The Moonlight Healers

9. Louise

9

LOUISE

Louise didn’t speak on the short drive back from Sarah’s house. She didn’t know what to say to her grandmother, how to express how wonderful it was to have helped Sarah, but also how confused she felt. She watched the mountains on the horizon, laced with veils of mist despite the blue skies overhead.

She didn’t know how to simply go on with her life, tuck away the knowledge that she could help people who were suffering, focus on college math courses and a career in finance when this vast, undiscovered world now existed. It had always made sense to her, to choose a career where she could support herself. It was a lesson drilled into her by her mother for as long as she could remember.

“Don’t make my mistake,” she told Louise. “Make enough money where you never have to ask for help, rely on your father to pay your rent. It took me years to build my career into a place where I could support us alone. And look at your grandmother. If it wasn’t for my uncle Dan she couldn’t keep the or chard going. It’s massively expensive to run that place, and the profit doesn’t cover it.”

And Louise had agreed with her mother. She would follow the path laid out, make enough to support herself and her mother, pay her back for all she had sacrificed, the late nights and constant weekends spent working, the struggle to balance a career and being the only available parent.

But now, she felt that path shift beneath her feet.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Camille said from the driver’s seat.

Louise squinted into the bright sunlight as she looked out the windshield. She didn’t want to tell her grandmother what she was thinking, as though saying the words out loud would give them a power she wasn’t ready to face.

“Can I tell people?” she asked finally, settling on the question that had pressed on her the most, every time she struggled to explain to Peter what had happened after the accident or contemplated a future in which she would always have to lie to him. “People outside the family?”

Camille didn’t respond at first, her eyes on the road as they passed a pasture filled with grazing cows. Finally, she shrugged. “There aren’t any rules to this, Louise. It’s not like we have a handbook. I took my lead from my mother. She never told my father or brother. I think it was always easier for her, to keep the two things separate, her role at home and her role as a healer.”

She checked the side mirror. “She didn’t trust the world. She had seen too much evil, and suffering.”

Louise thought of Helene, of all she’d endured during the war, the loss of nearly her entire family. She understood why she had lived in fear, and she felt an enormous amount of grief for her, for how lonely it must have been not to be able to trust anyone.

Camille turned off the main road once they reached the orchard. The apple trees swayed in the wind, their twisted limbs weighted down with unripe fruit. “And she always told me that I had to protect myself, protect this ability, because people would find a way to break it if I allowed them in. And so I never told your grandfather either.”

Louise’s grandparents had been divorced since before she was born, so it was harder for her to imagine them together than apart. They were so different too. Her grandfather was incredibly social, friends with half of Charlottesville, where he lived and worked as a lawyer. Whenever Louse visited him on her way home from her grandmother’s house on her monthly visits, it wasn’t unusual for him to have a friend or two over at the house. He divided his time between his tidy, perfectly maintained house in the city and Farmington, the country club right outside of town, and seemed to exist in a different world than the wild orchard and messy house where her grandmother lived.

“Is that why…?”

“Why we got divorced?”

Louise wondered if she had gone too far, but when Camille looked at her, her face was contemplative.

They passed the farm stand and headed up toward the house.

“Part of it, yes. Not the only reason. When we were in college, he was this cute, preppy rich kid and he probably thought I was exotic because I wore Birkenstocks and didn’t have a trust fund.” She winked at Louise. “That was back in my rebellious phase, when I made every decision as long as I thought it would horrify my mother.”

Louise couldn’t picture her grandmother rebelling against Helene. They had always seemed so similar, devoted to their work, and to the orchard, both so strong and independent.

“You had a rebellious phase?”

Camille nodded. “It was brief. But I made it count. I went to school in Richmond. Met your grandfather and broke up with the boy my mother would have chosen for me if given the chance, someone who spent less time at the club and more time working outdoors.” Louise could sense her considering how honest to be. “I also smoked a lot of pot. And to my mother’s greatest shock, I decided to be an art major. I came to my senses about the career stuff, switched to nursing senior year, even though it meant an extra two years of school. But it took me longer to realize how wrong I’d been about your grandfather. He is a good man, Louise. I would never disparage him to you. But he was never meant for me. And our differences got more pronounced as we got older. And I was never as good as my mother at being two people. She had years of practice after all, during the occupation. I think your grandfather always sensed that I was holding back. He was patient, for years, but in the end, he needed more from me than I could give him.”

