“Scotty Conner came home from Vietnam this week. He’s telling people you told his parents stories about him that only he could have known. How’d you know those things about their son? You tell me that right now.”
“You won’t believe me. You’ve never believed me.” I grip my right shoulder with my left hand and massage it.
“I can’t promise I’ll believe you, but I will listen. I can promise you that.”
I want to tell him. I want with all my heart to tell him about the Knowing and where it comes from. I know I’ll just be setting myself up for another disappointment, but I’m so tired of it. I’m so tired of always having to defend myself.
“Okay. I’ll tell you. But you can’t interrupt and you can’t get mad.”
“Go ahead then. I’m all ears.” Daddy turns and leans against the car door. He drapes one arm over the back of his seat and rests the other on the dashboard. The steering wheel makes a dent in his belly.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he says.
I let out a big breath.
“Ever since I was born I have known things. Like how people feel or what they want, where they’ve been and where they’re going. Sometimes what they’ve done and what they’re gonna do. Well, sort of. More like what they plan to do, because sometimes it changes.”
Daddy’s breathing speeds up a little, his belly rising and falling. He’s looking at me with a bunch of words on the end of his tongue bursting to get out. I keep talking before he breaks his promise to listen.
“People are afraid of me when they find out I have this gift. I call it the Knowing. Isaac . . .”
Daddy grunts, giving himself away. I close my mouth and glare at him. When he settles down I go on.
“Isaac told me that everyone is born with this ability. It’s like we all have these little cords strung from our hearts straight to God, but most people are frightened of the gift, so they unplug. They don’t want to know any more than they have to. Especially hard things, like when Mama knew Hope was going to get hit by the ice-cream truck.”
Daddy flinches, but he stays quiet.
“For some reason I didn’t close off the connection. In fact, it’s gotten stronger over the years. I used to have to be in my closet to speak with Isaac, but now I can visit him in my mind anywhere, anytime. And when I visit Mama I can see her in the place where she is, where she lives inside her sleep.”
Daddy leans forward, impatient.
“Go ahead,” I say to him. “Ask what you want.”
“So what you mean is that you can read people’s minds.”
“Sometimes. Some people’s minds are always open and easy to read. Other people have to invite me. And some have minds that are sewed up really tight. I doubt I could read them even if they asked.”
“Are you saying you actually communicate with your mama when you visit her in the hospital?”
“Yes, Daddy. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I’ve wanted to convince her that we need her. That she needs to wake up. And today Isaac was there.”
“There? Where?”
He’s broken the interruption rule, but I don’t care. At least he isn’t getting mad.
“The place she’s created for herself. It’s beautiful, Daddy. She sits on a porch swing in front of a white house with lilac bushes and there are butterflies all over and—”
“You can see her? You’re saying you can see your mama in, in some other world? That she’s okay, that she’s not brain damaged?”
“Yes, I can see her. She’s fine, Daddy. She’s happy. And today Isaac came and she was, well, glowing.”
Tears well up in his eyes. I’ve never seen Daddy cry, ever, not even when we got the news that his own mama had died back in Mississippi. He reaches toward me and I fall into his big chest and sob for Daddy and Mama and our whole family. He strokes my hair.
“I’m so sorry, Grace. Whatever it is that’s happened to you, we’ll fix it, I promise you. I know you miss your mama and I know I’ve been too busy to be there for you girls, but—”
I catch my breath and pull my head away from his chest. “You don’t believe me, do you? It’s the truth, I swear it. I’d have to be crazy to make all this up!”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Grace. I just think you need some help, that’s all. I’m going to get you some help. I’m going to pray about it. I’m going to do my duty as your father and as God’s disciple to make you well again.”
I unlock the car door. Daddy tries to grab me, but I wrestle away. I run toward the beach, wishing like everything there was a way to step out of this hurtful world and into Mama’s perfect one.
