Northward to the Moon (15 page)

“It was the best we could do, Mother,” says Nelda.

“You’re lucky we found
that,”
says Candace.

“My God, what do the old people
do
around here?” says Maureen, clucking her tongue and loading up her plate. That things are settled and they can all leave now has clearly given her a hearty appetite.

“Anyhow,” says Candace to my mom, filling her in on the details of the day, “they have one nice apartment available but expect two even nicer ones to be available soon. They said they can’t be sure exactly when, of course. But if you and Ned can hang out here awhile longer—it might not be until August, although probably no later, they said—then she can get into something better.”

“Of course we’ll stay until she can get into the nicer apartment,” says my mother.

“I don’t get it,” says Dorothy. “Why don’t they know exactly when these people are moving out? Don’t they have to give some kind of notice?”

The silence at the table is deafening and then Dorothy says, “Oh, oh my, oh yuck. They’ve got a
couple of people dying whose rooms are going to be available.” She drops her fork and looks ill.

“In such cases, Mother,” says Nelda, “it is perhaps best to be pragmatic and not think sentimentally.”

“Oh dear,” says Dorothy. “You just wait until you’re my age, you’ll think ‘sentimentally’ too. I suppose someday someone will be hoping I die quickly so they can get
my
apartment.”

“Mom, please …,” says Candace.

“Well, anyhow, I suppose that means you’re all going now?”

“Aren’t you glad that Ned and Felicity can stay and help?” asks Maureen. “Goodness, these days with everyone working, it’s hard to find someone who can uproot themselves like that. You ought to be grateful.”

“Thank you,” says Dorothy. She looks a little sad and lost and the sisters, I notice, make an effort to keep up a cheerful flow of inconsequential conversation after that. Maya reaches over and holds Dorothy’s hand through the rest of dinner. I see Dorothy clutching it in her lap.

The sisters are going at the end of the week and in the meantime we are all kept busy by the impending ranch sale and move. I am helping my mother and Candace pack boxes of things Dorothy wants to take and arrange for the sale of other things. Dorothy wants to have a garage sale of smaller items while she is still at the house and can supervise the pricing. She is sure that left to our own devices we would undersell her things. My mother thinks it is only fair that Dorothy have as much control of this whole mess as possible. She and Ned and I bring things into her bedroom and let her set the prices and then carry them out to the barn, where we have set up tables.

“Suppose I am fine in a few months?” says Dorothy. “Then what?”

“Then you change your plans, Mom,” says Ned, shrugging. “Life is plastic. You can always change your plans.”

“Yes, look at you, you’re going to Alaska as soon as you can dump me in a home,” says Dorothy.

“Ned,” says Candace as the three of us go down the stairs with armloads of overpriced knickknacks, “you shouldn’t say things like that to her. You’re
just giving her false hope. You know the doctor said that she won’t walk unassisted ever again.”

“Aw, those guys don’t know everything. Besides, what’s wrong with a little false hope? And you know she’s going to be easier to deal with if she thinks she’s got something to look forward to. Well, anybody would be,” he says fairly. “And I’m the one who’s gotta put up with her. You’re leaving at week’s end.”

Candace sighs and puts her things down on the table in the barn and says, “Well, maybe you’re right. Speaking of which, I got you a little going-away present.” Out of her pocket she pulls a cell phone.

“Aw, man, I hate these things,” says Ned, putting down his own load and wiping his hands on his jeans before reaching for it. I have walked out. I am still avoiding being around Ned too much in case I am sucked into conversation. But I pause outside the barn door. Eavesdropping is not beneath me.

“I know, I know,” says Candace swiftly, “but never mind. How can you, with any integrity, go to Alaska unless Felicity can reach you?”

“Well, I suppose that’s thoughtful of you,” says Ned, sounding surprised.

“Or in case Mom or one of us has to reach you, if there’s a problem with Mom and someone,
someone without a job
, needs to come back and tend to it,” says Candace, and Ned makes a face.

“Yeah, right,” he says sourly.

Candace goes on as if he hasn’t said anything, looking perfectly efficient and pleased with herself. “And you ought to get one for Jane in a year or so. All the teenagers have them now. They all go around texting each other. It’s like jungle drums.”

“It makes me want to throw up,” says Ned.

“Well, who cares what you want to do? I’m giving another one to Felicity to keep in her purse.”

“Uh-huh,” says Ned, and tucks it in his back pants pocket.

“Will you keep it on?”

“Probably not,” says Ned. “It sounds expensive. You have to buy some sort of a plan for these things, don’t you?”

“Not for this one. I got you a pay-as-you-go plan and I’ve loaded up several months’ worth of minutes for you. So you’re all set.”

“Oh jeez, thanks,” says Ned. “Now I’m available to you at a moment’s notice, I guess. How convenient for you.”

“I’ve never seen anyone accept a present so graciously,” says Candace.

“Face it, this is more like a present for
you,”
says Ned.

