The Law of Moses (22 page)

“No. They never say anything at all. They just show me things.”

Tag shivered and rubbed the back of his neck, like he was trying to rub away the goose flesh that had crept up his back.

“So how do you know what they want?” he asked.

“They all want the same thing.” And strangely, they did.

“What? What do they want?”

“They want to speak. They want to be heard.” I hadn’t ever put it into words, but the answer felt right.

“So they don’t speak but they want to speak?”

I nodded once, affirming that Tag was correct.

“Why do they want to speak?”“Because that’s what they used to do . . .” I hesitated.

“That’s what they used to do, when they were alive?” Tag finished for me. “Yeah.”

“So how do they communicate?”“Thoughts don’t require flesh and bone.”

“You hear their thoughts?” he asked, incredulous.

“No. I see their memories in my thoughts.” I supposed that was even more bizarre, but it was the truth.

“You see their memories? All of them? Do you see everything? Their whole lives?”

“Sometimes it feels like that. It can be a flood of color and thought, and I can only pick up random things because it’s coming at me so fast. And I can only really see what I understand. I’m sure they would like me to see more. But it isn’t that easy. It’s subjective. I usually see pieces and parts. Never the whole picture. But I’ve gotten better at filtering, and as I’ve gotten better, it feels more like remembering and less like being possessed.” I smiled in spite of myself, and Tag shook his head in wonder.

“Are there any dead people here now?” Tag swiveled around looking right and left as if maybe, if he turned fast enough, he could catch a ghost unaware.

“Definitely,” I lied. There was no one nearby, nothing to mar the quiet or the space except the branch outside my window that tapped and scratched against the glass and the squeak of rubber-soled shoes against the linoleum as someone hurried past my door.

Tag’s brows shot up, and he waited for me to tell him more.

“Marilyn Monroe thinks you’re hot. She’s blowing in your ear right now.”

Tag’s finger immediately filled his ear canal as if a bug had flown in and was buzzing incessantly, trying to get out.

I laughed, surprising myself, surprising Tag. He was usually the one to tease, not me.

“You’re shittin’ me, right?” Tag laughed. “You are! Damn. I wouldn’t mind it if Marilyn really did want to hang around.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t really work that way. I only see people who have a connection to someone I’m in contact with, or someone I’ve been in contact with. I don’t see random dead people.”

“So when you told Chaz that his grandfather had left something for him, did his grandfather show you the will?”

“He showed me a picture of his reflection, walking into the bank . . . the way he saw it as he approached. Then he showed me the safe deposit box.” I liked Chaz. He was muscle around the place—unfailingly cheerful, always singing, and always dependable. He worked with some very violent people day in and day out and never seemed to lose his good will or his cool.

When his grandfather kept trying to come through, I’d resisted. I liked Chaz and didn’t need ammo against him. I had no desire to hurt him. Since I’d been admitted, I’d gotten better at keeping the walls of water around me. I’d had nothing to do but practice and go to endless counseling sessions that didn’t especially apply, although surprisingly, they hadn’t hurt. But my constant contact with Chaz seemed to strengthen his grandfather’s connection with me, and I could feel him on the other side, waiting to wade across. So I let him, just him, raising the walls just a bit, just enough.

Chaz’s grandfather had loved him. So I told Chaz what I saw, what his grandfather kept showing me. And Chaz had listened, his eyes huge in his black face. The next day he didn’t come to work. But the day after that he’d found me and thanked me. And he cried when he did. He was a big, black, mountain of a man, bigger than I was. Stronger than I was. But he wept like a child, and he hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. And I realized it didn’t always have to be a weapon. What I could do didn’t have to hurt people.

“Moses?” Tag pulled me from my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way . . . but, if, you know, there’s more, and it’s not bad. It’s not scary. It’s not the zombie apocalypse. It’s not fire and brimstone . . . at least, not as far as you can tell, then why do you stay?” His voice was so quiet and filled with emotion, I wasn’t sure if anything I said would help him. And prophet or not, I wasn’t sure I knew the answer. It took me a minute of thinking, but I finally had a response that felt true.

“Because I’ll still be me,” I answered. “And you’ll still be you.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t escape ourselves, Tag. Here, there, half-way across the world, or in a psych ward in Salt Lake City. I’m Moses and you’re Tag. And that part never changes. So either we figure it out here or we figure it out there. But we still gotta deal. And death won’t change that.”

Moses

MOLLY TAGGERT’S REMAINS were taken back to Dallas for burial, David Taggert Sr. decided to put his ranch up for sale, and Tag and I were both scheduled for release from the Montlake Psychiatric Facility. I had some money and my clothing, though I hadn’t needed either during my stay. My clothes had been boxed up and sent to Montlake when my grandmother’s possessions were divvied among her children, at least the possessions she hadn’t left to me.

A lawyer had been allowed in to see me about two weeks after I’d been admitted. He’d told me about my grandmother. Told me she had died of natural causes, a stroke. And then he told me she’d left me ten acres on the north end of town, her house, her car, and everything in her bank account, which wasn’t much. I didn’t want Gigi’s house, not if she wasn’t in it. Gigi wouldn’t expect me to go back. The sheriff had made it clear that no one wanted me back. I asked the lawyer if I could sell it.