When I get to the lake I see the patrol car first, then the boat. Sheriff Conner stands on the far bank as two divers rise to the surface, shake their heads, then drop down again. The sheriff waves when he sees me sitting on the bench. I don’t wave back. I want to disappear inside myself. Every time I tell the truth I end up getting in trouble. Why should I help him? Or anyone for that matter?
The divers surface again. Sheriff Conner scans the lake while the divers climb back into their boat. He rubs the back of his head, then looks at me. I turn away. I’m tired of people only liking me when they need my help. And I’m tired of being the oddball. I stare at the canoes lined up on the shore and try to shut off my brain. The harder I try, the louder I hear Isaac’s words.
Truth frightens people. You’re one of the brave ones.
I look back toward Sheriff Conner and point toward the left, where Cherry Creek joins the lake. He nods and motions for the divers to change direction. I turn and walk toward home.
30
Chastity flips through the S&H Green Stamps catalog and stops on a page with hair brushes and mirrors. “We almost have enough to get a set of hot rollers!”
I close the refrigerator door and snatch the catalog away from her. “You know Mama’s saving up for the silverware set with stars on the handles. We only need to fill eight more books.”
“Mama’s not coming home, and she certainly doesn’t care about some dumb old silverware anymore.”
“She is coming home!” I sit on the catalog so she can’t get it back. “Why do you have to be so selfish?”
Chastity licks a stamp and sticks it to her forehead. “Hey look, Grace, maybe you can cover me in Green Stamps and trade me for another sister.”
When I don’t answer her, she pushes away from the kitchen table and flops in front of the fan in the living room. I stash the Green Stamps books on top of the refrigerator. It’s way too hot to cook dinner so we have cold macaroni salad and some watermelon, but nobody eats at the same time. Everyone just comes and goes when they please now except for on Sundays when we have dinner together at the table after church. I hope the heat breaks before tomorrow. I can’t imagine turning the oven on if it’s still this hot.
It’s not just the heat. I can’t remember it ever being this humid before without actually raining. No matter how slowly I move, my skin breaks out in a sweat with each step. I wander out to the backyard and sit in Mama’s old lawn chair waiting for an evening breeze to cool me down. In the field next to the house the fireflies are playing tag, like kids in a game of Marco Polo at the lake. Blink, here I am, blink, here I am, blink, now I’m over here. When I was seven I caught a whole bunch of them and put them in a jar by my bed. It was kind of like a living night-light. In the morning they were all dead at the bottom of the jar, even though I’d put grass in there and punched holes in the lid. I felt terrible. There are some lights that you shouldn’t try to hold on to.
The sky tonight is like a mirror of blue waves glowing above the fireflies. After a while the bugs get tired and their lights fade out, except for the occasional flicker. But the sky, it just keeps glowing prettier. I’ve never seen anything like it.
The screen door slams at the back of the house. “Grace, is that you?” Daddy asks.
I was worried about what Daddy might have planned for me, but he seems to have forgotten about the whole prayer m
eeting thing. We haven’t spoken of it since the hospital visit last Saturday. I know he won’t invite me to go with him to visit Mama anymore. I’m not about to ask. I plan to hitch a ride myself from now on. Lola hitchhikes all the time and she does just fine.
“Over here,” I say.
“What are you doing out here in the dark?”
“It’s not dark, Daddy. First there were fireflies and now the sky is glowing.”
He tilts his head back. The sky is bright enough that I can see his face lit up in the pinkish blue light. His look changes from curious to worried, brows up, brows down. All of a sudden he runs back to the house and yells into the screen.
“Everybody get out here! Right now!”
I jump up from my chair and stand next to him. He’s shaking.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Chastity and Joy wander out of the house, each holding a bottle of ginger ale. Hope is right behind them, all three in their cotton nightgowns with Marilyn resting on Joy’s hip.
“What is it, Daddy?” Chastity asks.
“Look up! All of you!” he says. His face looks a little crazed, eyes darting this way and that, like he’s just remembered something really important. We all stare in amazement at the marvelous show the sky is putting on.
