Flesh and Blood (13 page)

“Is it so hard to believe?” she asked.

“I just didn’t recognize you.”

“I get that a lot,” she said.

I smiled at her.

She smiled back.

There was something about her, and it wasn’t just that she was breathtaking, her dark skin flawless, her kind, intelligent, slightly sad eyes penetrating. It was her presence. There seemed to be something of the divine about her, as if she were a spirit-person, not really meant for this world. What she didn’t seem was mentally ill, which, didn’t mean she wasn’t.

“Weren’t there supposed to be trumpet blasts or something?” I asked.

“Who says there weren’t?”

“Oh, well, it’s just … I didn’t hear any,” I said.

“It’s a very noisy world,” she said.

Wow. She’
s
good
, I thought, deciding to play along for a while longer to see how well she held up.

“That must be it,” I said. “So, I guess what we’d all like to know is … well—why’d you take so long to come back?”

“I come back all the time,” she said. “Haven’t you seen me— hungry, sick, poor, in prison?”

“You’re good,” I said.

“You don’t see me at Potter CI every day?” she asked.

I started to say something, but stopped. Charles must have mentioned I was a prison chaplain at PCI.

“I try to,” I said, “but it’s not easy.”

She didn’t say anything, but her face revealed she knew what I meant.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“Who are my mother and father?”

“Don’t you think they’re out there somewhere looking for you?”

“My mother and father and brothers and sisters aren’t out there looking for me, but here with me looking for God.”

She obviously knows Scripture
, I thought,
but so do a lot of kids
. She could have been raised in an extremely religious home where Bible verse memorization was part of the compulsive behavior.
But she doesn’t seem obsessive. She doesn’t seem unbalanced or deranged
.

“So whatta you here for?” I asked.

“Same as before,” she said. “The Mother has sent me to reveal her love.”

“The
Mother
?” I asked.

“Or Father. Lover. Friend. Other. I just happen to know you’re very comfortable with the mother metaphor.”

How could she know that? Not even Charles would know that, would he? Had Sister Abigail said something to him? She must have. That had to be it. There was no other explanation … ex-cept—there was no other explanation. Still, it was disconcerting.

She’s remarkable, I thought. Her clarity and wisdom are amazing. Her IQ must be astronomical.

“What does the
Mother
want from us?”

“To love her back. To love each other.”

“That’s it?” I asked, hearing in her simple words the distinct echo of “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you strength and your neighbor as yourself.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

I had to remind myself I was talking to a ten year-old. There was something ageless about her, and it wasn’t just her wit and wisdom, but her presence and bearing.

We fell silent a moment. I searched for a way I might trip her up, break down her defenses, penetrate her delusion. And yet it didn’t seem like delusion at all—of course I knew it was, but she seemed so sane, so centered, so full of … of what? Life? Soul? God? How else could I explain the presence in the room? I recognized in her the same spirit that had been in other saints and spirit people I had known.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” she asked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “A little confused, maybe.”

“The first time I was here, my family thought I was mad,” she said. “They were going to lock me up at one point, but I got away. Several people said I was possessed. Not much has changed since then.”

“Could you do a miracle for me?” I asked. “Just a little one.”

“It’s a wicked and adulterous generation that looks for a sign.”

I smiled. She had an answer for everything. She may not be the only begotten daughter of the
Mother
, but it was obvious she was very special.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “but blessed are those who haven’t seen and still believe.”

“That’s very convenient for you,” I said.

“Perhaps,” she said, “but that doesn’t make it any less true, does it, John?”

She was so quick. I was having a hard time keeping up. And she didn’t seem to be calculating or straining to come up with something clever to say, but just conversing naturally, nearly effortlessly.

“How do you know my name?”

“I heard Charles say it,” she said, “but I know a lot of things about you. Things no one else knows.”

My eyebrows shot up as I cocked my head. “Like what?”

“I know you’re depressed,” she said.

I didn’t say anything. For a moment, I couldn’t. I hadn’t told anyone how I’d been feeling. Not even Merrill. Whatever her condition, she had uncanny abilities. Perhaps I was in the presence of a genuine child psychic. That would explain—

“You’re lonely,” she said. “You wonder if you’re making a difference, or if you’re just wasting your time working in a prison, and, of course, you wonder if you and Anna will ever be together.”

Mouth dry, pulse pounding, I was speechless. She was reading my mind. I felt awkward, vulnerable, naked. I knew there had to be an explanation for how she was able to do what she was doing— whatever it was—but none seemed adequate at the moment.

“I know you’re afraid you’re going to wind up like your mom,” she said. “Drink yourself to death. Die alone with nothing.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as goose bumps popped out on my arms. “Do you believe me now?” she asked.

I hesitated a moment, searching for something to say. “I believe
you
believe it.”

“Could you be just a little more patronizing?” she asked. “You almost set a record. A little more and you’ll have it.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I think you’re a remarkable young woman.”

“Just not God incarnate?”

“Of course not.”

“Is it so unbelievable?”

