by Amy Harmon
Anger zinged in colorful zags and streaks behind my eyes. I felt the water start to part, separating, splitting, and the colors from the other side started to seep down the channel. I pressed my hands into my eyes, and maybe I looked as crazed as I felt, because when I pulled my hands away, Georgia had jumped the fence and began to run, her legs eating up the distance swiftly, as if she thought I would kill her too. And instead of making me pause, her flight just made me angrier. She was going to answer me. She was going to tell me. And she was going to do it now. I went after her, over the fence, arms and legs pumping, rage narrowed on her slim back and on her pale hair falling out of her braid, running away from me like I was a monster.
When I pulled her down, I wrapped myself around her and took her weight on mine. We hit hard, her head bouncing off my shoulder, my head bouncing off the ground, but it didn’t slow her down any. She fought me, kicking and scratching like a wild animal, and I rolled on top of her, pinning her arms between us, pressing her legs down with my own.
“Georgia!” I roared, pressing my forehead into hers, controlling every part of her. I could feel her gasping for breath, crying, resisting me with all her strength.
“Stop it! You’re going to talk to me. You’re going to talk to me. Right. Now. What happened to him?” I felt the ice in my hands and flames at my neck, and I was reminded that Eli was there. I knew he was watching us, watching me restraining his mother. And I was ashamed. I didn’t want to see him and I couldn’t let her go. I needed her to tell me. I shifted so I wasn’t crushing her, but I didn’t lift my brow from where I pressed it into hers, controlling her head. When a horse gives you her head, she’s yours. Georgia’s words whispered in my memory. She wasn’t giving me her head. But I was taking it.
“Talk.”
Georgia
“MOM! I’M GOING!” I yelled as I strode through the kitchen and swiped my keys from atop the fridge.
“I wanna come too.” Eli jumped up from the floor where he was carefully building a corral out of Lincoln logs and ran for the door, sending the little logs flying in all directions. I’d already bathed him and put on his favorite Batman pajamas, even attaching the little black cape so he could save Gotham between repairing corrals. I caught him up and swung him around, his little legs locking around my waist, his arms around my neck.
“No, baby. Not this time. You’re gonna stay with grandma and gramps, okay?” Eli’s face crumpled and his eyes filled right on cue.
“I wanna come!” he protested tearfully.
“I know, but I won’t be home until late and it won’t be fun for you, buddy.”
“It will be fun! I like to stay up late!” he squeezed his legs tighter and his arms were like a vise around my neck.
“Eli, stop,” I laughed. “Grandpa said he would watch John Wayne and the cowboys with you. And I’ll bet Grandma will make popcorn too. Okay?” Eli shook his head vehemently, and I could see he wasn’t going to cooperate. I’d left him too often lately.
“MOM! Help!” I projected my voice so that my mom would hear, wherever she was.
“Go on, George! We’ve got him.” My dad’s voice came from the back of the house and I walked with Eli in my arms until I reached my parents’ room. My dad was stretched out on the bed, remote in hand, boots off, his cowboy hat still perched on his head. He greeted us with a smile and patted the bed, coaxing Eli to join him.
“Come on, wild man. Sit by Grandpa. Let’s see if we can find a good cowboy show.”
Eli released my neck and slid from my body reluctantly, falling in a forlorn little heap on the bed. He hung his head to let me know he wasn’t happy, but at least he was accepting. I kissed his head quickly and pulled back immediately so he couldn’t grab me again. His arms could be like sticky tentacles.
“We’re watching cowboy shows, Mommy. No mommies allowed.” Eli pouted, excluding me like I was excluding him. Then he crossed his arms and sniffled, and I met my dad’s gaze with a sigh.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said softly and he winked at me.
“You heard him. No mommies allowed. Get out, girl,” he repeated with a smile.
