Luna wasn’t her real name. In the last place her husband’s company put them, suburban Delaware, she had a friend who’d given her this new name during a summer solstice ceremony in her backyard, Luna for the moon, an acknowledgement of the phases of life, its tides and circularities, departures and returns. The friend was Wiccan. Her name was Joni-Ann. Luna’s husband, Don, made it clear he despised Joni-Ann and would not call his wife Luna under any circumstances. But Luna loved Joni and loved the Wiccan precepts. If it harms no one, do what you will. How could you argue with that?
Coincidences: Luna and Joni-Ann drove the same make of car, both had sons named Will, both came from nowheresville and married up. A blessing is any breathtaking coincidence, Joni told her, and surely it was a blessing to land in Joni’s cul-de-sac of all the suburban nooks in the realtor’s giant binder. Luna saw Joni at the block party and was immediately curious—she was taller than the other women, broad-shouldered, with a long brown braid and a big confident voice. Joni had sensed Luna’s shyness and took the lead, inviting her to all the outdoor ceremonies and picnics, most of which happened in her yard. No one had a yard like Joni-Ann’s. Prayer flags, fire pit, herbs and flowers and twinkling lights. A long teak table on which sat endless pitchers of lemonade and inspiring salads… so many varieties of lettuce, peppery edible flowers, seeds and nuts and even seaweed.
Because of this friendship, Luna prepared herself to be deeply sad—sadder than usual—when it was time to go, which would be soon. It always was. And on the first Monday in January, Don came home with the face, a kindly flatness that meant he was doing his best to hide his exhilaration, and said, “It’s Boston, babe.” At least they didn’t have to leave in the summertime, everything in bloom, the cul-de-sac alive with music and laughter late into the night. That would have been impossible. When Luna cried that she was always being pulled away, Joni soothed her with a homemade tea for itinerant souls: valerian for worry, rosemary for remembrance. “You’re a nomad, like many before you.” At the time Luna found this lovely, romantic—a nomad. The tea hadn’t tasted great but the meaning of it pleased her.
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She brought nothing Wiccan to Boston except one crystal and her new name. The children teased her, half-sweetly, took their father’s lead, witchy cackles and moon howling. They were twelve and fourteen, lost in their devices, hungry for freedom but aimless when a free day appeared. They had invisible braces, warts on their feet which she had been advised to treat with duct tape, but they would not keep their naked, taped-up feet off the coffee table so Luna arranged to have the warts burned off. Her children had turned a bit gross; Joni had been going through the same thing with her own adolescents, gave Luna permission to admit it, to drop the pretense. Luna had seen this sort of female comradery in movies and on TV, but it had been new to her personally.
Don did not use her new name but everyone else in her new city spoke it kindly, without question, which pleased her to a startling degree during those early weeks. Whenever she heard someone say Luna, she’d feel a wild surge of gratitude, as if they’d offered a kidney or their bone marrow—until like anything else it became normal.
On the third day in Boston, Luna accidentally signed up for a prenatal yoga class. This particular studio—Oh Yoga—was a little far but had excellent online reviews. Only one class that afternoon had space, one spot left; she snagged it without looking closely. Naturally she realized her mistake upon arriving, considered leaving, but what did it matter that she wasn’t pregnant? She was cramped from the move, long hours in the car, the strain of unpacking. Wanted nothing more than a good stretching out followed by an Epsom salt bath and a nap. And she was already there, in her leggings. No one would know.
All of the participants were showing at least a little, a few bellies so much like overfilled balloons you had the impulse to cover your ears. She had forgotten the lewd distention of those last days. Luna fit in fine with those who were earlier along. Here, her gut was OK. It read first trimester. It was good. A dumpling gut, she thought sometimes, when she engaged in the practice of self-affection, as Joni had encouraged. Dear darling dumpling gut. She especially loved the end of the class, shavasana, corpse pose, flat on her back, a lavender-filled pillow over her eyes. If the student consented, the teacher with the crane tattoo would come around to press a thumb lightly to your forehead, then on the bottom of each foot. Luna consented. You are vessels for something bigger, the teacher said. She didn’t touch students in her regular classes.
