The past week Kelly has been watching the moon fade as it grew smaller and smaller. She hated the way the small crescent moon left the nights dark and mysterious and lonely. Kelly was scared of what, or who, might live in the dark shadows. The nice doctor Kelly sees every week always tells her there is no one living in the shadows. She says the voices aren’t even real, but just the monsters that Kelly makes up in her head. Then the doctor will always ask Kelly if the prescription is helping and this week Kelly says yes and jokes about creating a few less monsters the past week than usual. The joke wasn’t all that funny but the doctor smiled which made Kelly smile. It was an honest moment; Kelly hadn’t lied about her progress because she didn’t see a reason to lie to her doctor, at least not about the medication.

Kelly thought about the man on the moon as she drove home. She didn’t want to have him taken away from her just because he was a symptom of something that is broken and bad inside her brain. She didn’t want to have to throw him out of her mind like the doctor told her to do with the other voices. The doctor would say not to talk the Moon Man, Kelly knew that. But so what if she wants to keep him? She liked the Moon Man’s voice in her head and he wasn’t one of Kelly’s monsters. He didn’t scare Kelly, he loved her.

***

Kelly was at the grocery store and she pulled her cart over as she heard a nice woman say “excuse me” but no one walked by her. She looked over her shoulder and there was nobody behind her either. She pushed her cart back into the aisle and left because she couldn’t find the right kind of apple juice anyway and she didn’t feel much like looking for the other stuff on her list anymore either. As she walked back out the door she had just come in through she swore the neatly stacked rows of fruits were mocking her. All she wanted then was to sit on the steps at home and talk to him, the Moon Man, but it was only 6:30 on a long July day.

She thought of going to the dollar store next door and getting some of those ices she used to eat as a kid on hot days like this one. That was back when imaginary friends were normal.

So she went and bought the freezer pops and a bag of those butterscotch candies. And then she found a simple little glass bowl to put them and figured she could leave them out on the coffee table for guests. She had a really good feeling that this week would be the one someone would drop by and she could make them tea and they could eat one of her new butterscotch candies. She walked down the aisle with all the colorful plates and cups and napkins and bought a pack of pinker paper plates because she was almost out of the white ones she had at home. And she really loved the bright colors these ones were. Then she was a ceramic figurine of a little girl holding a bunny and it made her think of her daughter because she used to love rabbits.

Her daughter would always shout “Abbit, mommy, abbit” before she could pronounce her “r’s”. She thought of buying it for her for when she’d come over again next week but decided she’d just tell her about it instead.

She looks at the little statue in her hand a few seconds longer and hears it saying “abbit, mommy, abbit abbit”.

She smiles a little and puts the little statue back on the shelf. She forces the little girl’s voice out of her head because that’s what the doctor always tells her to try and do but Kelly doesn’t want to get rid of this voice. It sounds so much like her daughter when she was so little and things were still well and good and whole.

At the cash register there was a young girl working who smiled politely at her while ringing up the few items. She bagged the things and handed Kelly her change. As Kelly grabbed the yellow plastic bag the woman told her to “have a nice day” but Kelly knew she was wrong. The days are never as nice as the nights are when her moon friend comes out.

Immediately after getting home Kelly shoved the freezer pops in the freezer and she put the bag of candies in the little bowl. She was very excited about her idea and clapped happily after placing the bowl right in the middle of her coffee table. She decided that even if no one came over for a visit that week her daughter would still come by the next week. Kelly just knew her daughter would still enjoy the cute bowl of candies.

Glancing at the clock and suddenly realizing it was 9:00 she took off her jeans and laid down under the light sheet on her bed to take a quick nap. Soon the moon would rise and then she could eat a freezer pop and talk to the Moon Man all night; she had so much to say to him.