Camille parked the car next to the house and shifted in her seat. “It’s a lot to process. I know. But you were wonderful back there, Louise. You really helped Sarah. It seemed very natural, for you to take care of her like that.” Camille’s smile faded. “But of course, you took care of your mother. For all those years. When I couldn’t.”

Louise didn’t respond at first. Camille never mentioned that time in their lives. It had become an unspoken agreement between them, and Louise was shocked to hear her grandmother bring up the old wound, to acknowledge her part in it.

“You tried,” Louise said simply.

“I could have tried harder.”

The crunch of gravel sounded behind them as Bobbie pulled in the driveway.

“Well,” Camille said with a glance in the rearview mirror. She wiped her eyes quickly. “Time for lunch.”

* * *

A few minutes later, Louise sat stiffly on the screen porch across from her mother while her grandmother busied herself making lunch in the kitchen.

“I got back here as quickly as I could,” Bobbie said. “I probably shouldn’t have… I could have rescheduled the work stuff. I’m sorry. I panicked. You know that’s sort of my thing in these situations. Remember when I volunteered to be on the PTA and didn’t even make it through the first meeting?”

Louise tried to smile, but she couldn’t force it. She was so unaccustomed to being angry with her, not like this, not in a way that felt suffocating. But after that morning, seeing the journal, healing Sarah, Louise also couldn’t deny how hurt she was, by her mother’s choice to keep it all from her, to act as though this essential part of Louise was irrelevant, to let her make plans for her life, create an entire future without the basic facts of her existence.

“How was your morning?” Bobbie asked gently.

A slight breeze rippled through the porch. Louise heard the twinkle of wind chimes in the backyard, the soft rustle of tree branches.

“I helped Sarah Henley,” she said bluntly. She wanted to see the shock on her mother’s face, have her feel what it was like to have your world upturned. “She’s dying of cancer and I helped her.”

Bobbie went rigid. “What do you mean?”

Louise sat up taller. “I touched her and took away her pain.”

Bobbie grimaced. “That’s too much for you to take on. You’re eighteen. You shouldn’t be thinking about death or suffering. I know I agreed, but clearly that was a mistake. I don’t want you to be…”

“Like Grandma,” Louise finished for her.

“That’s not what I was going to say. That’s not fair. Don’t put that on me.”

“Fine.” Louise leaned back in the wicker chair, completely exhausted. She thought of the journal on the bookshelf, the flowers in the garden, the missing pieces of her life that had been given to her that day. All that her mother was willing to keep hidden, locked away like old family photo albums in an attic.

“I think I’d like to stay here with Grandma,” Louise said. She tried to keep her voice steady but she knew her mom would see right through her. She wasn’t ready to leave, to pack for college, shop for her dorm room, pretend nothing had changed. “For another day or two.”

Bobbie’s face showed a concerned surprise. “But you’re leaving on Friday.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

Bobbie opened her mouth to argue but then seemed to stop herself. “Okay, Louise, if that’s really what you want.”

Louise gazed past her mom at the garden as Bobbie got up and kissed Louise on the cheek, once. “I love you, you know?”

Louise nodded but didn’t reply.

“What do I tell Peter?” Bobbie asked as she straightened up. “He’s going to be looking for you. You guys have plans tonight, don’t you?”

“I’ll call him.” Louise felt a twinge of guilt. She knew Peter would be disappointed, maybe even hurt, but she wasn’t yet ready to face him. She didn’t know what to tell him about the accident, if she was ready to be honest. But she also didn’t know how to be around him and openly lie. “He’ll understand.”

Bobbie put a hand on Louise’s arm. “I am sorry, for all of it. For how this all happened. You know that, right?”

Louise nodded again, biting her lip.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said, squeezing Louise’s arm before making her way back through the house.

In the silence of the porch, Louise heard her stomach growl. After her grandmother burned the French toast earlier, they never ended up eating breakfast.

