What the Moon Saw (2 page)

No, I wasn’t hurt, I told her. No, nothing bad had happened.

“But what were you thinking, Clara? What were you doing?” Mom demanded, sinking into a kitchen chair. At least she’d stopped cracking her knuckles, which had been knotting up my insides even more.

I pushed my bangs out of my eyes because I knew how much she hated my hair in my face. I looked around for an excuse, and for the first time I noticed Dad standing back in the shadows of the hallway. His eyes were bloodshot and his face shiny with tears.

I froze for a few seconds, then spoke. My voice sounded strangely calm as I lied. “I was swimming in a pool a few streets over.” That was something Samantha told me high schoolers like her older brother did—pool-hopping. Somehow that seemed more normal than what I had done, more like a typical teenage thing to do. My wildness in the woods seemed too weird to talk about.

“That was the police on the phone,” Mom said, her voice wavering. “We didn’t know if you’d run away, if someone took you, if you were coming back…” and on and on, as I lamely whispered “Sorry” during the pauses. She lectured me until the sun started to come up, while Dad stood there, so silent, almost invisible.

He didn’t say a word until the next evening when the letter came. He walked right through the front door in his mud-caked work boots, and handed me the envelope. I knew it must be important since he’d tracked dirt right across the carpet. The letter was addressed to me, with a Mexican postmark and stamps, and a return address that said:

Familia Luna Estrada

Domicilio Conocido

Yucuyoo, Oaxaca, México

I opened the letter slowly, wishing Dad would stop staring at me. His eyes were still wet from the night before. Mom came in then, her keys and jewelry jingling, back from dropping Hector off at soccer practice. She saw right away that something big was happening. I handed her the torn envelope as I unfolded the letter. “From Mexico,” I said.

Her eyes grew big. She sat cross-legged next to Dad and held his hand so tightly I could see the whites of her knuckles. The letter was written in Spanish, in neat cursive handwriting, but a little shaky, as though someone was trying very hard to do a good job. The paper had been ripped out of a small spiral notebook, and still had fringe on the side.

Querida Clara:

La invitamos a nuestra casa por el verano. Vamos a esperarla el día de la luna llena, en junio, en el aeropuerto de Oaxaca.

Con cariño,
Sus abuelos

My grandparents. A light, tingling feeling swept over my skin. I’d never seen them before, not even in pictures. Sometimes my friends asked me how I got to be fourteen years old without knowing anything about my grandparents. Well, Dad hardly ever talked about them. When I was younger, it never occurred to me to ask about his life before he crossed the border. He was just Dad, and in my little kid’s mind, he hadn’t existed before me. Once I got older I asked him about why he left home, what his life was like growing up, if he had brothers or sisters, if his parents were alive. He answered each question with just a few words.

This is all I found out: He was an only child. His parents were alive in a remote village in the mountains. We couldn’t visit them; it was too far away, too much money, too much time. When I asked if he missed them, he said, after a long pause, “
Mira,
Clara, I knew I couldn’t go forward in life if I was always looking back. I had to learn English and work hard and save money. And now, look where I am. I can give a good life to my children. I look to my future, not to my past.” He said this as though he’d rehearsed the words in his head so many times they sounded hollow. After that, I stopped asking him questions. Part of me was relieved. It made it easier to forget that Dad had come here illegally.

I put the letter on my lap and glanced up. “It’s from my grandparents.”

Dad’s face looked serious—but not in the stony way it got when he was angry. It looked as though a protective outside layer had been pulled back, like when you peel off a Band-Aid and find tender pink skin underneath.

Mom’s face glowed, lit up, curious. She practically had to sit on her hands to keep from grabbing the letter and reading it herself. “What does it say, Clara?”

My neck pulse was beating hard and fast now. “They want me to come for the summer.”

Mom’s mouth dropped open with a little squeal. “That’s
won
derful!” She was still in her superenthusiastic teacher mode. “It’s about
time
you met them, Clara!” Then she gave Dad a sideways look and raised her eyebrows. Her smile had a little bit of “I-told-you-so” in it. She’d probably been trying for a while to convince Dad to have me meet my grandparents. Whenever I asked her about Dad’s family, she sighed and said, “Ask your father.” I figured either she didn’t know or she’d promised not to talk about it.

“But there’s no one to go with me, Mom. You teach summer school and Dad’ll be too busy with landscaping.”

“You could go alone,” Mom said. “After all, you’re the one they invited.”

“But they don’t even give a date!” My cheeks were growing hot and flushed. I looked down at the letter again, hiding my face behind my hair. “They just say they’ll meet me on the full moon in June at the airport in Oaxaca—”

“Wa-HA-ca,” Dad interrupted in a hoarse voice. “It’s pronounced Wa-HA-ca.”

I pushed my bangs out of my face and looked up at him. The
first
time in my life I’d seen him crying had been the night before. Now his tears came again.

