14 THE COMFORT OF THE MOON

14

THE COMFORT OF THE MOON

The January night when Vida's police-officer father dies, the moon is not where it should be in the sky.

From early childhood, Vida has been fascinated by the moon in its eight phases, though she delights most of all in its fullness. She has dreams in which she lives in a castle in a lunar crater. Other dreams are ornamented with scores of luminous moons the size of baseballs that hang in the air in her humble home, as weightless as Earth's ancient satellite floating in space; they rotate away from her, this mistress of the moon, to grant her unobstructed passage as she moves room to room. Sometimes she wades through a dream river, reaching down to pull small moons out of the water as if they were fish. There is a dream of a meadow where, while sheep graze and wolves watch without violent intention, the mother who died in childbirth reaches up to pull down the moon, which fits her hand as if its great size and far position have been an illusion, and Mother throws the moon to Vida, and Vida throws it back to her mother, and with each exchange of that sphere, the two of them grow closer, until they are in each other's arms.

The night that Vida becomes an orphan, the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Valenski, as sweet and wrinkled as a raisin, is babysitting until Father comes home from a tour of duty ending at midnight. At 10:07, according to the bedside clock, Vida is awakened when a hand smooths her hair off her brow. She startles up from her pillow, but she is alone. As she swings her legs out of bed and sits on the edge of the mattress, she hears her father speak her name five times, his voice softer with each repetition. Although usually deep in darkness at this hour, the bedroom is in part revealed by soft, silver light, and the remaining shadows are not black but midnight blue—or so she will remember them in years to come—for the moon is huge and framed within her window. That uncurtained pane faces due north, and never before has the moon been captured in it.

Vida knows she's awake, even though the moment is infused with the strangeness of a dream. She gets out of bed and steps to the window and gazes at the immense moon that seems to be plunging from its orbit, at the world washed in its eerie radiance. Although she knows she should be afraid, she isn't. She curls up in the big chair and draws around her a knitted afghan that's draped across the arm. She feels safe in the glow of the misplaced moon, and soon she falls asleep again.

Shortly after midnight, she is awakened by Mrs. Valenski, who enters the room in a yellow fan of hallway light, talking to God, asking the Lord for help, her voice quaking with emotion. The old woman sees the bed empty and Vida rising out of sleep by the window. The chair is large enough for woman and child. Mrs. Valenski slides into it and enfolds the girl in her arms. The full moon is now in another quarter of the sky where it belongs, invisible from this north window. The moon is gone, and so is Vida's father.