Winter Moon

After curling her legs on the chair, pulling an afghan over her lap,

and sipping the brew, she picked up a paperback edition of a Dick

Francis novel.

She opened to the page she had marked with a slip of paper, and she

tried to return to a world of English manners, morals, and mysteries.

She felt guilty, though she was not neglecting anything to spend time

with a book. No housework needed to be done. When they'd both held

jobs, she and Jack had shared chores at home. They still shared

them.

When she'd been laid off, she'd insisted on taking over his domestic

duties, but he'd refused. He probably thought that letting her fill

her time with housework would lead her to the depressing conviction

that she would never find another job. He'd always been as sensitive

about other people's feelings as he was optimistic about his own

prospects. As a result, the house was clean, the laundry was done, and

her only chore was to watch over Toby, which wasn't a chore at all

because he was such a good kid. Her guilt was the irrational if

inescapable result of being, by nature and by choice, a working woman

who, in this deep recession, was not permitted to work.

She had submitted applications to twenty-six companies. Now all she

could do was wait. And read Dick Francis.

The melodramatic music and comic voices on the television didn't

distract her.

Indeed, the fragrant coffee, the comfort of the chair, and the cold

sound of winter rain drumming on the roof combined to take her mind off

her worries and let her slip into the novel.

Heather had been reading fifteen minutes when Toby said, "Mom?"

"Hmmm?" she said, without looking up from her book.

"Why do cats always want to kill mice?"

Marking her place in the book with her thumb, she glanced at the

television, where a different cat and mouse were involved in another

slapstick chase, the former pursuing the latter this time.

"Why can't they be friends with mice," the boy asked, "instead of

wanting to kill them all the time?"

"It's just a cat's nature," she said.

"But why?"

"It's the way God made cats."

"Doesn't God like mice?"

"Well, He must, because He made mice too."

"Then why make cats to kill them?"

"If mice didn't have natural enemies like cats and owls and coyotes,

they'd overrun the world."

"Why would they overrun the world?"

"Because they give birth to litters, not single babies."

"So?"

"So if they didn't have natural enemies to control their numbers,

there'd be a trillion billion mice eating up all the food in the world,

with nothing left for cats or us."

"If God didn't want mice to overrun the world, why didn't He just make

them so they have single babies at a time?"

Adults always lost the Why Game, because eventually the train of

questions led to a dead-end track with no answer.

Heather said, "You got me there, kiddo."

"I think it's mean to make mice have a lot of babies and then make cats

to kill them."

"You'll have to discuss that with God, I'm afraid."

"You mean when I go to bed tonight and say my prayers?"

"Best time," she said, freshening the coffee in her mug with the supply

in the thermos.

Toby said, "I always ask Him questions, then I always fall asleep

before He answers me. Why does He let me fall asleep before I can get

the answer?"

"That's the way God works. He only talks to you in your sleep. If you

listen, then you wake up with the answer."

She was proud of that one. She seemed to be holding her own.

Frowning, Toby said, "But usually I still don't know the answer when I

wake up. Why don't I know it if He told me?"

Heather took a few sips of coffee to gain time. Then she said, "Well,

see, God doesn't want to just give you all the answers. The reason

we're here on this world is to find the answers ourselves, to learn and

gain understanding by our own efforts."

Good. Very good. She felt modestly exhilarated, as if she'd held on

longer than she'd any right to expect in a tennis match with a

world-class player.

Toby said, "Mice aren't the only things get chased and killed. For

every animal, there's another animal wants to tear it to pieces." He

glanced at the TV. "See, there, like dogs want to murder cats."

The cat that had been chasing the mouse was now, in turn, being pursued

by a fierce-looking bulldog in a spiked collar.

Looking at his mother again, Toby said, "Why does every animal have

another animal that wants to kill it? Would cats overrun the world

without their natural enemies?"

The Why Game train had come to another dead end in the track. Oh, yes,

she could have discussed the concept of original sin, told him how the

world had been a serene realm of peace and plenty until Eve and Adam

had fallen from grace and let death into the world. But all of that

seemed to be heavy stuff for an eight-year-old. Besides, she wasn't

sure she believed any of it, though it was the explanation for evil,

violence, and death with which she herself had grown up.

Fortunately, Toby spared her from the admission that she had no

answer.

"If I was God, I woulda made just one mom and dad and kid of each kind