Maybe the Moon

have some ideas. Callum talks to him all the time.”
    “Yeah, well, Callum is cute and has a pretty dick.”
    “Cadence…”
    “I only go by what you tell me.”
    He let it slide. “Do you need money? Is that it? Because I could…”
    “No. Well, I always do, but…”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah, Jeff. Thanks.” He’d embarrassed me now, turning so unexpectedly sweet and sacrificial in response to my cattiness. There’s no way he could lend me money. As far as I know, he makes even less than I do. “I’m all right,” I told him. “It isn’t a loan I need, it’s a life.”
    A longer life was what I should have said, but I was afraid of the feelings I’d unleash and Jeff’s proven inability to cope with them. Janet’s death, if nothing else, has made me more painfully aware of my own mortality, which is only natural for a little person—or so Mom used to tell me—even on a good day. When you’re a walking bag of organs like moi , you just can’t help wondering how much time you’ve got left.
    Suddenly, in spite of myself, I wanted Ned there instead of his surviving partner—big old easy uncomplicated Ned—because Ned would have understood these emotions without having them explained to him. In the last months of his life we spent hours together, playing cards and putzing in his garden and enjoying the unspoken irony that fate had made us equals of a sort. Ned and I treasured each other’s company all the more, I think, because we both knew what it felt like to be living on a deadline.

13
    S O FAR , I HAVEN’T TOLD ANYONE WHAT HAPPENED ON C ATALINA . It’s not that I’m embarrassed; I just don’t know what to think at the moment, and I’m wary about entrusting such fragile, half-formed impressions to other interpretations—especially Renee’s and Jeff’s—before committing them to paper. With any luck at all, there should be enough room in this journal (the one Neil gave me, appropriately enough) to tell the whole story. If not, I’ll switch to something different.
    The boat we took left from Long Beach, so we drove down late Saturday morning in the PortaParty van. The van was a sad sight, conspicuously unwashed and stripped of its usual jolly stock of props and streamers. It had all the poignancy of an empty stage. A cardboard box crammed with plastic beach toys rattled against the back door, but that was the extent of our cargo. I shuddered a little at this visual proof of the troupe’s decline, but didn’t remark on it to Neil, scared of what he might say.
    “Are those Danny’s?” I asked, indicating the toys.
    Neil smiled out at the white blur of the freeway. “We drove down to Zuma last week.”
    I remarked that it was nice there.
    He seemed a little surprised. “You like hanging out at the beach?”
    “Sure.”
    “Same here.” He grinned extravagantly, as if we’d just discovered something rare and wonderful in common.
    “Where is he, by the way?”
    “Who?”
    “Danny.”
    “Oh. Staying with the neighbors. Linda’s neighbors.”
    I told him I’d hoped I might meet Danny today, that I’d wondered if either he, Neil, or Linda might bring the boy along for the day. It seemed like a great trip for a kid, after all, in spite of the circumstances.
    “Yeah,” said Neil. “We talked about that.”
    “But?”
    He shrugged. “We just weren’t sure how heavy it might get. The funeral, I mean.”
    Great , I thought, and suddenly I was picturing Mrs. Glidden again, only this time she had me by the throat of my charcoal crepe de chine funeral frock and was shaking the bejeezus out of me. Do you know what that video meant to my daughter? Do you? Do you have any idea ?
    “Of course I’d like him to see the island, but…”
    “What? Sorry.” I’d lost track completely of what he was saying.
    “Danny likes it at the neighbor’s,” he explained. “They’ve got a pool with a water slide.”
    “Oh…well…that’s good.”
    “Yeah. Gets him outa my hair.”
    You could tell he didn’t mean that at all. It was just a man thing, mostly, a false gruffness designed to underplay his obvious devotion to his son. This embarrassment surprised me a little, since I’ve seen him be so unembarrassed around hundreds of children. I guess it’s different when it’s your own kid. “Is Linda taking the same boat?” I asked.
    He shook his head. “She flew into Avalon this morning. She thought the Gliddens might need some help.”
    I pondered that one for a moment or