“Well … yeah, it is,” I said slowly. “I mean, think about it— about what you’re asking me to … If there
is
a God, which is a big if in itself, and he—or
she
—wanted to become human for some reason, why a little girl? I mean, who’s gonna listen to you?”

“Someone might.”

“
Might
?” I asked. “Someone
might
?”

“Sometimes that’s all there is,” she said.

“What all did you tell her about me?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Charles said.

“You must have said something,” I said. “And she must have overheard you talking about me, too.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” he said, a huge smile on his face. “She knew things, didn’t she?”

He had been waiting—anxiously, from the look of it—and approached me the moment I stepped outside the education/recreation building.

Merrill wasn’t with him.

“I want to know exactly what you said to her or what she might have overheard,” I said.

“John,” he said, “I swear. I didn’t tell her anything but your name. And she couldn’t have overheard anything because I called you from home this morning and haven’t talked to anyone else here about you or her or any of this.”

I shook my head slowly, thinking about what I had just experienced.

“Whatta you think?” he asked.

“There’s something about her,” I said.

Glancing over toward the converted hotel, I saw Merrill standing on the second story balcony talking to a group of people. Even among so many black faces, he stood out, and it wasn’t just his physique. Like the little girl I had just spoken with, there was something about Merrill—a power, a presence, a gift.

“Told you. So will you help me?”

“How exactly?” I asked. “I don’t know anything I can do.”

“I want to find out what’s going on,” he said. “No matter what it is. If she’s some sort of incarnation of God—I mean, that is possible, isn’t it?—or if she has some special ability to know things about people, or if she’s mentally ill.”

“I just don’t think I can help with any of that.”

“We’ve got to move fast,” he said. “When Children and Families, come they’ll take her away, and there won’t be anything we can do. They’ll be here any minute now.”

“Is there any way you can stop them from coming?” I asked.

“If we found her parents,” he said, “but that’s not very likely. Maybe there’s something legal we could do. I’m just not sure.”

I nodded as I thought about it, still a little dazed.

“Please, John,” he said. “We don’t have long. Just see what you can do in the little time we have.”

“What the hell’s goin’ on?” Merrill asked.

I was standing near the front of the retreat center, not far from the highway, cell phone out, wishing I could see the Gulf instead of the enormous concrete hotels and tacky t-shirt shops.

“I’m calling in reinforcements.”

He studied me for a long moment.

We could hear the waves rolling in and pounding what little shore there was after this year’s hurricane season, but we couldn’t see them.

“You sayin’ you think she’s—”

“I’m sayin’ I don’t know what to think,” I said. “She’s a mystery. I’d like to help her if I can.”

He nodded. “I found a kid you need to talk to about her when you get a chance.”

I looked up at him from my phone. He jerked his head back toward the retreat rooms and the people crowding the balconies. I saw one little white face looking back at us.

“Thanks,” I said. “I will.”

“You callin’ Anna?” he asked.

“How’d you know?”

“Knew it was just a matter of time,” he said. “Anyone else?”

“DeLisa Lopez,” I said.

“Two extremely beautiful women,” he said.

“Who can help,” I said. “One with legal questions, the other with a psychological evaluation.”

“Sure,” he said. “And look damn good while they doin’ it.”

“That never hurts,” I said.

“No, it don’t,” he said. “No, it sure as hell don’t.”

Merrill’s bulk made the notebook computer in his lap look like a child’s toy, and his large fingers were too big for the keyboard. We were in the retreat center’s front office, I on a desktop, Merrill on a laptop, each of us searching missing children and Katrina sites in an attempt to locate the little girl’s parents.

We weren’t having any luck.

I hadn’t figured we would, but it was something to do while we awaited the arrival of DeLisa Lopez. I hadn’t been able to get through to Anna, but Lisa was on her way.

The small office was in a room behind the reception area and the paneling-covered check-in counter.

A small TV atop a filing cabinet was tuned to CNN’s coverage of the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast, in particular the submerged New Orleans. Conditions at the Superdome had deteriorated, lawlessness was escalating, and evacuation efforts were being frustrated. Amidst the flooding and fires, there was looting, shooting, and anarchy. The disconnect between what was actually happening and what the politicians were saying during their press conferences went beyond irony into tragedy.

“You know this shit is like this all the time,” Merrill said, nodding toward the TV. “We just don’t usually have reality juxtaposed with it.”

I nodded. He was too angry, and rightly so, for me to kid him about using “juxtaposed.”

“We’re on our own,” he said.

I knew who the “we” was, and it didn’t include me. He was talking about the people, who after all this time, were still strangers in a strange land—a land that forced them to come in chains and now treated them like refugees.

When my phone rang, I knew it was Anna.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Bed,” she said. “I’m sick. Sorry I missed your call.”

She sounded weak and nasally.

“I’m sorry you’re sick,” I said.

“It’s not bad,” she said. “I just didn’t feel up to facing the day. I’m a little blue.”

I smiled. Even our depressions were in sync.

The office was painted pastel pink with green trim, its matching carpet worn and gritty from all the sand that had been tracked in from outside. Even with the air conditioner running, it was humid, and just beneath the industrial orange scent was the faint hint of mildew.