Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon by Mary Ellen Courtney

“I was kidding.”
    “Eric said you googled him.”
    “I was curious. I’m not going to call him.”
    She looked at me thoughtfully.
    “I know you’re not happy right now,” she said. “But don’t do something that can’t be undone.”
    “Why is everyone so worried about Jon? He’s not worried about me.”
    “I’m not worried about Jon. I think the idea of hiring Celeste is asking for big trouble. I’m surprised he’s that stupid. I’m worried about you. I know you.”
    “Mom, I’m not up for one of your playbook clichés right now.”
    “I don’t have a cliché for what you’re going through. I’m just afraid you’re going to do something that makes you feel bad about yourself. You’ve been so happy the last few years. So proud.”
    “I guess.”
    “You have your beautiful children.”
    “I know, Mom. I thought I had a beautiful husband too. I need to go. I can only drive a little while before I have to stop for one of them.”

F OUR
    Traffic on the 5 North was slow to Oceanside where I made the cutoff. The back route was lined with more cookie cutter housing developments than the last time I’d driven that way. Flat malls crowded the slivers of space between the foothills and the freeway. They provisioned BBQs and spa chemicals, all the necessities of bedroom community survival. Half the places looked abandoned.
    A dry chaparral breeze ruffled sleeping Meggie’s soft curls. Chance slept with parted lips. My breast twinged when I looked at him, he’d wake up soon. He noshed all day and slept all night.
    I broke free of malls and into the long stretch of hillside avocado groves that always put me in mind of donkeys and Italian men in rough cotton shirts. Ten miles out the clean air, with green under-notes, began to sour with the ammonia smell of cow shit and chemicals from the dairy farms up ahead. I passed the Grub ‘n Scrub, an oasis of badly maintained truck stop diner with a rundown motel to the side. The vacancy sign flickered.
    Most of the rooms had been converted for showers. No one rented the rooms with beds. Truckers carried their sleeping compartments like snails, but they used the Scrub for showers and to do a load of wash. It was like a hot pillow stop, with hot showers. Stroud said the occasional hooker hung around. His sister and her husband owned it; they discouraged the hooking. The food was excellent. I’d never seen a room.
    Stroud and I had our first encounter in his Volvo station wagon. We didn’t consummate our opening salvo because I’d had a rare burst of self-respect and cut it short. Unfortunately the chemistry was overpowering and I invited him to L.A. for a visit when Steve was in New York for work. We spent two nights having more sex than most people have in two years. I’m still surprised by it, and Jon is no slacker. The mess that followed turned into a painful and inelegant end to a bad relationship with Steve. I wasn’t proud of it, and I didn’t regret it. It had been more than six years and I still hadn’t figured out how to put it at ease in my mind.
    Jon had never seemed like a bad relationship. Not in the beginning when I tried to fight him off long-distance, not at those rare times that we fought up close. Not now when we were struggling long distance again. I couldn’t get over the feeling that some part of him would never commit to our relationship. I might be imagining that. Maybe it was me but, maybe not.
    We knew people who were friendly with their ex-spouses. The charge was gone. What was left was at best, friendship, at worst, annoying familiarity. The charge was not gone for Celeste. There was unfinished business. They’d had a child without ever being lovers. How do you finish that?
    Jon couldn’t bring himself to create a boundary. It hurt.
    “Mama, I need to go potty.”
    “Okay, Angel, hold on. I’ll find a place to stop.”
    “Now, Mama.”
    I pulled off at the next exit. They were grading for another empty mall, there wasn’t a