The Law of Moses (20 page)

I shrugged. “Fireworks?”

“It was Fourth of July weekend,” Tag whispered.

I shrugged again. “I don’t know, Tag. I don’t know anything other than what she showed me.”

“Why doesn’t she just tell you where she is?”

“Because it doesn’t work that way. Why?” Tag was getting frustrated again.

“That’s like asking me why I can’t live in the ocean. Or why I can’t bench a thousand pounds or . . . why I can’t fly, for hell’s sake! I just can’t. And no amount of focus or study or attention to detail is going to make those things possible. It is what it is!”

I picked up my sketch pad and realized I’d ripped every last page out, including the pictures that had nothing to do with Molly Taggert. Those pages were also tossed around the room. And there were no blank pages left. I started gathering them, despondent that I was going to be repainting walls again. Tag followed behind me, still clinging to the pages he’d picked up.

“She’s got to be there,” he said softly, and I stopped gathering and looked back at him. His eyes were bright and his shoulders were set.

“Maybe she is.” I shrugged helplessly. I didn’t want anything to do with any of it. “But can you imagine if they find her? Especially if I pointed them in that direction? They will throw my ass in jail. Do you understand that? They will think I did it.” I didn’t say killed her. It felt too cold to say it to his face, though we both knew what we were talking about.

Suddenly the door to my room swung open and Chaz barreled in, alarm marring his friendly face and robbing him of his ever-present white smile. Relief quickly replaced the alarm as he realized no blood had been spilled, and neither of us were incapacitated on the floor.

“Mr. Taggert. You are not supposed to be in here!” he huffed. Then he saw my grease painting and swore. “Not again, man! You were doin’ so well.”

I shrugged. “I ran out of paper.”

Chaz ushered Tag out, and he didn’t resist, but at the door he paused.

“Thank you, Moses.”

Chaz looked surprised at the exchange, but tugged on Tag, all the same.

“I’ll take the blame for the drawing on the wall. I’m sure everyone will believe me.” Tag winked, and Chaz and I both laughed.

Moses

TAG WASN’T THE ONLY ONE who made a habit of sneaking into my room for private sessions. Word started to get around about what I could do. What I could see. What I could paint.

Carol, a psychiatrist in her fifties who never seemed fazed by anything and was married to her work, had lost a brother to suicide when she was twelve. It was what had led her to work with the mentally ill. That same brother started showing me roller skates and a scruffy stuffed rabbit with a missing ear. So I told her what I saw. She hadn’t believed me at first, so I told her that her brother loved potato salad, the color purple, Johnny Carson, and could only play one song on his ukulele, which he played and sang to her each night before she went to sleep. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” That was the song. She had taken me off the antipsychotics the next day.

Buffie Lucas was a no-nonsense psych tech who should have been on Broadway. She sang as she worked and could do Aretha Franklin better than Aretha Franklin could do Aretha Franklin. She’d lost her parents within three months of each other. When I asked her if her mom had given her a quilt made out of all her concert T-shirts before she died, she had stopped mid-song. Then she smacked me and made me promise not to hold anything back.

People came, and they brought gifts. Paper and grease pencils, water colors and chalk, and about two months into my stay, Dr. June brought me a letter from Georgia. I’d done something that pleased Dr. June, and I suppose she was trying to reward me. I hadn’t meant to please her. I didn’t especially like Dr. June. But she’d seen a picture I’d drawn of Gigi. I’d meant to hide it and then hadn’t been able to bring myself to put it away. It was a chalk drawing. Simple and beautiful, just like Gi always was. In the picture she was folded around a child, though I told myself the child wasn’t me. June had stared at it, and then raised her eyes to mine.

“This is beautiful. Touching. Tell me about it.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you what I see,” Dr. June said.

I shrugged.

“I see a child and a woman who love each other very much.”

I shrugged again.

“Is this you?”

“Does it look like me?”

She looked down at the drawing and then back at me. “It looks like a child. You were a child once.”

I didn’t respond and she continued.

“Is this your grandmother?” she asked.

“I suppose it could be,” I conceded.

“Did you love her?”

“I don’t love anyone.”

“Do you miss her?”

I sighed and asked a question of my own. “Do you miss your sister?”

“Yes I do.” She nodded as she spoke. “And I think you miss your grandmother.”

I nodded. “Okay. I miss my grandmother.”

“That’s healthy, Moses.”

“Okay.” Awesome. I was healed. Hallelujah.

“Is she the only one you miss?”

I stayed silent, unsure of where she was leading me.

“She keeps coming back, you know.”

I waited.

“Georgia. Every week. She comes. And you don’t want to see her?”

“No.” I suddenly felt dizzy.

“Can you tell me why?”

“Georgia thinks she loves me.” I winced at the admission, and Dr. June’s eyes widened slightly. I’d just given her a meaty, dripping spoonful of psyche stew, and she was salivating over it.

