All That Is Left of The Moon (Short Story) by Gary Doherty

She looks up. Her mouth shares a clothespin with a toothpick. She struggles against the wind to hang a tiny Saint Louis Cardinals jersey up in the summer breeze. The basket is full of multicolored, multi sized outfits. The wind and the hues combine to create an abstract backyard visual production. Little tots run in circles and celebrate sunshine or react to scraped knees with resounding exaggerated tears. An old grey dog looks up to the sky in frustration as if he sought a quiet corner where he could sleep without a diapered kid being so curious about his tail.

The women tires of her life. She owns pain in varicose veins, pain in knowing her trucker husband is away, probably having a coffee and piece of chocolate cream pie with a waitress at the Dixie Truck Stop in Tuscola, Illinois right now. The wife won't get any relief from the kids until they fall asleep on their superhero pillows. The husband is good with the kids when he is home but he is not home. He is always some other place. He seems to want to be away so much.

One never knows which mailman will stuff the box with clutter. A brief hello with any adult is preferable to hundreds of kiddy chats about who got hit or to ask her again and again when Daddy will be coming home . Anyways, everyone sits stationed in high chairs or on aged telephone books on top of chairs in anticipation of a new day's lunch.

Circle boxed bologna, plastic wrapped Kraft cheese slices, Juicy Juice with tiny straws and very orange carrots appear on the still syrupy kitchen table. The dog knows that this is his chance to shine under the table. The old mutt leaves his station to front door bark. This creates a whirl of curiosity to everyone. The woman runs to open the door and retrieve the mail. She hollers a hollow "thanks" to a postal carrier. She scoots back to her responsibilities in the kitchen. She sorts through the mail.

The phone rings, it is the husband. He won't be home till really, really late. He is sorry.

She feels like throwing in the towel. She has no idea where she gets her strength. She wipes off three little chins with a dish rag. The VCR and Scooby-Doo rescue her for the moment. The kids agree that this cartoon is the absolute best thing in the world . It has been the best thing 27 days in a row. She pages through Victoria Secret's catalogue. It makes her want to eat ice cream.

He pulls his semi over to a truck wash. It is a side pocket part of his night. He finds a

can of WD40. He steps out and sprays the oil on his clothes. He thinks the hardware scent will

eliminate smells of the waitress he had just been with. He closes his eyes and imagines cat like caresses of the waitress. He boils with a tough bliss for the waitress. It is not anybody's fault. He can't stay loyal. The good Lord couldn't resist this Denver omelet server's goddess aura. Shit, every time he smells bacon, she appears in his notions. The waitress fries and curls around in his brain. The waitress said that she was unhappily married just like him. He was not sure how one decided on happy but three little pumpkins were going to roll into his bedroom the next morning and they'd joyfully celebrate his fatherhood. His wife was going to want something he did not want to give up, sleep , time alone or anything. Jeez. He hopes she doesn't want to pack everyone up for church and a pancake Sunday breakfast. Watching his youngsters play with different IHOP shades of syrup was a world he hated paying for. Sometimes when he would get home, the wife disappeared for hours and he was, all of the sudden, a host to Daddy responsibility.

His semi tries not to wake up the small town neighbors. It disturbs some canine spirits who yelp at him and what is left of the moon. She is slumbering on the couch. The carpet is littered with Legos and Barbie knock-offs. He enters the bathroom and reads a damp Ladies Home Journal while he finishes his business. He finds a cold bowl of Kraft macaroni and cheese in the fridge. He is ok with orange food.

The 32" TV sends flares through the indoors of this fabricated home. Flicks of light tell the world that someone must have sent a check to the power company. He knows it wasn't him.

He checks his pockets and finds the waitress's red panties. He sniffs them and stuffs them back in his pants. He walks outside through the sliding glass doors into the cool moonlight. He throws the panties over a six foot wooden fence. He lights a smoke from a hard pack and tries to feel like smoking is the reason he came outside.

Inside again, the wife is still asleep on the couch. He still smells like WD40. The kids will be up in 2 hours. He strips and tunnels into the unmade king sized bed. He finds solace in sheets. He smells his wife's fragrance on the quilt. He doesn't like it anymore.

The bed eventually provides a resting spot for the wife. She wants the kids to think they are sleeping together. She curls into his unconscious un-aroused state. Her cold feet don't wake him. She doesn't feel like waking him. She doesn't like him when he is awake. His body wannth reminds her of her childhood Collie, Ginger, whom she slept with as a kid. She assumes the worst from her husband. He sleeps with jerky movements like he's tumbling in troubles.

