Had Reggie grabbed the wooden stool that sat by the hallway closet and used it to beat Barney over the head, it wouldn’t have hurt worse than those words. Barney’s only consolation was that the preacher seemed hurt by it just as much.
“What you mean, Reggie? You know how much that’ll be? Millions. Millions for the church, Reggie. For the kids an’ the poor folk. Think of how much good that’ll do.”
Reggie smiled as if that were funny, and Barney saw his friend’s face cleave just as Tom Norcross’s had before, the push and the pull.
“Don’t get me wrong, Barney. It’s tempting. And it’s appreciated too. But taking it wouldn’t be right. I know you have good in your heart and I know you think this is all God’s way of blessing you, but it’s wrong, Barney. What you did was wrong. The lotto preys on people. It gives them a false hope. And now you’re spreading that false hope too.”
“But it ain’t false, Reggie. I won.”
“You did, but I don’t see the Lord in it.”
Barney shook his head. “How can you say that, Reggie?”
Reggie leaned over and looked Barney straight in the eye. “Because I know God, Barney. You know that. I spent my whole life knowing the Lord. I know who He is. I know what He is. And I know what He ain’t too. God put me in this town to shepherd it. You think I take that lightly? I can’t say I speak for Him if I don’t know Him.”
Barney tried to find reason to refute that but couldn’t. It was the truth. Everyone in town knew that Reggie had God’s ear just as much as God had Reggie’s, knew that while people like Barney wanted to get rich, all Reggie wanted was to see the face of the Lord. Even the Methodists knew it.
“And you know what?” Reggie asked. “I think you’re questioning things too. You’re still hanging on to that ticket, Barney. You haven’t cashed it in.”
Barney said nothing. He leaned back into the sofa and heard the ticket crinkle in the front pocket of his overalls.
“I guess that’s all I got to say,” Reggie said.
“You ain’t mad at me, are you, Reggie? I don’t want you mad at me.”
“I wish you would’ve gone to me or the church instead of the 7-11, but no, I’m not mad. Not at you, anyway.”
“Well, you look mad. If it ain’t at me, who is it?”
“Leah.”
“Leah?” Barney asked. “Why in the world you mad at a little girl, Reggie?”
“She said she spoke for God, Barney. What you did was wrong. What she did?” Reggie shook his head. “That’s dangerous. I fear she’s brought a darkness to this town that’s wrapped up in light, and that’s the worst kind of darkness there is.”
Reggie looked down at his hands and shook his head, then stretched out his bad knee. He rose from the sofa. Barney walked him to the door.
“I appreciate you stopping by, Preacher,” he said. “I appreciate your honesty. An’ I’m gonna give you some back now. Truth is, it hurt me somethin’ fierce to resort to playin’ the lotto. Maybe God weren’t in it, but He’s in Leah. I know He is. She said me an’ Mabel gonna be just fine now. She said my day’s come.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing, Barney. She’s just a lonely little girl who’s conjured an imaginary friend with a bag full of lies. She’s got you fooled, and Allie too. Allie I can see, she being just a child. But you?”
“You think Leah’s little,” Barney said, “maybe she is. But as far as her lyin’, I reckon she weren’t when she told you yesterd’y to mind the newspaper box, was she? An’ now look at you, rubbin’ your knee.”
He didn’t give Reggie the opportunity to respond.
“My day’s come. You know how long I been waitin’ to hear that, Reggie? Longer’n you ever waited for anything. You don’t know hurt like I do, an’ maybe that’s why it’s so easy for me to believe. Faith comes easy when you ain’t got nothin’ left. I know you don’t understand that. I hope you never got to.”
Reggie left without another word.
4
Allie hadn’t minded the reporter people at first, at least not nearly as much as her momma and daddy had. Nor had she been scared when all those people went crazy after Leah answered yes to their questions. Let ’em come, she’d thought, then she’d stood up in front of Leah to protect her and vowed to fight them all if she had to, every single one. And she wouldn’t even need her daddy’s help to do it, because she was a Granderson and Grandersons were afraid of nothing.
“Want some more, sweetie?” her mother said.
“Sure, Momma, thanks.”
