Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

listened for a long time to the soft rhythm of their voices, catching only a few clear words now and then.
    What am I doing?
    Suddenly aware of how ridiculous it was to be eavesdropping on my mother and sister, I strode purposefully past the door, headed for my room. When I glanced at them in passing, I saw Mother on the bed with her legs stretched out and Michelle in a chair drawn close, one of Mother’s hands caught in both of hers.
    “Rachel?”
    Mother’s voice stopped me. I turned back to her doorway.
    Smiling, she patted the bed beside her. “Come sit with me.”
    When I sat down Mother’s right hand slid into mine. Her skin was so cold it made me worry that her heart wasn’t circulating blood efficiently. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked.
    She nodded, looking exhausted but happy. “I feel wonderful, just having the two of you here with me.”
    ***
    Fuzzy-headed and bone-weary with the need for sleep that wouldn’t come, I padded down to the kitchen at 2 a.m. In the glow of the small fluorescent light over the sink, I poured a glass of milk, then forgot to drink it as I stood at the patio doors looking into the night. There was no moon, and beyond the circle of the patio floodlight I saw only flat blackness without a hint of shadows or shapes.
    “Can’t sleep?”
    I jumped. Mother had come into the kitchen silently.
    “What are you doing up?” I said.
    “Oh, I can’t get comfortable with these electrodes stuck to me.” The recorder strap crossed her shoulder and chest, and the machine dangled below her left arm. Its lead wire disappeared between the front folds of her white cotton robe. Mother’s hair was a mass of tangles, as if she’d been twisting restlessly in bed.
    Beside me, she peered into the yard. “Oh, look.” 
    Two young foxes ventured into the light for a second, then trotted back into the dark.
    “They’re growing up,” Mother said. “Going around without their parents.”
    With both hands she shoved her hair away from her face.
    “Remember that bad winter,” she said, “when you were thirteen or fourteen, you started putting out the cats’ dry food for the foxes?” She laughed. “I couldn’t understand why Kate and Sarah were using so much food. I was about to have Dr. McCutcheon run tests on them to see if they both had a metabolic disorder.”
    “Then I confessed.”
    Mother laughed again, obviously finding it funny in retrospect. I didn’t recall her laughing at the time. She’d given me a lecture about sneakiness. The fox-feeding stopped.
    It was absurd, this welling up of resentment over something that happened when I was a child. With a harshness that surprised me, I said, “Mother, you ought to be in bed.” I softened my voice. “You need rest more than anything else.”
    “I know. I’ll sleep when I’m tired enough.”
    She stepped to the switch by the hallway door and flipped it. I blinked in the glare of the ceiling light. I watched her move around the room, straighten a hand towel on the rack behind the sink, push the salt and pepper shakers into perfect alignment on the counter next to the stove. The familiarity of these actions touched and comforted me. She was my mother, not some stranger I had to fear. I needed to believe that.
    The tidying up done, she poured a small glass of skim milk and pulled an oblong plastic container from a cupboard.
    “Maybe a snack will help me sleep.” She popped open the container’s flat lid and removed two sheets of graham crackers. Laying them on a saucer she took from another cabinet, she smiled at me and said, “Let’s sit down and talk a little.”
    I carried my milk to the breakfast table and sat across from her. She pushed the saucer holding the crackers toward me, and I snapped off a brown rectangle, scattering a few crumbs on the tabletop. When I dunked the cracker in my milk Mother laughed.
    “You’ve always done that,” she said.
    “Try it.”
    She dipped her cracker and took a bite. “Mmm. It’s good.” She licked a white drop off her lower lip.
    The sight of her doing this stirred sweet-sad memories: Mother walking between Michelle and me at Disneyworld, all of us munching on popcorn; Mother at the county fair, wrestling with a huge fluff of pink cotton candy and getting a bit stuck on her nose. Laughter. A mother and her happy children.
    She placed the rest of the cracker back on the white saucer. Seeing her face grow solemn, I tensed, waiting.
    She was silent a moment, using the