I flew through the house and out the back door, side-stepping chickens and my mom’s two guinea hens, Dame and Edna, flipping back my hair and yanking open the door to Myrtle in a matter of seconds. When the door closed, I turned the key, and the old truck roared to life, blaring Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” from the speakers. I loved the song and paused for a second, listening. This station always played country oldies. I felt like a country oldie myself sometimes. I was twenty-two years old, but lately I felt like I was forty-five. With a big sigh, I slumped forward and rested my head on the steering wheel, letting the song wash over me, just for a minute. I hated leaving Eli. It was always an ordeal. Right now, I just needed to catch my breath. There was no silence in my life. Ever. No time to breathe.
Tonight I just wanted to be young and beautiful and maybe dance with a couple of cute cowboys and pretend I had only myself to worry about, even pretend I was looking for a man like the other girls were. I wasn’t. Eli was the only man in my life. But tonight, it would be nice to be held for a little while. Maybe the band would even play this song. I would request it.
Gordon finished wishing for a mind-reader and the next song in the line-up was about mommas not letting their babies grow up to be cowboys. I laughed a little. My baby was already a cowboy. Too late.
I sighed once more and raised my head from the wheel. I checked my rearview mirror, flipped down the visor and looked at my reflection, and finally slicked on some gloss and smacked my lips together. Then I put the truck in reverse and began to back out. Time to go. The girls would already be there, and I was running late, as usual.
It felt like hitting a curb. There was a thump and a bounce. Not even a very big bounce. Not even a very big thump. But something. I swore, and checked my rear-view again, wondering what in the world I’d run over.
I stepped out of the truck, and my eyes were instantly drawn to the tire. A black piece of something was wrapped up around it. A trash bag? Had I hit the trash can? I slammed the truck door and took one step. Just a single step. And suddenly I knew what it was. It was Eli’s cape. Eli’s Batman cape was wrapped around the tire.
Eli’s cape. The cape Eli was wearing. But Eli was inside. Eli was sitting with my dad, watching the cowboys. I fell to my knees, scrambling, desperate, knowing I had to look. I couldn’t look. I had to look . . .
Moses
WHEN SHE FINISHED, I rolled off of her and sat up. She didn’t move. She kept her arms crossed over her chest where I’d kept them pinned while she’d talked, her voice a harsh whisper in my ear. Her hair had come completely loose from her braid and was spread around her head in wild disarray. She looked like the painting I liked by Arthur Hughes. The Lady of Shalott – Georgia looked like the Lady of Shalott, hands folded, hair fanned out around her, eyes blank.
But her eyes weren’t blank now. They were closed and tears dripped down the sides of her face. Her chest rose and fell like she’d just run a marathon. I put my hand on my own thundering heart and turned away from her, unable to climb to my feet. Unable to do anything but rest my head on my knees.
And then Eli showed me the rest.
Georgia’s head lay against the wheel of an old pick-up truck and music poured out the windows. I was looking at her from an odd angle, as if I sat on the ground behind the rusted bumper. Georgia’s hair was sleek and long, shiny and clean like she’d just blown it dry and was heading out for someplace special. She opened her eyes and popped down the visor to check the color on her lips. She rubbed them together and shot the visor back into place. My view changed as if the eyes through which I saw altered their position. I was staring at the back of the truck, at the tailgate that was hanging down. It was still so high. The picture bobbled as if I were attempting to climb. The engine roared and the view changed yet again, abruptly, awkwardly. Wheels, undercarriage.
And then
Georgia’s face, peering beneath the truck. The horror on her face transformed it. She looked hideous—gaping mouth and crazed eyes. She looked otherworldly, and she screamed, Eli, Eli, Eli . . .”
I felt her scream reverberate through me as the connection was suddenly severed and the feed in my brain went black. But Eli didn’t leave. He just tipped his head to the side and waited. Then he smiled softly, sadly, like he knew what he’d shown me would hurt me.
And I put my face in my hands and cried.
Georgia
IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST terrible sounds I’d ever heard. Moses crying. His back shook in a parody of awful laughter, his head was cradled in his hands like he couldn’t believe what I’d told him. Strangely enough, when he rolled away from me his expression was blank, frozen, like a granite wall. And then he tipped his head ever so slightly like he was listening to something . . . or thinking about something. And then he’d let out a horrible, wrenching cry, covered his eyes with his hands and lost it. I wasn’t even certain why he cried. I meant nothing to him. Obviously.