“And you don’t love her?” she said, trying not to drool.

“I don’t love anyone,” I responded immediately. Hadn’t I already said that? I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. It both pleased and bothered me that Georgia had been so persistent. And it bothered me that I was pleased. It bothered me that my pulse had quickened and that my palms were damp. It bothered me that at the mention of her name, I had immediately felt that rush of color behind my eyes, reminiscent of the kaleidoscope Georgia’s kisses had always created in my head.

“I see. Why?” Dr. June asked.

“I just don’t. I’m broken, I guess.” Cracked.

She nodded, almost agreeing with me.

“Do you think you might love someone someday?”

“I don’t plan on it.”

She nodded again and persisted for a while, but finally her time was up, and she’d really only gotten that one spoonful, which made me happy.

“That’s enough for today,” she said, standing briskly, folder in hand.

She slid an envelope from the back of the file and set it carefully on the table in front of me.

“She wanted me to give this to you. Georgia did. I told her I wouldn’t. I told her if you had wanted to contact her, you would have. I think that hurt her. But it’s the truth, isn’t it?” I felt a flash of anger that June had been rude to Georgia, and was bothered once again that I was bothered.

“But I decided to give it to you and let you choose whether or not you wanted to read it.” She shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

I stared at the letter for a long time after Dr. June ended our session. I was sure that was what she had expected. She thought I would give in and read it, I was sure of that too. But she didn’t understand my laws.

I tossed the letter in the trash and gathered up the drawings Dr. June had been flipping through. The one of Gi was there on top, and the intertwined figures made me pause. I pulled Georgia’s letter back out of the trash, painstakingly unsealed it, and drew the single handwritten page from inside without letting myself focus on the curving letters and the swooping G at the bottom that began her name. Then I carefully folded the picture of Gi, the way Gi enfolded the child in the drawing. The child that wasn’t me, not anymore at least. The child could be Georgia now, and Gi could look after her. Then I took the drawing and tucked it inside the envelope. I wrote Georgia’s address on the outside and when Chaz brought me my dinner that night I asked him if he would make sure it got sent.

I slipped Georgia’s letter beneath my mattress where I wouldn’t have to see it, where I wouldn’t have to feel it, where I wouldn’t have to acknowledge it.

Georgia

HIS NAME WASN’T in the top left-hand corner but the envelope said Montlake and it was his handwriting that slashed across the envelope. Georgia Shepherd, PO Box 5, Levan Utah, 84639. Moses and I had had a discussion about Levan and her post office boxes, and apparently Moses hadn’t forgotten it. The only mail boxes anyone had at their homes in Levan were for the Daily Herald, a newspaper most of Levan subscribed to, if only for the Sunday comics and the coupon inserts. The Daily Herald was delivered by paper boys or families and it was delivered door to door. But the actual mail was delivered to the little brick post office on the main drag and distributed to the keyed, ornate boxes inside. My family had one of the lower numbers because we’d inherited our box as it was passed down through the Shepherd line.

“So your family is Levan royalty, then?” Moses had teased.

“Yes. We Shepherds rule this town,” I replied.

“Who has PO Box number 1?” he inquired immediately.

“God,” I said, not missing a beat.

“And box number 2?” He was laughing as he asked.

“Pam Jackman.”

“From down the street?”

“Yes. She’s like one of the Kennedys.”

“She drives the bus, right?” he asked.

“Yes. Bus driver is a highly lauded position in our community.” I didn’t even crack a smile.

“So boxes 3 and 4?”

“They are empty now. They are waiting for the heirs to come of age before they inherit their mailboxes. My son will someday inherit PO Box #5. It will be a proud day for all Shepherds.”

“Your son? What if you have a daughter?” His eyes got that flinty look that made my stomach feel swishy. Talking about having children made me think about making babies. With Moses.

“She’s going to be the first female bull-rider who wins the national title. She won’t be living in Levan most of the time. Her brothers will have to look after the family name and the Shepherd line . . . and our post office box,” I said, trying not to think about how much I would enjoy making little bull-riders with Moses.

When Mom delivered my letter, her eyes got tight and I could tell she wished she could just toss it and keep Moses away for good. But she didn’t. She brought it to my room, set it softly on my dresser, and left without comment. The best part of opening any highly-anticipated letter or package is the moment before you know what it is. Or what it says. And I had been waiting for something from Moses for months, praying for something. I knew as soon as I opened it I would either be filled with hope or crushed beyond repair. And I was too worn out for either at the moment.

I ended up going for a long ride, taking the letter along, tucking it inside my coat so it wouldn’t get wrinkled. It was February and we’d finally gotten a snow storm after a very cold, dry, couple of months. Rumor was that they’d found Molly Taggert’s remains near the overpass where Moses had painted her picture. People were talking again and people were staring at me too, all the while trying to pretend they weren’t staring. The lack of snow had made it possible for the dogs to work, to find her, but I was glad the dry spell was finally broken.