LIGHT OF DAY

by Ruth Wind

  The third bullet caught Samuel in the chest, and the explosion of pain knocked him down. For long moments he felt nothing but the roaring fury in his chest as he struggled for air. Nothing but one more breath mattered, one more breath to sustain him.

  Slowly he became aware of Mustapha kneeling over him. "The chain," Samuel choked out. "Give it to her."

  "Be quiet. The police will be here to take you to a hospital."

  "No." With an enormous effort of will, he moved his hand to the chain Lila had given him, feeling along the edge of his fingers the blood that stuck his shirt to his chest. "Give it to her."

  "Be quiet, fool."

  Samuel gasped, unable to find the next breath at all, as if he had no lungs. The edges of his vision blackened. "Promise," he whispered, feeling life leave him. But he didn't know if Mustapha had answered. The black turned to red, and then there was nothing at all.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  The night before Allen's wedding, Lila was alone, decorating his cake while the wedding party rehearsed. The cake was a beauty, both traditional and unusual. There were the usual tiers and terraces of a wedding cake, and the frosting was as white as new snow, but there the resemblance ceased.

  She stood back to admire her handiwork, feeling a glow of pleasure too real to ignore. "Well, Arrow, what do you think?" she asked the dog watching her. His tail thumped on the carpet. "One of the best I've done, if I do say so."

  It was a strange sensation to feel the flickerings of satisfaction in her work, to finally see a tear in the gray cloak of hopelessness she'd known the past week. And it made her feel oddly treacherous to feel happy about anything, even for an instant.

  And yet, for the past two days, a lightness had been growing within her. As the moon approached its zenith, she ordinarily felt bloated and uncomfortable, a sure sign that her period would plague her in a day or two. Tonight the full moon glowed silver in a clear sky, and all she felt was sleepy.

  She kept reaching inside herself, trying to divine the workings of her body. Could it be that her prayer had been granted? Was it possible that she would take, from the perfect days with Samuel, something more tangible than memories?

  Walking to the sink with tubes and knives covered with frosting, she tried to keep the hope at bay. If it turned out she was not pregnant, just out of cycle because of stress, the disappointment would be hard to bear. Better to just ignore it.

  She melted the frosting with hot tap-water, then ran a sinkful of soap suds. Behind her the television played, a cable news network Lila had been monitoring for seven straight days. Not a word about the Freedom League had been mentioned. She had also combed every newspaper and magazine she could get her hands on, with the same results. In fact, it had been a remarkably peaceful week all over the globe—one of the rare periods when the news was good in most places.

  That, too, kindled hope in Lila's heart. Surely there would have been something in the news if the mission Samuel had undertaken had not proceeded as planned.

  There had been a sense of urgency in his leave-taking, as if it could not be put off any longer.

  And she thought, loving him as deeply as she did, she would know if he were killed. She would know if his essence had been erased from the earth. No matter how she tried to talk herself into believing the evidence that pointed to the contrary, she kept returning to one simple fact: he had not been in the car when it burned.

  A pert, dark-haired woman on the television screen swiveled behind the flat white counter of the studios. "And now for the world news."

  Lila rinsed the clean tubes and found a dish towel to dry them, watching television with half an eye. "In other news, officials took Freedom League leader Mustapha Bashir into custody in Beirut early this morning after a shooting in an alley there."

  Lila stared at the screen. A picture of a harsh-looking man, smoking, illustrated the story. As the newscaster continued, Lila felt the internal quaking of her organs, never distant since Samuel's departure, start up again, viciously.

  "Wanted in connection with several terrorist bombings in recent months, Bashir evidently shot and killed his brother Samuel Bashir, an American citizen, before dawn."

  Lila dropped the tubes and towels in her hands with a cry, her hands flying to cover her mouth, a white roaring blocking the sound of the newscaster's next words, although she could see her lips moving as the pictures flashed on the screen—a bombed building someplace where palms grew, a video of a smoking car and The Shell and Fin.

