A Certain Slant of Light

by Laura Whitcomb

  I went back to the Prayer Corner and knelt, closing my eyes and pressing my hands together with a passion. “Please, God,” I prayed. “Keep James safe and let us be together.”

  I wanted to imagine James in every detail, remember every second from the theater loft. I wanted to go back over everything he had ever said to me, one sentence at a time, but my mind would not help me. I kept seeing strange images appear and disappear like clouds passing over a field and revealing one place and then another in the wandering light. I saw a patchwork quilt as I shook it on a bare wooden porch. A line blowing with shirts and trousers as if they were coming alive. A one-legged sparrow flitting from the water pump as I approached. I opened my eyes, sure that this would stop the images, but now I could hear things that were not in Jenny’s house. The soft bump of my rocking chair as it rolled on and off the edge of the hearth rug. The high whine of sap in a log on the fire. Crickets through the open bedroom window. The creak of a man’s step on the wooden staircase.

  These things unnerved me, but it was the smells that truly frightened me. As I looked around this dim and lifeless room in Dan and Cathy’s house, I could smell the familiar mix of wet hay and warm milk, the lavender sachet pillow tucked into the linen cupboard, and the painfully sweet breath of an infant, like vanilla cream. I would not close my eyes but prayed over the sound of a rising wind with my eyes wide open. I didn’t even want to blink. I prayed for help—I couldn’t think past this simple need. I didn’t remember collapsing, but I was on the floor, lying on my side when I heard the door. It might’ve been an hour or several. I was dizzy and my legs were numb when he came in. I sat up and looked at him, not knowing whether to expect sympathy or anger. His expression was unreadable.

  “Go to bed now,” said Dan. “The motion sensors are on out back,” he added, as if to save me the embarrassment of being caught halfway across the yard.

  No one came in to kiss me goodnight. I waited until the house was dark before I sneaked out into the hall. I tiptoed to the kitchen, wanting some distance between myself and the master bedroom.

  Benny, Mitch’s friend, answered the phone. It sounded as if there were several people over, laughing and talking, music in the background. When Benny called for Billy and he answered, I said only one word.

  “James?”

  “Who?” The voice was unfamiliar and sounded confused. There was a heartbeat pause and then Billy Blake told me, “Sorry. There’s no James here.” The line went dead.

  Sixteen

  “YOU’LL HAVE TO GO BACK,” said Cathy. She thought I was trembling because I was cold. “Get your black sweater.”

  I didn’t even remember putting on clothes that morning, but I was wearing a sleeveless dress. I got out and left Cathy in the driveway, the car idling. When I came into the house, I suppose that Dan didn’t hear me. He spoke on the phone without his usual hush.

  “What kind of emergency?” he was saying. He was in the study with the door open, looking through his desk drawer, with the receiver tucked into his neck. “How long?” He listened, lifting a key and inspecting it. “I’ll meet you there.” He dropped the key into his pocket. This was the first I’d seen of him that morning. There had been no Prayer Corner.

  “I will as soon as she gets back,” he said. Then he gave a little laugh. “She’s a big girl.” I thought he was talking about me until he added, “And Jenny, too. They’ll be fine.” I was standing in the hall staring in at him. “I have it under control,” he sighed. “I know what I’m doing.” He swung toward me with an ease that let me know he thought he was alone. “There’s no reason to feel—”

  Dan stopped and blinked at me. “Hey, Puppy,” he said. “Forget something?”

  I knew I had disconcerted him—he forgot to be cross with me. I remembered with revulsion the oppressive weight of his hands on me while he asked God to make me obedient.

  “Don’t ever touch me again,” I heard myself say.

  “What?”

  I turned my back on him and walked into my room without a word.

  “What took you so long?” Cathy asked as I slammed the door.

  I buckled my seat belt and thought of saying, “I couldn’t get the bedroom window open,” but I didn’t.

  When we arrived in the church office, the secretary offered me a mint from her heart-shaped jar as if I were five years old.

