The Law of Moses(56)

Eli sat against the opposite wall, his stubby legs in Batman pajamas pulled up into his chest as if he too had settled in for a long, long wait. His hood covered his dark curls, and the small fabric points crafted to resemble bat ears gave him a devilish air totally at odds with his angel boy face.

I cursed loudly, louder than I’d intended, the sound echoing off the concrete walls and beckoning Tag to turn around. He did and raised his arms in question.

“Time to go, Tag. I can’t be here anymore,” I called, walking away from the little boy who was busily sharing images of the same galloping white horse with colors on her hind quarters. Then a fat rope spun in the air, making a perfect loop that dropped around the horse’s neck and was pulled tight by some unknown hand. The horse tossed her pale mane, whinnied softly, and trotted around in my head unhappily. I didn’t know how to set her free.

“He keeps showing me a white horse,” I muttered, as Tag and I climbed back into my truck and pulled out onto the highway leading from one heartbreak and dropping us off at another. I didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t imagine Tag did either. “He keeps showing me a white horse with splotches of color on her rump. The same horse, over and over. Like the one in the picture I painted.”

“A Paint.”

“What?”

“It’s called a Paint. That kind of horse. Her coloring. They call that a Paint.”

“A Paint.” I wondered suddenly if the horse was just symbolic. Maybe all the kid wanted me to do was paint. Maybe I just hadn’t gotten it right.





Moses



TAG WALKED BEHIND ME, trailing me through the front door and into a house that had been laid bare. There was no furniture, no dishes, no rugs on the floor. Nothing remained of my grandmother in the house. It didn’t feel like her. It definitely didn’t smell like her. It was dusty and dank and it needed a good airing out. It was just an empty house. I hesitated in the entryway, looking up the stairs, turning right and then left, testing the waters, until finally moving through the dining area into the kitchen, where nothing remained but the red-striped curtains that hung on the small window over the sink. The curtains in the family room remained as well. Nobody wanted those either. But I was guessing it had more to do with the fact that they were stiff with paint than with their outdated pattern.

Nobody had painted the walls.

I stopped abruptly and felt Tag at my back. I heard the way his breath caught in his throat and then the slow exhalation when he let it out on a stream of words even I wouldn’t say.

I had found my grandmother at around 6:45. I only remember the time because she had a clock in the entryway that spat out a bird that cuckooed on the hour and sang on the half-hour. But on the quarter hours, the bird would stick his head out and tweet loudly, making you aware the time was passing. Warning you the hour was coming. I had walked through the front door that morning, half-dazed, longing for my bed where I could sleep off the lust and the love that were clinging to my skin, and that bird had squawked at me as if to say “Where have you been?”

I had jumped and then laughed at myself and stepped into the dining room and called her name.

“Gi!”

“Gi!” I said it again and heard my voice echo in the empty house.

I didn’t mean to speak out loud, but Tag pushed past me and walked toward the walls filled with curling colors and twisted tendrils. It was like being on a spinning merry-go-round inside a circus tent, and everyone was a clown. The color was garish and grandiose, one color merging into the next, one face becoming another, like a photograph of a car in motion, nothing entirely captured, everything distorted by the perspective. I’d found Gigi at 6:45 in the morning. Georgia had found me at 11:30. I had painted for almost five straight hours and filled the walls with everything and nothing.

The clock had struck and the bird sang sweetly as I swept my aching arms up and down, finishing a face that had nothing to do with the face I wanted to see. And then Georgia had stepped into the house. Poor Georgia.

“That’s Molly,” Tag choked, his hand resting on the image of his sister looking back over her shoulder, beckoning me to follow. The gold paint of her hair spread out like a river and became the hair of several other girls, all running alongside her.

I could only nod. The whole thing was a blur. I didn’t remember most of it. I didn’t remember anything in detail. It felt like a dream, and I only had bits and pieces.

“Who are these other people?” Tag whispered, his eyes roving from one distorted drawing to the next.

I shrugged. “I know some of them. I remember some of them. But most, I don’t really know.”

“You like blondes.”“Nah—I don’t.” I shook my head slowly, protesting.

Tag raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly at the girls surrounding Molly and at the painting of my mother a little ways off, the basket of babies in her arms.

I just shook my head. I couldn’t explain the other side. I just painted what I saw.

“Mo?”

“Yeah?”

“This is freaky as shit. You know that, right?”

I nodded. “I didn’t know it. Not really. Not then. I didn’t even see it. I just lived it. But yeah.”

We both stared a moment longer, until I just couldn’t stand it anymore.

“So what would you think of a red couch in here?” I said. “’Cause that’s what I’m thinkin’-”