The lawyer didn’t think anyone would buy it. The land would sell—he already had a buyer—but no one would want the house. Small towns and tragedy were like that. I asked him if he could have it boarded up for me, which he did. When it was all said and done, house boarded up, Gi’s funeral paid for, my medical bills—the part not covered by the state—cleared, the land, my Jeep, and Gigi’s old car sold, the lawyer brought me the key to her house and a check for five thousand dollars. It was more money than I expected, more money than I’d ever had, and not enough to get me very far.

I imagined my extended family liked me even less now than they had before, and I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed into any of their homes, which was fine. I didn’t want to be there, truthfully. But I didn’t know where I would go either. So when Tag brought it up the night before we were both free to leave, I didn’t have much to say.

“When you get out, where you gonna go?” Tag asked at dinner, his eyes on his food, his arms on the table. He could eat almost as much as I could, and I was pretty sure Montlake’s kitchen staff would enjoy a little reprieve when we left.

I didn’t want to talk about this with Tag. I really didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. So I fixed my gaze to the left of Tag’s head, out the window, letting him know I was ready for the conversation to end. But Tag persisted.

“You’re eighteen now. You are officially out of the system. So where you gonna go, Mo?” I don’t know why he thought he could call me Mo. I hadn’t given him permission. But he was like that. Worming his way into my space. Kind of like Georgia used to.

My eyes flickered back to Tag briefly, and then I shrugged as if it wasn’t important.

I’d been here for months. Through Christmas, through New Year’s, and into February. Three months in a mental institution. And I wished I could stay.

“Come with me,” Tag said, tossing down his napkin and pushing his tray away.

I reared back, stunned. I remembered the sound of Tag crying, the wails that echoed down the hall as he was brought in to the psych ward the night he was admitted. He’d arrived almost a month after I did. I had lain in bed and listened to the attempts to subdue him. At the time, I hadn’t realized it was him. I only put two and two together later, when he told me about what brought him to Montlake. I thought about the way he’d come at me with his fists flying, rage in his eyes, almost out of his head with pain in the session with Dr. Andelin. Tag interrupted my train of thought when he continued speaking.

“My family has money. We don’t have much else. But we have tons of money. And you don’t have shit.” I held myself stiffly, waiting. It was true. I didn’t have shit. Tag was my friend, the first real friend, other than Georgia, that I’d ever had. But I didn’t want Tag’s shit. The good shit or the bad, and Tag had plenty of both.

“I need someone to make sure I don’t kill myself. I need someone who’s big enough to restrain me if I decide I need to get shitfaced. I’ll hire you to spend every waking minute with me until I figure out how to stay clean without wanting to slit my wrists.”

I tipped my head to the side, confused. “You want me to restrain you?”

Tag laughed. “Yeah. Hit me in the face, throw me to the ground. Kick the shit out of me. Just make sure I stay clean and alive.”

I wondered for a moment if I could do that to Tag. Hit him, throw him to the ground. Hold him down until the need for drink or death passed. I was big. Strong. But Tag wasn’t exactly small. Surprisingly, the idea didn’t really appeal anymore. My doubt must have shown on my face because Tag was talking again.

“You need someone who believes you. I do. It’s got to get old always having people thinking you’re psychotic. I know you’re not. You need somewhere to go, and I need someone to come with me. It’s not a bad trade. You wanted to travel. And I’ve got nothing better to do. The only thing I’m good at is fighting, and I can fight anywhere.” He smiled and shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t trust myself to be alone just yet. And if I go back home to Dallas I’ll drink. Or I’ll die. So I need you.”

He said that so easily. “I need you.” I wondered how it was possible that a tough kid like Tag, someone who fought for the fun of it, could admit that to anyone. Or believe it. I’d never needed anyone. Not really. And I’d never said those words to anyone. “I need you” felt like “I love you,” and it scared me. It felt like breaking one of my laws. But at that moment, with the morning looming large, with freedom at my fingertips, I had to admit, I probably needed Tag too.

We would make an odd pair. A black artist and a white cowboy. It sounded like the start to one of those jokes about three men going into a bar. But it was just the two of us. And Tag was right. We were both stuck. Lost. With nothing to hold us down and no direction. I just wanted my freedom, and Tag didn’t want to be alone. I needed his money, and he needed my company, sad as it usually was.

“We’ll just keep running, Moses. How did you say it? Here, there, on the other side of the world? We can’t escape ourselves. So we stick together until we find ourselves, all right? Until we figure out how to deal.”

Georgia

I DIDN’T KNOW HOW to break the news, and I didn’t know how to admit to my parents that they were right and I was wrong. I wasn’t an adult. I was a helpless little girl, something I’d never wanted to be. Something I’d always laughed in the face of. I had been tough all my life. I had reveled in being tough, in being as strong as the boys. But I hadn’t been as strong. I’d been weak. So damn weak.