To believe is essential. For, less than two days ago, Anna thought she still had enough time to wean her parents from their earthly concerns. To help them see truth, channel their energies more appropriately toward Him. The stakes were so very high. Now they have been cast naked into the abyss. Unprotected. And when the unholy dead are reanimated, when the foul ranks arise and take up weapons against believers, Anna’s mother and father will be among them. When Anna battles the abomination to come she will be smiting her own flesh. Anna leans against her mother’s piano. Her head aches. She hasn’t seen Lars. Not since. Not since. Everything around her she taints.
“Anna!”
Martha is suddenly at Anna’s side. Anna doesn’t know which unlucky person told her about the accident. Did Martha receive a call? Or was she alarmed by the silence? She and Anna’s mother spoke three or four times a day. All Anna knew was that Martha had appeared at the house yesterday morning, nearly assaulting the woman from Child Protective Services. She had strode across the living room, stopping in front of the couch where Anna sat. At first they had just looked at each other. They’d never been close. Too much jealousy, too many disputes over territorial rights to Anna’s mother’s time and attention. Martha had stared at Anna, then around the room as if expecting her mother to appear. Her eyes fell on the piano before she left the room without saying a word.
Today Martha exhibits no emotion. Like Anna, she does not appear to be grieving. She reaches her arms around Anna’s shoulders, supporting Anna’s full weight with no apparent effort. Without her help Anna would have fallen; she hadn’t realized she was so weak. Anna reaches back and feels for the piano, finds it, and manages to pull herself free from Martha. She discovers she can stand on her own. Martha steps away.
“I like the look,” she says, gesturing to Anna’s white clothes. Anna is the recipient of one of Martha’s rare smiles. She is radiant in her grief. Anna understands, not for the first time, why her mother loved her. They stand in silence, but Anna is not uncomfortable. People are giving them space, pretending to ignore them.
Martha appears to be searching for something to say.
“Tell me about your God,” she says. It comes out clumsily. Several nearby neighbors stop talking to listen.
“Yours, too,” Anna says. She motions around the room. “Theirs too.”
“Perhaps. But let’s take a pass on that particular discussion for now.” Martha says.
Anna feels patronized, and a tremendous anger she’s been holding at bay breaks through. “What do you want to know?” Anna manages to ask. Her voice is full of contempt. More people around them lean in.
“Is She a merciful God?” Something Anna’s mother and Martha shared, this refusal to use a masculine pronoun when referring to Him.
“Why?” Anna asks. She’s under no illusion that Martha is genuinely interested. Martha’s heart, like Anna’s parents’, is utterly closed. She’ll only attempt to manipulate Anna using words. This is so akin to what Anna’s mother would do that Anna’s heart is suddenly pierced. She looks at her watch and starts trembling again. More time has passed. Too much time. Outside, the sun is long gone. Anna can see a pale sliver of moon out the window. Her parents are slipping away.
Martha takes a step forward and places her hands on Anna’s shoulders, but Anna pushes her off. She inhales deeply.
“Why?” Anna repeats. “What does merciful have to do with anything?”
“I was simply wondering. If you can’t cut yourself any slack, perhaps She will?” Martha asks. A small circle has opened up in the crowd, with Martha and Anna in the middle.
Anna’s anger makes it almost impossible to speak. Finally, she forces some words through her lips. “They are beyond mercy,” she says. “They chose their path. Now they must reap the consequences.” Someone behind Anna gives out a little whistle.
“They?” Martha asks. She is standing straight, her hand flat on Anna’s mother’s piano as if seeking sustenance from it. “Do you mean your parents?”
Anna repeats to Martha the words she’d written on her parents’ mirror the previous night with permanent marker. “The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.” Her voice is louder than she intends, but that is of no importance. More words are coming. Terrible words.
Martha takes a step back. She is among the crowd circling Anna. All conversation in the room falls away. “Anna,” Martha says. “Annie, darling, you can’t possibly mean this. We’re talking about your parents! Not some abstract religious theory!”
