The Summer That Melted Everything(34)

“I can’t.” Her voice tore at the edges. “Don’t you understand?”

She sat there in the chair looking so fragile, I thought if I touched her with my little finger, she would instantaneously break like a plate being struck by a sledgehammer. Mom tried to comfort her, doing her best to keep Fedelia’s false lashes from falling with the tears.

Dad had long returned from the porch and had listened quietly to the exchange between Fedelia and Sal. Now he placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Fielding, why don’t you and Sal go be a couple of little boys for a while.”

I waved for Sal to follow me outside. Dad stopped him with just a finger gently pressed into his chest. “You are unusual, aren’t you, son?” He looked down into Sal’s eyes, waiting for a big answer. All he got was a small shrug.

“Well,” Dad sighed, “don’t be gone too long.”

We went out the back door, and once we were through the yard and into the woods, I told Sal the sheriff wanted to see him.

“What about?”

“They think you’ve been kidnapped.”

“By you guys?”

“Naw, by kidnappers. Were you?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I’m kidding. Don’t be so serious, Fielding.”

With a smile he took off, his head start giving him a lead we traded to the tree house. Granny followed, staying to sniff the trees below as we climbed up the slats into the house.

“This ain’t good racin’ weather.” I swept back the strands of hair stuck to my forehead.

“What are these?” He was over by the pair of handprints on the wall.

“That’s my hand on the right, and Grand’s is on the left. We made ’em years ago.” I felt my finger as I remembered the knife and shoelaces.

As he continued to stare at the prints, even placing his own over mine, I began to toss through the board games that me and Grand kept in the tree house. Me and Sal never did decide on one of those games. We got to talking about movies instead, and I found myself explaining the plot of Ghostbusters. Just when I was about to tell him about the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, he shushed me.

I didn’t hear what he did, but still I followed him down the slats and continued to follow him through the woods, the dry shrubbery and briars scratching my legs. As I stopped to wipe small dots of blood off my shins, I heard the low cries. It was then I saw Elohim’s rusty can. A few feet from it lay a pile of gray.

Please, God, I prayed as I ran to her. Already I felt the tearing inside myself, and by fear alone, I knew home would never be the same again.

I fell down by her side, unsure of where to touch her, for she seemed in pain everywhere.

“Oh, Granny. Hey, old girl. How much of the poison you think she got?”

“Enough.” Sal gently fell to his knees beside me.

“What do we do?”

Her tremors became spasms that convulsed her whole body. Sal would later tell me I screamed for God. All I really remember shouting for was help.

He stood, wiping his hands on his red shorts as he walked away. I asked him where he was going, but he didn’t answer. I tried to soothe Granny by saying all would be fine as I scratched behind her ears, her favorite place. It was hard to avoid the thick saliva dribbling from her mouth. Over and over again, she jerked, and in the sharpness each jerk was the corner of so many things I just kept running into.

“Sal, where are you?” A crackle of twigs. “There you are.”

He held up the revolver.

“What you gonna do with that? Sal?”

“She’s dying, so it isn’t a killing. It’s what has to be done.”

“No.” I threw myself over her convulsing body. “She’ll be okay. She just needs to throw it up. Yeah, that’s it, throw up the poison.” I wasn’t sure how to induce vomiting in a dog, so I started to pinch her throat. The sticky saliva clung to my hand. I moved down and massaged her stomach as I pleaded with her to vomit. “Please, Granny. Just throw it up. Please.”

All she did was look up at me with the same eyes she had used to beg for table scraps. Now begging for something else.

“Why force her to suffer when you can take it all away?” He held the gun out to me.

“I can’t kill her, Sal. She’s Granny. Like a real granny.”

“You’re not going to kill her. Death has already started. You’re not initiating anything that isn’t already there. If you’re waiting for God to take care of it, He won’t. He doesn’t do that. By letting her suffer, you risk being God.

“People always ask, why does God allow suffering? Why does He allow a child to be beaten? A woman to cry? A holocaust to happen? A good dog to die painfully? Simple truth is, He wants to see for Himself what we’ll do. He’s stood up the candle, put the devil at the wick, and now He wants to see if we blow it out or let it burn down. God is suffering’s biggest spectator.

“Will you wait, Fielding? Will you wait to see for yourself what happens? If you’re strong enough to watch suffering without laying down the pain, then you’ve no place among men, Fielding. You are a spectator on the cusp. You are a god-in-training.” He kneeled and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

“Just give me some room.” I shrugged him off. “I need to think.”