***

“Beep beep, beep beep”

Kelly had pressed the off button on her alarm before it could even go off a third time. In the mornings she was very bad about hitting the snooze a few times but she could always jolt right awake after a nap before night time. Kelly looked in her mirror, “ohh, the Moon Man can’t see me like this” she muttered to herself. The Moon Man though Kelly was beautiful but her makeup had worn off onto her pillow and her hair was jutting out in every direction. She grabbed the bottle of hair mousse from her desk and sprayed what was left of it into her hand before running it through her hair to pat down the crazy flyways. She evened out the make-up and rushed through her house and out the door. Kelly noticed she had beat the starts and found the first one in the sky to wish upon. Kelly did this every night, always wishing to keep her daughter in good health. She always feared her daughter’s mind might break like hers and she couldn’t see her only child suffer like she does. But Kelly doesn’t pray because she never has, so she wishes upon first stars and falling stars and lost eyelashes that fall out because she wears too much mascara.

Then Kelly saw the moon, standing in the sky like he is every night. She waited for him to speak to her; the Moon Man always spoke first. But tonight he wouldn’t say anything. Kelly didn’t understand so she sat down on the step and waited. After an hour Kelly got up and took one of her ice pops out of the fridge, at least she could enjoy her treat while she waited. And so she waited. Kelly waited and watched more starts join the first one in the sky. Kelly watched them form constellations of mighty bulls and warriors and wished she could be as strong as them. When her daughter was little Kelly would tell her the ancient myths of the constellations as bed time stories. And then Kelly would watch her beautiful daughter to drift to sleep in the moonlight.

She wondered how her daughter could be so beautiful when she was ugly. She wished the Moon Man would speak to her now so she could tell him that and he could tell her she is wrong, that she is the most beautiful a woman could be. Every time the Moon Man said this it sounded like the voice of her ex-husband. He had left her years ago; he said that the loss was too much for the relationship and that he couldn’t stand to be in that house anymore.

One night Kelly had found him standing around the side of bed looking down at the mess of purple blankets kicked down to their daughter’s knees and her mop of brown hair lain across the pillow. He kept looking down and then muttered “I just can’t bear to see it empty”. Kelly had never understood what he meant by this. That night her husband had packed a few suitcases into the car and left. She watched her daughter running barefoot in pajamas down the road after him. She was screaming for her father not to leave her, she was screaming and wailing and crying. The both of them where crying. But the little girl’s father just continued driving down the road without even looking in the rear view mirror; it was like he didn’t even see her there.

***

When the sun started glinting off the horizon in the morning the Moon Man had still not said a word to Kelly. Momentarily Kelly though he was mad with her but Kelly knew this couldn’t be true, the Moon Man loved her. He loved her and he would never leave Kelly, he promised her he wouldn’t.

Kelly refused to believe what she knew must be happening. She grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial key that called the nice doctor. Kelly sobbed into the phone as she heard it ringing on the other line. She heard the nice doctor say “Hi, Kelly? Is everything okay?” Kelly could barely talk through choking on her fits of sobbing but finally managed to get her words out.

“I can’t hear him anymore. He won’t talk to me. Why can’t I hear him talk anymore?”

“Who, Kelly? Who can’t you hear anymore?” the nice doctor asked almost too calmly.

“HIM!” Kelly coughed out with another violent fit of sobbing.

The nice doctor waited for Kelly’s cries to quite before telling her what Kelly knew she didn’t want to hear. “Kelly, that means your medications are working. This is a good thing!”

“No!” Kelly screamed, “What have you done to me?” The nice doctor didn’t sound so nice anymore.

Kelly hung up the phone and tossed it onto the counter. She ran to the bathroom and dumped what was left of her pills into the toilet and flushed it, watching them be whisked away to somewhere that they couldn’t hurt her anymore.

***

As the sun went back down that night the moon rose back into the sky but again the Moon Man did not rise with it. Kelly screamed for him but he could not hear her, and she couldn’t hear him. Kelly ran back inside. She yanked down the old cord from the ceiling and the staircase to the attic plunked itself down. She rushed up the ladder and tore through the cobwebs trying to protect her from the attic window. She pushed it open and climbed out onto the roof.

Hey diddle diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

Kelly jumped toward the moon,

She really thought maybe,

She’d hear him from closer,

And she’d be much happier soon.