This I Know

by Eldonna Edwards

  “Anoint this child with the blessed Blood of the Lamb!”

  I close my eyes. This can’t be happening. Isaac! I shout his name, this time in my head. But my brother is silent. I haven’t spoken with him since the day we visited with Mama. Maybe when Daddy wrenched me away from them he scared Isaac away for good. Is he still there with Mama in her special place? Are they waiting for me to come back? My head hurts. My heart feels like it will explode at the thought of losing both Mama and Isaac. Tears burn my face. Everything feels hot. A fire blazes in front of my eyes. It’s so real I start to believe maybe I’ve gone to hell. Maybe Daddy’s right, I am evil. Maybe it’s the devil come to take me home.

  I can’t breathe. Flames lick at my toes. Chastity is screaming.

  Chastity?

  The heat and smoke blast my face until I choke. I open my eyes. “Fire!” I yell.

  “Yes!” Daddy answers. “God has put the fire of the Holy Spirit upon you!”

  “Amen, Brother!” they all chime.

  “No!” I say, trying to sit up.

  Daddy presses harder with his shoe. Someone hands him a white bucket.

  “In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I cleanse you of the devil’s filth!” He dumps the entire bucket filled with cold water over me.

  “Daddy, stop!”

  His face is a million miles away, caught up in the drama of the moment. It takes every ounce of my strength to roll out from under his shoe. I jump to my feet, wheeling around to face him. The crowd backs up as my soggy hair whips across their surprised faces.

  All except Daddy. He reaches toward my head. “Release this child from the evil grip of—”

  “Be quiet, Daddy!” I scream.

  The room falls silent, leaving only my words echoing off the organ pipes. Even Daddy is stunned into silence.

  “Our house is on fire!”

  Water pours off me into a puddle on the carpet. Esther’s palsy has grown from a trembling hand to a full-on flapping. I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for all of them. I shove Burt out of my way. The rest of them part like the Red Sea as I charge toward the heavy doors at the back of the church.

  Smoke plumes billow above our house. I race across the street, reaching the yard just as Chastity crawls out the front door, coughing. “Where’s Marilyn?” Chastity goes into a hacking fit and I can’t understand a word. She points to the upstairs window of Marilyn’s bedroom, then drops to her knees and dry heaves in the grass. Behind me the entire congregation stampedes up the long driveway with Daddy leading the herd. Panting, he bends over Chastity. He steadies her shoulders with his hands.

  “What happened?”

  When she tries to speak the coughing starts up again.

  I point to the house. “Daddy, Marilyn’s still in there!”

  His face goes all pale and dead-like. He runs to the front door, but the flames throw him back. I close my eyes and concentrate. I feel Daddy and the rest of them staring at me, but I don’t care anymore. In my mind I see Marilyn. She’s not in her bedroom. She’s tried to make it out of the house. The thick smoke has tangled her way.

  I dash to the backyard. My hair and clothes are still soaking wet. I pray that it’s enough to keep me from being burned up as I carefully walk through the back door and into the thick wall of smoke. I use my memory instead of my sight to guide myself to the kitchen. I find Marilyn with my left foot, just inside the doorway. She’s unconscious. I feel around for her arms and legs, but she’s wrapped in a quilt. When I try to scoop up the bundle I realize something or someone is wrapped around her. I pull harder until she’s free. As I crawl backward, I nearly trip over another pair of legs. I find his face with my hands and instantly recognize the scruffy chin.

  “Lyle!”

  He doesn’t move.

  “Get up, Lyle!”

  A rush of scorching heat sears against my face and hands. Marilyn jerks in my arms. “I’m coming right back for you, Lyle! I’ll be right back!”

  I lift Marilyn and turn for the back door. Outside I hear Joy screaming. The smoke is like pepper in my lungs and throat. I trip and fall. I can hardly breathe and I’m all turned around. Then another smell reaches my nostrils, a faint trail of White Shoulders perfume. Hugging Marilyn tightly, I scramble to my feet and follow Mama’s scent to the back door.