He’d always been so remote and detached, able to pull away without the slightest indication that he was bothered by the separation. He didn’t know Eli. He’d never known him. I had tried to tell him. I’d visited that damn facility week after week until they told me in no uncertain terms that I was not wanted. I’d written him a letter that no one would deliver. And then he’d just disappeared for almost seven years.
He’d never known Eli. He was right about that. But that should have made this news easier to bear. And from the way he cried into his hands, heartbroken, it wasn’t easy at all.
I didn’t dare comfort him. He wouldn’t want my touch. I was the same as his mother. I hadn’t taken care of my child, just like she hadn’t taken care of Moses. I loathed myself almost as much as Moses loathed me, and I had felt that loathing coming off of him in waves. But that didn’t stop me from crying with him.
I was always amazed that my tears kept coming. Day after day. There was a limitless supply. My grief was a deep, underground spring constantly bubbling up and spilling over and I cried with Moses, tears flowing, looking up at the true blue October sky above my head. It stretched endlessly and disappeared behind the mountains that ringed my town like silent sentries, keeping none of us safe. Beautiful mountains. Useless mountains. October had always been my favorite month. And then October took Eli. And I hated her. October gave me sunflowers—a peace offering, I suppose. I put them on his grave, and hated her again.
Now the sunflowers lined the grassy field where I lay beside my old lover, not moving, my eyes fixed on the empty blue of another empty day. Moses stayed bent beside me, mourning for a son he had never known. He grieved openly, desperately, and nothing he could have done would have surprised me more. His grief seeped through his hands and spilled into the ground beneath us, and his grief softened my heart. Eventually, he rolled to his back beside me, and though his lips trembled and his breath was harsh, his sobs quieted and no more tears fell.
“Why are you here, Moses?” I whispered. “Why did you come back?”
He rolled his head slightly and found my eyes. The anger was gone. Even the loathing, though I wasn’t sure if it had simply been temporarily washed away. I met his gaze steadily and he must have seen the same thing in my face. No anger. Despair, acceptance, sorrow. But no anger.
“He brought me back, Georgia.”
Georgia
I SPENT THE NIGHT STARING up at the ceiling in my old room, remembering the night Moses had lain on his back and painted until I’d fallen asleep with colors dancing behind my eyes and a white horse running through my dreams.
You’re afraid of the truth, Georgia. And people who are afraid of the truth never find it.
That’s what Moses had said, lying next to me, looking up at a blue sky that wasn’t really blue. Color isn’t real. I had a science teacher tell me that color is simply the way our eyes interpret the energies contained within a beam of light.
So did the blue sky lie by making me believe it was something that it wasn’t? Did Moses lie when he told me Eli had brought him back? Was he trying to make me believe he was something he wasn’t? He was right that I was afraid. But I didn’t think I was afraid of the truth. I was afraid of believing something that would destroy me if it turned out to be a lie.
Sometime before dawn, I’d had that dream again, only this time, instead of the white horse, I saw Eli’s paint, Calico, and when I stared into the horse’s eyes I could see my son, as if he, like the blind man in the story, had been transformed into a horse that ran into the clouds, into a blue sky that wasn’t really blue, never to return.
That morning, sitting at the breakfast table, I told my parents that Moses was back. Dad’s face had paled and mom had reacted like I had just confessed that the reincarnated Ted Bundy was my new boyfriend. Despite my protests, she immediately called Sheriff Dawson who promised her he would stop by Kathleen Wright’s old home and have a little friendly visit with the new homeowner. I doubted Sheriff Dawson would welcome Moses back to the community, even if his visit was temporary, as I had no doubt it was.
“Oh, George,” my dad murmured as my mother chatted nervously with the sheriff. “You’re gonna have to tell him. You’re going to have to tell him about Eli.”
The guilt and shame rose up inside me immediately, and I swallowed them down as I shredded my cold toast into pieces small enough to distribute meager rations to a legion of mice.
