Moonbeat

“Mama, does the moon have a heartbeat?”1

I snuggled closer to Mama, pulling the worn fleece blanket closer to my chin. The dog-and-cat print of the fleece seemed to welcome me to sleep.2

Mama dragged her feet on the ground: forward, then backwards, making the old porch swing move with the rhythm of her feet. I knew her flowered apron was faded after so many washings in the sink and dryings on the line in our backyard, but I could barely see it in the darkness of the summer night. The sky was the color of the black coffee beans Mama scooped out of the red plastic container and into the coffee pot. 3

“Of course it does, sweetie,”4

I looked into Mama’s tired eyes, and I wondered what she meant. I had only asked the question to be silly, and I wondered if she was only giving me a silly answer in return. I always admired her bone-straight raven-black hair, reaching down to the very middle of her back. Mine was black, too, but it was unruly and curly. Whenever I went out on the boat was the only time I ever let it down from its ponytail, so it fluttered in the wind like an old lady with too many shawls.5

“What does it sound like, Mama?”6

Mama smiled and pulled me closer to her, and I laid my head on her chest. I took in a deep breath and smelled the smell of violets and pie crust and blueberries all rolled into one. Thinking of the violets, I fished a memory out of my mind and reeled it in. Mama and I were walking hand-and-hand by the lake, past the old canoe and the rusty bikes and the pumpkins growing for Thanksgiving and Halloween, but straight towards the clearing in the woods. She pulled my hand as I drew back, and I looked down at my feet. My bare toes wiggled in the grass, but I knew that the woods were filled with burrs and pricklies, as Mama calls them. She ignored my protests, and she kept pulling on my arm until she finally got me into that little clearing. I peaked around the trees and all I could see was purple. Those purple flowers were crawling up the trees and they were spreading over the floor like a spilled bottle of purple ink onto a canvas of mossy green. Me and Mama sat on the blanket of purple flowers and braided them into our hair, and made necklaces out of them, and even pressed them into the pages of books that flooded our living room. Tonight, I wondered if Mama had been into that clearing.7

“Listen, Josie, and maybe you’ll be able to hear it,”8

After that simple sentence, I listened harder than any other 10-year old girl had ever listened before. I closed my eyes, and imagined everything silent except for the THU-thump, THU-thump of the moon’s heart. I concentrated, but I couldn’t hear anything. I opened my eyes again and directed my gaze towards the sky. I saw the moon, and I imagined a heart in the middle its silvery-white orb, beating and pulsing to the twinkling and flickering of the stars. I tried to hear it beating. And then...9

THU-thump...THU-thump... 10

I jumped off of Mama’s lap and straight onto the concrete patio. I was ecstatic. “Mama, Mama!” I cried, pointing up at the sky, where another handful of stars had been pinned like diamonds or pearls onto a dress of rich black velvet. “Did you hear it? The moon’s heartbeat! I heard it!”11

I looked over at Mama, expecting her to be smiling or nodding or hugging me because she’s proud that I was able to hear the moon’s heartbeat. But no: she’s not smiling or nodding or hugging me, she’s laughing. Her laugh is as loud as a donkey’s bray, but as gentle as a princess’s chuckle. Instead of welcoming me to laugh along with her, like her laugh usually does, the laugh mimicked me jumping of Mama’s lap, excited to hear the moon’s heartbeat.12

“Baby, that ain’t no moon’s heartbeat; that was the banging of Willie falling out of his bed,” Mama continued laughing.13

My eyes prickled with the uncomforting feel of embarrassment, and my eyes also swarmed with tears. I burst through the front door of our little house, and I pounded down the tiny, narrow hallway to the room I shared with my brother, Willie. He was lying on the ground, wrapped in his clean sheets, completely unaware that he was no longer in his bed. I gently lifted him up in his arms and placed him in the lower bunk of the bunk bed we shared. I climbed up the rickety metal ladder and threw myself into the bed, mentally punching myself for being so stupid, for thinking such a dumb thing like that the moon could have a heartbeat, for heaven’s sake. 14

I heard Mama open the screen door and walk down the hallway, her footsteps like my heart beating after running a race against Nicky or Sean: THU-thump, THU-thump.15

