Remember The Moon Read online

  I felt light and warm, as if filled with sunlight. I had become an orb of light, like those around me. I had no shape and as I moved I left a trail of glittery light. I later learned that only the most recent arrivals had glittery trails – the body’s expended energy exiting this realm to fall back to earth. A profound sense of being understood overwhelmed me, and words came to me in a rush – power of thought, empathy, compassion, love.

  I felt a euphoric sense of anticipation, as if about to join a party where I would be the guest of honor. I surrendered, letting an unknown power propel me in the direction I needed to go. I felt very relaxed as I floated through a gigantic crystal-like dome, built with a glittery mosaic of white ice particles. The layers arching above me seemed meaningful in their order. The space was infinite yet peaceful in its vastness. I wish Maya could see this. Abruptly, something stopped me – my thought of Maya. My father, still beside me, explained that I was about to be met by my guide, my “transporter”, Alice. “She will accompany you to ‘Intake’,” he said.

  “Don’t I stay with you?” My sense of peace shattered. My illusion of being an all-knowing orb of light, replaced by my ratty Adidas and sweatshirt.

  “I’ll see you later, Jay. For now, you’re in need of counseling.”

  “What? You mean I’m going to therapy? In heaven?! Why can’t I continue being a ball of light like the others?”

  My father’s eyes looked sympathetic. “You still have a lot to learn, J.J. At Intake you’ll take your human form in order to have a smoother transition. You’ve received a sensation of what it’s like to be an orb as a sort of incentive. To give you a purpose to your learning. A goal to strive for. I know it seems ironic. Therapy in heaven. But it’s not really therapy. ‘Intake’ is sort of a transitory place that newly dead spirits hang out in, while they get used to being dead. It’s where you’ll review your immediate past life on Earth, your life as Jay.”

  “You have got to be kidding me!” To say I was not pleased about having to analyze every nuance, every mistake, every triumph of my life on Earth was an understatement. Death was not at all what I’d imagined.

  “Hello Jay. I’m Alice.” Her voice was not audible. I heard her thoughts, and the gentleness in her eyes put me at ease. I could make out her features, perhaps by merely imagining them. Her soft-spoken thoughts made me think of her as a grandmotherly type with startling pale, watery blue eyes and an orb-like body, but with recognizable features like I had, though less formed than mine. She wore a nondescript, pale blue dress but seemed to have no arms or legs. Alice smiled more on the right side of her face, giving the impression she enjoyed some tiny irony, one I had missed. Tendrils of fine white hair ruffled around her head like a coronet. She was the sort of person who in her past life might have worked in a library – unassuming, knowing, immensely helpful.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” Alice said. I turned to my father, who somehow gestured his approval by moving back out of the way.

  “I’ll see you again soon.” I tried to wave, but no gesture came, just the thought.

  I followed Alice into an amorphous room, with shimmering opalescent walls and a not-so-soothing fountain made of brook stones in the corner. A window overlooked a harbor with sailboats bobbing in the water, seagulls squawking and swooping, a perfect blue sky. Alice gestured toward a white velvet couch, something my mother would have shuddered at and forbidden me to sit on for fear of marring its whiteness. But the couch, and for that matter the entire room, was a formality, since I couldn’t actually feel its plush surface – another remnant of human life meant to put me at ease. Nothing about a white couch put me at ease. Alice looked at me and waited.

  “Are you for real?” I asked.

  She blinked. “Do you think I’m real?”

  “You look real. But nothing seems to make sense here.”

  “You’ve had a shock. It’s going to take you some time to remember.”

  “Remember what? Why the hell am I here?” It came out harsher than I had intended. Alice remained calm. Gentle.

  “There is much for you to remember. Because of the nature of your death, its suddenness, we haven’t had time to prepare you. It’s going to take a little longer than usual to get you re-acclimated.”

  “Re-acclimated?”

  “Yes. You need to spend some time getting used to being here again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, Jay. You’ve been here many times before.”