  I cough my way to the outside with Marilyn hanging like a rag doll in my arms. The yard is filled with children and adults from the church. Sirens yowl in the distance, coming closer. The crowd is a blur, voices around me like noisy katydids scratching at the edges of my eardrums. The fierce heat of the fire pushes at my back and I keep walking until I reach our big tree. Daddy and Joy race up to where I stand holding my little sister like a burnt offering. Here, I think. Here’s your sacrificial lamb.

  Daddy weeps as he gathers Marilyn out of my arms. The charred green quilt falls to the ground. “No, no, no,” he says, holding her cheek to his.

  A fireman gently straps an oxygen mask over her little face. Joy and Chastity run up and throw their arms around Daddy, crying. I turn back toward the house, but Sheriff Conner grabs my arm, holding me back.

  “Lyle’s in there! I’ve got to go help him.”

  “You can’t, Grace. Let the firemen do their job.”

  “But I promised!” I scream, trying to pull away from him.

  He holds on tight, motioning to a couple of firemen with a hand signal.

  “He’s just inside the kitchen door! Please save him! Hurry!”

  Two yellow suits disappear up the back steps and into the back porch but instantly reappear, rearing backward from the heat. They look toward the fire chief and shake their heads.

  “No!” I scream. “I promised!”

  Sheriff Conner grabs me and holds me to his chest. “It’s too late, honey,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  The crowd hovers around us, speaking in hushed voices. I hear my name slide off their tongues. Saved her. A miracle. An angel of the Lord. I bury my face in Sheriff Conner’s shirt. Did you hear them, Daddy? An angel of the Lord . . .

  “Grace?” It’s Daddy’s voice. “Grace, I know you’re angry with me.”

  I peel myself from Sheriff Conner’s shirt to look at Daddy. He holds his gaze on me for what feels like a millennium.

  “Did you start that fire? With your . . . with your mind?”

  “Daddy, no! I didn’t start it, I just saw it. How can you even think that?”

  I look at Joy, blue eyes wide in disbelief. I turn my gaze toward Chastity, who moves closer to Daddy.

  She tugs at his sleeve, her face blackened with soot and guilt. “Daddy, I . . .” Chastity starts to speak, then coughs.

  I give her a look, shake my head only the slightest bit to let her know not to say it. I know it was her curling iron. It doesn’t matter that she left it on. It doesn’t matter how this happened. As far as Daddy’s concerned the fire started the day I was born alive and Isaac dead, the day I robbed him of a son and the happy wife he’d married.

  Joy jogs over to where two attendants are loading Marilyn into an ambulance. “I’m going with her,” she says, not asking, just stating what is a fact. She grabs on to the ambulance attendant’s shoulder and climbs inside. He slams the doors shut and they pull away with the sirens wailing. Daddy follows behind in our bus. Groups of people file into the yard and watch as the firemen slake the thirsty blaze with fire hoses. One of our neighbors takes Chastity by the hand and leads her back toward the church. Nobody sees me slip away from the crowd like a leaping-off flame, leaving them to whisper in hushed voices.

  When I reach the end of the street I turn and watch the black cloud billow upward. I stand for a long time holding myself, shivering, thinking about my wonderful friend Lyle and what he did to save Marilyn. I turn and start walking toward Highway 31. As the fire crackles behind me I feel every hope that Daddy would finally understand me go up in smoke along with our crumbling home. Tomorrow, stories will pass through telephone wires and grocery lines unt
il the truth has faded into an exaggerated remnant of what really happened.

  When I reach the highway I stick out my thumb. I feel like I have nothing left to lose. The first car to come along, a rusted Chevy van, pulls over and waits for me. I run up to it and open the passenger door. Sitting in the driver’s seat is the bearded guy with long, wavy hair and sandals who appeared at the railroad tracks the day I found the quilt.

  “Where you going, sis?” he asks.

  “Anywhere,” I say.

  He says that’s where he’s headed, too, so I hop in.

  I’m a mess, but he doesn’t mention anything about the ashes on my face or my dirty clothes. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all except to tell me his name is Robin. Maybe because of the silence or maybe because he likes it, he turns the radio on. After a bit he leaves the highway and drives slowly along the back county roads. I stay quiet until Bill Withers starts singing “Lean on Me” and I burst into tears. Robin downshifts to pick his way over washboard ridges in the road. We pass a cornfield with stalks half again as high as me. He pulls over and shuts off the engine.