  “Pastor Bob had an emergency,” she said. “But one of the lay counselors is taking his sessions this morning, if that’s all right. Judy Morgan.”

  “Of course,” said Cathy. “Judy’s wonderful.”

  The room hung stiff with the smell of dead lilies and candle wax.

  “You can come back for her in an hour,” said the secretary.

  “No.” Cathy sat down on the couch against the wall with her purse in her lap. “I’ll wait.”

  Before I even had the chance to take a seat beside her, an elderly woman came down the hall toward us. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and looked embarrassed to have Cathy and me witness her tears.

  “Go right in,” the secretary said to me.

  Apparently I was going in for counseling alone, for Cathy didn’t move. I walked down the corridor and pushed open the door marked PASTOR. Just as I stepped in, the scent hit me. The woman behind the desk spoke to a red button on the phone. “Did you say Jenny Thompson?” She looked up at me as if I had caught her taking money from the collection plate. She pressed the red light and it went off.

  “Hi, Jenny.” She smiled, but her face was white. I took the chair across from the desk, breathing in the scent of gardenias. By the time my back hit the chair, she had regained her composure. She eyed me with cool wisdom.

  “Pastor Bob had to go on a hospital call,” she explained, smoothing down her short black hair.

  What did the secretary say her name was? Jenny would’ve known. And Cathy must know her very well. She was the ballerina woman from the night before.

  “Are you feeling better?” she asked. “Last night you seemed upset.”

  “Better.”

  “What’s troubling you?”

  I thought of several other answers, but said, “My parents think a teacher at my school took advantage of me, but it’s not true.”

  “Why do they think that?”

  Last night she’d been wearing a blue sweater with daisies on it and her favorite perfume. I tried to remember the look on her face when she’d heard the word adultery. And I wondered how much Dan had told her about the Mr. Brown affair.

  “That’s not important,” I told her. “But he’s not my lover.”

  “He’s not,” she repeated. “Is there someone else?”

  The words were poison coming from her lips, and her perfume was making my eyes sting. “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Who?” Her sweater today was black with pink roses on it. I wondered whether she had a different flower for each day of the week.

  “A boy from school.”

  “Jennifer, did you let this boy touch you?” The judgment in her expression made my cheeks burn. She folded her ballerina arms.

  “Well,” I said. “You know how it is. You fall in love and you want to do more than just hold his hand.”

  “But you knew it wasn’t right,” she reminded me.

  “I’m sure you must’ve felt the same way,” I said. “You know it’s a sin, but you just want to be with him, as much as you can, no matter what. You’d do anything to have just one more minute with him. You can almost feel his body in your arms when you lie in bed alone.”

  Miss Ballerina had gone white again. She fumbled for a pad and pen.

  “Haven’t you ever felt like that?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer but frowned as if taking notes. The pen tapped spastically on the pad.

  “Tell me about how you fought off that kind of temptation in your life,” I said. “I need to learn.”

  She put down her pen.

  “Of course, it’s not like he had a girlfriend and we were sneaking aroun
d,” I said. “That would be different.”

  “I think perhaps Pastor should meet with you,” she said.

  I stood up.

  Now she looked at me. “Mrs. Leighton can make the appointment.”

  “Whatever you say,” I shrugged. “No need to come out. I’ll tell my mother.”

  She looked relieved. I stepped out the door and instead of going to the right, back toward the secretary’s desk, I turned left and pushed open a door to the back parking lot.

  I didn’t know how much time I had before they’d send the police after me. I took the back streets because I didn’t have bus fare, and I didn’t want Cathy or Dan to hunt me down too quickly. When I’d found my way onto Amelia, I started remembering what I’d heard on the phone the night before. Ever since then, I’d tried to convince myself that James was still here—that he’d hung up on me only because there were others too near—he was trying to protect me. But now the truth was growing heavy in my limbs, like liquid metal filling my legs. I recalled the wretched emptiness of being left on earth as each of my hosts had died—wondering why God wouldn’t let me follow. Now I dragged my feet along until I saw them, Billy and Mitch, standing in the driveway As soon as Billy’s eyes met mine, I knew.

