by Tayari Jones
* * *
I heard the woman’s voice in my sleep. At first I thought I was dreaming, then I sat up as the strain intensified: When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is he! His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me!
Outside my bedroom window, branches waved in rhythm to the song. As rain fell, I wondered if the woman was still on the corner, still singing contentment in the midst of a storm. If so, her faith certainly exceeded mine. She seemed able to see beyond the obvious, to find beauty in any situation. I’d never learned that. Things had to make direct sense to me. Gleaning goodness from tragedy, for example, meant simply lying about pain. Faith meant hope, and I simply didn’t have it. I believed in being positive, but I also believed in being truthful. And the truth was rarely beautiful to me. I asked God about it—the decision to let pain run rampant—but He ignored me, so we went our separate ways.
Yet something about the woman’s voice restored my hope. I can’t explain it, but something shifted within me. Notes lingered in my mind like thoughts revisited: tranquil, serene, unblemished. The way I once imagined God. Years ago, a flock of birds descended in Grant Park, pecking at new spring seeds. I sat on a bench reading Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, when suddenly the birds rose as if spooked. I looked up. It wasn’t the black mass that startled me, but the harmony of their chirping. Each strain bore a different sound, but the melody wasn’t discordant. It was beautiful, complex, intricate—without human equivalent. They swooped through the air in waves, tweeting a song so precisely I marveled. I’d never heard the chorus of angels before. I wasn’t sure I believed in it, but now I did. Those hundreds of birds sang for me alone. They reassembled what a lifetime of hurt had dismantled. I stood and closed my eyes. Each choral part rang in perfect balance, and I wondered if this might be the sound of hope. That’s why the woman’s voice astonished me—it sounded like those birds. It sounded like hope. And I never wanted it to end.
I rose quietly in the dark and stood before the window. Rain drenched the glass, and thunder rumbled in the distance.
I grabbed my robe and car keys. I would go get her, invite her home, bring her to a warm, dry place. My wife wouldn’t understand, but it would be okay. Eventually. She’d hear her sing and perhaps they’d become friends. Or, like me, she’d reconsider life as she once knew it. Whatever happened, it would be better than knowing I could’ve saved a songbird and didn’t. She couldn’t bear exposure to the elements for long. She had no health care, surely, no one to see about her in a time of need. And she couldn’t die. Not now. The world needed her. I needed her.
Torrential rain calmed as I reached the corner of Abernathy and McDaniel. I lowered my window and there she was—wet and shivering like a stray dog. I stalled at the stoplight once again and beheld other young men lurking in the dark. There were more now, scampering like frantic ants, waiting for the arrival of the despairing. I sighed and huffed. Where were their families? Didn’t someone dream these boys’ futures? Wasn’t there a grandmother or uncle or distant cousin who believed they might be something one day? What does it mean to a child that no one imagines his tomorrow? I considered taking them home too, teaching them the ways of men, but I couldn’t do that. Seeds had been planted within them that I didn’t want to harvest. So I, too, forfeited the cost of their survival. I wasn’t any more committed than anyone else. So what could I expect? We’d given them no hope, so they had none.
Truthfully, I cared only about the lady with God’s voice. No one else. She’d reminded me of the hidden possibilities of life. I discovered that, unlike what my wife believed, my heart wasn’t dead. It was alive and eager to feel again. Not since our wedding night had I been so invigorated. Who knew that someone in the ghetto, someone unknown and inconsequential, had the power to set me free?
I activated my hazards and waited. It was just after three a.m. Wind blew hard enough to bend the tops of trees and swirl trash in miniature whirlwinds. The woman winced and bound her lips tightly. I wanted to park and offer her a jacket or an umbrella, but I didn’t want to chase her away. So, for the moment, I did nothing—except hope that she might sing. And she did: “Come, ye disconsolate, wherever ye languish . . .”
It was a bold invitation, a sudden intrusion into the atmosphere, an insistence that life prevail where death once reigned. She didn’t look at me. Not at first. Her voice simply plowed through the denouement of a storm: “Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel . . .”
Then, like a broken stem, her head fell back as she belted, “Here bring your wounded hearts! Here tell your anguish! Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal . . .”
She repeated the last two lines with trills so smooth and exact that my hands lifted in praise. That’s the power of the Holy Ghost, my grandmother would’ve said. It moves without permission. It heals the brokenhearted. It just won’t leave you alone. I was glad. I didn’t want to be left alone. I wanted to be lost in the woman’s arms, to feel her touch, to be consumed in her restorative power.
She knew I was listening. She had to know. My car flashed in the intersection like a Christmas tree. Far as I was concerned, we were the only people on earth. She gazed into the cloudy sky, but never stopped singing. Every distress, every burden, every disappointment dissolved in my heart. Her voice was a gift to a dying world. Without it, she was nothing; with it, she was divine. Slowly, she rose and stretched her hands toward me. Something electric penetrated the air. My consciousness clouded. I felt faint. What was she doing?
I sat at the intersection, fully mesmerized. No one in their right mind would’ve been where I was at that time of morning. Not unless they needed something desperately. Not unless they sought peace they could not find.
