“What’s that?” you pointed up to the sky.
I squinted and looked in the direction you were pointing. “That is the moon.”
“Moon…” you said drawling out the “o” sound. “Why-why Katy is it white?”
“It just is…” I didn’t know how to explain it to you. Just that it is and will forever be.
“Oh,” you said with wonder. “Well why…how come it’s round?”
“It just is…” I repeated to you wishing I had a better answer.
“No Katy there has to be a reason. It just isn’t that way because.” I turned my head to face you as we lay in the grass.
“Right,” together we were silent.
You fidgeted a little and then grunted. “Well Katy are you going to tell me the answer?”
I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I don’t know the answer Marco,”
“Katy you just don’t want to-to tell me.” I saw you cross your eyebrows at the moon. “Why does it have holes in it?”
Finally a question I knew the answer to. Knowing I would loose your attention if I told you the exact facts I decided to tell you a story.
“Well, the moon was once a baby too.” I said looking at you.
“A baby?”
“Yes a baby, like how you and I were babies. But the moon wasn’t a human baby.”
“It was an alien baby! Wasn’t it? One from the Pluto. Or the Sa-Saturn. And the-
“Marco, listen,” you stopped talking and focused. “It wasn’t an alien baby, it was a rock baby.”
“No such things Katy.” You said like I was lying.
“Yes there is. Are you going to listen or not?”
“Go ahead…”
“So the moon was a developing baby. And it was going to be born into a perfect round, shiny rock. Like the one in your rock collection.” I paused for a minute so you could take all that in. “But then one day something went wrong.”
You looked at me with curious eyes. “No one knew how and no one knew why.” I continued.
“What happened?” you asked.
“What happened was the moon was no longer going to be a shiny, perfectly round rock.”
“Why?”
“Because while the moon was developing, something unexplainable happened to it.” you were waiting for me to answer.
“When the moon was born, it was different than all the other moons. It had dents carved into it. Things that the professionals call “craters”.” I waited for you to comprehend.
“The moon was still a moon though; it could still orbit the earth and play with all the other moons,” I cleared my throat, “but just not as well.”
I watched you understand what I was talking about. “The moon is still growing,” I said quietly, “and it’s always going to have those dents in it.”
You were quiet. I knew this was a way for you to understand. You my sixteen year old brother.
“Does it…does the moon know that it is different than all the other moons?”
I wondered to myself. Do you? But I answered with what I thought was right. “Yes, it does.”
“Katy?” you said my name, “when is the moon going to stop-stop growing? And die? Does it know its going to…to die?”
I thought of your last doctor’s appointment and how the doctor tried to tell you that you aren’t going to live to be an adult. I thought how heartbroken I was. That you my twin brother are going to die before me. I said to my mom, “Why is it him and not me?”
“Hopefully not for a long time,” I answered truthfully, because if the moon disappeared, laying out here with you after you die would be nearly impossible.