She waited until the front door slammed before going inside. The house was quiet, her grandmother likely down at the market or warehouse, checking in with Jim. She grabbed a bag of open pretzels off the kitchen counter. She needed to walk, clear her head, sort through all the confusion and noise. She was turning to leave when the red journal on the table caught her eye. She grabbed that too and went back outside.

She dialed Peter’s number and headed into the orchard. He answered after only one ring.

“Are you back yet?” he asked, a tentative hope in his voice.

“No, I’m still in Crozet.”

“What time are you getting home?”

She came to a stop as she reached the edge of the yard, where the land sloped down and the rows of fruit trees began. “I’m not coming home. Not today.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

“What’s wrong? Are they fighting?”

Peter knew the details of her mother and grandmother’s broken relationship as much as anyone. He had been there, a few months after they moved to Richmond, as Louise sat coloring in the kitchen while Peter’s mom fixed them an afternoon snack.

Peter had just gotten back from a week at the beach with his grandparents and extended family, and was sunburnt and full of stories, the hours spent playing in the waves with his cousins, catching crabs off the dock with his grandfather.

“Do you have plans with your grandparents this summer, honey?” Marion asked Louise as she set a plate of apples and peanut butter in front of them. She was always gentle with Louise, her tone dramatically different than when she was talking to her three rowdy boys, who were usually either wrestling or jumping off of furniture.

“My mom is in a big fight with my grandma,” Louise said, the truth spilling out. There was something about Peter’s boisterous, chaotic house that made her feel less guarded, at ease in a way she wasn’t even in her own home. “My mom won’t even answer the phone when she calls,” she blurted.

She had been immediately horrified that she had told them, that it was somehow a betrayal of her mother. Louise felt her eyes sting in the bright kitchen at the silence that followed.

“My uncle Dan drinks too much beer,” Peter said. “Right, Mom? And my cousin Ellie has her tongue pierced. And…and sometimes my other cousin, Henry, wets the bed, even though he’s nine.”

Peter’s mother had smacked him gently on the head, even though she smiled as she did it, and Louise giggled. After that, she knew she would always be safe with him, that he would always find a way to make her feel better. But now something fundamental had shifted.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Louise finally said, trying to keep her voice light. “I just needed a little more time with my grandma. I promise I’ll come back tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. And we’ll be able to make the midnight movie at the Byrd before I go.”

There was another pause.

“Okay,” he said, though she could hear disappointment in his voice. “You’d let me know, though, if something was wrong?”

“Of course I would,” Louise lied. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Louise hung up and went down the aisle between the first two rows of peach trees. Bees and flies swarmed the peaches that had fallen. Louise remembered collecting the intact fruits from the ground as a child, the ones they used for cider and cobblers and pies. Her great-grandmother was especially fond of peach cobbler. She’d told Louise that during the war it would have been considered the height of decadence, a prize fit for a queen, a sentiment that always made Louise giggle, because nothing about peach cobbler felt extravagant in the parameters of her safe, easy life.

She reached the end of the row and turned toward the next. She wanted to walk for hours, lose herself among the tangled branches of the orchard, pretend life was as simple as it had been when she’d played in these same places as a child. And so she did, weaving her way between the apple and peach trees, cutting through the strawberry and blueberry fields planted in the clearings on the other side of the road, pausing occasionally to rest, her mind drifting and wandering like the wispy clouds in the afternoon sky.

When the sun was directly over the mountains in the west, Louise finally let herself stop. She lowered herself in the middle of a row of unripe apple trees. It was quiet in that section of the orchard, away from the distant noises of the farms bordering the property.

Louise leaned back against a tree, its thick, squat base still warm from the day’s sun. The canopy of branches curved and twisted above her, each heavy with green fruit the size of baseballs.

It had been twelve years since Louise lived at the orchard full-time, but she was comforted by how little had changed, how if she closed her eyes it felt possible that she was still five years old, chasing Caroline up and down the long rows as they played tag or ghost in the graveyard, their faces flushed, shrieking as they darted in and out of the trees. Or in the springtime, when the peach trees blossomed, and she, Camille, and Helene would twirl in circles, as every gust of wind made it rain a thousand petals of pink.

