The Song of David(60)

“That’s what heaven sounds like. Don’t you think?” Millie breathed, but I stayed silent, not wanting to ruin the moment with my own opinions about what heaven sounded like. In my limited experience, heaven was silence, a silence so pervasive and complete that it had mass. It had weight. And in that silence there was sadness and guilt, regret and remorse, and loss. Loss of what could have been, loss of what never would be, loss of love, loss of life, loss of choice. I’d felt all those things when I’d swallowed that bottle of aspirin and slit my wrists for good measure. I’d lost consciousness only to become more conscious, more aware. And the silence had been deafening. It wasn’t dark. It was light. So light you had no choice but to see yourself, all of yourself. I hadn’t liked it.

Though I’d wailed and protested being yanked back to the ground, yanked out of heaven—or hell, whatever it was—I’d been grateful too. And my gratitude had filled me with guilt. It wasn’t until I’d met Moses that heaven had become something different. Moses saw people, people who had died and gone on. Heaven wasn’t silent for Moses. It was filled with memories and moments, filled with color. He brought the dead back to life. He painted them. Moses hadn’t wanted to see any of it, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to come to terms with it. And as he had, I had gone along, persistent in my devotion, if only because Moses saw a sister I would never see again, and Moses had answers nobody else did. Even if those answers sometimes made death more alluring. At least death wasn’t the end. Of that, I was sure.

Maybe for Millie, heaven was a place that sounded like angelic choirs and pipe organs, because that was where she felt alive. It was all about sound for Millie, not sight. Not colors, like it was for Moses. But for me, heaven would be something else. It would sound like the bell at the beginning of a round, it would taste like adrenaline, it would burn like sweat in my eyes and fire in my belly. It would look like screaming crowds and an opponent who wanted my blood. For me, heaven was the octagon.

“You know my fight against Santos is Tuesday night. Right?” Talking about this now, while we still sat in the tabernacle, wasn’t probably the best time. The hairs on my arm had been standing at full attention for the last half hour while we listened to one song after another. The choir was singing “Beautiful Savior,” and I was looking down at Millie’s face, thinking what a beautiful savior she’d turned out to be. If heaven was the octagon then Millie was my angel at the center of it all. The girl with the power to take me down and lift me up again. The girl I wanted to fight for, the girl I wanted to claim.

“Yes?” Her lips were turned into my ear so our conversation wouldn’t interrupt the rehearsal taking place. I didn’t answer immediately, waiting as the stirring rendition came to a close. The director waved the organ and the choir into silence, and I grabbed Millie’s hand and we slipped out the way we’d come, mouthing a thank you toward the friend in the Tabernacle Choir who had made it happen. He gave me a wink and a thumbs up, and Millie clung to my arm until we were out in the open sunshine. She loosened her grip and tipped her face up, soaking in the warmth and giving me a perfect view of her lovely throat.

“I don’t want you in the audience on Tuesday, Millie,” I said abruptly.

“You don’t?” Her chin dropped, sunshine forgotten.

“I don’t, baby,” I said gently.

“Why?” Her tone was plaintive.

“I won’t be able to focus on what I have to do. I’ll be worried about you.”

She sighed, a gusty swoosh that lifted the dark strands of her hair closest to her mouth.

“As soon as I win, I’m coming to you,” I promised.

“You’re that sure you’re going to win?”

“Yep. I’m gonna win, I’m gonna raise my arms over my head, and I’m gonna say, Yo Millie, we did it!”

“How very Rocky Balboa of you.” She smirked.

“That’s right. And then I’m gonna go running through the crowd, out the doors, three blocks down, two blocks over, and I’ll bang at your door, and you can congratulate me in any way you see fit. Make sure Henry’s with Robin.”

She laughed, but I could tell she didn’t want to laugh. Silence settled between us, and we started to walk, meandering in the general direction of where I’d parked. The grounds around the tabernacle were perfectly maintained and ideal for walking, even if Millie couldn’t enjoy the landscaping.