The Law of Moses(46)

I laughed, surprising myself, surprising Tag. He was usually the one to tease, not me.

“You’re shittin’ me, right?” Tag laughed. “You are! Damn. I wouldn’t mind it if Marilyn really did want to hang around.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t really work that way. I only see people who have a connection to someone I’m in contact with, or someone I’ve been in contact with. I don’t see random dead people.”

“So when you told Chaz that his grandfather had left something for him, did his grandfather show you the will?”

“He showed me a picture of his reflection, walking into the bank . . . the way he saw it as he approached. Then he showed me the safe deposit box.” I liked Chaz. He was muscle around the place—unfailingly cheerful, always singing, and always dependable. He worked with some very violent people day in and day out and never seemed to lose his good will or his cool.

When his grandfather kept trying to come through, I’d resisted. I liked Chaz and didn’t need ammo against him. I had no desire to hurt him. Since I’d been admitted, I’d gotten better at keeping the walls of water around me. I’d had nothing to do but practice and go to endless counseling sessions that didn’t especially apply, although surprisingly, they hadn’t hurt. But my constant contact with Chaz seemed to strengthen his grandfather’s connection with me, and I could feel him on the other side, waiting to wade across. So I let him, just him, raising the walls just a bit, just enough.

Chaz’s grandfather had loved him. So I told Chaz what I saw, what his grandfather kept showing me. And Chaz had listened, his eyes huge in his black face. The next day he didn’t come to work. But the day after that he’d found me and thanked me. And he cried when he did. He was a big, black, mountain of a man, bigger than I was. Stronger than I was. But he wept like a child, and he hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. And I realized it didn’t always have to be a weapon. What I could do didn’t have to hurt people.

“Moses?” Tag pulled me from my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way . . . but, if, you know, there’s more, and it’s not bad. It’s not scary. It’s not the zombie apocalypse. It’s not fire and brimstone . . . at least, not as far as you can tell, then why do you stay?” His voice was so quiet and filled with emotion, I wasn’t sure if anything I said would help him. And prophet or not, I wasn’t sure I knew the answer. It took me a minute of thinking, but I finally had a response that felt true.

“Because I’ll still be me,” I answered. “And you’ll still be you.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t escape ourselves, Tag. Here, there, half-way across the world, or in a psych ward in Salt Lake City. I’m Moses and you’re Tag. And that part never changes. So either we figure it out here or we figure it out there. But we still gotta deal. And death won’t change that.”





Moses



MOLLY TAGGERT’S REMAINS were taken back to Dallas for burial, David Taggert Sr. decided to put his ranch up for sale, and Tag and I were both scheduled for release from the Montlake Psychiatric Facility. I had some money and my clothing, though I hadn’t needed either during my stay. My clothes had been boxed up and sent to Montlake when my grandmother’s possessions were divvied among her children, at least the possessions she hadn’t left to me.

A lawyer had been allowed in to see me about two weeks after I’d been admitted. He’d told me about my grandmother. Told me she had died of natural causes, a stroke. And then he told me she’d left me ten acres on the north end of town, her house, her car, and everything in her bank account, which wasn’t much. I didn’t want Gigi’s house, not if she wasn’t in it. Gigi wouldn’t expect me to go back. The sheriff had made it clear that no one wanted me back. I asked the lawyer if I could sell it.

The lawyer didn’t think anyone would buy it. The land would sell—he already had a buyer—but no one would want the house. Small towns and tragedy were like that. I asked him if he could have it boarded up for me, which he did. When it was all said and done, house boarded up, Gi’s funeral paid for, my medical bills—the part not covered by the state—cleared, the land, my Jeep, and Gigi’s old car sold, the lawyer brought me the key to her house and a check for five thousand dollars. It was more money than I expected, more money than I’d ever had, and not enough to get me very far.

I imagined my extended family liked me even less now than they had before, and I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed into any of their homes, which was fine. I didn’t want to be there, truthfully. But I didn’t know where I would go either. So when Tag brought it up the night before we were both free to leave, I didn’t have much to say.

“When you get out, where you gonna go?” Tag asked at dinner, his eyes on his food, his arms on the table. He could eat almost as much as I could, and I was pretty sure Montlake’s kitchen staff would enjoy a little reprieve when we left.

I didn’t want to talk about this with Tag. I really didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. So I fixed my gaze to the left of Tag’s head, out the window, letting him know I was ready for the conversation to end. But Tag persisted.

“You’re eighteen now. You are officially out of the system. So where you gonna go, Mo?” I don’t know why he thought he could call me Mo. I hadn’t given him permission. But he was like that. Worming his way into my space. Kind of like Georgia used to.