Moonfellows

  Rodney Phillips was a liar. 

  He knew this, and he didn’t care. Because his lie was for love. Not foolish enough to believe there was any nobility in lies, Rodney had lived with his lie long enough to at least deem it non-harmful. Without the lie, there was no lady, and he’d do whatever was necessary for the lady. Four decades later, and he still felt like a young man when he looked at her. 

  “What?” Marie asked, narrowing her eyes as she stared back at him. “Do I have something in my teeth?” 

  Her teeth were perfect. She was perfect. Her wrinkles, her bad hip that caused a slight hitch in her step, the scar on her chin, it was all perfect. 

  “Nothing in your teeth, dear. Just admirin’ you, that’s all.” 

  She smiled.

  “If you wanted me to pay for dinner, you should’a talked like that before the check came!” she said with a laugh.

  The waitress arrived. 

  “Here is your change,” she said, counting out bills. 

  “You keep that for yourself,” Rodney said.

  “And thank you for all your help,” Marie added.

  The waitress smiled and tucked the money into her apron. 

  “Y’all are sweet. Come back and see us, okay?” 

  They stood up to leave. Marie took Rodney’s arm as they slowly made their way to the door. Most things in their life moved slowly now. Two years into retirement, they had nowhere to be and were in no hurry to get there. 

  An older gentleman entered the diner and stepped past them, then stopped suddenly. 

  “Rodney?!” 

  Rodney and Marie turned to face him. The man’s eyes lit up. 

  “Heavens above, it really is you!” the man said loudly. He reached forward and gripped Rodney by the shoulder. “We all thought you were long dead, pal!” 

  Whatever elation the man was feeling, Rodney shared none of it. He cut his eyes nervously to his wife, then looked back at the man. 

  “No, no, still kickin,” Rodney said, then started to pull away. “Well, it sure was good to-” 

  The man stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Rodney. After holding the embrace for a moment, he moved back and turned to Marie.  

  “I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” he said. “I’m just shocked to see this guy again after all these years.” 

  Rodney cleared his throat. 

  “Marie, this here is Nelson,” Rodney said, looking up for a moment as he searched for more words. “An old friend.” 

  Nelson rubbed the back of his neck as he responded.

  “Come on, don’t undersell me, buddy. We were Moonfellows together!” 

  Marie turned to face Rodney. 

  “Moonfellows?” 

  “He just means we were classmates,” Rodney said quickly. 

  “Classmates?” Nelson asked. “Not sure that-”

  “Classmates of a sort,” Rodney interrupted, frustration bleeding into his tone. 

  Nelson rolled his eyes, then turned his attention to Marie. 

  “I wasn’t near as important as your husband here, but I was a part of the team.” 

  Marie stared back blankly. Rodney grabbed her arm. 

  “We’d love to stay and chat, but we have to head on now,” Rodney said, gently pulling Marie toward the door. 

  Nelson looked from one to the other. For a moment he seemed bewildered, then his mouth dropped open. 

  “She doesn’t know?”

  Releasing his wife’s arm, Rodney stepped forward and jabbed a finger at his old friend. 

  “Drop this right now,” Rodney hissed. 

  Nelson crossed his arms, and his expression hardened. 

  “I’ll do no such thing. Whatever reason you think you had to keep this from her, that ends this moment. Either you take her up and show her, or I’ll tell her everything.” 

  “Will one of you explain what’s happening?” Marie asked. 

  “It’s nothing, dear,” Rodney said, glancing back over his shoulder. “Just an old misunderstanding.” 

  “All’s about to become clear unless you take her-” 

  “I can’t take her!” Rodney growled, whirling back on his old friend. “I destroyed my gravix forty years ago!” 

  “So? Just use the con-”

  “The console, the suit, the array. I decimated them all. Beat them until they were nothing more than a fine powder,” Rodney said. He leaned closer and spoke in a hushed tone. “All to avoid any possibility of return.” 

  The two men stared at one another for a long moment. 

  “Do you get it now?” Rodney hissed.

  He turned on his heel and headed for the door, grabbing Marie by the elbow as he passed. 

  “We’re leaving,” he huffed. 

  She pulled away from him. 

  “You’re hiding something from me. And I want to know what it is.” 

  Rodney looked around. They were drawing attention. He closed the space between them. 

  “Marie, please. Let’s go home and forget all about this.” 

  She took a step away. 

  “Do what Nelson said. Take me and show me the truth.” 

  “Even if I wanted to do that, I can’t, okay? The item I need is gone, and there’s no way to-” 

  “Take mine,” Nelson said. 

  He reached into his coat and slid a thin rectangle from a pocket there. It hummed with energy and the light in the diner warped and shifted, all of it pulling toward the object. Its smooth alloy surface pulsed and glistened, wet with beads of energy. 

