Twelve Moons by Caro Giles

Author:Caro Giles [Giles, Caro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

Dispute Moon

Lynx Moon, Grain Moon, Corn Moon, Lightning Moon

Somewhere along the way I have become fearful of dark nights. Sleep is elusive and blood pumps hard around my body as I lie waiting for grey light to filter through the blind. The Mermaid’s bed creaks and I am convinced there is someone downstairs. A draft blows against the vase of roses on my windowsill and I catch my breath, or maybe I swallow the breeze. I long for a child to wake up and want me, distract me from the mess in my head, and simultaneously think how pathetic that is, how needy.

The days are getting shorter now and I thought I’d welcome the cloak of an inky night, but my anxiety about the children going away with their dad is manifesting itself as a grim insomnia and the darkness is no longer my friend. There is an odd contradiction between the nourishment I found in those winter mornings when light was found in candles and fading moons, and the edgy paranoia that accompanies these summer nights.

In the weeks leading up to their holiday I spend the evenings reading the girls stories, answering their questions, kissing The Littlest One’s plump pink cheeks, massaging The Caulbearer’s aching legs, plaiting The Whirlwind’s hair. It’s not clear whether I am trying to leave a little bit of me with them each time, like the scarf sprayed with my perfume I would give to The Mermaid as she screamed at the school gate. Or whether it’s the other way round, and I am storing up the essence of my daughters like Rescue Remedy. The late summer sky deepens to a sunburn pink as I cling to these bedtime rituals and wonder who I will be when they are not here.

The Littlest One is weepy and confused and I spend a lot of time telling her how much fun she is going to have and swallowing down my own tears. It might seem melodramatic, this anxiety over a little holiday, but it is pain like I have never known handing my children over to a man who feels like a stranger, whose family have erased me from their lives. I am just a housekeeper now, the childminder, the one who made him homeless and broke all the societal rules, couldn’t manage to put her husband first anymore. These are the people who will be caring for my children and I’m glad the younger three all have their dad’s eyes, round and blue, so his family won’t see me when they tuck my daughters in at night.

The Mermaid, who has my eyes, hazel and shaped like almonds, is staying with me. She stays in the car as I drop her sisters off with their suitcase and a sack full of teddies. I am working hard at being the good mother, waving the younger children off and trying not to squeeze them too hard one last time, but there is still a twinge as four become three once more.

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