  “You wanna talk about it?”

  Something about the tenderness in his voice opens an inner window I’ve kept closed for most of my life. I tell him about Mama and Isaac and Lyle. I tell him about the Knowing. I talk and talk and talk until I’m exhausted and my words give way to tears again.

  “It’s not your job to make your father understand you,” Robin finally says. “That’s something he has to figure out for himself. All you have to do is be exactly who you are and eventually he’ll realize that when he looks into your eyes he’s looking into the eyes of God. Anybody can see that.”

  “Not my daddy.”

  “Stop trying so hard to please him. Let him see with his own eyes what it means to have someone as beautiful as you for a daughter.”

  “I’m not beautiful.”

  He lifts a curtain of smoky hair from in front of my face. “Yes, you are. Inside and out. I’ve only known you for a few hours and that much I can say for sure.”

  I feel myself blush but hopefully the ashes on my face cover for me.

  He starts the engine. “Where to?”

  “Can you take me to The Church of the Word in Cherry Hill?”

  I guide Robin back toward our neighborhood. He pulls into the church lot across the street from what’s left of our home.

  “Take your time, Grace,” he says. “I’ll wait right here.”

  I climb out of his van and walk as discreetly as possible toward the church, away from what’s left of our house. I’ve lost track of time. The sun has just set so it must be going on ten. A couple of firemen continue spraying everything down even though the flames are out. Most of the gawkers have left, but Sheriff Conner’s police car is still parked in the driveway. He stands in the front yard writing on a pad of paper. He looks up when he sees me pass under the streetlight. I wait for him to call me over, but he just nods his head slightly and watches as I walk back into the church.

  I head to the restroom and splash water over my face, my neck, and my hands. A trail of blackened water swirls around the rust-stained basin before running down the drain. When I reach the front door I turn back toward the auditorium. I take a deep breath before pushing through the big doors into the empty sanctuary. The soft lights along the walls are still on. Slowly and deliberately I walk up the aisle like a bride whose groom has left her at the altar. When I reach the pulpit steps I freeze. Small puddles still dot the carpet next to the overturned bucket. My head fills with voices—men, women, Daddy—all speaking at once. I cover my ears and kneel on the bottom step, but the voices continue. Jesus looks down at me from the picture behind the dais, his hands outstretched.

  I stand and climb the three steps until I reach Daddy’s place on the platform. Turning to face the empty pews, I rest my hands on the podium. I see what he sees, feel the power and the blessing all at once. I feel the ache of each person waiting for truth and hope. I feel him, his heart, so full of desire to save each one of them. And I hear his words, the ones he starts every single service with. I open my mouth and they tumble out.

  “This is the day the Lord hath made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it!”

  My words echo off the organ pipes, the walls, the stained-glass windows. I race down the aisle and out the door to where Robin is waiting. He’s holding a charred book of S&H Green Stamps in his hand.

  “I found it on the sidewalk.” He blows on the front cover, sending ashes onto the dashboard.

  I flip through the tattered pages, smiling through tears.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I am,” I say, tossing the book in the back of the van. “For the first time in a long time, I’m okay.”

  * * *

  We pull up in front of the hospital and Robin sets the brake. He reaches behind the seat and hands me the shoes I left at the railroad tracks that day. I kick off my dirty patent leathers and put them on. They’re tight, but I can still squeeze into them.

  “You take care of yourself, sis,” he says.

  I grab the door handle. “Thanks for everything.”

  He smiles. “I should be the one thanking you.” He tilts my chin with his hand and kisses me lightly on the forehead.

  I climb out and look at him through the open window. “Will I see you again?”

  “I hope so,” he says. “I really hope so.”

  * * *

  The hospital is quieter than during the daytime. I slip past an empty nurse’s station and almost make it, but an aide stops me.

  “Whoa, visiting hours are over,” he says.