At the vision, Louise remembered the thin journal. She withdrew it from the back of her waistband and held it out in front of her. It was warm from the contact with her skin, the old leather stained and discolored in spots, remnants of water or coffee spills, maybe.

She flipped gently through the first few pages. The writing was all in French, but she studied the illustrations, drawings of flowers and herbs, a chart depicting different phases of the moon, short paragraphs that looked like diary entries. She turned a few more pages, pausing to examine an image of the human form, surrounded by symbols and divided into four quadrants, each labeled with a different word: Flegmat , Sanguin , Coleric , and Melanc .

A breeze rustled Louise’s hair as the handwriting became more fluid and slightly less embellished. She guessed it was when Helene took over from her own mother. She felt a little wave of grief as she touched the pen marks on the page, trying to imagine the elegant old woman she knew from memory as the young one who would have written these words.

The journal continued in French, before English began to appear, hints that Helene was now in Virginia, names that were familiar: ginseng and jewel weed, drawings of flowers that grew wild along the hillsides. There were also dosing charts for penicillin and morphine and Pitocin, patient names and addresses, inventory lists of dressings and IV needles, clues of Helene’s transition to home health nursing after she married in the early 1950s.

Louise adjusted her legs beneath her as she reached the point in the journal where Camille’s handwriting began to appear, small and exact, more of a shorthand than the formal script of the women before her. There were drawings interspersed with the written entries, delicate watercolor depictions of flowers and herbs that hinted at her passion for art. But mostly she left notes about patient encounters, a patchwork quilt of the moments in her career that had shaped her.

August, 1979

First day on my own at work after orientation. Working with Hospice of Shenandoah—assigned to Ms. Nancy, a seventy-nine-year-old mother of three, grandmother of nine, with lung cancer. Her family is wonderfully kind, and opinionated. Didn’t much care for the first nurse the agency assigned them. Apparently, she whistled. Have to wonder what they think of a brand-new graduate. But Ms. Nancy knows Mama from town. She was in a lot of pain when I got there—we adjusted her morphine dose but she still struggled. I offered a bath and bed change, and was able to bring her some peace as I worked. Her daughter, Ellen, asked me if I was praying when I put my hands on her. I told her that no disrespect to the Lord, but human touch brings comfort much quicker than prayer. I think she likes me. I hope they like me.

Louise smiled. She enjoyed hearing her grandmother’s voice in this way. It was hard to imagine her ever being new, or nervous, but she followed this thread through her early entries until gradually her passages became more confident, and she sounded more like the Camille Louise had always known.

The orchard grew quiet and distant around her as Louise read her grandmother’s words, tracing the dates. A young woman’s death that hit Camille particularly hard the year Bobbie was born. A long stretch of no entries that coincided with her divorce. There were also mentions of another healer named Naomi. Louise vaguely remembered meeting her as a little girl when she visited the orchard, but she had no idea the richness of her past. Camille described Naomi as descended from enslaved healers, part of an ancient line that went back much further than their own family.

As the years went on, the entries became sparse, and less confessional, until finally she reached the last page. There was a date at the top: August 19, 2007. And underneath, one short paragraph.

It’s yours. All of it. When you are ready. I wasn’t. Please forgive me. But know I always loved you first. Before everything else. That love guided every choice. Every mistake. And it will remain, always.

Why was her grandmother asking for forgiveness, and from who? Was it a man, someone she had been with after her divorce?

Louise searched her memory. She’d been six years old when her grandmother wrote those words, the same year they left Crozet and her mother and grandmother’s relationship had shattered. Louise always knew something horrible must have hap pened to make her mother so rigid in her anger. But no matter how many times she asked, her mother always refused to give a clear answer, say anything other than it was complicated. Could Bobbie be the “you” in the diary entry?

She turned the page and pulled out a photo that had been tucked into the back cover. It was of Helene holding a small baby underneath the magnolia tree in the backyard. Her expression was serene, her blue eyes bright as she gazed down at the infant in her arms. Louise felt a tug inside of her chest as she realized the baby in the photo must be her, taken shortly after she was born.