“You
use
it,” says Candace. “You
use
it or I’m flying to Alaska and … and … doing
this.”
She reaches up and tweaks his ear. It is surprisingly playful for her and it is as if the years have dropped away and this is how they would have been if things hadn’t gone so wrong when their father ran out on them. Then I wonder if this playfulness is because she is simply relieved to be leaving.

“Ow,” says Ned, and starts to say something, but just then the boys come running through the barn, charging with pitchforks and followed by Ben, who is yelling at them to put them down. I speed into the house.

We have to work like crazy to get things ready for Saturday’s garage sale. Dorothy, when not pricing things, sinks into long sleeps. She doesn’t seem interested in watching TV with Maya very much anymore. She is always sleeping.

When Ned has any free time at all, you can find him on the living room couch with a stack of Alaska guidebooks. Maya comes into the kitchen when I am supposed to be packing pots and pans and hangs around getting in my way so I tell her to go talk to Ned. She surprises me by immediately going into the living room and plopping herself on the couch. I can see her from my seat on the floor.

“When are you getting back from Alaska?” asks Maya.

“I don’t know, Mayie, sometime,” says Ned vaguely.

“Well, when?” asks Maya.

“Maya, I’m trying to read,” says Ned.

So Maya tries to hang out with the boys for the rest of the week but they gang up on her in one of their silly games that is more fun for them than for her. Maya finally has enough and seeks out Ned.

“Max and Hershel keep hitting me with the lasso. They say I have to be the cow and they’re the rodeo stars,” Maya says. “Make them stop.”

“Make them stop making you the cow?” says Ned, and laughs.

This infuriates Maya, who goes stomping out of the barn, where we are, as ever, carrying and arranging things for the next day’s sale.

“Oh, Maya, lighten up!” Ned calls. “I wasn’t making fun of you, it just sounds so funny.”

At lunch Maya says she is ready to make candy again.

“I can’t, Maya,” I say. “I promised Mama I would help them get ready for the sale. Why don’t you help too?”

“I don’t want to,” she says. “Why do we have to stay? Why couldn’t Candace stay? I want to go home.”

“Everyone wants to go home but the others all have jobs to go back to.”

“Nobody will play with me,” says Maya. “Why did Mama go for a horseback ride with you and not me?”

“Maya, for heaven’s sake!” I yell. “Stop whining! You don’t even like horses!”

I am covered in dust, which I am allergic to. I don’t want to be here either, carrying endless loads into the barn, avoiding Ned and Ben.

We don’t see Maya again until dinner and then she is quiet. She doesn’t sleep in my room that night.

The day of the garage sale is crazy. People start arriving at seven o’clock, before we have even had breakfast.

“Oh my gosh, look at the crowds,” says my mother to Ned. “Who would think there were so many people in Nevada? The ad said the sale didn’t start until nine. What are they all doing here at this hour?”

“I guess they figure the early bird gets the worm,” says Ned, grabbing a cup of coffee and heading outside. “I’m going to let them in. After all, if we want to sell this stuff, the earlier we get rid of it, the earlier we can quit.”

After that we are all kept on the run. Ben is watching the boys. Dorothy has told him that she will put the sale of the horses in his hands and he
can stay on until the ranch is sold and she moves into the home.

Around noon my mother goes in to put lunch out for everyone to grab when they get a chance. She gives me a tray to take to Dorothy, who is asleep as usual. “Jane, have you seen Maya?” my mother asks when I return to the kitchen.

“No, she’s probably sulking somewhere,” I say.

“Well, can you check for me?” she asks, heading back to the crowds in the barn.

“Sure,” I say.

I look around the house but don’t see Maya and I am about to check the outbuildings when I am buttonholed by a man who wants to know if we will take a quarter for a bronze horse statue priced at twenty dollars and I have to say no and he starts to argue with me, and another woman comes up and offers ten dollars for it and I get drawn back to work, despite myself, and the rest of the day passes in a blur.

At dinner we all drag exhaustedly to the kitchen table. My mother throws eggs into a pan, makes a giant omelet and then says, “Where did you find Maya, Jane?”

“I didn’t,” I say, sitting at the kitchen table sucking on an orange. “I got sidetracked.”

Ned comes bursting into the kitchen. “We made twelve hundred dollars,” he says. “That includes some tack that Ben couldn’t sell in town.”

“Have you seen Maya, Ned?” asks my mother, frowning and putting more bread in the toaster.

“She’s probably with Dorothy,” he says.

“Jane, could you check?” asks my mother but her voice is strained. She wipes a tendril of hair off her sweaty forehead. I can’t understand why she is worried. Maya can’t go far. There’s nowhere to go. But Dorothy is asleep again and Maya isn’t with her. I look all over the house. Ned goes out to check the barn. Candace, Nelda and Maureen scour the outbuildings. Everyone starts calling for Maya but she isn’t answering.

Dorothy wakes up and doesn’t improve matters by shuffling to the top of the stairs and calling down, “Phone the sheriff! All those people here today with their cars. Anyone could have snatched her.”

“Mom, stop,” says Ned. But now he looks worried. My mother says no, she doubts that Maya was kidnapped, but where could she be?