  Before I can open my mouth a female voice comes over the wall speakers. “Code Blue, ICU! Code Blue, ICU!”

  The voice is familiar, but I can’t quite place it. The aide wags his finger at me, then spins on his heels toward the elevator. As soon as he’s out of sight I take the stairway to Mama’s floor and tiptoe into her room. The bed closest to the door is empty, neatly made up with clean linens. I touch the cold edge of the footboard where Bony Nurse once lay and a shiver runs through me. I know whose voice that was on the loudspeaker. I stroke the folded blanket at the foot of the bed. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  I move to the other side of the room, where Mama’s face glows in the moonlight, her pillow a blue-white cloud beneath her blond hair. I slide the chair closer and take her hand. Instantly I’m there, wherever there is, standing next to a lake.

  “Hello, Grace,” she says.

  “Mama!” I wrap my arms around her and cry into her chest.

  “Shhhh, there now,” she whispers.

  “Mama, one of my best friends in the whole world died and it’s my fault!”

  “Oh, honey, don’t believe that.”

  “But it is my fault! I was mean to Lyle.”

  “The man you were feeding in the loft.”

  I pull away from her chest. “You knew about Lyle?”

  “Yes, I knew. I used to leave him food, too.”

  “You weren’t afraid of him like other people?”

  “He was a good man, a piano teacher. He used to drive an ice-cream truck in the place we lived before we moved to Cherry Hill until . . .”

  “Wait. Lyle is the person who ran over Hope?”

  “It was an accident, Grace. She ran behind the truck when it was backing up. No way for him to have seen her there.”

  “He was so nice to me. People accused him of being creepy, but he listened to me and he didn’t judge. And now he’s gone!”

  Mama shifts her gaze toward the lake and I follow it to the silhouette of a man gently rowing away from shore. His paddle plays in the water, light reflecting off the droplets with each rhythmic stroke. I look up at Mama’s face.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  She nods, smiling. “Look toward the other side.”

  I strain my eyes until the small form of a woman comes into view. She’s standing on the end of a dock, her arms waving.

&nbs
p; “But how can that be if they’re dead and you’re not? How can we all be in the same place?”

  “I don’t know, Grace. There’s a lot I don’t understand. But does it really matter?”

  I sigh. “I wish I lived here.”

  Mama wraps her arm around me as the sun sets on the far side of the lake. “It will take time to put our lives back together. You might not believe this, but your daddy needs you. Your sisters need you. And I need you to be there for them, Grace. You’re stronger than any one of them.”

  “Wait, you said our lives.”

  “Young lady, you need to leave.”

  My eyes bolt open and I drop Mama’s hand. The aide has returned with backup. A young nurse holds out her hand. “Come on, honey,” she says. “You can come back during visiting hours.”

  I let her lead me out the door and down the hallway, turning once to catch a glimpse of Mama sleeping.

  32

  Today is Lyle’s funeral. I asked Daddy if I could say a few words about Lyle and he said no, that it wouldn’t be necessary since most people don’t know him.

  “But that’s why I want to speak for him,” I said. “So people will know that he was a good person.”

  Daddy won’t budge. Says if I keep bugging him I’ll have to stay home.

  Our family has been staying at Cherry Lake Lodge. Church members and neighbors donated money to pay our rent. Bags of clothes, canned goods, and toiletries line the porch, where people drop off things they think we might need. Daddy’s wearing the only suit that survived the fire, the one he keeps in his office at the church for emergencies. The waist of the pants are too small, so he has to wear them under his belly. And he can no longer button the middle button of the jacket. Considering what happened I don’t think anyone is too worried about how he’s dressed.

  I sit with my sisters in the front pew. I want to be here, but Daddy made the rest of them come, probably to keep an eye on me. The casket is closed because of how Lyle died. They had to roll it to the front of the church on a cart since he had no pall bearers. When I look at it I start sobbing. I can’t stand the thought of him gone. I do my best to erase the image of his ashes and replace it with the shadow of his figure on the lake and the happy reunion with his wife. A smile breaks out across my face when I think of them. But then I take it back real quick before somebody notices and thinks I’ve gone completely crazy.