Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

angry, almost shouting, but I barely heard what he said.
    Why would Mother do that? To protect me? Or to protect herself? From what?
    “Whatever it is,” I said, “this thing she doesn’t want me to remember, it’s important enough to make her—”
    “You’ve got to get away from her,” Luke said. “Listen to me.” He grasped me by the shoulders. “Stay here with me. No pressure, no decisions, I promise. I just think you ought to get away from your mother.”
    “I can’t.” My voice cracked. “Mother’s the only one who knows the truth. If I leave she won’t forgive me for it. I’ll never find out anything if I don’t stay close to her.” The sudden thought of Michelle sent a shudder through me. “And my sister needs me, whether she knows it or not.”
    I leaned against him, and he closed his arms tight around me, as if he feared I might evaporate. I felt like a ragged scrap of silk, ripping down the middle.

Chapter Fourteen
    “Come on,” I said to Michelle. “We haven’t done this in such a long time.”
    She laughed her sweet girlish laugh. “Okay, just let me change my shoes.”
    I waited out on the patio while she put on athletic shoes that she didn’t mind getting dirty on our walk along the creek. She came back smiling eagerly, looking like the little sister I’d dragged along on such walks all through our childhood.
    Every step down through the backyard took us farther from the house and our mother. I turned once and wasn’t surprised to see her watching us from her study window. She smiled and waved; we smiled and waved back. I would get Michelle down into the woods, where Mother couldn’t even see us from her window, and then I could talk to her openly.
    The tiny flowers of some creeping weed covered the creek banks in yellow. Above us, tree branches were misty green with emerging new leaves. “Look,” I said, pointing up. “A pileated.”
    The big black-backed woodpecker clung to a tree trunk and gave its loud cackling call, and from perhaps fifty feet away came an answer. Only one pair lived in these woods. In summer we’d see one or two young ones with the parents for a while, but by the following spring they’d be gone, killed by the winter or off to find their own mates and territories.
    “I forget sometimes how peaceful it is here,” Michelle said. She linked an arm through mine. “Thanks for reminding me. We used to have fun down here, didn’t we?”
    “We always had fun together,” I said. It was silly to miss being ten or eleven years old, but I did, sharply, painfully.
    “You taught me so much,” Michelle said. “I grew up seeing the world—nature—through your eyes. You’ve always been in tune with the natural world, but I have to make a conscious effort to connect with it. I wish I could be more like you.”
    I barked a surprised laugh. “You’re kidding.”
    She stopped, withdrew her arm and stepped back to look at me. “No, I envy you sometimes. You’re able to be passionate about things—”
    “Hot-headed, Mother would say.” I forced a grin.
    Michelle went on looking at me, serious, almost contemplative. “Well,” she said, “Mother’s always believed calm and rational behavior is better than passion. I’m not sure Mother knows what passion is.”
    Startled to hear her say such a thing, so close to criticism, I was speechless for a moment. Finally I said, picking my way toward the subject I’d brought her here to discuss, “I think all the passion went out of her life when our father died, and she’s been trying ever since not to feel anything too deeply.”
    Michelle nodded. Somewhere nearby a squirrel chattered a warning and a bluejay screamed. “It’s sad that she’s completely closed off any possibility of falling in love and getting married again,” Michelle said. “I guess in a way I’m glad we didn’t have to change our lives to fit in a stepfather while we were growing up, but now—”
    “She’s still young,” I said. “Fifty-two’s not old. And she’s attractive.”
    We were both silent a moment. Then Michelle said, “She wouldn’t like us discussing her this way.”
    “She can’t hear us, Mish.”
    At the same moment we both glanced back, in the direction of the house. I could just see the roof and chimney through the trees.
    I said, “If she’s clinging to his memory, if she can’t forget him and that’s the reason she won’t see other men, why do you suppose she never talks about him? Why