Seeing him cry made me feel like someone had reached inside me and rearranged my internal organs. I avoided his eyes, set the letter on the table, and left the room, stuffing my hands in my pockets to stop their shaking.

At dinner, I could tell from my parents’ expressions that they’d already made a decision, but I tried to argue anyway. I’d been wanting a change from Walnut Hill, but what I’d had in mind was a beach vacation to a tropical island complete with howler monkeys and wild parrots.

“I can’t go,” I said. “What about hanging out with my friends?” I loved summers, long humid days drenched in sunshine. Riding bikes on the paths in the woods, water fights by the stream, the cool relief of tree shadows. But then, I could tell this summer would be different, since all Samantha wanted to do lately was wander around the mall for hours or sit in front of her computer instant-messaging boys. Last summer, Samantha and I had been completely wrapped up in our collection of dried pressed leaves from the woods, but once school had started she’d made me promise not to tell anyone about it. She’d even thrown out her half of the leaves. I thought about doing the same, but since Dad was so excited about them I stuck them carefully in a drawer instead.

“Two months away from your friends won’t kill you,” Mom said.

“I’ll miss out on all the summertime parties.” Samantha had gotten invitations to three boy-girl pool parties already, and I was still hoping I’d get at least one.

“Parties?” Mom asked, curious.

I shrugged.

Hector sat calmly during all this, eating his noodles and chicken and green beans systematically. He sat there like a prince on his stack of phone books, with his T-shirt tucked in neatly, and socks that matched the light blue stripes on his belt.

“Clara,” Mom said carefully. “We think you should go.”

“But I don’t even know them!”

“You’ll get to know them, Clara. It’ll be an adventure,” Mom insisted.

Easy for her to say. She wouldn’t be the one stuck with two old strangers in the middle of nowhere. “What do they
do
there anyway?”

“Farm,” Dad said.

“What will
I
do there?”

“Well, you’ll find out, won’t you?” Mom’s cheerfulness sounded a little strained.

“How did they even know our address?”

In a raspy voice, Dad said, “Sometimes I—” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes I send them letters.”

“You do?” Mom and I said at the same time.

“A few times a year,” he said. He had more secrets than I’d ever imagined.

“Well, Dad, do they speak English?”

“Of course not.”

“But my Spanish isn’t good enough—”

Dad interrupted sharply.
“Hablas muy bien español,
Clara.” Your Spanish is very good.

I decided to try one last angle. “What if they’re not there to meet me? What if—”

“If my mother”—and here he paused. Maybe the words sounded strange for him after so many years. “If my mother says she will be there, she will be there.” He looked out the kitchen window for a few moments, squinting at something far away. For the first time I noticed a few lonely silver hairs in his mustache. “You think it was a coincidence this letter came right after you did this thing last night?” His voice shook. “My mother knows things. She
knows
things.”

I wondered what that meant. Mom raised her eyebrows, gave him a questioning look.

I’d never seen him like this before, and suddenly I had the unsettling feeling that I didn’t know my own dad. Sure, I knew that his favorite food was marshmallow brownies and that he always woke up before the sun, and that he was scared of little dogs. But there was a giant chunk of his life that I didn’t know about. We sat in silence and I watched the dark circles under his eyes.

“Time for ice cream!” Hector announced. He sucked the last rice noodle off his fork, and flashed his toothless six-year-old grin. He was too young to notice Dad’s strange expression.

“Okay, c’mon,” Mom said, and led Hector into the kitchen. They clattered around with bowls and spoons as Dad and I stared at each other awkwardly.

I could refuse if I wanted to. They couldn’t force me. I imagined myself kicking and screaming the whole way to the airport and handcuffing myself to the waiting-area seat. But deep down, I wanted to know more about my grandparents, about their world far away from Walnut Hill, even if it was in a tiny village in the mountains.

“¿Qué decidiste, hija?”
Dad asked me softly. What did you decide, daughter?

I closed my eyes. I was balanced on the edge of a cliff, peering over.

“Fine,” I said at last. “I’ll go.”

In my room later that night, I sat on the carpet by my open window, with the vent under my legs blowing cool air up and out into the muggy night. Balanced on my knees was my sketchbook. Instead of drawing maps of imaginary tropical islands like I usually did, I started a list of what I would take on the trip:

CDs? DVDs?

Seashell swimsuit?

Shiny black shoes with ribbons and purple skirt

Fuzzy green sweater with holes?

Two tubes of toothpaste?

Art shirt

There were question marks after nearly everything, because really, I had no idea what the weather would be like. Or if they’d have a DVD player. Or a swimming pool nearby. Did they even sell toothpaste there? My shiny black shoes I would definitely bring, even though they gave me blisters. When I wore them with the purple skirt with tiny mirrors along the hem I felt like a gypsy princess. And I knew I couldn’t go anywhere without my paint-splattered art shirt, an old sweatshirt that Dad had given me that I used as a smock in art class.