She wakes first. She snaps her jeans and pulls on a T-shirt with Monarchs flying around a Sunflower. She stares at the doorknob, it offers opportunity. She decides not to put her shoes on at the corner of the bed. She might wake him. She peeks at the kids still sleeping. She ties her Nike's at the kitchen table and then she scribbles a note to her husband that she is going shopping. She leaves a question mark as to when she will return. She leaves her cell phone at home.

She walks to the driveway and starts the mini-van. She'd like to drive and drive and end up with her tires stuck in the sand off a glorious beach. She settles for a rural route through fields of soy beans. There is no destination for now, just the hope of letting her lungs breathe in a not home feel. She has begun a routine of driving into Champaign. She parks downtown and takes a bus. It is is about killing time alone. She smokes on a bus bench while she waits for a ride. She wants to watch other lives flutter around her. She loans matches to a man who had no light. The man lights a match and holds it for what seems like a lifetime. He spoke non-sensical. The match looked as if it would burn his fingers No burns. He shakes the match cold and holds on to it as he continues to yap. She imagines what it is like to have a "life" blown out with a whiff. Her life rattles in tiny little winds. The bus blows into the bus stop the way her dog charges into his Alpo.

On the bus, she could close her eyes. The driver has the Everly Brothers swooning over a gal on the transistor radio taped to the dash. A man with a wonderful cologne makes her think of her Dad on church Sundays. There's a woman talking about how to prepare pigs feet. Bumps on Main Street rattle the whole bus. She opens her eyes. She is eye level with people's crotches. Some folks smell like cattle. Some are anxious to depart so they can enter into homes that bring them satisfaction. Some sluggishly remove themselves off the bus to earn paychecks. It is nine a.m. She has already ridden the entire bus loop. The driver shares eye contact with her. He must wonder what she is about. She sees the word "Teddy" tattooed on her inner ankle.

Bacon splashes grease on his forearms. He yelps a healthy "shit". The oldest kid tells him that is a bad word. He is sorry. The kids are picking the Lucky Charms stale treats out of the cereal bowl with enthusiasm. It is a marshmallow and pork breakfast. He still smells the spray can oil from last night. The character of the fried bacon makes him smile with very recent nookie memories. A pile of the crispy slices is built on a paper plate and a paper napkin. Breakfast with Daddy is fun 'cause the sippy cups are full of grape Kool-Aid. The kitchen cable TV plays NASCAR wrecks and dreams come trues. He tunes out the kids to gain raw new Earnheart insight.

The phone rings. He lets the machine answer. He lets it go to the machine. It is her Mom. She wants to know if they are coming to a church pot-luck. He never talks to her folks and she never talks to his.

After the feast of grease and whatever marshmallows are made of, he starts the tub with water, toys and Mr. Bubbles. It is a splash fest until he wraps them in Dr. Seuss towels and tries to find diapers and undies and clothes that don't match. The kids get loose and he smiles as he flies about the house trying to scoop up their cherub bodies. He has no clue when the wife will

return and he doesn't miss her. He wants to leave.

He looks at his forearm and there is the word "Teddy". It is a green tattoo with a tiny frog. He, well, actually, he and her lost their Teddy a few years ago in a car crash. He couldn't

keep a picture of Teddy in the bedroom because it made her cry. He lost happy. He is just starting to feel raindrops of life again, right now from the bacon and the waitress.

The kids fight over control of the remote. He feels he should make them all watch the NASCAR channel as punishment. He settles on a live action Scooby-Doo tape. He doesn't like Blues Clues anyway and Scooby-Doo farts are funny. He keeps expecting the wife to get pissed and kick him out of the house but so far she hasn't.

She thinks she likes the bus ride because it is the only time someone does something for her even if it is driving. The glass doors of Walmart welcome her to a clean warehouse of stuff that she doesn't have much of. She circles the inside of the store three times without putting anything in the cart. She has told her kids she will never take them down the cereal aisle again. She finally puts some Lucky charms in the cart on the fourth trip. When she gets back to the house, his truck is in neutral, burning diesel. He says he has to go. He leaves.