Mary shook out another pile of French fries onto her daughter’s napkin. Allie dipped one into the small container of warm ketchup and chewed. Along the riverbank, Marshall held a fishing pole in the water and looked from one side of the water to the other. Allie figured he was trying to spy anyone who might have followed them. She also figured no one had. Besides, if all those city newspeople could find their way out into the mountains just to take her picture, she’d just smile and say cheese.
“Having fun?” Mary asked.
“I reckon.” Allie took a bite of her cheeseburger and shielded her face from the sun. This spot of woods was her daddy’s favorite, though Allie found it too close to Happy Hollow for comfort. But on that day she thought of neither ghosts nor holes in the world; there was only sunshine and peace and the deer that fed in the meadow beyond. “I feel bad that Leah’s all alone, though. I should be there with her, or maybe I shoulda brung her along with us. She needs me.”
“She has her momma with her,” Mary said. “I’m sure she’s fine. They’re not church folks. Tom said they were spiritual but not religious, and don’t ask me what that means because I couldn’t tell you. But they’re still good people.”
Allie shook her head. “Her momma ain’t like you. I think she’s sad. Sad and scared, but I don’t know why. Leah don’t tell her a lot of stuff, she just tells me.”
“What about Leah’s daddy?”
“Mr. Doctor loves too much.” She took another bite of fries. “You know what that means?”
Mary didn’t.
“Me neither. But he don’t believe in the Rainbow Man.”
Mary took one of Allie’s fries and chewed. The thumb and forefinger of her free hand went to the plain gold cross around her neck. The way Mary rubbed it, so slow and with a smile, was beautiful in a way Allie couldn’t explain. The sunshine glinted off her auburn hair like a halo, and her tanned skin looked almost golden. Preacher Goggins said everyone was special in God’s eyes, even the folk who didn’t believe in God at all, and Allie believed that because Reggie Goggins knew God better than anyone. But she also believed that some people had a special shine, and Mary Granderson was one of them. That was why Allie longed to grow up to be just like her momma. Maybe she would have a little girl of her own by then, one who didn’t mind playing kickball or kissing handsome boys, and maybe if that little girl would find someone touched by the magic and a clamor would commence, Allie and Zach would take her to the woods for an afternoon of cheeseburgers and fishing to get away from it all just like Allie’s own folks had.
“Do you believe in the Rainbow Man?” Mary asked.
“Sure I do.”
“Why?”
Allie couldn’t say. Wouldn’t. Her momma might be her best friend in the whole wide world (besides Leah, of course, but that sort of best friend was different), might be the prettiest woman ever and have a crown of jewels waiting for her at the pearly gates, but Allie wasn’t ready to tell her what she’d done with Zach Barnett on the side of Leah’s house. Not yet.
“I just do. She explained him to me, and it sounded fairy-like enough to be real. Don’t you think she’s got the magic, Momma?”
“Maybe. That picture really was fine. But what about those numbers? Did she really paint them?”
“She said she didn’t at first,” Allie said, “but then she said she did.”
Mary furrowed her brow. “Does that sound right to you? I mean, that’s a pretty
big thing. I know if I drew some numbers that did something that great for someone, I’d remember right off.”
Allie took another bite and thought. It actually didn’t sound right.
“You think maybe you should keep away from Leah for a while?” Mary asked. “All this with Barney . . . it’ll get some people riled, Allie. You saw that yourself at the park. Me and your daddy don’t want you getting caught up in it.”
“No’m,” Allie said. She couldn’t believe her momma would ever say such a thing. “I can’t forsake Leah now. She don’t have like I have.” Her words were coming quicker now. It was as if Mary had poked a hole in a hose and let loose a flood of water. Allie thought it was time to tell her momma everything, mostly. “She’s got this place on her thumbnail that’s got a hole in it, Momma. She starts rubbin’ on it whenever she gets all worked up. Ain’t that awful? That’s just the worse thing I’ve ever seen. But she don’t do it much when I’m around, and do you know why? Because I keep her safe and she can talk to me. She don’t even lurch her words much when I’m with her now. And besides, she says the Rainbow Man needs her to do a task and he wants me to help.”