  “I have?”

  “In your sessions here, we will be reviewing your life, seeing where you may have taken a different path, what aspects of your life might still be holding you back. From remembering who you are.”

  “I know who I am! I’m Jay Cavor!”

  Alice just smiled.

  “Can I leave?”

  “You can. It’s up to you. No one here will force you to do anything against your will. You always have a choice, Jay.

  But know that leaving will simply prolong the process.” I slumped back into the illusional couch, exasperated. “Why don’t we try a simple exercise?” Alice suggested. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Think of a memory from your childhood. A simple one. A time that made you happy.”

  The room vanished and I stood on a bed playing Jimmy Page on a snowshoe with a bunch of girls singing into hairbrush microphones. One of the girls, a very young Maya, surprised me and made me laugh, landing me immediately back in the room with Alice.

  “Shit! I forgot all about that day! We had a blast as kids at Maya's cottage that summer... At least until–”

  The glass-like floor was a window into my life that played like a movie, with me an integral part of the action. It was a replay of my life in all dimensions. Thoughts, I realized again, were transparent in this realm. A thought equaled an action or a visual, and you could communicate thoughts without meaning to. Thoughts had the ability to show up right there on your own personal movie-screen floor.

  “Very good,” Alice said. “Now try a tougher memory. Perhaps one that made you very sad. What happened later that day, for instance?”

  The floor grew dark then lighter, opening onto a familiar scene from the deck of the Willis’s cottage on Georgian Bay, its breathtaking views of the water and crazy conifers forming a real-life Tom Thomson painting with their giant comb-like branches, acquiescing to the prevailing westerly winds. I stood on the dock where everyone hung out in bathing suits and flip flops, the girls’ tanned skin shiny orange and flowery-smelling from the crumpled tubes of Bain de Soleil lying beside the beach chaises. The younger kids floated in the water wearing oversized lifejackets, learning to keep the tips of their water-skis up. My dad coached from the back of the boat, “That’s it... almost... you’re nearly there,” flashing a triumphant grin when they finally took off, wobbly on bent knees and heeled over at the waist as my dad punched his fist in the air. “You did it!”

  Later, he stood grilling hamburgers and hot dogs on the deck overlooking the water, taking swigs from brown stubbies of Labatt’s Blue while the moms piled the table with condiments and potato salad, giggling from too much Chardonnay. After dinner, us kids scampered down to the boathouse where we slept, girls in one room, boys in another, blasting Pat Benatar’s Heartbreaker on the cassette player, the girls jumping on the beds, holding their microphone hair brushes, wailing the words as loudly as possible.

  The earlier memory replayed. I took an ancient snowshoe off the wall, strumming its animal-gut strings with a wind-milling arm, crouching down on bent knee, the next Jimmy Page.

  After some of the younger kids were asleep, Maya Willis and I snuck off to smoke one of the DuMauriers she had stolen from her dad. I’d had the hots for Maya for as long as I could remember, despite our two-year age difference. As luck had it, our fathers were good friends who got together often. But I knew she had a thing for Marcus Pellegrino, whose cottage was just down the road. I’d seen her swim all
the way to the raft between cottages just so she could get a glimpse of him doing flips with his friends off the dock. We’d bumped into him and his brother a couple of times at the tennis court down the road. He was a few years older than Maya, and I could see the appeal of his broad shoulders and muscular thighs and the confidence he possessed as he walked down the gravel road with a cigarette tucked behind his ear. At fourteen, I was skinny enough to have to hold my trunks around my waist every time I dove into the water for fear of losing them. At the tennis court, Maya laughed every time she lobbed a ball and picked up balls without bending her knees so that we all got a good flash of her tennis-skirted behind. During one game, when the ball landed outside the chain link, she went dashing into the undergrowth to find it.

  “Be careful of the poison ivy in there,” Marcus warned.

