Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun

through another door. The shuffling footsteps came closer. The woman who emerged was not the same woman who had led her into the house. This woman was tall with short blond hair—nearly as pale as her white top, which was streaked with orange and yellow stains. When this new woman saw Lila, she stopped, her deep-set eyes narrowing on Lila’s forehead. “Baby, what is it that has happened there onto your head?” she said.
    Lila’s hand went up to her wound, then to a gash on her left thigh. “What is what what?” the woman said, now very concerned.
    She went to the sink and wet her hand, then rubbed at Lila’s head wound. The rubbing hurt. Lila pulled away. “No it’s not,” the woman said to herself.
    She pulled off her top and wet it under the sink. The woman wasn’t wearing a bra and her small, freckled breasts were even whiter than the rest of her skin. She held Lila’s head against her chest as she scrubbed at the wound. It felt like her face was on fire.
    When Lila squirmed, the woman said, “Hold so that.”
    Then more firmly:
“Hold so that I can.”
    After she had cleaned the wounds on Lila’s head and thigh,she put the shirt back on, though backward. Lila could see her bloodstains on the shirt.
    “Go you with them and find wood that burns,” the woman ordered cryptically.
    She shooed Lila off the barstool and into the hallway. It was a white-walled corridor with four doors and a low ceiling. Family photos hung on the wall and Lila studied them for a moment. The pale woman was there, and children with her deep-set eyes and light skin. One girl was maybe the same age as Lila. There were pictures of her dressed as a cheerleader. A man, bald and lean, also appeared in the pictures—the father. There were older black-and-white pictures too, the family before the family. The people like you who came before you, Lila found herself thinking, hinting at who you’ll be. Clues to the answer that’s you.
    They had pictures just like this, she and her parents—her own family. Though they hadn’t been taking pictures much the last couple of years, she realized. Probably, she considered, because her dad had moved out to the desert base to start his new job while she and her mother had stayed in San Jose. For a while, Lila wondered if her parents had separated. She was astonished when her mother casually told her that families weren’t necessarily permanent. It was only after Lila tearfully demanded that she be allowed to live with her dad that they made the move. The desert turned out to be all her mother said it would be, only crappier. But at least we’re together, they’d all say, to the point that it became a punch line in their wry attempt to transform any mishap or unsavory condition of the environment into a shared joke. When the air conditioner broke, when their neighbors shot automatic rifles into the air on the Fourth of July. Or once, while they were driving, when they spotted a dead fox on the shoulder of the road being torn at by coyotes.
    “At least we’re all together,” her mother had said with fake cheer.
    Lila thought she heard a cough coming from the end of the hallway. One of the doors was cracked open. She went to it and listened, hearing the quiet sounds of someone in the room—the occasional sniffle, the squeak of mattress. When she slowly pushed the door open, she saw the man from the pictures sitting naked on the corner of the bed. He was staring at the TV, which wasn’t on. Lila could see that he was wearing tennis shoes, no socks. He was remarkably thin, with his ribs exposed, his sinewy frame, the dark patch of hair and his penis like a bird in a nest. She had seen a lot of naked adults over the last few weeks, especially in the desert, and was surprised at how quickly she had gotten used to it.
    The man caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye. He made no move to conceal himself. Without turning in her direction, he said, “Go away, Dad. You can see that there is a