  “Gimme a wrench,” said Mitch as he crouched down beside the rusty frame. Billy saw me standing two doors down on the sidewalk, staring, and he stared back.

  “Wake up,” said Mitch as he slid under the car on his back. Billy pulled a tool from the apple crate at his feet and put it in the hand that reached out from between the tires.

  I looked at the face of a stranger, a beautiful boy, but no one I knew. He frowned at me and flicked the hair out of his eyes with a jerk of his head, not with his hand the way James would’ve.

  “Hey,” he called. I was startled. I moved closer, just to make sure.

  Billy wiped his hands on his smudged Skull T-shirt and came to meet me halfway.

  “Do you remember me?” I asked, trying to keep a quaver out of my voice.

  “Sure,” he said. “You go to my school.”

  “You don’t remember anything else?”

  He squinted in the sun and shrugged. “Your name’s Jenny something.” Then fear gripped him. “Is this about the trial?”

  “No.”

  He relaxed, but still it was so lonely being with him, my heart was twisting.

  “Did you want something?” he asked.

  “I needed to see whether you were okay,” I told him.

  He looked perplexed. I took a step backward, away from him.

  “We used to be close,” I said.

  “We did?” He shook his head. “I got pretty messed up,” he said. “I don’t remember everything.” He wasn’t ringing hollow. He was Billy on the inside.

  “It’s all right.” I turned to go.

  “Sorry for whatever I did,” he called.

  I ran even though I could hardly see.

  The cool wind made my eyes water down my face, but I felt dry, too empty to make real tears. Mitch probably should have been at work and Billy at school, but Mitch must have kept him home as if it were a holiday, and whether they knew it or not, it was a homecoming. But it was a celebration I could not share with them.

  Something had happened at the prison that had sent Billy flying back into his flesh. I tried to imagine what magic words had called him home. When Mitch looked into their father’s eyes, did all his rage finally explode, sending an alarm bell tolling into the void where Billy wandered? Had the boy rushed back into his body in time to catch his brother when the anger cracked into sorrow, the desire to hold him and to be held too great to resist?

  If passion was the magic formula, why hadn’t Jenny heard me raging at Cathy the night before and come flying back? Hadn’t she heard her mother weeping?

  All my mistakes were looming hard in front of me like iron bars. I shouldn’t have written to or called Mr. Brown. I should never have taken his picture or gone to see him in his office. I should have made James take me back to the theater loft instead of to his bed where Mitch could catch us. I should’ve walked past Jenny’s body. I should’ve stayed with Mr. Brown and let James fall in love with a human girl. I was so weary. I started to dream, though my eyes were open and I must’ve been walking over pavement and through streets. I dreamed I saw James, not with Billy’s face, but with the face of the soldier he’d been. He seemed to be climbing down a huge tree toward me, smiling at me, though rain dripped from his hair.

  “You’re in uniform,” I said to him, as if he had asked me what he was wearing. Next moment, I was standing in Jenny’s driveway alone. The garage was open, but only the maroon car was parked there. I could hear a strange sound from the house as if a wolf were tearing up the furniture inside. I was too tired to feel afraid. I walked in to face whatever was waiting.

  I found Cathy taking framed pictures off the front room walls and opening them frantically, throwing down the frame and glass with angry growls and tearing the photographs, or twisting them if they were too tough to rip up. She didn’t seem to see me. She had tears and makeup running rivers down her cheeks. She looked at the mess but stepped right on a pane of glass with her small shoes, breaking it and grinding it into the carpet as she hurried down the hall. I followed, feeling ill. I wanted to speak to her, but I felt so exhausted I just watched. She stormed into the den and pulled the Monopoly game off the shelf, bringing Scrabble down with it, plastic houses and wooden letters mixing around her feet as she crouched down and fumbled through the chaos.