  “I will!” She rustled around for a bit and then we heard, “Found it!” followed by “Oh-oh.” Marcus found some jewelweed that he insisted was the antidote and rubbed it on the inside of her thigh as she put her hand on his back to steady herself. I saw her close her eyes and inhale as if she could possess the very smell of him.

  That night we were alone on the dock. She wore her yellow, over-sized Scooby Doo t-shirt, with just undies underneath and a shoulder poking out the neck hole. I tried not to look at her as she sat beside me, our feet dipping into the water, and so I leaned back on my hands, trying to look cool, watching the stars and the perfect, full moon.

  We talked about people in our schools and passed the smoke between us. Our schools were close enough to play football against one another, and I had once seen her at a game, leaning over the railing of the bleachers shouting deliriously at one of the players, probably the quarterback. Her faded jeans were tight, but not coat hanger tight, like the ones my friend Brad’s older sister wore. I once caught a glimpse of Desiree in her room, sprawled on the floor using a coat hanger to yank up the zipper. Maya's jeans fit just right, with a glint of silver from the safety pins she used to tighten them against her calves. When I spotted her at the game, I leapt from my school’s side of the bleachers where I sat, waving my arms like a lunatic. She waved nervously before turning back to the game, probably hoping she never saw me again.

  We heard laughter coming down the path toward us. We stood up quickly and I threw the butt into the lake just as our parents stepped onto the dock.

  “Hey, Dad.” My father didn’t seem to notice the trail of smoke that escaped my nostrils. My heart sank when I saw Marcus come loping up behind them. Maya saw him too and pushed her hair behind her ear as she looked at him and smiled. Marcus smiled back.

  “We’re going to go for a little paddle,” my dad said, a beer still in his hand, stumbling slightly as he hooked a foot into the canoe to bring it closer to the dock. “Do you guys wanna come?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I said, hoping Maya would say the same thing.

  “I’m not really dressed for it,” Maya said, looking disappointed. “But I could change!”

  “No, you stay with Jay,” her dad said. “Three is enough for this tippy thing.” Pete held the canoe as my dad tried to get in.

  “Frank, be careful,” my mom said, always the worrier.

  “Jeez, Maggie, we’re just going out to admire the moon, no biggie.” Dad, balanced now astride the gunnel, winked at us. The canoe wobbled beneath his feet.

  “Careful, Mr. Cavor,” Marcus said, grabbing my dad’s upper arm to steady him.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  “Frank, seriously,” my mom said.

  “C’mon, Maggie, let’s go have another glass of wine. The boys will be fine.” Maya's mother, Estelle, put her arm around my mom’s shoulders and led her back up the path.

  We watched as the men paddled away and the canoe tipped severely as my dad tried to sit on the cross beam and grab a paddle.

  “Whoa! Jesus!” I could hear Dad’s voice clearly across the water. I turned to Maya and noticed, over her shoulder, the lifejackets sitting in a pile behind her.

  “Dad?” A halfhearted call. I didn’t want to interrupt what I had going on with Maya, stoked that she hadn’t gone with Marcus in the canoe. We resumed our seats at the end of the dock, watching as the men disappeared into darkness. Maya hugged her knees inside her t-shirt. We didn’t say anything for a long time.

  “I’m glad the moon is full tonight,” I said, finally. Maya shivered. “You cold?”

  “No, I’m fine.” She rested her chin on her knees.

  “Hey, you can lean against me if you want.” I hoped I sounded nonchalant but bit my lip to keep from saying something dumb when she wiggled herself between my legs and leaned back against my chest, her arms still hugging her knees. My wrists started to ache with the weight of us both, but I didn’t dare move. We sat watching the moon reflect on the water, silent in our thoughts.

  “Is that them?” Maya sat up a little so I did too, hoping for the chance to put my arms around her, but she struggled out of her cocoon and stood up. I squinted into the darkness and could make out a shape getting larger and the slight white of tiny waves made by paddling.

  “Call 9-1-1!” The cry had an unmistakable desperation to it. Maya looked at me with horror movie eyes, recognizing her father’s voice, and she bolted up the path.

