Even the Moon

“Backpack. Backpack.”, Dora the Explorer sings, beckoning her trusted helper. The receptionist warned her before they sat down that there would be a bit of a wait. Dr. Wolf was backed up. Based on the number of sniffling children and bleary-eyed parents in the waiting room, Quinn was not surprised. Her daughter Esme was playing cheerfully with a bead maze and watching Dora go on her third adventure since they’d sat down.

Thank God for iced coffee, Quinn thinks to herself while rummaging through her purse for some snacks for Esme. It was well past lunch time now and the 4-year-old was sure to be hungry. Aha! Score. “Esme! Would you like a granola bar?” Quinn calls over to her. Esme shrugs her shoulders and goes back to playing with the child who just joined her.

“I thought that was you”, the voice comes from behind her and sends a chill right up her spine, “your daughter is your mini!” she says. She’d been sitting with her back to the door. Something she normally didn’t do. But she had decided to face her daughter and the play area, the protective mommy in her winning over her anxiety and paranoia. No freaking way this is happening. She doesn’t have time to turn before the voice is in front of her.

She’s wearing an orange backpack, the front of it designed to hold baby wipes, hand sanitizer hangs from a carabiner. When did she become the type to carry hand sanitizer?

She still looks like her. The same Tessa in her memories. No new wrinkles to speak of. Not thick around the middle like Quinn was now. Her hair, still shaved short on the sides and longer on the top, no longer dyed. New tattoos peek out the sleeves of a khaki colored henley. She’s wearing one of those trendy puffer vests in a brown shade that matches her hiking boots. (Who wears hiking boots to the pediatrician?).

“Stand up! Give me a hug,” she commands. Quinn rises without thinking, still trying to get her bearings. They embrace awkwardly and she catches a whiff of something vaguely familiar. It smells like chaos and home. But not the home she shares with her husband and daughter. It’s the one that lives in her heart and greets her in her dreams. Wandering every night into this fairy tale existence, waking and finding herself back in reality.

In another life, or what feels like a lifetime ago, this was her person. This woman was the keeper of her secrets, her heart, her body. How many years had it been? How many tears had she cried since? She tried to remember the end. It was less painful than remembering all that love. Gone to waste. It was easier to remember the heartache. It reminded her of her own strength. The way she’d been able to overcome it. She couldn’t remember much. She remembered a backpack, similar in style to the one her ex-lover donned today, only instead of baby wipes and sanitizer she had filled it with her underwear and odds and ends left around the apartment. “I’m just not ready for this. I love you. I just can’t.”, she’d said.

Quinn shook her head at the memory and pulled herself out of the hug. “Wow. It’s really you.”.

Tessa laughed, that same throaty laugh that used to carry all the way across the bar and made Quinn smile anytime she heard it. “The one and the same. Of all the places I thought I might someday run into you- I didn’t have pediatrician’s waiting room on my list.”

“It certainly wasn’t on my bingo card” Quinn deadpans. “You have kids?”, she immediately regrets the obvious question. But she’s at once, intrigued and hurt at this possibility.

“That’s my son, Levi, playing with your daughter-

“Esme”, Quinn offers.

“-Gosh she looks just like you.” Tessa is beaming now. Her eyes are shining like she’s maybe had a sip of something stronger than coffee. Quinn looks around wondering if anyone has noticed this awkward exchange. Or maybe it’s only awkward from her vantage point.

“So, is he your only child?”, she asks.

“Yeah. We tried invitro three times before we struck gold with that little man.”

“How old is he?”. Quinn looks again at the two children playing quietly together.

“He just turned five. We’re just here for his well check-up. In case you were worried.”.

“No. No. I’m not. It’s just... invitro? Did you...”

“Oh! Ha. Yeah, umm no. My wife. She carried him.”

Wife. She lets that word wash over her a few times. Crazy that even after all these years. With a ring on her own finger even, she still feels the jealousy burning in her chest.

“Listen. I know this is crazy. I’m not sure what you even think of me. But I would love to take you for coffee maybe? Catch up? I owe you a long overdue apology.”

“I, umm…” tears sting her eyes. Her voice fails her.

“Esme!”, a nurse calls from the doorway.

Saved by the bell. Or in this case the nurse.

         “That’s us!”, she waves towards the nurse. “Esme? Don’t forget your backpack.” she summons Esme. Moving to step around Tessa.

         “Quinn?”

         “Yeah?”

         “I mean it. I really would love a chance to clear the air. Or whatever there is between us.”

         “I have to go” she says, gathering her purse and coffee and all the strength she can, “You know. You don’t have to. It’s fine. I’m fine. We don’t have to drudge up old baggage.”

Tessa grabs her hand and gives it a soft squeeze, “I really am sorry.”

         “Me too.” Quinn says.

An hour later Quinn is in her car. Esme is passed out in her car seat, clutching an empty packet of applesauce in her tiny fist. Quinn is sitting in the parking lot. Still a little disoriented from the surprise encounter. She scans the parking lot, unsure of what she’s looking for.

There.

She can see it from here. The blue Jeep wrangler. She doesn’t have to move closer to know there’s a booster in the backseat, probably sticky with whatever Levi had for breakfast that morning. She knows, without looking, that there will be a pack of Doublemint gum in the center console, a bottle of Lipton’s green tea in the cup holder, and at least one crystal or gemstone within reach for the driver to fidget at stoplights.

Fifteen years ago, the love her life walked out the door with nothing but a backpack and the necklace she’d given her that Christmas. It had been Quinn’s last-ditch effort to get Tessa to come out of the closet to her family and be with her, out in the open. Like a real couple. The necklace was handmade to resemble military dog tags. The backs were engraved; one with the coordinates of their first kiss, the other read “To thine own self be true.”

She stares at it now. Hanging from the Jeep’s rearview mirror. It radiates with the authority of a flag planted, laying claim to undiscovered land. As if anyone can ever claim the moon? It belongs to no one. Even if it does appear to shine for only you.