“You’re right,” Anna says. “There is nothing abstract about this. His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him,” she says, and she means to be heard by everyone in the room. “And I will make your grave, for you are vile.”
Utter silence. Anna looks around. Some concern. Some disapproval. Some amusement. Mostly, people have their polite faces on, as if listening to the rant of an unhinged street preacher. Only one face comforts Anna. Mrs. Goldschmidt. She is sitting in the corner with her husband. They are not drinking, not even holding cups. Anna doubts they have spoken to anyone. Mrs. Goldschmidt’s face, always pale, is almost white in the low light. Her expression, blissful. She keeps her eyes on Anna and nods. Her hands are folded quietly in her lap, but as Anna watches, she unclasps them. Slowly, she raises her right hand several inches in the air. She makes a sort of gesture—a circle? a half wave?—before lowering it again to her lap. She then nods once more. Anna finds she can breathe again.
People resume their conversations, but more quietly. Many continue to glance over at Anna and Martha. A dim-witted software engineer from Anna’s father’s company leans in and wiggles his fingers to get her attention.
“Your faith must be a great comfort to you,” he says.
“Sometimes it is,” Anna says. “Sometimes less so.”
Martha raises a warning hand to the man. She manages another one of her smiles for Anna. “Little Man,” she says, and there is great affection in her voice. “Call me when you need me.” She moves away without attempting to touch Anna again. Hands reach out and pat Martha on her back as she passes.
“Anna.” A voice behind her, this time a man’s, and too close. Anna prepares for another attempted embrace, stiffens her shoulders and arms to make it as uncomfortable as possible for whoever it is. Then she sees that it’s Jim Fulson, and next to him, Lars. Lars as Anna has never seen him. A frightened Lars. Lars at a loss. He looks even smaller than usual. He glances everywhere except at Anna.
Jim Fulson speaks again. He says the first sensible thing Anna has heard all day.
“You need to eat.” He holds out a plate with a slice of pepperoni pizza on it, some carrot sticks. Anna realizes she is hungry, and takes the plate. Lars and Jim Fulson watch her wolf down the food. Then Jim Fulson says another sensible thing.
“Go get your running things on. I’ll wait for you outside.”
When Anna hesitates, he gives her a little push. “That’s right, come on,” says Jim Fulson.
In ten minutes Anna is out in front of the house in her sweats. Jim Fulson is already there, stretching. Anna follows his example, reaches down and extends her right leg, then her left. “Okay,” he says, “let’s do it,” and they take off. Anna feels lighter the farther they get from the house, and by the time they reach Caribbean Drive she’s fallen into her usual rhythm.
“How uncomfortable is that hair shirt under there?” he asks, reaching out and tugging on Anna’s orange Sharks sweatshirt.
“What would you know about that?” Anna asks. She doesn’t look at him, but concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other without stepping on any breaks in the cement. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Then she remembers that’s no longer a problem.
“I’ve been talking to Lars, trying to understand how your . . . faith . . . would affect how you deal wi
th this,” he says.
He pauses to give Anna a chance to respond, but she just keeps watching her feet as they pound the cement. Right. Left. Right. Left. So he continues.
“I’m not going to tell you what I believe in the hope that it may comfort you,” he says. “I doubt it would comfort anybody. But I am going to tell you to stop being so goddamned arrogant.”
Arrogant? Anna stumbles. She had expected gentleness, perhaps a clumsy attempt to provide solace, and had armed herself against it, was prepared to attack. She hadn’t expected to be attacked herself.
“Yes,” he says. “Thinking of yourself as some all-important being. As someone who is so special that God selected you to make an example of. I notice he didn’t smite you personally, but instead chose to teach you a lesson by killing innocent bystanders.”
“Not so innocent.” Anna almost breaks down as she says this. Her steps falter. Her breathing gets more labored. She thinks of her mother, stroking the piano keys, of her father, the way he’d look at her mother when he thought no one was paying attention. How deeply childlike their slumber was at night—it was a family joke that nothing could rouse them after 10 pm. How cheerfully they greeted the day. Like people with clear consciences. Like people with nothing to fear.
