When the Moon Was Ours

by Anna-Marie McLemore

But this was what she would be now, his shadow, an echo of what he once was and thought he would be again. She would be less like someone he was supposed to become, and more like a sister who lived in places he could not map, a sister who kept a light but constant grasp on both his hand and his grandmother’s.

The truth was currency, new and shining.

All these broken pieces, becoming a hundred thousand unmapped stars.

Their mother would have a light to see by no matter whether the moon above them was a sickle or a bright coin. She could leave her broken heart with them. If she let it go, if she let it streak down to the earth like a fallen star, her spirit would be so light, so unweighted, she would float to places so beautiful they could not be told in stories.

Aracely had taught Miel that so many things worth fearing—the water, the dark—brought with them things worth wanting. The river kept this town’s fields growing and alive. The dark gave them the stars and the sudden warmth of certain fall nights. But there were some things only a boy named Samir could teach her, because he had lived them with her. And this was the one she held onto now, as they stood in the wild land between their houses: that they would both become what they could not yet imagine, and that they would still be what they once were. The girl from the water tower, a rose growing from her wrist, and the boy on the wooden ladder, hanging the moon close enough for them to find.

waiting with someone, existing in that quiet, wondering space with them when they need it, is worth all the words we have in us.