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Since it harmed no one, Luna began attending the Oh Yoga prenatal classes regularly. She didn’t speak to the other women, arrived with no time to spare and hurried off the moment the lights came on, not impolite, waving pleasantly, thanking the teacher over her shoulder. Have to run! Crazy day! She played the frantic working woman, older mom-to-be, trying to squeeze in some yoga during a hectic week. No one suspected otherwise. Luna the powerhouse.
She loved the tenderness of the crane-tattoo teacher’s direction, how she made it a point to learn their names, compliment their efforts, to note the deepening of their postures—“Yes, Luna, beautiful,” seeming to know just when she needed to hear it.
Luna wished she’d done yoga when she’d actually been pregnant. In Denver for the first baby she’d been part of a geriatric walking group in a gated community. Her belly was cause for much nostalgia; she passed most mornings strolling in thin air, listening to expired advice. In Cincinnati for the next one she exercised not a whit. Those had been darker days, a toddler squeezing a tube of yogurt onto the couch while she watched CNN, until Don had hired a housekeeper called Esperanza who arrived at nine a.m. to open the shades and shame her into getting dressed. “Nothing a shower can’t fix” was Esperanza’s motto, and became Luna’s too for a while.
Esperanza told Luna she knew she wasn’t born rich by her shampoo and soap, that a person’s toiletries gave it away. She was right; Luna had been raised in an apartment over a pizza parlor, the surprise late-in-life child of a couple who’d been told they would never conceive. Her father worked in a woolens factory, her mother at the drugstore. She’d met Don when she was nineteen, waitressing at a Denny’s near the state university. “Good job,” Esperanza had said, and made a gesture like reeling in a fish.
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Luna had been so uncomfortable during her pregnancies, blotchy and gassy, rattled with worry, but these pregnant yogis did not seem rattled in any way. They pointed and flexed their tumid feet, squeezed and squeezed their pelvic muscles. Luna was moved by the strength in their faces in the mirrored wall as they did the thigh-strengthening exercises, as they held their squats, practice for labor—moaning as if in labor, because the squats were agony, hell, and Luna moaned with them, hurting, remembering, going lower and deeper, beyond what she thought herself capable. This went on for several weeks. The biggest returned to show the others her baby. Luna couldn’t stay, of course. Only one more time, she decided.
Halfway through that last class, in balancing table pose, they heard a noise. A sound from down the block, a roaring as if from a parade, drums, horns, and she’d thought—What day is it? Had she forgotten a holiday? Everyone leapt to their feet and rushed to the lobby, where through foggy plate-glass they saw a throng of people demonstrating, a mass of agitators banging pots, roaring, chanting disjointedly so it was hard to hear what they were saying, many in wheelchairs or motorized scooters. One of the yogis put on her clogs and went outside to investigate. She came in a moment later explaining that the government was evicting these people from a housing project, that they all had physical or mental disabilities. Then the teacher rang her Tibetan bell, a thin golden noise like a strand of silk, and the women re-gathered on their mats. The teacher told them to breathe deeply, to return to their practice, but the chaos in the street freaked Luna out. Why did it so unsettle her? The noise had been electric, a scary strangled bleating. Horrible homesickness, despair. She could not slip into the state she wished for, spent her last corpse pose unsettled.
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Not her last. She found another studio. There were many yoga studios in the city and surrounding towns and each offered a prenatal class a couple times a week. In this way she got to see different neighborhoods. She noticed that most of the yogis where white, though not all. In Somerville there was a Puerto Rican teacher who was herself pregnant, and everyone agreed she was the greatest of all time, with her belly and soulful Ohms and noisy bracelets. Hard to leave that one, but generally Luna was happy to meet a new teacher. Change was good. Joni-Ann: “Resisting change leads to sorrow.”
So many studios. She could go until menopause, she reasoned, a fake first trimester in each. The classes turned out to be quite athletic. Her thighs and hips grew taut, definition on her arms. Her stomach might have become even flatter, but she was sure to indulge in nachos, ice cream, the fried chicken her kids begged for. “You’re looking so good,” Don said in bed. “Your thighs are so hard.” He squeezed them. His hands roamed upward. “But your belly, it’s soft—” He ran a hand in a circle. “No, it’s soft and hard.”