  Her heart stopped beating, and her intestines grew cold as the white noise sizzled louder in her ears. When a photograph of Samuel flashed, she tried to concentrate on the words of the newscaster, but heard only, "—in custody."

  Moving on legs as stiff as steel, she walked to a chair in the dining room, collapsing without a sound. There was nothing inside of her—no hope or hate, no pain or past, no love or longing or sorrow. Vaguely she heard the pulsing of her heart begin again, stubbornly taking up its long-standing practice of keeping her alive. Her chest moved with breath, in and out. Only her hands, ice-cold in her lap, reflected the frozen state of her thoughts.

  For two weeks the insulating mist of shock protected her. She finished the wedding cake, even attended the ceremony, and drifted through the days with a variety of tasks to keep her busy. She and Arrow took long walks in the late afternoons, enjoying the unbroken stretch of sunny weather.

  She was shopping one bright, cold Saturday morning when her feet turned of their own accord into the aisle offering women's products. There, next to a display of lipsticks and mascaras, were the discreetly packaged boxes of home pregnancy tests. With a steady, sensible hand she selected one at random and put it in her basket.

  When the test the next morning confirmed her suspicions, the protective chrysalis about her abruptly shattered. The world brightened, sharpened, becoming unbearably solid and three-dimensional. She saw the pale blue tiles in the bathroom in perfect, acute detail, felt the linoleum cold below her bare feet, smelled the cleanser she had used on the bathtub. And deep within, where there had been nothing at all, she felt a quick rush of joy.

  Lacking anyone else to share the news with, she ran from the bathroom to find Arrow, who wagged his tail as Lila came around the corner. "I'm pregnant," she shouted, and threw her arms around him. "I'm going to have a baby." Burying her face in his coarse fur, she breathed a prayer of gratitude, one sent as fervently as the one asking for the same child had been.

  Then, automatically, she called her mother in Oklahoma to tell her she needed to come home for a while. Her mother accepted without question.

  Lila was able to settle the untied ends of her life in Seattle much more quickly than she would have believed. By Tuesday the house she'd rented for several years, the house with its satin pillows and lacquered tables, was cleaned and cleared out, the keys returned to the landlord. Her plants she settled with Allen; what little furniture she'd accumulated was put into storage until she had mapped out a plan, and everything else went to the Salvation Army. The motorcycle was beyond worrying about, but oddly it proved to be a blessing in disguise, for the insurance money would stretch her savings a little more—and even she wouldn't be needing a motorcycle while she was pregnant.

  That left the dessert business she'd built over the past year. With a pang of regret she took the records of her accounts to a home-style bakery she'd always enjoyed, and asked the woman who ran it if she'd like to purchase them. The woman accepted eagerly, with an invitation to Lila to work for her if she ever returned to the city. Lila shook he head. "I won't be back, not here. Thanks."

  The resultant cash gave her a bit more of a cushion of security. If she was careful, she might be able to live on her savings for a year and pay for the baby's medical care, as well. In Oklahoma, she had no doubts that she'd be able to sell her cakes and confections without much trouble, thus supplementing her income.

  In a year's time she might have a clear
er idea of what came next in her life. Instinctively she knew it would be a while before she would be able to make decisions of any kind.

  On Friday afternoon, as Lila drove down the two-lane county road toward her parent's ranch under an early-winter sky as blue as native turquoise, she marveled that any place could look the same as long as this parcel of land had.

  The house, a two-story white clapboard big enough to house the eight children that had grown up there, stood in the center of a stand of trees that circled it like a small army. Even now, when the trees were bare of their leaves, the stand was visible for miles, rising as it did out of the flat yellow land around it. Fields planted with winter wheat stretched from one side; on the other were a barn and a corral. A single gray-spotted Appaloosa stood by the fence, ignoring a bothersome black goat not far enough from the kid stage to suit the horse.

  In the yard was Lila's mother, evidently trimming the roses in their arbor. She turned as she heard the sound of Lila's car, and her round, weathered face broke into a smile as she spotted her daughter.

