92
2016
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
2 015
DorisBettsFiction Prize, 2nd Place
E M I N E N T DO M A I N by Kathryn Etters Lovatt
T
“It’s called a harvest moon.” Two clicks on the fob and the doors unlock. “Not me. I’m calling it something different. I’m calling it a vampire moon.” The closer we get to Halloween, the more Mickle talks about vampires. Not Count Chocula, mind you, or the one on Sesame Street, but the blood-sucking type. Jay, who accuses me of being a worrywart, thinks we should go to Target and buy enough black polyester capes and wax teeth for all of us, including Ella. “We can’t keep him a baby forever, Amy,” Jay reminds me at such times, but he says this for his own benefit as well as mine. We are seniors as far as parents go, a good decade ahead of the median, old enough to know that every blink is a second off the clock.
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
he kids and I come out of the restaurant, Ella half asleep on my shoulder, and there sits the first moon of autumn, plump and golden as the belly of a Buddha I once discovered on a back shelf at Habitat. “Look at that,” I say, but Mickle’s eyes drop to the pavement. Under this generous light, he hunts for treasure: stray coins, beads from broken earrings, a mottled rock. My keys have made their way down to the lint in my pocket, and it takes effort, shifting baby and diaper bag, to fish them out. “It’s magic, sweetie,” I try telling him. “You don’t get to see a moon like this very often.” The word magic makes Mickle’s head pop up, and he nearly drops his box of leftover pizza. “Awesome,” he says, showing off his first-grade lingo.
WITH ART BY ROBERT TYNES
Idealism (acrylic and oil on shaped birch panel, 26x36) by Robert Tynes