  She got something small in her hand and shot up, throwing it with all her might as a yell ripped out of her. The object hit the window with a crack and bounced to the floor not far from me. It was a tiny metal top hat.

  Now she saw me. She gulped back a sob and stared at me, stunned. She wiped her face with both hands and smoothed her clothes.

  “Where did you go?” she asked in nothing more than a whisper.

  “I had to see my friend who was in trouble,” I told her. “He’s all right now.”

  “Well, that’s good.” Then she held her stomach as if she might be sick.

  “What happened?” I asked her.

  “We’ll talk about it later. Go to your room, please.” She wanted to sound stern, but then she looked at the mess she had made and started to shake.

  I took a step toward her, but she put out a hand to stop me. “I’ll clean it up after—”

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  Again she seemed to forget me. I followed as she marched into the study and started pulling books off the shelves, dumping them in a pile on the floor. She was jerking open desk drawers and rifling through them, throwing pens and, I suppose, other things of his onto the pile of books on the rug. She took one of the time management books and opened it in the middle, putting her weight into it but not able to tear it in two.

  I had been feeling weak and numb, but now, watching Cathy’s pain, I felt a surge of power the way I had when I’d shocked the church ladies. It felt as if the joy of loving James followed by the pain of losing him had galvanized something in me. “What did Dad do?” I asked.

  “Didn’t I tell you to go to your room?” She struggled with the book, twisting it at the spine. “Why do you have to fight me? Why can’t you help me?”

  I stepped closer, standing eye to eye with her, and took the book from her hands. Taking a firm grip, I wrenched it savagely down the middle and tore it in two, putting the pieces back into her limp hands.

  She was so surprised, she just stared at me and let the pieces fall at her feet. Now I moved back out of the way and waited to see what else she wanted to destroy. In her eyes I saw a flicker of realization—we were allies now—I would never side with Dan against her.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, then walked past me into the hall.

  I followed her back to the den. She stopped in the middle of the room, staring at the Prayer Corner where the Bible and diary sat each on its chair. I stood beside her
and she looked at me for a peculiar moment. Then we rushed as one at the trio of chairs. Cathy managed to tear the leg off one and the cushion off another, the stuffing flying in every direction. I ripped the pages of the diary into little paper petals and tossed them over our heads. Cathy was still shaking, but now she was laughing. She flew at the cupboard on the wall and came back with a crystal decanter. I shrieked and jumped out of the way as she tossed what might have been brandy over the toppled chairs and shredded paper. I started laughing as well but picked up the Bible that lay half buried in cotton batting, saving it from the dousing.

  Next Cathy grabbed the box of matches from beside the fireplace and struck a light, tossing it at the chairs. The flames undulated faster and higher than either of us expected. After a few seconds of delight, Cathy ran for the extinguisher from behind the door and spat white foam over the fire. I was still stamping out bits of handwritten Scripture that had levitated into the room and threatened to melt the carpet when Cathy dropped the red canister at her feet and swayed. She wasn’t laughing anymore.

  The deafening buzz of the smoke detector made us both cry out. We jumped at the plastic shell, where it clung to the ceiling just inside the door, but missed it by inches. I ducked as Cathy smashed it to bits by throwing the empty decanter at its blinking eye. It hung in two mute pieces. The smoke smelled like caramel.

  Cathy clutched at her mouth and ran for the master bedroom. I followed. She lunged for the toilet and vomited, then collapsed on the bathroom floor, crying with her face on her knees. I had never been in the master bedroom. The bathroom carpet was as soft as a bed. I crept up to her, almost afraid she’d bolt away like an animal. Sitting down beside her, I put my hand on her head. She rattled and her voice was a hoarse, tortured wail. I stroked her hair and remembered wanting to touch my hosts when they wept, but when I was Light, I had never been able to feel their hair or wipe their eyes. Her hair was as soft as a baby girl’s.