“Oh look, Buddy. Do you see?”
Without taking her eyes from the road for more than a split second, Gillian pointed to the sky.
It was impossible to see to what she was pointing at for the ceiling of the car. The square of the window was cold on my cheek as I pressed it to see what little sky the view had to offer. It was a steel blue that met the horizon of black earth and stubby brown stalks left behind from last year’s corn harvest.
“No Sweetie, there.” She pointed again and from the back seat I could duck my head to peer between the seats and below the tinted band at the top of the windshield. There it was.
“On a day when the sun shares the sky with the moon…” Her smile tickled her voice. “Come on, you’re going to finish it.”
Sticking my hand in the Ziplock bag on my lap, I came up with a green Fruit Loop, and popped it into my mouth while I thought. “On a day when the sun shares the sky with the moon, a new season is coming.”
Bright green eyes found mine in the rearview mirror. Brows rose in expectation but that was all I knew. That, and that no matter what colour of Fruitloop I eat they all tasted the same.
“A new season is coming soon.” A forehead with a line of dark hair and a sprig of gray held a pair of empty sunglasses. They stared back at me from the tiny mirror as we turned. An invisible forced pushed me back into my seat. Now, through my window, I could see it. It was kind of neat, both the sun and the moon, day and night, at the same time. Neat and confusing. How can both be true at the same time? Does the sun ever just hang out when it’s night? That can’t happen, right? Would it still be night? What about now? Is it still day when the moon, the keeper of night, is right there?
“Can we do another one?” She asked. “On the day when the sun shares the sky with the moon, summer is coming. We can’t wait for…”
“June!” I said around a purple Fruit Loop. Chewing and swallowing it before it got all soft because soggy cereal is meant to be with milk.
“June!” She sang. “That’s right. Nice job. It is always important to notice the little things, especially those that don’t happen every day.”
Mom got so excited over stuff like this. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing. Day and night can’t mix.
It was a ghosted ball of white. It could have been a cloud if it was not so perfectly round and right there just hovering over the trees. With my finger, I outlined its shape on the window and imagined it to be other things in the sky. Kind of like when there are big fluffy clouds, we spend our car rides pointing out all of the shapes in the sky that the clouds make as they move and shift above. But the moon didn’t move. It was right there. Lingering and watching us as though haunting the morning. Like a hole in the day.
“It’s like a bullet hole.”
“What?” Her voice made that sound as if I had said something wrong.
“The moon, it looks like a hole in the sky. Like someone shot at it.”
“I guess.” Faceless sunglasses peered at me again. “The moon is really far away, who would shoot at it?”
“No one shot at the moon, Mom. It looks like a hole. A bullet hole. In the sky.” When I pointed, I pressed my fingertip right in the middle of the moon.
“Bullets are tiny Buddy, they would never make a hole that big.” Mom’s comment is off. I cannot find her eyes in the mirror and she is all twitchy while shaking her head.
“Maybe it’s like when they go in really small and come out really big. Like that big.” I pulled my arms out as wide as the back seat would allow to show how big.
“What have you been watching? Have you been playing video games with guns or something?”
“Just Skylanders, but not a gun. A hole that big would be a cannon.” I balanced an orange Fruit Loop on the top of my thumb before placing it on my tongue.
“Please, Decklyn, no more talk of guns, or bullet holes, or cannons.” Her smooth forehead filled with creases and when her hands came off the steering wheel, fingers all stretched out and jumpy, I knew to not say anything for a while. I didn’t know what I had said to upset her, I just knew that I had.