Valley of the Moon by Melanie Gideon

Author:Melanie Gideon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-26T04:00:00+00:00

I put the lid down and sat on the toilet. Even though he wrote that he wanted me to come and that the happiest times of his life had been with me at Lapis Lake, all I could do was read between the lines. He hadn’t said it, but he might as well have. The reason Benno was unmoored was because I wasn’t providing a stable enough life for him.

I hung my head between my legs, tried to catch my breath, and thought of Joseph, Martha, and Fancy. It was almost May for them. In the vineyard the buds must be breaking. The sorrel and chives would soon need to be mulched.

When I’d blown off college and run away to San Francisco, seeking freedom and adventure, I’d found just the opposite. I’d become everything my father feared I would: an uneducated, invisible, and marginalized member of society. The woman in the line in front of you, scrambling to find loose change at the bottom of her purse. The woman whose son wore the same pair of pants to school three days in a row. The woman whose hair smelled like fried fish.

I couldn’t bear to see that woman reflected in my father’s eyes. I felt as ashamed of her as my father did.

I crumpled up the letter and threw it away.

—

“We’re gonna be late!” Benno cried.

“No, we’re not. Your flight doesn’t leave until three-fifteen. It’s only two-thirty and we’re nearly there.”

Late July. We were only five miles away from SFO, but we were stuck in wall-to-wall traffic on 101. Everybody was trying to get to the airport. I’d known I’d need to leave plenty of time, but not this much.

“I’m supposed to be there an hour before my flight.”

“Stop worrying. I’ll get you there.”

—

He’d been angry the moment he woke up that morning. I heard him slamming things around in his room. He poured himself a bowl of Froot Loops (he was a creature of habit—he ate the same thing for breakfast every day), plopped on the couch, and turned on the stereo. I pretended to read the paper and he raised the volume, wanting to get a rise out of me. I wasn’t about to give him one. I wanted us to part on a positive note. I needed that desperately.

“Are you looking forward to going to Lapis Lake?”

He shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

“It’s really amazing, you’re going to love it. It smells incredible there, pine needles and campfires and leaves.”

“If it’s so incredible, why don’t you come?”

I’d never told him about my father’s letter. I’d meant to respond with a card politely declining, but I’d never gotten around to it. Then another month had gone by and the window had passed. When I’d spoken to my mother about Benno’s flights, neither of us had brought it up.

“What are you gonna do for a month while I’m gone?” Benno asked suspiciously.

I’d agreed to let Benno stay an extra two weeks this year. If Benno and my dad were going to the lake, my mother had to have her time with him as well.

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