All Faculty Excerpts

American Moon

The following is an excerpt from David Berner's novel, American Moon.

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It was well after midnight. Austen was in and out of sleep, tossing from one side to another. For a while, it was quiet, only the occasional clank of the air conditioner rattling on and off until somewhere in the dead of things through the wall came a soft cry. He put his ear to the wall. A baby.

He returned to bed and pulled the covers up tight to his neck. The clatter of the air conditioner silenced for a few minutes and then the cry again. Louder. Sharper. Austen placed a pillow over his head. The cry remained, the intensity building. Austen pounded his fist on the wall. 

He picked up the phone on the nightstand and dialed the motel office. It rang and rang. He hung up and dialed again. Still, it rang and rang.

Austen stood at the bedside, pulled on his jeans, slipped on his shirt, brushed back his sleep-tangled hair, and put on his boots. He stepped out the door to the walkway and turned to the adjacent room. The light from the motel’s sign flickered off the chrome doorknob. For a moment he listened. More cries. One knock on the door and it slowly opened, allowing for a view into the dark room. 

“Hello?” he said. Austen knocked again. “Anyone here?”

Now, just inside the door now, Austen could see with the help of streetlights from the parking lot shining over his shoulder that the child was fastened in a car seat on top of one of the twin beds, a pink blanket draped over its body. The child gasped again and then pushed out a squeal. 

“Hey, hey, there,” Austen cooed, bending down. “It’s okay. All okay.”

On the dresser was a half-empty baby bottle and a small pile of clothes, a woman’s blouse, and a pair of neatly folded socks. The other bed appeared to have been slept in. 

Austen dialed the office again. No answer. He stepped outside the door and looked out to the parking lot. It was quiet except for the sound of the occasional rumble of a truck along the motorway on the other side of the motel. 

Back inside, he began to sing to the child, a girl, he assumed, considering the blanket. “Here Comes the Sun” was always one for uplifting his spirits. Austen sang breathy notes. He unbuckled the strap of the seat, threw the pink blanket over his shoulder, and lifted her to his chest, rocking as he held her, singing and singing. The child trembled and wriggled, but soon the cries softened. He carried her with him to the doorway and looked out toward the lot again. Austen stood motionless in the early light as morning began to break, deep blue on the horizon, suggesting a warm day ahead. His mind swirled with wild thoughts. Crazy thoughts. What if he put the car seat in the Cherokee, strapped her in, and drove away? He could take her west to something new. West to the land of change. New beginnings. He would call her Claire. He always liked that name. She’d be a wonderful girl, grow up strong, confident. Claire would change the world. 

Across the parking lot, Austen now saw someone at the entrance to the motel office. He could hear the distant clinking of keys on a chain in the still early morning air. With the child in his arms, he began to walk toward the figure, someone who could help. But after a few steps, he stopped, sensing the child’s now steady, rhythmic breaths. She was falling asleep. 

Austen stood along the walkway that ran outside the doors of the motel rooms, closed his eyes, and began again to gently sing—Little darlin’—as the rush of highway traffic rose above him, building in the new day with all those people and all those places to go. 

***

Reprinted with permission from Regal House Publishing. You can learn more about David's book here.