After he fell asleep she went down to the kitchen and drank store-bought tea. That’s when she missed her friend the most, Joni who had brewed a special cup of tea for every ailment, every mood, a tea to assure you that nothing was outside the reach of her care. For pain in her sinuses, zingy ginger and nettle. For premenstrual blues, turmeric and sage and South African honey. When Luna told Joni-Ann she sometimes found her skin crawled when Don touched her, Joni-Ann’s brew smelled awful, like pumpernickel and sage, but it hadn’t had any effect on Luna’s libido. Joni confessed that once she’d felt similarly—even considered leaving Rick. Like Don, Rick worked in real estate development and was skeptical of the Wiccan world. Nuance was not his specialty either. But Joni didn’t leave him. Instead she had done certain things and Luna could do them too. The tea was hormone balancing and worked over time; Luna should hold her nose and drink it. Also a massage oil to rub on him, a book about making a spiritual home, date night coupons. Coupons? No. She could not. But she drank the tea, even if it smelled like her pajamas after a night sweat.
Now Luna drank Celestial Seasonings. Afterward, she crept upstairs and returned to their bed, a California King, a new mattress on which Don indeed slept deeply, just as the salesman promised. You spend a third of your life in bed. Why skimp? He looked like Jude Law, too handsome for mattresses, perversely dazzling smile. This particular model was designed to avoid disruptive motion transfer, a costly feature but worth it, meant they’d never feel each other when one got out of bed, that one’s nightly struggles could be of no concern to the other.
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Luna was too shy to go to the corporation’s wife group. She wanted a mystical neighbor again, another Joni to take her under her wing. She missed Joni but had been calling less. Soon after they’d left Delaware, a family called the McKendricks moved into Luna and Don’s old house. Joni spoke at length about them on the telephone, a chiropractor couple with twin gymnast daughters and wonderful dog called Rosco, a very special dog, so much effusion that Luna feared Joni was glad she’d left so this superior family could take residence in the cul-de-sac. Her fear was confirmed when Joni said they were starting a business together, an LLC, she and the woman chiropractor, whose name was Kiki. They were building a stone walkway through the hedge that separated their yards and converting the garden shed in Luna’s backyard—that spidery dump where Luna had kept the potting soil—into what they called a healing hut, a body/mind business, massage and spinal adjustments and of course tea. Once summer came, Joni and Kiki would see clients there.
When Luna told Don about Kiki and the LLC, he rolled his eyes, and for once she appreciated his disdain. “If you need another guru, come to me. I’m happy to tell you what to do.”
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Soon enough she’d made her way through six prenatal yoga studies, each in a different part of the city. Her body felt tight and soft concurrently, balanced, rested, strong. Still, she wondered if she might be committing a karmic foul. The impulse toward secrecy upset her. Was it not unethical? Her presence in the class, after all, was a lie. What do yogis think about lying? She looked online: yogis believe sometimes lies are necessary to protect those who are vulnerable, but that a lie always causes harm in some way. Well, who was being hurt here? No one. The karma couldn’t be too bad. The classes gave her new equanimity. She felt at greater peace with Don. Back in Delaware, she’d once overheard him on the telephone saying, “As far as mid-life crises goes, I’ll take this witch business.” He’d laughed at whatever that other person said. Then in a low voice, “Well, only sometimes.” She had thought: I hate him. But these classes had changed that. Hate was like a pencil line she had erased, barely visible. Don was nicer to her in Boston, gave her back rubs, started calling her Pickle again.
The children grew confident in their new home, as they had in the last. They made friends, scored goals. They played a trick on her with some plastic wrap on a toilet, which they saw in a movie. Megan was messy and still needed to be reminded to shower. Will was cleaner but less available to her, did not talk about friends, or school, just completed his tasks competently so he could go out and see his friends.
Once, right after moving to Boston, she overhead her son making plans with another boy.
“Not my house,” he’d said. “My mom spies.”
She did not! But she couldn’t say this, for what had she been doing?
Not as a rule, she told herself. I don’t spy as a rule.
The children would be staying in Boston when she and Don left, that was already decided. They would become boarders at the school where they were now day students, an elite college preparatory with all the bells and whistles. They deserved a stable community. It wasn’t fair to keep dragging them around. Don himself had attended a school like this one and had adored being a boarder. For their part, Megan and Will couldn’t wait for the dorms. They had already acquired giant clear plastic boxes. Already they kept their clothes in these boxes rather than in their dresser drawers.