Marilyn wriggles out of Joy’s arms and toddles over to me. I scoop her up and point to the sky. “Look, Marilyn,” I say.
She tilts her head back against my cheek.
“Prit-tee,” she sings.
Joy starts to climb the trellis on the side of the house.
“Joy, get back here!”
She ignores Daddy and pulls herself onto the roof. Daddy walks backward until he can see her. She’s stretched out across the shingles with her hands behind her head.
“This is not a game.” Daddy’s voice cracks. “The heavens are opening!”
Now I’m getting nervous. All these years hearing talk about the second coming, is this it? I never thought the end would be this beautiful.
“It’s not the rapture. It’s the aurora borealis,” Joy says, sitting up. “The northern lights.”
I can tell by the way Daddy massages his forehead that he’s thinking hard. He looks around at all of us and back up at the sky. He turns and walks quietly into the house. The rest of us stay in the yard watching the light play across the stars. Nobody says a word about Daddy’s freak-out. Pride may be a sin, but we owe him the generosity of a dignified exit.
One by one my sisters head back inside. I stay put. The lights are so beautiful, all pink and green and purple, like a wall of colored glaciers hanging from the night sky. I don’t want to miss a minute of it.
“Mighty pretty,” says a voice from behind me.
I turn around slowly, not believing my own ears. “Lyle! Oh my gosh, it’s you!” I leap out of my chair and wrap my arms around him, squealing. “They let you out!”
“Shhhh,” he says. “Can’t let nobody hear you, girl.”
He pats my back, waiting for me to quiet down. I take his hand and lead him behind the barn. We sit with our backs against it, watching the sky. I lean on his shoulder. He smells cleaner, but his familiar scent lingers beneath the soap.
“You saved my life, little lady. I’d have died in that cage, you know.” He says it softly, into the night air.
“I just told the truth. They had no business blaming you in the first place. People are so dumb. They think because you don’t have a house you don’t have a heart? It isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, is it, Grace?”
I sigh. “At least the truth came out on your side.”
“They got their man. The girl spilled her guts about what he did to her. And the other girl—the blind one they found in the lake—he confessed to that as well. Made me sick to hear it. Sheriff Conner let me watch through the two-way window. I think he felt badly for arresting the wrong person. He’s a good man, that one. Made a mistake is all.”
Lyle picks up a rotting walnut, rolls it around in his fingers, and tosses it in the air. It catches the colored light on its way down.
“I’m leaving town, Grace.”
“No! You can’t go. You just got back. Especially now that they’ve let you out and your name has been cleared.”
“Legally, yes. But there are those who will always believe the first version of that girl’s story. I’ve got to move on.”
I open my mouth to protest but decide against any more pleading. I’m beginning to learn that people know what’s best for them.
“Wait here,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I run into the barn and retrieve the green quilt I asked Aunt Pearl to make for Lyle. I’d hidden it in the loft right after she sent it to me.
“Here,” I say. “This is for you.”
He unfolds the quilt and clicks his tongue approvingly. “It’s a beauty, Grace. You shouldn’t have.”
“Aunt Pearl made it. It’s a way for you to always keep me with you.”
He runs his ragged hands over the quilt, smoothing out the lines, then hugs it to his chest. “Thank you, Grace. It’s the best gift I’ve ever received, next to gettin’ out of that stinkin’ cell.”
I hand him the locket. “I found this in the loft.”
He kisses it. “I thought I’d lost it down by the creek.”
“I had a terrible vision. A woman. A cabin near a lake and . . .”
“My wife,” he says. “Annie.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.”
He takes my hand and squeezes it. “Shhhhh. Doesn’t matter now.”
