The Law of Moses(30)

“You’re upset.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

“That’s why I have that law,” he whispered, almost gently. “If you don’t love, then nobody gets hurt. It’s easy to leave. It’s easy to lose. It’s easy to let go.”

“Then maybe you should have had a few more laws, Moses.”

I turned my head and smiled at him brightly, not sure if I was pulling it off. My nose stung and I was guessing my eyes were too bright. But I chattered on with forced cheer.

“Thou shall not kiss. Thou shall not touch. Thou shall not screw.” But I didn’t say screw. I called it like it was, as much as it felt like acid on my tongue. It wasn’t that to me. It was love, not sex. Or maybe it was both. But at least it was both.

“You found me, Georgia. You chased me. You wanted me. Not the other way around,” Moses said. He hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t even sound upset. “I didn’t break any of my rules. You broke yours. And you’re mad at me because of it.”

He was right. He was absolutely right. And I was so wrong.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” I said quietly, not daring to look at him. “You and Kathleen are coming over for Thanksgiving, right? We eat early so we can eat all day.” I was proud of myself for my composure. I despised myself for not kicking his ass.

“Yeah. Eleven, right?”

Small talk never felt so fake. I nodded and he waited, watching me. He started to say my name, and then he sighed and turned away. And without another word, he left the barn.

“Sunrise, the smell of straw, Thanksgiving dinner, a hot shower, a new day.” I whispered my list of greats, trying not to let the tears fall, trying not to think about what came next and how I was going to get through the next few hours.





Moses




“GRANDMA!” She didn’t move.

“Gigi!” I shook her and patted her cheek. But her head just lolled a little to the side and her eyes stayed closed. She lay on the kitchen floor, a heap of fragile limbs wrapped in her quilted robe. A broken glass lay at her side in three fat pieces, sharp islands in a large pool of blood tinged water. She’d hit her head when she fell, and the blood had merged with the water from her glass. It wasn’t a lot of blood. It was as if she was dead before she hit the ground; the blood spilt looked insufficient, almost. Death should require more blood.

When I’d come home the night before, I’d gone straight up to the bathroom and then from there, straight to my room. I’d lain in bed trying to hold out on Georgia. She’d stayed scarce for a month. And now she wanted me? It made me angry. And yet I wanted to see her. I wanted to see her so bad. I finally gave in, threw on my jeans and a shirt and crept out of the house, not wanting to wake Gi.

What if she’d lain here all night?

I laid my head against her chest, and I waited, willing her heart to resume its beat against my ear. But she felt cold. And her heart stayed quiet. She was cold. Without realizing what I was doing, I ran for a blanket and covered her up, tucking the blanket around her body securely.

“Gigi!” I closed my eyes, needing her to tell me what to do. I could see people who were dead. I saw them all the time. I needed to see Gigi. I needed her to tell me what happened. I needed her to take me with her.

I got my brushes. Assembled my paints. And I sat next to her and waited for her to come back to me, however she could. And when she did I would fill her walls with all her pictures. I would paint each day of her life until this one—this last terrible day—and she would tell me what the hell I was supposed to do now. I opened myself up, wide open like a gaping canyon with sharp edges and steep cliffs. I parted the waters, and as I concentrated, the walls of water grew so high I couldn’t see where they ended. Whatever wanted to cross could come. Everyone. Anybody. Just as long as they brought Gi back across.

But I didn’t feel Gigi. I didn’t see her. I saw my mother. I saw Georgia’s grandfather, I saw the girl named Molly and the man named Mel Butters who died inside his barn. He had his horses with him and he was happy. His happiness mocked me now, and I raged at him as I ran past his images of long rides and summer sunsets. He drew away immediately. I felt Ray, the man who loved Ms. Murray. He was worried about her and that worry pulsed out of him in grey waves. She wasn’t doing well. The picture we made for her didn’t comfort her.

I felt all their lives and their memories and I pushed them aside, trying to find my grandmother. There were others too. People I’d felt, pictures I’d seen before, memories that weren’t my own. These were people who had come to me over the years. People of all ages, of all colors. There was the Polynesian boy and his sister, Teo and Kalia, gang members who died in a turf war with the same gang I ran with for almost a year before being sent to live with Gigi. I’d resented losing that sense of belonging, though it had been a charade. I’d resented it like I resented all the other times I was uprooted. The brother and his sister tried to slow me down, to share their pictures of a younger sibling who was left behind, but I kept running, looking for Gigi.

As always, there were the lurkers, the gritty black smear that sat at the corner of my vision whenever I let myself get too deep. I never got too close or looked inside them. They stayed far away from the translucence that surrounded the people who showed me their lives. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected the lurkers were the dead who couldn’t let go, the dead who didn’t believe in an afterlife, so refused to see the life after, even though it glowed like a sea of candles and beckoned them sweetly. Maybe they couldn’t see it.