  He tossed it, and Rodney snatched it from the air and shoved it into his pocket. As soon as it disappeared from view, everything in the diner returned to normal. 

  “Bring it back to me here, this time tomorrow,” Nelson said. “And maybe see if you can scrounge up an apology for your old friend and bring that too, huh?” 

  With that, he turned his back on them and went and found a seat at the counter. 

  Rodney met his wife’s confused stare. She looked toward his pocket. 

  “What is that thing?” 

  Growing uncomfortable with all the eyes on them, Rodney motioned for her to follow, then left the diner. He waited on the sidewalk, fearing that Marie might refuse to come out. But she stepped through the door a moment later, though the expression on her face made clear she wasn’t happy.

  “Either you come clean, or you’re going home alone and I’m going to stay with my sister."

  It wasn’t delivered as a threat. They didn’t do that to one another. She was informing him of what would happen, and now the choice was his. 

  Rodney stretched out his hand. She stared at it for a long moment, then took it. He led her around the corner into a small alley. After making sure no one was around, he retrieved the rectangle from his pocket and squeezed it. 

  The world around them melted away, and then they were somewhere else. Somewhere that brought Marie to her knees. 

  “It can’t be real,” she gasped. 

  But it was real. They were on the observation level of Moonfellow Spire, a towering monument on the moon. The entire wall was transparent, giving a panoramic view of the lunar surface. It turned Rodney’s stomach. The last time he’d seen the moon, it was soaked through with blood. In his mind, it always would be. 

  “Is that… is that Earth?” Marie asked, pointing with a shaky finger at the faint blue planet among the stars. 

  “It is,” Rodney said. He longed to be back there, sitting in his recliner. 

  He stepped away, giving Marie a moment. He’d always wondered what they did with this place after he left. Now he knew. It was set up like a museum. Display cases showed photographs and artifacts from those desperate, hopeless battles against the invaders. Memories he’d been happy to leave up here, 250,000 miles away. 

  Eventually, Marie investigated, and he silently followed along. The events that took place in and around Moonfellow Spire all those decades ago were preserved and presented in exhaustive detail. It did a much better job of telling the story than Rodney could, and so he let it. A secret war laid bare by the secret-keepers themselves, in a secret location that few knew existed. It seemed fitting. 

  He paused in front of a framed photo on the wall, recognizing his twenty-year-old self in it, along with thirty other people. Were they really all that young when it happened? And that happy? They were smiling and laughing, and Nelson was at the front, holding a handmade sign that read “Moonfellows forever.” Half the people in the photo had died the following day, giving their lives to keep the spire from falling into the hands of the Xynorqs. 

  Nine years, he called the spire home, yet it felt like a lifetime. A life up here, fighting back the invasion, and a life down there, with Marie. 

  They neared the end of the displays. He’d left shortly after the defeat of the Xynorq emperor. The enemies’ spirit was broken after that. Following Marie, he learned that there were only two more battles, and he breathed a sigh of relief to learn that no moonfellows had died in them. It was the one nagging regret he carried, and now he could set it down. 

  Marie was crying softly. He kept his distance as she returned to the observation windows and sat down. Knowing that she was hurt and confused made him want to cry, too, but Rodney would give no more tears to this place. The moon had claimed too many of them already. His tears and his blood and his strength and his youth. They swore the cause was righteous. They swore the need was great. Even all these years later, he didn’t disagree. But that didn’t mean he had to feel good about any of it. Those he’d put to the blade were just as young and scared as he’d been, following orders that someone above them swore were righteous. Just like he was. 

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Marie asked. 

  Rodney set his feet and took a deep breath. He was about to give the most important answer of his life.  

  “You were clear about what you needed in a partner. ‘An uncomplicated man who leads an uncomplicated life.’ So I did what any man with half a brain would do. I uncomplicated my life in a hurry.”

  He moved beside her, wanting to see her face. Her eyes remained forward, focused on the vast blanket of stars. So Rodney continued. 
 
  “Soon after we met, you asked me about my past. And I spun a yarn about growing up poor in a small town, livin’ a simple life. It’s my one and only lie, and I’d tell it to you a thousand times over again.” 

  She wiped at her tears and finally looked up at him.

  “You could’ve told me the truth. I would’ve…” Her voice faltered, and she sobbed. She pulled in a breath, then spoke again. “I might’ve-”

  “Might’ve was too big a risk. You were the life I wanted. You’re still the life I want.” 

  He pulled out the rectangular device and turned it over in his right hand. 

  “Now, I’d like to leave this place. And I’d like you to come with me,” he said. He extended his left hand to her. “Any questions you have, I’ll answer ‘em, but I wanna do it back home.” 

  Rodney’s hand quivered, and he closed his eyes. The moon had taken so much from him, but this, too? Even his heart?

  A single tear slipped from the corner of his eye, and time stood still, and he dared not breathe, as he waited for the touch of his dear, sweet Marie.