  At the first sight of the ranch, spread alone on the empty fields, Lila had felt her stomach drop in unexpected loneliness. But when she saw her mother's warm smile, she knew she had done the right thing. She got out of the car, leaving the door open for Arrow, and flung herself into her mother's waiting arms.

  Maria held her without speaking. But when Lila raised her head, she said, "You look tired, child. Come inside and let me get you some coffee."

  Lila shook her black curls away from her face. Holding her mother's arms, she said quietly, "I'm not tired. I'm pregnant."

  For an instant, dismay and surprise and excitement warred for predominance on her face. Surprise won. "Lawsy mercy," she breathed finally. "Are you happy about it?"

  "I have never wanted anything as much as I want this baby."

  "And the father?"

  Lila swallowed and looked toward the house. "He's dead." For an instant she could see Samuel's face as he bent to kiss her in the deep fog the morning of his leave-taking, could see his sorrowful black eyes and the long lines around his mouth, the lock of errant hair on his forehead. Her grief was a concrete thing, with a shape and substance as solid as the shoes on her feet. With the effort practiced over the past week, she pushed the picture back, unwilling yet to allow that pain a place in her life. For the sake of the child she carried, the pain would have to wait.

  But it didn't come, not all through Christmas. Lila helped her mother bake hundreds of cookies, then delivered them all over town, greeting neighbors and old friends with an odd detachment. She made an appointment to see a doctor, visited her brothers and their wives, reacquainted herself with nephews and nieces, feeling a particular joy in that task, thinking of the child that was growing within her.

  It was the little things that began to push her from shock into grief. One afternoon in town, she saw a man pull an old-fashioned silver lighter from the pocket of his jeans to light a cigarette. Lila had stopped in her tracks, one hand flying up to the sudden searing pain that stabbed through her chest like a sword.

  Another night there had been a movie on television about soldiers on a desperate mission, and one of the actors had Samuel's accent, even some of his gestures. Lila had endured it as long as possible, then calmly rose, kissed her parents good-night and climbed the stairs, Arrow trailing behind. Behind the safety of her closed door, she sunk to the floor, her arms over her belly, engulfed in waves of sorrow that nearly suffocated her with their intensity.

  That night she dreamed of him. They were dancing on the beach in the mist, and his eyelashes glittered with diamonds around eyes black and soft as a warm night sky. Violins poured from the car, alive and enveloping. Against her thighs his legs brushed hers, solid and real. In her dream, his lips were firm, his hands strong against her back, his precious laughter sweet in her ear.

  When she awakened, a cold sun pressed the eastern horizon, turning orange the curtains of her bedroom in Oklahoma. Fresh from the world of Samuel, the papered walls of her childhood room seemed bleak beyond measurement, and rising quietly, she left the sleeping house to wander through the fields with Arrow, trying to remember to be thankful.

  She crossed a small, primitive bridge over the creek. There, nestled in a low hollow, was a small house. Smoke puffed cheerily from a tin stack on the roof. Arrow lifted his nose eagerly at the rich scent of bacon hanging in the air. Lila rubbed his head fondly. "You'll like this old lady—I can tell you that," she told him. "Granny's always got bacon, and she always shares it with animals."

  Granny met her at the door, a small, wizened woman with a shiny braid that fell to her hips. In spite of her advanced age, there was still a great deal of black amid the silver in her hair, and her eyes in their wreath of wrinkles were as sharp at eighty as they had been at twenty. This was her father's mother, a stubborn and cheerful Cherokee who still managed her life all alone in this little hollow. "Mornin'," she said.

  "Just got breakfast finished. You could use some eatin', especially if that baby gonna be big enough, eh?"

  As Lila sat down to the feast, she thought of the last time she had seen Samuel, thought of the big breakfast she had fixed for him, and she realized all at once that she would never see his eyes again. Not smiling or grave, not tender or sultry. Not in any way at all.