“Aren’t you being a little narcissistic?”
Anna is growing angry. Like her father, when she gets mad, she goes faster. She accelerates until Jim Fulson finally falls behind.
“Prick,” she says over her shoulder. She is straining so hard she can barely force the words out.
He laughs and, seemingly effortlessly, catches up to Anna. “That I am,” he says. Anna clenches her teeth and runs on, refuses to look at him.
They’re nearing the high school now. It’s growing dark, but cars are still in the parking lot. Anna had forgotten that for most people it was a day just like any other. Coaches and athletes finishing practice, and teachers going home after prepping for the next day. Both Jim Fulson and Anna see Ms. Thadeous at the same time. She’s getting into her car, one haunch already on the seat, when Jim Fulson calls out.
“Clara!”
She turns, too quickly, upon hearing his voice. And although she doesn’t exactly smile it’s as if the sun has risen.
Then she sees Anna and the light is swiftly tamped down. She gets out of the car, and practically runs toward them, stumbling a little in her heels. “Anna,” she says. “Annie.” And holds out her arms. Anna goes straight into them. She is so tall, and Ms. Thadeous so diminutive, that Ms. Thadeous’s head rests on Anna’s shoulder as if she is the one requiring comfort. But Anna feels Ms. Thadeous’s body’s warmth even through her thick cotton layers, and with it such an outpouring of kindness that she is utterly humbled, for it is more than a sinner like Anna deserves. By the grace of God only is she able to accept it. Jim Fulson makes a point to look elsewhere. Somewhere during that timeless interval the sun sinks behind the Santa Cruz Mountains, the air turns chilly, and Anna’s tears cease. She continues holding Ms. Thadeous. Some gifts are too precious. Praise the Lord.
28
THEY ARE SITTING IN MURPHY’S Tavern on Maude. Ms. Thadeous orders Anna a glass of white wine and a gin and tonic for herself. Jim Fulson sticks with plain tap water, no ice.
Anna is no stranger to alcohol, as her parents—her father in particular—were of the school that giving children early exposure removed its mystique and potential for abuse. But she’s never cared for the taste. She takes only tiny sips yet somehow the glass is quickly emptied. Ms. Thadeous orders her another. Drink this one more slowly, she cautions. She gets her own drink refilled as well, but Jim Fulson continues to nurse his glass of lukewarm liquid, still three-quarters full.
They are all calm. A jukebox is playing some eighties Madonna song. At the next table, a man and a woman in their twenties are talking quietly.
“What happens next in the valley of death?” Jim Fulson asks.
“Jim,” says Ms. Thadeous.
“I’m just saying,” he says. You’d think he was the one drinking, his manner is so strange. “All paths seem to lead to the same place. It’s like one of those mazes, you think you’re going one way, you think you’ve been clever, and fooled everyone, and then suddenly you’re back where you started.”
“What is he talking about?” Anna asks Ms. Thadeous.
“Ask me yourself, prophetess,” Jim Fulson says, without looking at Anna.
His words trigger something Anna hasn’t thought of in years. Paths that lead back to the beginning. Getting lost, and increasingly frightened, and then finding a way out. Endless rows of mature corn bathed in a golden light. The salty smell of the nearby sea. Pumpkins glowing orange against stacked bales of pale straw.
Anna speaks slowly to keep from losing the vision. “Did you ever go through that corn maze? The one in San Gregorio? The one they always mowed in the field there? Off Route 84—the first one, before the other pumpkin farms started imitating it?”
Jim Fulson sits up straight. “Wait a minute,” he says. “Just wait.” His forehead wrinkles.
