Dragon Moon

Chapter 1

It’s been almost four years since my wife, Elizabeth, died. No headstone marks her grave. No bouquet of cut flowers lies on the grass that grows above her. I see little value in such things. I know perfectly well whose dead body I lowered into the ground. I need no letters carved in stone to remind me to mourn my poor bride’s passage. I need no dead vegetation to honor her memory.

Because Elizabeth loved the garden just below our veranda, overlooking our island’s small harbor, I buried her next to it. Because she often sat and relaxed under the shade of the ancient gumbo limbo trees that dot my island, I took a cutting from the largest of the trees and planted it at the head of her grave.

That skinny twig’s rapid growth has made me shake my head. Now over twenty feet tall, the tree stands guard over Elizabeth’s resting place, breaking the force of the fierce winds that sometimes blow in from the sea, shielding the grave from the driving rain, shading it from the burning sun.

Like all of its kind, the gumbo limbo possesses a thick glossy green/brown trunk that weeps strands of red bark, as if it’s in permanent mourning. Its gnarled branches spread out and up in asymmetrical disarray, hugging the air, connecting Elizabeth’s resting place to the sky above.

I like to believe that Elizabeth would smile if she could know such a mighty tree grows above her. It would please her too, I think, to see how much her son has grown.

"Papa?" Henri says, just after breakfast, as soon as we arrive at the grave, "Did Mama ever see me?"

"No. She died just after you were born," I say, stifling a sigh. I dislike telling my son partial truths but I know better than to discuss something so complex with a young child. One day, I promise myself, when Henri’s older, I’ll tell him the full story of his mother’s death.

For now I look at my son and ruffle his hair with my right hand. Almost four, the boy’s as large as most five-year-olds, far more precocious, already beginning to show the tendency toward muscularity, the wide shoulders that are typical of our people.

Not surprisingly, he’s chosen to look like me, sporting the same middle-American appearance, the same blonde hair, even the same cleft chin as I do. Had Elizabeth lived I’ve no doubt he’d look much like her and - with the contrast of her dark skin and the emerald green eyes all of our kind have - much more exotic.

Part of me wishes he resembled his mother more. But all he’s ever known of her are the stories I’ve told him, the pictures he’s seen on her passport and driver’s license and the small grassy grave we visit each morning after breakfast, on every day the weather permits.

On each visit Henri asks me dozens of questions about his mother - all asked and answered more times than I care to remember.

"Yes," I answer today, "She was pretty . . . Of course, she loved you very much . . . No, she didn’t expect to die . . . Sure, one day I plan to find another wife . . . No, I won’t forget your mommy when I do . . ."

Something slaps the water in the harbor - just loud enough to catch our attention. Henri turns, as do I, both of us staring at the fresh concentric rings of ripples expanding across the small harbor’s surface.