Remember The Moon by Abigail; Carter Read Free Book Online Page A

“Celebration of Life”. I tried to think of things that could be celebrated about my life. Maya, Calder, yes. They were both reasons to celebrate. But had I been a good husband, a good father? I’d been focused on my job, took pride in each promotion, earned increasing amounts of money, but spent more and more time at the office, on the road. I spent more time with a bunch of twenty-something programmers than with my own family. I felt young with my employees, like an older brother, going out for watery beer and doughy pizza after a long day, feeling guilty afterward arriving home long past Calder's bed time. I had wanted to live that carefree young man’s life again – no responsibility, no mortgage, no one waiting for me at the end of the day.
    Jake and Miles now stood together, each holding the neck of a long brown bottle of Red Hook, watching a slide show of photographs, a window into their boss’s life, a world they had never experienced in the time they knew me. A soundtrack accompanied the photos – Stevie Ray Vaughn, Steely Dan, Stones. My baby pictures flashed across the screen accompanied by Stevie Ray’s “Little Baby”. School pictures, ridiculous photos of friends and family, early shots of a teenaged Maya at her cottage. She was wearing a bikini, waving from the dock, me poised behind her, about to push her in, causing her to lose her top, much to the embarrassment of us both, but funny years later. I had sleepwalked through my whole life, waking up now as a dead man.
    Maya moved some of the folding chairs from the front rows so she could sit on the floor with Calder on her lap. A couple of other small children came and sat down next to them, instinctively trying to comfort in that natural way the adults seemed to have forgotten.
    Rob, my best friend from high school who had flown in from Toronto, stood up after the slide show, taking charge.
    “I just want to say a few words.” Tiny lines crept around his smiling brown eyes. His once thick dark hair was now white and wiry, and a slight paunch stretched the buttons of his suit jacket. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Rob, and the changes surprised me.
    “I honestly can’t believe I’m standing here. I can’t believe Jay’s gone. Shit, man. He was way too young.” The room remained silent. “I can’t help thinking about this time in grade ten at Jarvis. The shit... oh sorry... I mean the crap–” laughter poured from the audience “–that we got into! Jay never used to eat the sandwiches he brought from home. Instead, he would stuff them into his locker so he could ‘grow mold’. The various types of mold that grew on those sandwiches did fascinate me, but I enjoyed the laughs too. The smell by the end of the year stank up the entire hallway!” More laughter. “He wanted to be a geneticist back then, before he got into that computer stuff. I figured he would discover the cure for cancer or something. I don’t really know when he got into the software world.”I did want to be a geneticist. I volunteered at a lab at the University of Toronto when still in high school and loved it, but when I got to University I learned how much political posturing went on in the profession at the academic level, it turned me off. I took some computer science classes and eventually found myself in Seattle working at Microsoft. Rob told the audience about my jazz band and how I got all the girls, which wasn’t exactly true.
    “But he only ever had eyes for one girl.” Rob looked down at Maya, who looked up him and smiled. “And who could blame him? Maya was hot!” Maya waved at him dismissively, still smiling and now blushing. “Dude, I know I haven’t seen you in a while, we’ve been pretty lousy at keeping in touch, but man, I’m sure going to miss you.” The speech paused as Rob swallowed several times and licked his lips, fighting back tears. I was sorry we had grown apart. How had I let that happen? I should have been a