“I told him. Yesterday. I told him.” I thought about the stormy confrontation of the day before and decided to leave it at that.
My dad stared at me, shock and disbelief all over his face. He wiped at his mouth and I shredded another piece of toast, and we listened to my mom worry about Moses Wright being back and the stress it was going to put on the entire community.
“How?” My dad protested. “How did he take it? I thought he was long gone. Suddenly he’s back and he’s all up to date?” My dad’s voice rose and my mom looked over at him sharply.
“Martin. Calm down,” she soothed, pulling the phone away from her mouth to spare Sheriff Dawson the sideline drama.
“Mauna. I had a little bit of cancer cut out. I didn’t have my balls cut off, so quit treating me like a quivering invalid!” he shot back, and my mother’s lips tightened.
He looked back at me and sighed. “I knew this day would come. I knew it. I wish you would have let me be with you when you told him. It couldn’t have been an easy conversation.” He swore and then laughed without mirth. “You are the toughest girl I know, George. The toughest girl I know. But that couldn’t have been easy.”
His compassion made me teary and I pushed my plate away, making the tower of bread teeter and topple. I didn’t want to start crying so early in the day. If I started this early I would be laid out before noon, and I didn’t have time for an emotional hangover.
“No. It wasn’t. Not for me. And not for him.”
My dad raised a brow derisively and sat back in his chair so he could meet my gaze. “I wasn’t worried about Moses. You’re the only one I care about in this discussion.”
I nodded and headed for the door. My dad had a right to his anger. I guess we all did. I pushed through the screen door and paused on the porch to appreciate the cool bite in the air. It cleared my head immediately.
“How did he take it, George?” My dad had followed me to the door and was standing in the frame. “When you told him, how did he take it?” I could see that he was still angry, and he wasn’t ready to stop fanning the flames. Anger was taxing, and whether or not I had a right to it, whether or not Dad had a right to it, suddenly I wasn’t so sure it was a right I wanted to continue exercising.
I concentrated on filling my lungs once, twice, and then again before I answered him. “He cried.” I stepped off the porch and headed for the barn. “He cried.”
Moses
“SO YOU’RE JUST GONNA GO,” Tag said, throwing up his hands.
“Pain
ting’s done. Carpet’s coming. I even have a buyer. No reason to stay.” I stacked the unused gallons of paint in my truck and continued back inside, making a mental list of what still needed to be done before I could get the hell out of Dodge.
“You found out you had a son. With a girl you say you weren’t in love with but who you can’t get over. You also found out your son, her son, was killed in a terrible accident.”
I ignored Tag and folded up the last of the drop cloths. Carpet would be here in an hour. Once that was installed, the woman I’d hired to come in and clean the place could start. In fact, I should call her and see if she could start on the kitchen and the bathrooms today, just to hurry the process along.
“You found all of this out yesterday. Today you’re over it. Tomorrow you’re leaving.”
“I would leave today if I could,” I replied firmly. I hadn’t seen Eli in twenty-four hours. Not since he’d shown me how he died.
“Does Georgia know you’re going?”
“She told me to leave her alone. Plus, she doesn’t believe me.”
That shut Tag up and his step faltered. He’d spent the night before coaxing details out of me, but that was one thing I’d failed to mention. I hadn’t told him how we’d lain in the field, both of us emotionally drained, lying on our backs, looking at the sky because we couldn’t look at each other. I hadn’t told Tag what Georgia had said to me when I’d told her Eli had brought me back.
“The only thing that kept me from breaking when Eli died was the truth,” she’d said.
And I stayed silent, not understanding, but waiting for her to make me see.
“People said things like, ‘He’s in a better place and you’ll see him again. He’s in heaven.’ Stuff like that. But that just hurt me. That made me feel like I hadn’t been good for him. Like he was better off without me. And it played on what I always suspected. I wasn’t good for Eli. I was young and stupid and I wasn’t careful enough with him. Obviously, I wasn’t careful enough with him.”
