for you is being right and getting me to go along with what you want. If I don’t agree, I’m repressed. Your idea of honesty is that I lie down in the street and you run me over. I’m wondering now what’s in your past that makes you so determined, so desperate to have a baby.

Dolores flicked that question away as if it were an annoying insect, but it had stung her. It’s no use, is it? she raged. You never should have left me alone last night, because I learned that I could survive it. I can survive without you. I can raise a baby without you. And I will.

She walked into the bedroom. Finn heard a suitcase opening and the rattle of hangers. She wasn’t going to cry because crying didn’t bring people back.

Dolores returned, a suitcase in one hand, her laptop in the other, her face set in grim battle mode. While I was packing, I realized that if it hadn’t been the baby issue, you would have found some other reason to push me away or walk out on me. You won’t let people care about you.

Ever the daughter of Brendan McKenna, Finn said, Not when it means rearranging my life by force, not when my lover uses the nightmares from my past to torment me into doing what she wants. If that’s your idea of a relationship, I wish you luck in finding a new victim.

* * *

Even after the door slammed shut, rage kept Finn’s tears at bay. She picked up Dolores’s coffee cup, took it into the kitchen, and hurled it at a cabinet. The sound of shattering invigorated her. She thought she’d get a knife and slash a few of Dolores’ clothes, starting with the treacherous caftan that had fit so seductively over her lover’s curves.

On her way to the utensils drawer, Finn stepped on a shard of porcelain that pierced the tender instep of her bare foot. She howled with pain and hobbled to a chair. Once she managed to pull out the shard, her foot spurted blood, and the past began to drown her in its crimson river. She was cold, alone, bleeding, a motherless child.

Chapter 2

During January, a dark, sullen month that shoud have been stricken from the calendar, Finn was immersed in a depression so deep she could hardly remember any other mood.

Dolores’ accusation that Finn had a problem with the past seemed to have awakened it. Almost every night she traveled through vague but frightening dreamscapes whose undercurrents of anxiety continued to buffet her throughout the day.

Finn spent as much time as possible out of the apartment, but her mood was little better at the store. She could hardly smile at customers, let alone be patient with those who’d raised indecisiveness to a high art or who wanted to know why they couldn’t return books with coffee-stained pages for full refunds.

Her most reliable distraction was reading murder mysteries. Their grim story lines reminded her that while she might be miserable, she wasn’t being stalked by a psychopath.

One night in mid-February, when she’d run out of places to go, she sat in her chair and closed her eyes, exhausted by the struggle to resist the past. She was half-asleep when a deep, gravely growl arose from Felicia’s throat, and Paddy, sitting on Finn’s lap, dug his claws into her thighs. She saw only a shimmer in the air, as if something were trying to part it and come through. The reek of whisky and nicotine and the sting of sweat assaulted her.

Closing her eyes with a shudder, she saw the specter of a man in an NYPD uniform. Timothy O’Neill, rapist.

Finn swallowed the beginnings of a scream, threw on a coat, and ran out of the apartment, not stopping until she reached Washington Square Park. The trees cast spectral shadows on the stubble of winter grass, and dented cans gleamed ghostly in the dim lights of the park. Men and women covered with newspapers slept on the benches. Finn sat on an empty bench, feeling safer among the addicts, hookers, and homeless people than she had in her haunted apartment.

After an hour, she went home and opened the door cautiously, glancing into the living room. It was empty, but a cold current of air iced her heart, and she thought she might willingly exchange her ghost for a nice, live psychopath.

* * *

All that saved her from institutionalization was the knowledge that she’d be seeing Gabriel the next day. Maybe her oldest friend could sort out the specters that trespassed in her psyche. After sleeping until the last possible moment, she dashed to meet him at a cafe on Christopher Street.

* * *

You look like the lead mourner at a wake, he greeted her.

Thanks for helping to raise my spirits.

Only a fork lift could accomplish that, I fear. Talk to me.

He listened in silence, all the while regarding a soup spoon with apparent fascination. When she finished the story of her flight to the park, he said, Damn Dolores for saying you couldn’t forget the past. Her motives were so utterly self-serving that a jury of your peers would have acquitted you if you’d throttled her. You don’t pretend none of it happened. Dolores thinks you’re repressed unless you scream it out on a talk show.

Finn wanted to agree with him, but she was still tortured by Dolores’ parting remark. She said I always push my lovers away.

Dolores is the mistress of push, and she lies through her teeth. Your problem is your conflict between the talk of lifelong monogamy and the walk from one bedroom to the next.

He raised his hand to avert her protest. I know, not with Dolores. You were truly reformed; you were getting ready to settle down, and Dolores was the last station on the love train. You were so determined to make it work that you gave her the opening to make you over in the guise of nurturing. But, being independent Finn, daughter of the most stubborn son of a bitch alive, you resisted.

It can’t be that simple.

Of course not. Human relationships are like a tangle of rattlesnakes. You might want to look at what she said, but do it on your terms, not in the name of Dolores’ unenlightened self-interest. That’s why the O’Neill apparition makes me so suspicious. Did you decide to accept Dolores’ challenge? I hear a small voice whisper, ‘I’ll show her I can face the past.’

You know me far too well, Finn said slowly, but maybe losing her revives the past.

And all its losses. His eyes turned the color of fog. I went through something similar after Brett died. Every person I’d ever lost came to haunt me. I thought I’d handled their deaths, but once he was gone, I couldn’t resist the impact of past pain. I needed to start a new life. Moving upstate was the best decision I ever made. Why not consider doing that yourself?

Leave the city? Unthinkable.

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