To See the Moon Again by Jamie Langston Turner Read Free Book Online

something she often found herself doing—studying the rows of small multicolored tiles, looking for but never finding a repeating pattern. The whole length of it was just a random mix, though something Matthew had “designed,” as he had liked to say. In Julia’s opinion, such a design could have been drawn up by a child—a blind one.
    She knew there was a parallel here to the course her whole life had taken, except there was no one to claim the role of designer for that sad piece of work. Hers was a life of echoes and shadows. No pattern, nothing solid and sure.
    Slowly she walked back toward her bedroom, trying hard to think of something, just one thing, she could latch on to as the dimmest flicker of hope in this whole situation with Carmen. Only one thought presented itself: At least if Carmen did call her back or, worse, did show up in person, Julia could get rid of her by saying her family needed her immediately back in Wyoming. She could hustle her to the airport, buy her a plane ticket, and get her on the next flight out.
    In the meantime, she would fill up the next days and weeks with comings and goings, as many as she could think of, until enough time had elapsed that she felt safe again. In case Carmen did come sometime soon, Julia was going to try her best not to be at home. And if she did happen to be here, she could always pretend she wasn’t. There was no law that said you had to open your door if someone knocked.
    Julia changed out of her teaching clothes into a crisp pink shirt and a pair of tan slacks. As afternoon seemed a particularly likely time for an out-of-town visitor to arrive, she had already devised a plan for the next several hours. She would run by the library and get a couple of books she had put on reserve as well as a movie Marcy had recommended, then go to the mall for a wedding gift for Dean Moorehead’s daughter. She would take her time selecting it and having it gift-wrapped. Then she would stop somewhere to eat, and if she read one of the library books as she ate, the way she saw other people doing in restaurants, she could stretch it out even longer.
    She ran a brush through her hair, dabbed on some lipstick, and left the house a few minutes later. As she backed cautiously out of the driveway in her Buick, an ancient pickup truck lurched to a stop at the curb. No clutching at the heart, though, since she recognized it at once as belonging to Gil, her yardman. Gil did a lot more than mow the lawn. A “lawn sculptor”—that’s what he called himself on his business card. A droll little man with a luxuriant mustache, he had a disconcerting habit of blinking constantly whenever he spoke, which thankfully wasn’t often. But he was very fastidious, very dependable, not to mention reasonable in price, so she was willing to allow him any eccentricity.
    Though Matthew had made a hobby of puttering in the flower beds himself, he had hired Gil years ago, one of several forward-looking arrangements he had made for upkeep at home when his job started requiring him to travel more. Julia sometimes thought of such arrangements as credits on her husband’s ledger page, though they in no way canceled the long list he had left in the other column after his death. It was a conflicted sort of gratitude she felt even now, colored as it was by the discovery of his many debts, which had become her debts.
    She still remembered the day after Matthew’s funeral, when certain financial horrors were beginning to come to light. Pamela had gone through Matthew’s desk and dug out bills, statements, receipts, and one insurance policy, ironically small considering the fact that Matthew was in the insurance business. Pam had sorted through them all and put them in order, then entered everything on a spreadsheet. As Julia stood at the desk and stared at the figures displayed on the computer screen, she heard two things simultaneously: first, Pamela’s voice