Louise squinted into the late-afternoon sun. She felt full with the magnitude of their words, the power of three lifetimes, this long and winding road that had led to where she sat at that exact moment. She studied her hands, which looked so ordinary and unremarkable, and yet held the weight of a long legacy. It hit her with a renewed force, how if it hadn’t been for the car accident, she never would have known. All of this beauty would have remained hidden in that book.

She placed the journal beside her and uncrossed her stiff legs, stretching them out on the soft, red clay soil. Little bees flew in and out of patches of clover, and for the first time that day, her mind became blissfully empty. She sunk into this feeling, letting it envelop her until nothing existed beyond the rows of the orchard.

Then there was a loud crack of branches directly behind her, followed by a low, animal-like sound, part growl and part moan. A thud so close the ground beneath her vibrated.

Louise got up quickly, her heart racing, and peered into the long row of apple trees, trying not to make noise. She couldn’t see anything, her view clouded by tangles of apple branches, but a low rasp came from a few feet away, like air blowing through a straw. Her heart beat harder.

When she was finally able to force her legs to move, Lou ise stepped forward into the row of trees. She scanned the wide clearing that ran between the rows, until she noticed the unmistakable black mound only a few feet away.

Louise had only ever seen a bear that close once. She was seven years old, visiting her grandmother. They were driving home from the ice cream shop in town when they passed a huge black bear crumpled on the side of the road. Louise had pressed her face into the window as Camille slowed the car, muttering under her breath. The bear tried to rise to its feet, but its legs gave out and it collapsed again.

Her grandmother had called animal control, said they would put it down, and Louise had cried the rest of the way, asking why they couldn’t help the bear, take it the vet, find a way for it to live. When they got home, Camille had squatted down next to Louise outside the car and held her shoulders. And she told her words that Louise had never forgotten, even if she only now began to understand their meaning: “Death isn’t a tragedy, Louise. Not always.”

Back in the orchard, Louise’s mouth was as dry as sandpaper. One of the bear’s back legs was mangled, there was a large patch of fur missing near its neck, mange probably, and bright red blood matted the fur of its injured leg.

She held her breath, frozen with fear, as the massive animal rolled over onto its side. It whimpered, its eyes wide with panic.

She should run. She should go back to the warehouse, find Jim. He would know what to do.

But her feet wouldn’t move.

The bear released another low, soft moan, almost a cry. Louise stepped out from the shelter of the apple trees, and the bear turned its head slightly at the movement.

Louise’s legs shook, but she walked forward. Dimly, she was aware of her actions, of how reckless she was being, but she also knew that a wild and beautiful creature was dying in front of her, and that letting it happen felt unbearable. Her grandmother’s words echoed in her mind about animals and plants, how the magic was simpler— You can bring it back, as long as it has a little bit of life left in it.

Its long claws stirred feebly at the dirt, its eyes glassy, staring out toward the apple trees. She felt the bear’s breath on her legs as she knelt beside it.

Her palms were hot before they even met the bear’s sticky, matted fur. It was surprisingly rough, almost like pine needles, but she pressed her hands firmly into the thick flesh surrounding the leg wound.

Distantly, Louise heard a human voice, a visitor to the orchard nearby most likely, but she ignored it. She closed her eyes as a jolt of electricity raced along her nerve endings. It was fainter than the explosion she had felt with Peter, but still powerful as it accelerated through her arms and into her hands and surged into the bear.

Louise opened her eyes as the bear shifted beneath her. The ragged edges of the wound were closed, leaving only soft, slightly puckered skin visible among the fur.

The bear was still for a long moment, its head resting on the ground. But then it blinked, and its eyes grew focused, alert.

Louise stumbled to her feet. It was too late to run. The bear rose up with surprising agility, several hundred pounds of muscle and sinew and raw power. It turned its head in her direction, its round black eyes wide and curious as it sniffed the air between them. Then it lumbered away with a slow groan and ambled down the row, its body swaying side to side as it occasionally stopped to sniff at the fruit above, and eventually crossed into another row and disappeared.

She stood there, half-dazed, until the sound of new footsteps broke the silence.

It was Jim, his eyes on the spot where the bear had been moments earlier, sunlight streaming through the branches above him.