  On one knee, paddling hard, Pete, the most experienced canoeist, maneuvered the canoe towards the dock.

  “Grab the lifejackets and get in!” I stood frozen. “Get in!” I leaped towards the lifejackets, threw them into the canoe, then stepped in carefully.

  “Put one on!” Kneeling in a puddle in the center, I grabbed a lifejacket, almost falling backward as Pete pushed off from the dock with the paddle.

  “Maya's calling 9-1-1,” I told Pete as I struggled to wrap the pale canvas ties around the orange-covered floats of my life jacket. “Where’s Marcus? Where’s my dad?” Pete paddled behind me so I couldn’t see his face.

  “Jay, your dad fell in when the canoe tipped.” Pete’s tone was ominous. “Marc’s diving for him, but we need help.” His words made no sense to me in that moment.

  “Marc’s diving for him?”

  “When the canoe tipped, only Marcus and I came up.” We lurched forward violently with Pete’s strong strokes. I fell back, my ass now soaked.

  Marcus surfaced with a small splash in the distance, flipped and disappeared again into the patent-leather surface of the water.

  “You stay in the canoe, Jay. You need to alert the police or whoever comes to help. I’m going to keep diving.” I held both rails as the canoe tilted and Pete lowered himself into the water. Marcus came up, panting as he clung to the side of the canoe as Pete dove in.

  “We’ll find him,” Marcus managed, too winded to say more. We watched Pete surface and dive a couple of times until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I pulled off my lifejacket and, despite Marcus’s protests, jumped over the side of the canoe, shivering with cold. I paddled toward Pete and took a deep breath. A rush of bubbles stinging my nose interrupted the underwater silence. For a moment my panic subsided, until in the blackness I lost my bearings, unable to tell up from down. A flash of something pale below my feet elicited an audible scream, my mouth filling with water as I kicked my way to the surface, gasping for air, coughing. I was a surprisingly long way from the canoe.

  “Get back to the canoe, Jay,” Pete yelled from about fifty feet away, the canoe just beyond him. “You were just meant to be our lookout and to help keep the canoe in position. We’ll find him, I promise.”

  “But I saw something!” I dove again, this time better prepared. I could feel my hair floating around my head and see the whiteness of my own hand. I searched the blackness for what I had seen before, moonlight touching something pale, a fish or human flesh. Don’t let him be dead. A muffled yell from above caused me to do a 180-degree swivel for one last look before breaking the surface. Pete, waving one arm, swam awkwardly toward the canoe, wh
ich now floated free, unmanned. I saw Marcus break into freestyle, heading toward Pete. I tried to do the same but instead flipped to my back in fatigue, twisting my head as I swam to stay on course, kicking hard.

  By the time I got to the canoe, Marcus was already in, trying to pull my dad up while Pete and I each held an end steady. The canoe began to tip, but Pete held it and somehow Marcus got my dad’s limp body into it. Marcus kneeled over my father, who now lay in the bottom, skin gray, water sloshing against his face. Pete pulled himself up and in, resumed his place in the back of the canoe, and picked up the paddle. Marcus was attempting to give my dad mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions. I wanted to jump in and knock him out of the way. I needed to be the one helping my dad, but I had to cling to the outside of the canoe. There was no room for me with my father taking up the entire bottom.

  My kicks contributed little to our progress toward shore and I knew I created drag for Pete. We could see flashing red and blue lights off to the right, through the trees of the shoreline, making their way along the road. Marcus tilted my father’s head back, pinched his nose and breathed into his mouth, desperation on his face as he waited a few seconds, then repeated.

  “C’mon, c’mon, Mr. Cavor, breathe!”

  I kicked like mad, every muscle in my body burning. At the dock, the police and paramedics were waiting. Two policemen held the canoe as the paramedics hauled my father in his cut-off jeans and black Rolling Stones t-shirt – the mouth and tongue mocking – onto the dock, where they began more chest compressions and clamped an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.