One thing that was fun when Teddy was around were the minutes before bedtime. The family used to sit on the couch and read story books. From outside the picture window, one might see them as models for a family magazine cover. They turned the chewed up pages of "Goodnight Moon", they followed the teeny mouse from page to page. The old lady told them to "Hush". Then Daddy carried the toddlers like they were footballs into beds that welcomed them into sheets with the likes of The Incredible Hulk or of Wonder Woman. Quiet echoes of "Hush" from everyone made possibilities of warmth and love play with the family's emotions. There was a prayer. It was the best part of the day, kind of like putting a bow on a star.

These days, she enters the bedroom with a can of Coors Lite. The tiny TV on the dresser winks out a rerun of "Sex in the City". She has softer pillows in the bedroom. She wants him on the couch. She has known about the waitress for a month. Sometimes she doesn't even care where he lays his head. She knows the couch pillows are corduroy and she wishes him mucho discomfort and misery. Simple things seem to piss him off whenever Mommy and Daddy share time in the house. He liked windows wide open. She liked the windows shut. It was rare that a cool breeze might bring an iota of cool joy through the screens. She didn't know what happened to the guy who flirted with her at a junior college class. She misses the nice guy who changed her life from her own personal goals into becoming a sperm receptacle and a forever mother.

He stares at his refilled suitcase. The 16 wheeler is warmed up and ready to roll to West Virginia as soon as he climbs in. He has a plan. He is going to pick up red flowers at Walmart and present them as a gift to the waitress with popcorn curls at the Dixie Truck Stop. He's gonna ask her to quit her job and go on the road with him, right now. Once gone, he won't have to soul search and wrestle about not being true to his wife and being a disappointment to his Mom and Dad. He will be gone. He might send money home for the kids. This waitress, at the very least, made him feel something. It had been a long time since his heart had tampered with a plus feeling. He usually felt like a shit. He could accept being a shit if the waitress would suck his dick.

He took in all the Marlboro would give him. He let out a cloud of smoke the size of a refrigerator door. He leaves a post it note saying he doesn't know when he will be back.

In between breaths, she watches "Scrubs" reruns. If you were over 4 years old, it is tough to grin in this house. She wishes she could hope he might roll his semi into a forest filled with lions and tigers or maybe crabs but she can't. She knows that his demise wouldn't bring her joy, it wouldn't bring Teddy back.

She knows he would soon be southbound on 57. She lets some of that abandoned peace sneak into her cranium with a sigh. She is changing. She is changing a diaper. She changes the sheets of her bed that smell like oil. She changes into a Reba t-shirt. She reads the post it note, crumbles it and throws it on the floor. She decides this might be the day to change the locks so he can't come into the house with his yucky smell, again, without permission.

When she had been at Walmart yesterday, she sat with a couple whose pick up truck with a mattress in the bed was stuck in 12" of mud. They had desperation sketched into their filthy faces. They sipped small coffees and counted their curled up cash on the red tabletop. Only two Winston's were left in their soft pack. They stunk like carnival garbage. They referred to each other as fiancées. It was sweet for her to hear. She purchased a coffee and sat with them. She told them her story of losing Teddy and they watched her softened eyes and said nothing. She spoke about her husband squandering away his soul and wandering in to a relationship with the waitress at the truck stop.

"He's an asshole, you should lock the fuck head out, you should get the money out of the bank, you should get a fucking lawyer" said the male fiancé. She wished she could get really mad. She couldn't. It would be a good time to hustle up some rage but her soul didn't have the taste for it, yet. Was she pissed at her husband, or God? She could use a little miracle, even an extra pocket would be something.

She got her crew together for breakfast. They filled the table with their precious faces alive with the magic of Lucky Charms. They waited for the Nestles chocolate mixing with the two per cent milk that created the best taste in their tiny worlds. She looked at the simple beauty of their hair, their tiny busy fingers and their hopeful bright eyes.

"Can we go to the park?"

"Can we have a picnic?"

"Can we do something that will make you smile?"

She closes her eyes. She sees Teddy. He holds a balloon, he runs in circles with all the fun you could pack into a moment. He tells her all she has to do is make her kids safe and fun. Keep balloons around. Don't throw away that big box. Don't be so sad. Play in the sandbox, play the drums, eat peanut butter with your fingers, the chunky kind. You don't need tons of help. You can be a goof.

They arrive at the park. They teeter, they tauter, they are swing with Skippy faces. It is not perfect; there are still skinned knees. Nobody says life is a good deal. But Teddy's spirit flows in her veins like a warm blanket that keeps the urge to hate off the picnic table.