31
Prayer meeting is held at 6:00 on Wednesdays. The youth groups gather in the church basement while the adults do their thing upstairs in the auditorium. Chastity got lucky. Daddy let her stay home with Marilyn, who has a sore throat. Normally Joy would watch Marilyn, but she’s driving the church bus tonight. I no more want to be here than in a math class, but it’s not like I have a choice. Nobody has ever given us kids an option whether or not we want to go to church and nobody ever will. It’s understood that if something is happening at The Church of the Word all of us will be there.
We’re singing “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” when Esther Swanson peeks her head in the youth-room door. She calls to me from the doorway with the crook of her shaky finger. Esther has something called palsy. Her right hand shakes a bit and she occasionally spills the grape juice in her lap on communion Sunday. Sometimes she lets me help in the nursery. If babysitting gets me out of the service, then that’s okay by me. I sing in my head, I have decided to follow Esther, as I follow her up the stairs.
Esther’s usually nice to me, but tonight she seems a bit crabby. When I pause in front of the nursery, she motions for me to follow her into the main auditorium. As she reaches for the doorknob, her hand is shaking a mile a minute. The second the doors open I immediately know something’s off. I’ve never seen our congregation quite like this before. The pews are empty. The whole lot of them have gathered up front with Daddy, as though everyone joined the choir and left no one to listen. Daddy’s standing two stair-steps up from the rest of the people with his Bible open in his left hand. He waves for me to come forward. I feel a twinge in my stomach.
“Come here, Grace.” He says it in his preacher voice, not his Daddy voice.
I walk slowly up the aisle. A hot wind from the window fan blows my hair back from my face. I feel as if I’m in one of those dreams where I forgot to put clothes on and everyone is staring at me. When I reach the front of the room the crowd parts and then closes around me. Something in Daddy’s face, all their faces, makes me want to run, but I can’t. I’m blocked in. I turn in circles looking for a break in the ring of bodies. Sensing my impulse to bolt, they close in tighter. I’m terrified.
“Isaac . . .” I call to him in my head, but it comes out my mouth.
Esther inhales sharply, startling Daddy and he drops his Bible. Everyone gasps because it’s a sacrilege to let the Word of God touch th
e floor, even worse than the American flag. When Daddy leans over to pick up his Bible, ink pens and tracts fall out of his shirt pocket, making even more of a mess. Several of the ladies stoop down to help him, like a flock of teacher’s pets clamoring for an A+. His face reddens from embarrassment or anger, I’m not sure which. Probably both.
Daddy narrows his eyes at me. “Who were you just talking to, Grace?”
“Nobody,” I say. “I wasn’t talking to anyone.”
He looks down around the circled congregation. “My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, Grace claims to speak with her mother, who is in a coma; she predicts the future, she knows the past, and she communicates with the dead. This Child of God, my beloved daughter, is constrained by the arms of Satan. I ask you to join me tonight in demanding that Beelzebub leave this girl and that the Lord God Almighty fill her with the spirit of His everlasting love.”
“Amen! Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!” They all chime in with the right words, but I can tell by the pauses that they’re just as nervous as I am.
“Daddy,” I plead quietly. “I am filled with the love of God. I always have been.”
Daddy nods to Mr. Franks and Mr. Tuttle, who quickly grab hold of my arms and legs. I panic and kick at Mr. Tuttle, but he just grips harder. They stretch me like a hammock between two trees and lower me to the floor. With the deacons’ hands still clutching my wrists and ankles, I search the murmuring heads hovering over me for a single sign of comfort. My eyes dart from face to familiar face, but they all look as afraid of themselves as I am of them.
I can’t keep my head up. When I let it drop, it clunks onto the threadbare red carpet where Daddy sometimes paces when he preaches. Daddy moves down the stairs toward me, holding his Bible above his head. He places his right shoe firmly on my belly. He clears his throat and gathers up his voice.
“Release this child from the greedy grasp of Satan!” he shouts.
“Amen!” they answer.
It’s as if he’s turned into a tent-revival preacher overnight. Something has taken over his eyes. They look past me, past everyone, and I start to wonder if maybe the devil has got him. I half expect him to start speaking in tongues.
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