The Law of Moses(34)

My mom had signed me up for piano lessons from Josie when I was thirteen, and I had tried, only to quickly come to the conclusion that we aren’t all born with the same talents, and piano was never going to be mine. I wondered if Moses had painted Josie’s fiancé’s face somewhere in town. It made me sick to think about it.

A week after the funeral, Sheriff Dawson came by our house to officially tell me they had no idea who had tied me up the last night of the stampede. We weren’t surprised. We were only surprised he’d actually stopped by to tell us. It had been months, they hadn’t had any leads beyond Terrance Anderson, who had been cleared, and even though Sheriff Dawson couldn’t prove it one way or another, he seemed confident it was just a prank gone wrong.

I didn’t have the energy to care one way or the other. There was a new tragedy in my life, and that night at the stampede was insignificant compared to having Moses tranquilized and hauled away. It was small compared to Kathleen Wright, covered in lace, lying dead on her kitchen floor, Thanksgiving pies sitting innocently on the counter. It was meaningless compared to the turmoil I now found myself in.

It was then, with Sheriff Dawson sitting there in our kitchen just like he had the night of the stampede, that I found out Moses’s grandmother had died from a stroke. Not murder. A stroke. My parents sat back in their chairs in relief, never even looking at me, not having any idea what those words meant to me. Natural causes. Moses hadn’t hurt her. He had simply found her, like I had found her, and dealt with it in the way he dealt with death. He painted it.

“Will they let him go now?” I asked. My parents and Sheriff Dawson looked at me in surprise. It was like they had forgotten I was there.

“I don’t know,” Sheriff Dawson had hedged.

“Moses is my friend. I might be his only friend in the world. He didn’t kill Kathleen. So why can’t he come home?” The emotion was leaking out around my words and my parents mistook the emotion for post-traumatic stress. After all, I’d seen death up close.

“He doesn’t really have a home to come back to. Though I heard Kathleen left him the house and everything in it. He’s eighteen already, far as I know, so he can be on his own.”

“He’s not in the hospital anymore. He wasn’t injured. So where is he?” I demanded.

“I don’t know exactly . . .”

“Yes you do, Sheriff. Come on. Where is he?” I insisted.

“Georgia!” My mom patted my arm and told me to calm down.

Sheriff Dawson shoved his cowboy hat on his head and then took it off again. He seemed distressed and reluctant to tell me.

“Is he in jail?”

“No. No, he’s not. They’ve taken him to another facility in Salt Lake City. He’s in the psych ward.”

I stared, not really understanding.

“It’s a mental hospital, Georgia,” my mom said gently.

My parents met my stunned gaze with sober faces and Sheriff Dawson stood abruptly, as if the whole thing had just gone beyond his pay grade. I found myself standing too, my legs shaking and my stomach swimming with nausea. I managed to make it to the bathroom without running, and was even able to lock the door behind me before I threw up the piece of pie mom had pressed upon me when she’d dished up a piece for Sheriff Dawson. Pie made me think of Kathleen Wright and tranquilizers.





Moses



“CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT THE ARTWORK MEANS?”

I sighed heavily. The Asian doctor in the tan blazer, wearing the self-important spectacles she probably didn’t need, considered me over her rims, her pencil poised to make notes of my mental deterioration.

“You need to talk to me, Moses. All of this will be so much easier for both of us.”

“You wanted me to tell you what happened at my grandma’s house. That’s what happened.” I tossed my hand toward the wall.

“Is she dead?” the doctor asked, staring at my grandmother’s death scene.

“Yes.”

“How did she die?”

“I don’t know. She was laying on the kitchen floor when I came home that morning.”

I should have known she was going to die. I had seen the signs. The nights leading up to her death I’d seen him hovering around her, the dead man who looked like the man in Gi’s wedding photo. My great-grandfather. I’d seen him twice, standing just beyond her right shoulder while she slept in her chair. And I’d seen him again, just behind her as she’d rolled out her pie crusts Wednesday afternoon when I headed to the old mill to finish the demolition. He had been waiting for her.

But I didn’t tell the doctor that. Maybe I should though. Then I could tell her someone stood behind her shoulder, waiting for her to die too. Maybe it would scare her to death and she would leave me alone. But there wasn’t really anyone standing beyond her shoulder, so I held my tongue as she waited for me to speak.

She wrote in her notebook for a minute.

“How did that make you feel?”

I wanted to laugh. Was she serious? How did that make me feel?

“Sad,” I said with a sorrowful frown, batting my eyes at her ridiculous, clichéd question.

“Sad,” she repeated dryly.

“Very sad,” I amended in the same tone.

“What went through your mind when you saw her?”