  "I've lost heart," she said quietly.

  Granny's dark eyes met hers over the table, calm and offering something Lila didn't quite understand. "Baby's gonna come anyway. It needs you."

  Lila picked up her fork. "You're right," she said, suddenly ashamed.

  By the time she left with Arrow, she felt immeasurably better. It was not that her grief had disappeared. She knew she would yet struggle awake on grim mornings after spending her dreams with Samuel, and the pain would still be there. But she felt strengthened now, ready to handle the coming months, ready to give something to the baby for whom she had petitioned the heavens.

  And there in the field, she stopped in astonishment, aware for the first time of something else. Her back, since the first night she had spent with Samuel, had given her not a second of discomfort. In the fifteen years since the injury had occurred, she had not forgotten her back for more than two or three days at a time. It had never let her.

  Perplexed, she wondered if being pregnant would be a more-than-ordinary blessing. She laughed, a hand over her belly, and marveled that laughter was possible.

  Finally she had come to understand how her brother Eric had stayed in balance all the time. In spite of the sorrow she carried—and suspected she would always carry—she finally understood. Life, in spite of her grief, stubbornly rustled in trees, gurgled in small streams of water, breathed in the body of her dog, pulsed in her veins.

  Samuel had told her one of the fascinations light held for him was the eternal nature of energy. Energy could not be destroyed; it only changed form.

  For a moment she felt completely melded with anything alive, anything that had ever lived. Somewhere beyond, her brother and Samuel walked together, their eternal energy simply transformed.

  It was very peaceful. When a rumbling sound filled the air, she wasn't quite sure for a moment what had caused it. Then she glanced up to the sky to see on the horizon more than tiny balls of gray cotton clouds. A bank of heavy black covered the western half of the sky, and flashes of lightning zigzagged through them.

  She jumped up, whooping, her arms raised over her head in a cheer. "It's going to rain, Arrow!" She felt almost deliriously excited. "Let's get back!"

  They raced to the ranch and joined her family in the big kitchen. A particularly virulent blast of thunder rocked the house, and the doorbell rang in response. "I wonder if the lightning did that," Maria said with a frown. She hurried out of the kitchen.

  Suddenly, low in her belly, deep within, Lila felt a flutter of movement. She pressed her hand to the spot, going utterly still in her wonder.

  Maria appeared at the door to the kitchen. "Lila," she said.
"There's someone to see you."

  Puzzled, but too focused on the internal discovery to care much, Lila followed her mother into the living room.

  And stopped dead in her tracks.

  For there, filling the doorway behind him, was the man who had been on the television the night she had learned of Samuel's death. His severe, face was far more handsome than the picture had shown, balanced as it was by large, soft eyes, but it was unmistakably Mustapha. "What do you want?" she asked, her internal organs quivering.

  He glanced at Maria, who gave Lila concerned look. "Are you all right?" she asked.

  "I'm fine. We'll be okay." A flash of lightning blazed into the room. "I'll be there in a minute."

  When Maria had left them, Lila looked back to the man at the door. He stepped forward. "I am Mustapha Bashir." His words were accented with British intonations instead of French, but beneath were the same hints of the Middle East that Samuel's voice had carried. It was unexpectedly painful.

  "I know who you are," she said harshly.

  He nodded, reaching into his pocket. "I have something that belongs to you."

  "No." Panic welled in her throat, and she took a step back. "I don't want it!"

  "Things are not always as they seem," he said quietly, and advanced, grabbing her hand before she could move any farther. He dropped his parcel into her palm.

  With a cry Lila recognized her necklace of religious charms, the charms she had placed around Samuel's warm neck in hopes that it would protect him. They were nearly unrecognizable now. The wooden cross was a stub, and the thunderbird had lost all its turquoise chips. The St. Christopher medal was torn in half.

  She covered her mouth, unwilling to embrace the sorrow again, unwilling to feel it, but also unwilling to descend again into the numbness that had so debilitated her. "Why did you kill him?" she whispered.