“Baby, come here and stop your crying,” Mama whispered up to me, trying not to wake up Willie. I pulled the pillow over my head, refusing to talk or look at her, knowing I was being smart and fresh, but I was angry at Mama for laughing at me.16

“If I let you listen to the moon’s real heartbeat would you forgive me?”17

The words Mama spoke cut across the angry silence between us. I stopped sniffling and reluctantly withdrew my head from under the pillow. “You mean, really really let me listen? Truly?” I was excited, but cautious. I didn’t want another trick played on me.18

“Yes, Josie, you’ll really really be able to hear it,” Mama’s eyes smiled at me and I knew that it wasn’t a joke. “Now, baby, go put on some shoes and get a jacket.”19

I nodded and reached under Willie’s bed to pull out a pair of old shoes, streaked with green from running, and splashed with brown from jumping into the creek. I opened the tiny closet’s door and yanked a blue sweater off the hanger and forced it over my head. I grabbed a flashlight, just for good measure, and followed Mama out of the bedroom.20

She grabbed my hair and pulled me through the screen porch door. The night had grown a little cooler, and a little darker. Mother Nature must have completely emptied her can of black paint, because the night sky was darker than the black holes I saw pictures of in the Outer Space books I check out from the library on Saturdays. 21

“Come on, baby, just a little longer,” Mama pulled me along the lake, and I knew we were headed for the clearing with the purple flowers. We slipped among the trees like an ant crawling through a lace dress, quietly and like no one knew we were there. The purple flowers looked silver in the pale moonlight, and they glowed like pearls fit for a princess’s tiara. 22

“Listen,” Mama said. She said down in the middle of the purple flowers, and I sat down beside her.23

“Do you hear it?” she asked. She cupped her hand around her ear and directed it towards the sky, where the moon sat quietly, being a sun for the animals that were awake. “Do you?”24

I listened harder than I had before when I was sitting on the bench swing on our patio. But I didn’t hear the moon’s heartbeat. All I heard was the chirpity-CHIRP of the crickets, playing hide-and-seek among the leaves with the little half-moons of dew on the ends. I also heard the HOO-hoot of the owls, scanning the forest floor with their big round eyes, trying to find dinner. I heard, far off in the distance, the BA-dump, BA-dump of the dancers’ drums. One time Mama took me and Willie to see them. All the women danced around a giant fire, the young girls jumping over the flickering flames. The men stood in a line on the side, pounding on the deer skin drums they either held in their arms, or sat on the ground. I imagined that I could hear the stars’ heartbeat, and I imagined that their heartbeat was the rhythm they were dancing to in the sky. I heard the stars’ heartbeat, quietly, but it was definitely theirs: ta-TIM, ta-TIM. I smiled. 25

But then, I heard another sound. It wasn’t the crickets, or the owls, or the drums, or the stars, and I don’t think it was the moon, either. It sounded too familiar for that. I stood up off the purple flower carpet, and darted around the trees, listening here and there for my mystery sound. Then I heard it: DA-dum, DA-dum. I listened some more, but after each stretch of running, I always heard it, in the same pattern as before: DA-dum, DA-dum. And then I realized...26

It was my own heartbeat. My heartbeat mingled with the sounds of the crickets, and the owls, the dancers’ drums and screams, and the imagined ta-TIM of the stars. My heartbeat mingled with a museum of sounds, all found in the nighttime, never in the day. The mixed, pulsing sound of the night was the moon’s heartbeat.27

“Mama! I heard it!” I screamed, then quickly covering my mouth with my hand when I heard my voice echo. “I heard the moonbeat- I mean the moon’s heartbeat!”28

“Yes you did, Josie. But you were right- it is the moonbeat,” Mama said, standing up too. She grabbed the flashlight I had dropped and switched it on, directing its eye across the lake. I saw eyes watching us, of varying size and color and shape. I saw some chocolate colored eyes, and flickering in the smooth milk chocolate I saw little caramel flecks. Some eyes were yellow as the Chrysanthemums that used to grow in the little window box. I saw emerald green eyes, so beautiful the time seemed to stop as I gazed into them. 29

“They hear the moonbeat too, Mama,” I said, pulling away from the breathtaking sight of so many eyes. “Don’t they?” 30

“They do, Josie,” Mama said, and we walked home together. 31