I told him he was good and dear and loyal.
If ever there was a time to let my past rise, show it to him, tell him everything, it was then. He had laid his failure down in front of me, asking if I could know his weakest moment and still love him. I’d promised him I could, and in the wake of it, in his peace, I wanted my own. What a relief it would be, to loose truth in the smallness of this room. To feel it in the air around us. To be fully seen. I could feel words rising. I could see a sky I had not seen in years.
Tuesday. May 28. 1991. The moon peaked full at 1:36. . . .
But the words stayed in my mouth. I lay in his arms in the darkness, and I let that moon sink. I did not even trace its descent. I didn’t need for him to love the girl I’d been, and I wouldn’t ask him to forgive her. I hadn’t. Why should he? I only needed him to love me now. I stayed silent, listening to his breath grow deep and even until he was asleep.
But now Roux had gone dredging, reaching down so deep inside me. That old moon rose, and there was no way not to see by its pale light. No way not to remember.
At fifteen I’d jet-dyed my sandy-colored hair into submission, so that it hung down my back in lifeless hanks. I had thick-cut Betty Page bangs, too severe for the soft moon of my face. They got in my eyes as I leaned out the window to wave to Tig Simms, drenched in moonlight, asking for a pork chop.
I’d been waiting, my big body filling up my papasan chair like I was a scoop of ice cream in a wide, round cone. I was already dressed for school tomorrow in a plaid skirt and a navy uniform top. Beside me I had a tote bag with a can of Lysol in it, though I’d half hoped Tig wouldn’t show. It was the first night that the moon looked full, and tomorrow or the next day would be so much better—assuming that he showed at all. He didn’t come every month, and more than once he’d woken me up, unprepared, on random, near-moonless weekdays.
I whisper-called down, “Gimme a minute.”
He grinned up at me, pushing his wild hair off his forehead. In sunlight it had a metallic cast, like he’d gilded it in bronze, but now it looked almost black. Brighton’s dress code required short-haired boys and long-skirted girls, but Tig’s tight curls saved him from paying for a lot of haircuts; if I grabbed one and pulled it straight, it would likely reach past his shoulder.
He motioned for me to come down again, urgent. I gave him a thumbs-up, flushing at my own staring dorkitude. I drew the window shut. I’d have to sneak through the house and out the back door. My unwieldy body would not let me shimmy out, creep along the roof, then leap to the oak and climb to the ground, the way my older brother often did from his room next door.
I stuffed my feet into my stretched-out flats, grabbed my tote and my guitar, and snuck downstairs, barely breathing, careful not to bang the instrument against the banister. Creeping put me inside my body, though. All at once I was hyperaware of the way it sloshed around me. That xylophone sound effect that played on cartoons when people tiptoed started plinking in my head, and I knew with bitter knowing that not much was funnier than a fat thing sneaking.
Once down I hurried silently through the living room, more at ease with every step that took me farther from my parents’ bedroom, into the kitchen. Usually on these nights, after we’d gotten baked and played for a couple of hours, I’d ask Tig to take me to Waffle House. Chez Waffle we called it. Your gas, my treat, I’d tell him, because he rarely had money. We’d walk through Lysol clouds to kill the pot smell and go eat with the truckers, Patsy Kline on the juke, all of us grainy-eyed from being up all night. We’d drink tons of coffee, mine khaki colored with half-and-half. Then we’d go straight to school. Since my dad left for work before dawn and my mother slept in until eight, no one knew except my brother. Connor couldn’t rat