Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(19)

“I’ll bet.”

“She screamed and cried and told me I was the worst mother ever. The worst mother, can you imagine, Gideon?”

Warmth flooded my chest that she remembered my name. I put my hand over hers again. “I’m not a parent. Never even been married, or come close. But I’m familiar with teens. I know they can rip your f*cking heart out and stomp on it and make you feel two inches tall. Hormones is what it is. Everything is life or death with them. Not that this isn’t. But take what she says to you with a grain of salt.”

She nodded through her tears. “Yes. But I want to give her the choice, and he’s taking that away from her. Only then will her true nature be revealed, when she’s given a choice. She says she wants to be a fashion designer, not someone’s third wife. By taking this away from her, we’re removing her chance to act on her own, without doubt shadowing everything. Then her fear of failure, of wrongdoing will be bigger than her love of free will.”

I shook my head. “Is there any way in hell you can say no?”

She looked at me as if I were a dish of broccoli she hadn’t ordered. “Excuse me?”

“Let me rephrase that. Is there any way you can take Vonda away from there, to live on your own? Do you have family? Someone said you’re from Salt Lake.”

“Provo,” she choked out, filled with tears again. She snatched her hand from mine to hold the paper napkin to her nose. “I have two sisters up there, but they can’t afford to take us in. I’m broken, Gideon. I was born dead. I can’t believe I’m even unloading my troubles on a stranger like you.”

“I’m no stranger,” I insisted.

“I’m so sad every day. I have to force myself just to get out of bed and brush my teeth. I remind myself of Vonda, that I need to do it for her. But I find no joy in a flower, or a gem, or even any of the scripture I hear and read. Why would a god give us intelligence and then expect us to ignore it? That’s like building us eyes to see and telling us not to look at the buttes in Zion National Park. Every way I look at this Orson Ream thing, it makes me nauseous. The things we choose to love, the people we choose to respond to, Gideon, that’s the highest mirror image of who we are. Allred’s taking this away from Vonda. Away from me!”

She was preaching to the choir. When I’d prospected first for Papa Ewey, I’d bristled at a lot of his commands. I still found it hard to work underneath anyone or take orders—one reason why I’d been so tweaked about being sent out here with Breakiron. Maybe it was Mahalia’s influence, but suddenly I felt that there had been a divine purpose behind all of that. I could never have Chelsea, but being hot for her had maybe been a long, arduous path that had led me straight to Mahalia Warrior. I couldn’t help her in any immediate sense, but I had an idea.

“Look. Being stressed isn’t good for you. It just gets in your way, makes you unable to function. There are pills for that, you know.”

She sniffed. “I’ve heard of them, but of course we’re not allowed any of that. I was never stressed until Field died. And I’ll tell you. That was no damned construction accident. But that’s all I’ll say about that.”

“I can get you some pills. Antianxiety medication. The gal who’s with our Prez, well, she takes them. She can get her hands on some. It does truly sound like you’re dangerously stressed, and I hate to see you this way.”

She forced a smile. “You’re very kind. Did you know that?”

“No.” It was true. “Kind” was not a word anyone had ever said about me. Rude, belligerent, selfish, thoughtless—sure. All of the above. But never kind.

“Well, you are. Kind. I would give you my business cell number, but Allred…”

“He checks the bill.”

“Yes. I have certain numbers I’m allowed to call.”

“Must be hard to do business that way.”

“It is. The list gets longer by the day, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t be on it. Unless I could come up with some other reason I need to call a gold mine.”

“I’ll get another burner. Tell him it’s a new supplier or whatever it is you do. Another charity you want to donate to.”

“All right.” The fear was evident in her eyes as she pulled a pen and little notebook from her purse and wrote down her number. Dingo wandered over and said,

“Miss Warrior? Nice to see you again.” To me, he said, “Miss Warrior is one of the women kind enough to bring me food at the school.”

“Jonah Garff, of course. Please sit.” She didn’t seem embarrassed to be seen handing me her phone number. “And what are you doing on the laptop over there? Universes, galaxies?”

“Oh, it’s very exciting. Satellites. You know, like what runs your cell phone. It is amazing! Mr. Fortunati has been kind enough to let me use his laptop. I may have left the compound, but I’ve kept up on my reading.”

“I’ll buy him his own laptop once I get down to St. George,” I said.

“Well, that’s very generous of Mr. Fortunati. You know, Jonah. I’ve always wondered. Astrophysics explains how stars came to be. Then Darwin tells how the human eye came to be. But no one explains why a starry sky renders us mute with awe, or why our minds burn to comprehend what is not required by our body.”