“Got one!” Marshall yelled. He pulled his line out of the water to find a healthy trout on the end. He held it up as if it were Moby Dick. “Gonna eat good tonight, m’ladies.”
“Nice one, Daddy,” Allie hollered.
Mary took Allie’s hand in her own. “You’re a good girl, Allie. You’re my girl. I’ll say I’m not too sure what’s been going on around here lately and I’m not too comfortable with you being mixed up in it, but I like Leah. I like her parents. And you know I love the Moores. But maybe God chose to shine on Mr. Barney just that one time, and maybe He just used Leah’s painting to do it and not Leah. Do you think that might be possible?”
“I gotta help, Momma,” Allie said. “’Cause even if you’re shaky on what to think is true and ain’t, I think Leah’s been touched by the magic. I think the Rainbow Man ain’t a man at all. I gotta be the one to show her that, ’cause Leah don’t got nobody to tell her about the Higher Things. She told me I had to believe in the magic—she just called it the Maybe. Maybe you and Daddy need to believe in the Maybe too.”
Allie thought that settled things as much as they could be settled and went back to her fries. She didn’t think her momma believed in Leah’s Maybe much. Then again, Allie also understood her momma knew that just down the road was the Hollow and Sheriff Barnett’s hole. Some things just were. Just because you didn’t understand them didn’t make them less real.
“You’re right,” Mary said. “Leah needs you. She’s such a timid little girl. And I think that she’s too shy to say all this isn’t true, especially now. You’re a big girl, Allie. I trust you to do as you’ve been raised. You just be careful now, okay?”
“Yes’m,” Allie said.
“And, Allie, please come to me with anything. Anything at all.”
“I always do, Momma. We’re besties.”
They toasted with the last of the French fries as Marshall caught the rest of their supper in the sparkling river ahead of them. All memory of news reporters and lottery tickets and holy magic drifted from Allie’s mind. What settled in was the slow awareness that on the back side of so much furor, she had found that rare and precious gift of a perfect day.
She vowed to enjoy it, and it was fortunate that she did. It would be Allie’s last perfect day for a long while.
5
Tom finished with his fifth and final patient (DELACROIX, CHARLES the file said, age thirty-five, bipolar disorder) at four thirty, leaving him to reflect upon a day that seemed little more than a long rendition of the same sad story told from five different points of view. He’d tried twice to call home and ask how the press conference had gone, but both times the line had been busy and Ellen’s cell had been turned off. Rita had popped her head into the office between Tom’s third and fourth appointments to say she’d seen a clip on the Stanley newspaper’s website. She’d only offered, “Quite the display down there in hillbilly hell.” Nothing more. Her only other bit of commentary was written on the Post-it note she’d stuck to his office door before leaving. Go home, Tom, it read.
He emptied the mountain of spent tissues from the garbage can by the sofa into a larger one behind his desk and thought of gold coins gushing into an overflowing pot as they spilled into and over the receptacle. He gathered the tissues that had fallen onto the carpet and pushed them down into the bag, pushed them harder, then realized he could stand there the rest of the night and it would do no good—the can was simply too full.
It would be a two-bag day. Better than the three bags he’d taken out last Wednesday, but worse than Friday’s single bag. Such was the life of a professional psychologist, where the difference between good days and bad was measured not so much by an increase of joy but a decrease of sorrow. Tom pulled another trash bag from the drawer and filled it. He then took the two bags in one hand, his briefcase in the other, and turned the lights out on another day of fighting the good fight.
He made an abrupt left toward the dumpster. It was technically the cleaning lady’s job to dump the office trash each night. So Rita had reminded him, and upon countless occasions. And upon equally countless occasions Tom had reiterated that he had no qualms with Maria emptying the trash from the waiting and reception areas, but what was to be disposed of from his office was his job alone. It was Tom’s private ritual, his way of ensuring that the burdens of his profession were no longer shouldered by Ellen and Leah.
He set the briefcase aside and hefted the dumpster’s rusty lid. Rats scurried from deep within its bowels, scavenging for a morsel to satisfy their hunger or a bit of refuse to line their nests. The smell was rotten and bitter. Tom hoisted the bags—so light in some ways and so heavy in others—and watched as they disappeared into the darkness.