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Or was her lie causing harm? The deception began to gnaw at her. She was keeping herself from meeting people, after all, running away after class before she could make friends. Perhaps she was the one whom she was hurting. She tried to transition to a regular co-ed class but missed all the silent companions—their riders. It was as if they had all died. The strangest grief. The presence of men, even just one, changed something. The feeling of potentiality vanished. She couldn’t rest the same way in a regular class, couldn’t switch off her vigilance.
She wondered where Don’s company would put them next. There were rumors, he had told her, that he might be sent out west. Someplace mountainous appealed.
In bed one night she said, “Any updates? Any hints?”
“When I know I’ll tell you.” He was reading a book about the eleven principles of negotiation. He put it down and yawed loudly, and then said, “You in a mood to tussle?”
She tried to live in the now.
Live in the now, Luna.
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Now was mostly driving. Luna was no longer in control of her children’s social outings—they made the plans, she drove. “Mom, will you bring me to Kit’s?” And Will, “Me to Jason’s?” Opposite directions, but that was alright. Late November, crisp air, cider and donuts for sale every twenty feet. She dropped Will off first, then took Megan to a rolling town outside Boston, stone walls from the days of revolution marking the road. Megan put on a song by a female pop singer not much older than she was, sang along during the chorus. I trusted you/I trusted you/I sure as hell trusted you. It was about a best friend who does you wrong, Megan told her. The best friend was also a famous singer. Based on a real-life feud. “Most people think it was a marketing ploy. Now they both have number one hits. But who knows, friendship is so complicated!”
It was complicated, Luna agreed. She thought about Joni. Joni and Kiki. On a whim Luna said, “Did you ever want a sister?”
“A sister? No way. Will’s enough.”
“I always wanted one…” Luna said. “I guess it’s a different kind of girlfriend. Someone who’s always there.”
“Please don’t, Mom.”
“What?”
“Carly’s mom had Lulu at forty-two and it’s the worst. Carly hates the kid.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Luna said, though she didn’t know quite what she meant, and Megan said, “OK, cool. Whatever. Anyway, Kit’s like a sister to me. We’re bound for life.” They had pulled up to Kit’s house, a refurbished colonial with three garages, the yard a riot of orange leaves. Megan jumped out, flashed a peace sign. “I’ll call you when I’m ready!”
Luna knew someone whose new husband undid his years-old vasectomy and produced a whole slew of kids. Technically it wasn’t too late. Forty-one. Maybe the third child would take after her? But she didn’t want another. Having the right to be in that special yoga class, being important in such a simple way, yes, but not the whole new person to lead into adulthood, more years and years of repeating increasingly arbitrary-feeling rules, not the inevitable blinding depression, infected breasts. Plus it would cost a fortune, the kids would tease her, she could already hear them say it, gross, when they saw her drugs in the fridge.
December, January. These were hard days. Driving. Waiting. The last voicemail Joni-Ann left for Luna had been meandering and giddy, all about healing and joy, and guess what? Rick and his partner were investing in their business. “You should come for a session, Luna! I know how you get low. Friends and family discount,” which made Luna not want to call back. She didn’t wish to burn a bridge with the person who named her.
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Ideas that had seemed so lovely in Delaware grated on Luna in Boston. A blessing is any breathtaking coincidence, Joni always said, but she didn’t believe in blessings anymore. “Blessing” made luck purposeful, as though a supernatural advisor had tapped you for special approval. It was luck she believed in, good runs and bad runs, chance. Then came a Saturday in February. She woke before the rest of them, made waffle batter. Don didn’t eat breakfast anymore, just drank an expensive powdered thing he’d heard about on the radio and went in the backyard to chop wood. Will wanted blueberry waffles, which Luna did last because otherwise Megan could taste the berries in hers. They ate in shifts. They spent the morning on their devices, the wood stove crackling. A spigot in the kitchen dispensed hot water but she preferred the wrought-iron kettle on top of the fire, its antiquated scream. At lunchtime the kids wanted to go to Newbury Street and get club sandwiches at Stephanie’s. Usually she would take them by herself, as Don liked staying home for football, but today he grabbed the keys and they piled into his Range Rover. He’d lost a few pounds—had joined the gym on the ground floor of his new building, had been vigilant with the powder and a few key supplements—and wanted to look for some new clothes.
