Photo by Marta Savelyeva
She didn't know what she was doing out in the crisp autumn night. The only thing that kept her from giving up and going home was her grandmother's words.
A night with a harvest moon will always the truth.
The phrase always struck her as old fashion, but yet here she was waiting for the truth to be revealed. The eerie orange globe hung large in the starless sky. Megan looked up at the leering orb feeling as if she could touch it at any moment. She checked the rusty old mailbox one more time to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. No one had lived in this run down house for decades. Her memory held images of wickets and croquet balls. They used to use this lawn to play.
She was just seven when her parents split up, her memories were fuzzy, but vivid of the man who use to fly her around the living home. The smell of Old Spice still brought her back to the wooden chair she used to sit in and watch him shave.
When the divorce was fresh, her father would send a letter every week from his new home on the coast. She and her mother stayed in the house in the small town. But soon the letters came only once a month, then once every six months, then only on her birthday. Eventually, they stopped coming all together. When the depression settled squarely on her shoulders, her mother told her that the man she idolized was serving in the military and went missing in action.
Megan knew that her father was a serviceman by the pictures her mother let her have after the divorce. It was the only memory she had of the man's face. At first she cried, but her tears weren't met with compassion. They were scorned, even mocked by a cynical grandmother convinced her father abandoned his post and was a deserter.
Over time she learned not to discuss her father. It only garnered resentment and unnecessary arguments. It was if the memories were suppose to be discarded. As if she was to trade her father for the newest pop idol like "normal" girls. Megan was never good at "normal."
She learned to embrace that quality about herself. Most of her friends were eccentric, the odd balls all trying to just survive high school. Making new friends as an adult was proving difficult. She still heard from her old friends, but life was pulling them away and she spent most of her time with them as “the friend who didn't leave.”
A subtle mist settled over the town and Megan adjusted her light jacket. It started about a year ago. The first letter was tucked into a sunny yellow card envelope, with scrolling black lettering displaying her name. She opened it after finding it tied to a tree branch outside her bedroom window. She was surprised to find it there and not in the mailbox.
The note inside the envelope simply read,
Do you still like to play red?
At first, the question didn't make sense. But later that week a postcard came with a colored pencil drawing of a croquet game. The back had the question again,
Do you still play red?
The return address was the old abandoned house. It was curiosity that drew her to the condemned house. When she pulled the door of the mailbox down a white envelope sat waiting for her. She opened it; this time the question was even stranger,
Do you still call your mom, Banana?
It threw her, that wasn't common knowledge. It took her three days to decide to answer the letters. When she did she kept it simple,
I haven't played croquet in years, and I have learned to show my elders respect.
She placed it inside the mailbox at the condemned house. A year long dialog began. The messages were about her life, was she married? Was her mom still around?
Inquires about the admirer's identity were adverted with a cryptic message like,
It's not time yet.
Finally one day she had a message to meet her pen pal under the harvest moon.
The town clock chimed nine when the sound of foot steps echoed off the pavement. She fought the feeling that she should leave. Just turn around and walk back home. Grown woman didn't do this. They didn't meet strangers on autumn nights. Especially on dark starless ones. When she moved to begin her walk, it was too late.
"Megan?" the voice asked.
Trapped, Megan turned back to the elderly man's portly frame. Something slung over his shoulder, was it a gun? No, a bag, just a bag. She tried to smile, but the nerves ruined it.
"Wow, you grew up," the voice replied.
He dropped the bag, it clanged to the pavement. He was still faceless,
"How's your mom?"
Megan didn't want to answer, but she did,
"She's remarried, moved to Colorado, a couple of years ago."
"But you stayed?" the voice asked.
Megan shrugged,
"This is home."
An awkward silence filled the gap. She didn't know what to say.
"Do we know you?" she finally asked.
The figure stiffened,
"My name is John Rold."
Megan couldn't breath, John Rold! John Rold was her father's name. Tears stung her eyes and she tried not to revert back to the heartbroken twelve year old grieving her supposedly dead father.
"John Rold is dead sir, missing in action over fifteen years ago, this isn't funny," she warned.
She watched the figure sink by her words.
"So that was what they told you...I don't blame them, the truth would have hurt more I guess."
Megan shifted uncomfortably. She looked to the house trying to think of way to run home graciously.
"I'm sorry I need more than just your word, I really need to get in before I catch cold. I hope you have a place to go."
She turned to leave and return to the world she had built for herself the last two years. It felt as if the dark figure held a cord tied to her back. Pulling her back toward him. She literally counted three steps to avoid the feeling.
"Is that time capsule we did still buried under the back fence? You know the one with a cartoon clown?" the voice called after her.
Megan froze in her steps, her father was the only other person who knew about the clown lunch box buried under the fence at her mother's old house. The tears didn't stop, she turned to him. Words normally came easy to her, but now she raged with silence. How dare he, how dare he ride in on the harvest moon and stand there in the darkness. Where had he been? She wanted to ask him, no demand it, but the words wouldn't come. She wanted to scream, but instead her lips broke their sealed barrier and the tears warmed her face.
"Daddy?" she cried.
The man stepped closer, the smell of Old Spice filled her nostrils. The face was her father, older, but her father. Absently-minded she kicked the bag her father had slung over his shoulder. The harsh clang of metal scared her.
"What is that?" she asked.
John Rold looked as well.
"It's a croquet set. I thought you might play a game with me," he answered.
Megan pulled away,
"It's the middle of the night."
The old man looked defeated in the harvest moonlight. She looked at him and then at the older image of her father. She never knew when she made the decision, but it was her that took up the croquet set and it was her who dug into the mallets.
"So where have you been the last few years?" she asked surprised by her calmness.
When she turned around her father was sticking to wickets into the ground. He stood stiffly and brushed his pants with his hand.
"Just fell in with the wrong crowd kiddo. That's all I'd like to say right now," he said finally.
"I'm red," Megan insisted.
“Of course, ” her father replied.
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