Yet unlike most days, Tom’s ritual did not lessen the sadness he felt. He knew he could stand there all evening tossing tissues into the dumpster and still not forget Meagan Gladwell’s mottled arms. He could not un-hear her tears or her sorrowed, twisted reasoning that faith trumped well-being. He could not let go of the notion that all the psychological prowess he could muster would be of little use to Meagan Gladwell. She was wandering, and she didn’t even see that she was lost.
The cell phone chirped in Tom’s pocket, jerking him from self-pity. He checked the number, smiled, and then didn’t, then answered.
“Hey, Puh-Pops, it’s yuh-your daughter Leah.”
“Hello, my daughter Leah. I’ve been trying to call you all day. How’d everything go?”
“Nuh-not too guh-good, I’m afraid. You’re luh-late, Puh-Pops.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’ll be home soon. What happened at the news conference?”
“I ruh-really don’t w-want to tuh-talk about thuh-that. You’ll have to suh-see.”
Tom climbed into his truck. The traffic beyond the parking lot snarled. Four thirty was an awful time to be leaving work. “Is everything okay? Talk to me, Leah.”
“Muh-Mommy’s pretty m-mad at yuh-you. Just w-wanted you to be ruh-ready for that. I guess muh-maybe I suh-sorta am tuh-too. I’m suh-sorry.” Leah’s voice cracked. She sniffed and tried to continue. “I nuh-needed you thuh-there, Puh-Pops. Allie and the R-rainbow M-man were thuh-there and Muh-Mommy too, but you wuh-weren’t.”
“I know,” Tom said. And he did know. He knew that all the work he had to do meant leaving other work undone, work that was just as important and very likely more so, and it pained him in that moment that he considered the raising of his daughter just another something he had to do. He knew that every good man was torn between that which he’d been given and that which he was meant to do, and that those two things often shattered against each other like rock upon rock. Saying no to Leah meant saying yes to GLADWELL, MEAGAN and DELACROIX, CHARLES and all those after them, people who had nothing real left to tether themselves to except Dr. Thomas Norcross. Yet saying yes to them me
ant saying no to his only daughter and the one shining light in his own life. And though he had said it before and too often, he said he was sorry yet again.
“I nuh-know you are, Puh-Pops,” Leah said. “You luh-love too m-much.”
“I’ll be home in a little bit, okay? I’ll make it up to you.”
“Ok-kay. Buh-be careful of the wuh-wolves. Chuh-cheery-bye.”
“What wolves?” Tom asked, but Leah was gone.
Unlike the half-hour ride from Mattingly to his office, the ride back was usually a pleasant one. Like the trash bag ritual, it was another means of separating his two worlds of the brokenness in his patients and the love (shaky though it was) of his family. But even as four lanes gave way to two and city buildings melted against blue mountains, Tom could not find a sigh and a smile. Because by then, Dr. Tom Norcross was beginning to believe those two worlds were colliding, and that the darkness that defined the one was creeping into the other yet again.
He drove down Main Street to find the sidewalks littered with people. News vans fitted with communications dishes and long metal poles prowled the streets. Their drivers lurched and braked in the maze of narrow roads and one-way intersections. Sheriff Barnett was directing traffic away from a fender-bender between a jacked-up Chevy truck and a van from a television station in Richmond. He waved to Tom and offered a sad shake of the head. The air filled with blowing horns and curses. Reporters stood sentry on street corners with microphones and digital recorders in hand, goading passing townspeople into sound bites for the evening news. If the reporters were fortunate, they received cold silence. If they were not, they were told in no uncertain terms to leave.
More news vans and reporters were parked along the fence line in front of the yellow Victorian. Voices shouted as Tom approached. He tried to avoid them by cutting into the driveway, but Ellen’s Lexus was parked sideways in front of the fence’s opening.
There came a chorus of “Dr. Norcross” as Tom jumped out of his truck and hurried around Ellen’s car. The reporters closed in. They called out questions about Leah and Barney, about what Tom thought and what he believed, demanding just a moment of his time. Tom’s head thundered. Shards of white light shot out from the corners of his eyes. He raised his briefcase over his head and did not break his stride. If the presence of so many people—so many questions—affected him that way, how much more must it have affected Leah?
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