The Half Moon

by Mary Beth Keane

She knew she sounded like the exact kind of wife she swore she’d never be, speaking to him like she was his boss, or his mother. Did she want to speak to her husband like he was a child? Of course not. But when a person dreams of partnering with someone for life, no one ever considers the fact that there’s no dependable way to communicate a thought except to say it.

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In another life he’d watch his boy walk up to the plate and hope he remembered the speech he’d given him about courage, the fortitude and mental strength it takes to keep trying your absolute best. He remembered stepping up to the plate as a kid, already having struck out twice, wondering what the hell he was doing, how embarrassing, standing up there by himself just so twenty kids could watch him whiff again. And then, a moment later, connecting, the perfect thwack of bat to ball, the feeling of rightness in the palms of his hands as the ball flew down the third base line.

A

But in the end you can only have one life. One at a time, at least. You could turn, you could pause for a while, but you couldn’t go down two streets at once. The things they didn’t end up doing, the places and people they decided against, all defined them as much as anything else, in the way negative space defines a photo or a song. The lives they didn’t lead were there, too, always with them. Only recently did he begin to see the shape those choices had made.

！

“Yeah, me too,” Malcolm said, not wanting to get into it. “Life is complicated, right?” “Funny,” Mr. Sheridan said. “I was about to say exactly the opposite. I was just about to say how simple it is. Life is actually really simple when you boil it down.” Why? Because he loved her.

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