“We went every year,” Anna says. “My father and I. It was our Halloween ritual. Dad refused to go to Half Moon Bay for the Pumpkin Festival, he hated the crowds. But we’d go to San Gregorio and pick our pumpkins there, then sneak into the maze because he said it wasn’t worth paying five dollars each to get lost in some goddamned failed corn crop. We’d go in through the exit and do it backward, find our way to the entrance where the farmer took the entrance fee. That was my father’s idea, anyway. But we never beat the maze. Every year we ended up cheating and broke our own way out of the corn into the pumpkin field. It was just like you said: you’d go down one path and find yourself back where you started. We tried everything, breaking off bits of the stalks to mark the paths we’d been through, digging little holes in the ground, but nothing worked. I was terrified by it, year after year. My father persisted; he wanted to teach me not to be afraid. The maze always won.”
“The maze always wins,” says Jim Fulson.
Anna is smiling, Anna is crying. “Once we mistimed it, went in right as the sun was setting. The sun went down while we were still lost, so we couldn’t even cheat because we didn’t know which way was east or west. My father just stood in the middle of the maze and bellowed. The farmer came in a panic, but refused to lead us out until we paid. My dad only had a twenty. The farmer took it, refused to give us change. We never went back.”
“Goddamned farmers,” Jim Fulson says.
Ms. Thadeous signals the waitress for another refill of her glass, shakes her head when the waitress offers to bring another for Anna.
“When was this?” Jim Fulson asks.
“Ages and ages ago,” Anna says. “But I’ve missed it. Parkfield couldn’t compare to the corn maze. Not even close.”
“Parkfield,” says Jim Fulson. “Yet another path that leads straight to the heart of the matter.”
Anna is having trouble following him. She realizes how tired she is.
“And what exactly is that, Jim?” Ms. Thadeous asks. Whatever glow Anna had imagined she’d seen on Ms. Thadeous’s face earlier is gone. Her glass is now empty. She tips it to her mouth and starts crushing the remaining ice between her teeth.
“Annie knows,” says Jim. “Let’s have Annie tell us. For someone so young, Annie’s figured it all out.”
“Jim, you’re talking about a very mixed-up young girl, a girl who’s just experienced a terrible loss,” says Ms. Thadeous.
“Still,” says Jim Fulson, “she’s got her finger on the pulse. Don’t you, Annie?”
“I do,” Anna says. The wine has sharpened, not dulled, her wits. She suspects that if she gets up she might stumble, but her brain is agile. It’s doing cartwheels. She can read Jim Fulson’s mind.
“Give us one of your quotes,” he says. “Let’s put that wonderful photographic mind
to work.”
“Jim,” says Ms. Thadeous.
“No,” he says. “Let’s have it. Let’s have a little fire and brimstone.”
“Okay,” Anna says. “You asked. You shall receive.”
Anna clears her throat. “That terrible day of the LORD is near. Swiftly it comes—a day of bitter tears, a day when even strong men will cry out. It will be a day when the LORD’s anger is poured out—a day of terrible distress and anguish, a day of ruin and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, a day of trumpet calls and battle cries. Down go the walled cities and the strongest battlements!”
Anna’s proclamation silences every conversation within ten feet of their table. Over at the jukebox, Tammy Wynette croons through a full chorus of Stand by Your Man before Ms. Thadeous speaks.
“Where on earth did you dig that one up?”
“Zephaniah 1:14-16,” Anna says. “But there’s more. Because you have sinned against the Lord, I will make you as helpless as a blind man searching for a path. Your blood will be poured out into the dust, and your bodies will lie rotting on the ground. Your silver and gold will be of no use to you on that day of the Lord’s anger. For the whole land will be devoured by the fire of His jealousy. And He will make a terrifying end of all the people on earth.”
Saying the words is less satisfying than usual. Something has shifted. Anna feels less certain. She wonders if her earthly loss has turned her into a coward, if this is why Lars looked so frightened at her parents’ memorial service. To speak of death figuratively is one thing. To apply the word dead to her mother, her father, is enough to make a stone weep.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” says Jim Fulson, and Anna gets the feeling he understands something she doesn’t. He’s rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. In the dark room his long scars glow white. Marks of beauty. Beauty marks. Anna does something she’s always wanted to do—reach out a tentative finger and trace one of the scars all the way up his arm, from his wrist to the crook of his elbow. Jim Fulson shivers.
Coming of Age at the End of Days Page 11