Right away she regretted coming along. The kids ran off. It was bitterly cold, the wind a blade. All she could think about was the waffle iron on the counter shellacked with batter, how by the time they got back it would be dark and they’d want dinner and it would be waiting for her on the counter like a Gremlin. She followed Don into a fancy men’s shop that smelled of leather and hay. When he went into the dressing room with an armful of shirts, she made a move to sit in the chair. Don said, “You don’t have to wait for me, hon.” He wasn’t the kind of person to ask if something looked good. She herself always wanted a second opinion, fretted about fit, but Don took one look and knew.
She left the shop. It was hard not to take the cold personally. Ferociously cold and still afternoon. The smudge in the sky was the moon. A hundred dogs yapping. She began walking south, against the wind, when someone on the street called out, “Luna! Right? Do I have it right? Is your name Luna?”
She stopped walking and so did the woman, who was blonde, wearing a puffy black coat, furry earmuffs, and pushing a sculptural stroller. Faintly, Luna recollected her.
“I’m Winnie,” the woman said. “From Oh Yoga. It was a while ago. You might not remember.” She had a toothy, disarming smile. “I’m not offended if you don’t.”
“Oh yes. Hello! Hello, Winnie.”
“I’m not a stalker, I just love your name. I was thinking about girl’s names at the time. Luna was up high on my list. Because of you, actually.”
The crane teacher had used all their names. It had been one of the things that made the class so special.
“Me?” Luna smiled. “How funny. How lovely.”
The baby in the stroller slept behind a frosted plastic veil, hard to see distinctly, but Luna said beautiful, perfect, like a doll… “Macy,” Winnie said, almost apologetically. “We went with Macy at the last minute. Do you remember Suki from the class? Red hair? Super flexible? We were worried about you when you left. We wondered where you went.”
The intimacy of the concern puzzled her. She didn’t remember Suki. Didn’t remember any of them, or barely, not in their particulars. She was there on dubious business, had not made eye contact or learned their names.
Luna saw a man in her peripheral vision in a long, dark coat—her husband. But it wasn’t. Her heart beat faster. She had no stroller, no baby. It came to her what this thing was heading toward, what she had to say—so she said it. Winnie’s mouth made a pained O, and she nodded, put her mittened hand on Luna’s forearm.
“That’s what we feared, me and Suki. Listen, Suki too. At twenty-four weeks, poor thing. After she’d done three rounds of in vitro.”
“That’s horrible! I’m so sorry.”
“She’s sorry too. For you. How far along, can I ask?”
“Far,” was all Luna could manage. She felt tears come to her eyes, authenticating but also authentic. Then Winnie told her about a group Suki had found in the wake of her loss, a support group. Suki couldn’t stop talking about it. Led by this brilliant social worker. “Or maybe—” Winnie spoke gently— “you already have a group? I shouldn’t presume. Some people aren’t into groups. Some people want to do their grieving on their own.”
Luna said she was not opposed to groups, quite the contrary. A hard gust of wind blew, a fitful sound rose from the stroller, and she said, “I need a group” and stepped closer, as if competing with the baby. The cold tore her breath from her throat. “I do. I’m not sure how I’ve gone this long without one.”
Winnie made a pained face, wiggled the stroller to calm the baby. She’d give Luna the phone number. Suki would be glad to hear from her—women had to stick together in times like these. It’s part of the healing to help others along was Suki’s belief. Wasn’t that such a lovely notion? The baby’s fussing grew louder. Luna saw her children emerging from the sneaker store half a block away, waving—not at her but at their father, who was coming from the men’s shop across the street. He had a bag in his hand, was pulling his collar against the cold. None of them had seen her yet. But they would. Don and the kids would see her, and one of them would start to howl, and the other two would join in—their favorite joke—craning their necks to the moon for comedic effect. Looooona. Looooona. She could bear it no longer. Let them go, she told herself. All three. Winnie dug in her bag for a pen.