Tears came again as her energy anointed me. Our eyes beheld nothing but each other; our needs danced between us, exposed. Slowly, step by step, she moved toward me. Her battered, soaked dress clung to her thin, wispy frame. She looked different now, marching in the spirit with outstretched hands, giving me something I could not articulate. She waltzed until reaching the corner, then stood still a moment, all the while repeating, “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” Then, suddenly, she retraced her steps, moving backward in the same time sequence. Her form faded into the dark, as her voice waned to a whisper. Her lips continued trembling but all sound ceased. Only whiffs of wind murmured in the night, repeating the song’s refrain in circular bursts of cool, moistened air.
I shivered. There was only one thing to do, one risk to take if I were to access her fullest offering. It’s why I was there; it’s why we had crossed paths. I turned off the hazards and pulled into the lot where she dwelled. Our gaze remained constant. We exchanged something—life force, healing, love—that we both had presumably forsaken. Her head swayed slightly as if the refrain repeated in her mind. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. I believed her. I needed to believe her.
I got out of the car. My head said this was not right. That I was in violation of something sacred. But my heart urged me on, pleading with me to trust what I knew, what I felt. I obeyed. Her smile eased my nerves, and her beckoning right hand summoned me onward until I stood right before her. She extended small, feeble palms, and I lay thick, heavy ones upon them. Storm clouds passed through slate-gray skies. With the slightest tug, she lured me next to her, thigh to thigh, and pressed my head onto her shoulder. A strange aroma welcomed me, like the scent of healing, so I sighed, dropped all inhibitions, and melted into the womb of a songbird.
Soon, a murder of miniature birds descended, pecking frantically for food they could not find. In one dark swoop, they rose, just like years before, chirping the same harmonious tune that reminded me of a chorus of angels. There was no violation here. I was where I was supposed to be. This was right. It had to be right.
Once again I cried. I cried for a wife I didn’t love anymore. I cried for the life I had settled for. I cried for boys with futures unimagined. I cried for a son conceived, but returned. I cried for a people alive but
not thriving. I cried for my mother whose trust of my father killed her. I cried for a father too broken to care. And all the while, the songbird massaged my hand and purred, “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal . . .”
She took my pain away. She told me everything I had ever done—not in words, but in melodic forgiveness. I felt whole again; I felt renewed. I was changed.
I asked her name, but she shook her head and whispered lovingly, “Just go home.” So that’s what I did. When Patricia asked where I’d been, I told her the truth. The full truth. She asked if I loved the woman, and I said no. I didn’t even know her; I just loved her voice. Of course Patricia didn’t believe me.
“You’re such a liar,” she mumbled, staring over my shoulder at the life she could’ve had. “All you had to do was tell me, and you weren’t man enough to do that. You’re such a fuckin’ liar.”
I tried to convince her there was nothing between the woman and me, but I failed. We argued for hours, calling each other names we’d promised never to use, and by sunrise we both knew it was over.
“Just admit you’re in love with her. Can you at least do that?”
We’d been silent several minutes. I’d thought the exchange concluded, but obviously not.
“Patricia, I don’t even know the woman! I heard her voice and it did something to me. That’s all.”
Patricia’s eyes showed a vulnerability of sorrow and regret. She’d always been strong and self-assured but now she looked sullen and defeated. What more could I say?
She covered her face and wept with grief. I stood before her, alone, like a disobedient child awaiting reprimand. When I reached to comfort her, she jerked away.
“I’m done,” she said finally, frowning at the magnitude of my error. She went to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. I wanted to say so many other things. Like, I love you. Or, I need you. But it was useless now. Perhaps if she’d heard the woman’s voice, she might’ve understood. Or if I could’ve taken her to the vacant lot, she too would’ve been transformed. But as it was, Patricia wanted no part of that life. And hence no part of mine.
* * *
Patricia has been gone four years now. Every Christmas she sends a card. The return address and her new last name let me know she has found someone else. I don’t blame her. How could I? Still, all these years later, I hear the woman’s voice in my head. Every now and then, I drive past the corner of McDaniel and Abernathy with hopeful eyes, but I’ve never seen her again. Her life’s mantra rings in my ear whenever I consider my many losses: Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
If only this were true for us all.
PART III
Nose Wide Open
The Bubble
by Jennifer Harlow
Peachtree City
Despite the strange wet, hot, stifling air of an atypical Georgia spring night, Emma shivered as she drove her golf cart to her best friend Maddie’s house on Lake Peachtree. Not that it was much of a lake that night. For years the residents who’d paid a million dollars for lakefront property had been stuck staring out at a mud pit or dying grasslands as the county and city battled over who would pay the millions for the repairs to the dam and the dredging that was needed. For decades the shining symbol of Peachtree City’s beauty, grace, and opulence hid a problem. Under that calm water families picnicked near and canoed over was a mess of neglect, poor planning, and denial no one wanted to take the blame for.
But at long last, the next morning, the status quo would return to Peachtree City. The fixed lake would return to its natural glory and all would be right in the bubble once more. Which was why if Emma and Maddie were actually going through with their plan, it had to be this night.
Emma passed an elderly couple also on their golf cart, and all parties nodded and smiled. It’s just what you did in the town. Emma once visited New York City with her family for a week and was shocked at how nobody there smiled at one another. They never asked how their days were or even held doors. A person would probably be arrested for not holding the door in Peachtree City. The cops were so bored they jumped on any infraction, including crimes against civility.
Even that night, even with what they were planning, Emma glanced around the dark forest nervously for any signs of the ATVs the police drove along the forested paths. Curfew was fifteen minutes before, and the police had been out in force during the whole of spring break. Not that her parents would care or even know if she were arrested for any crime. Emma’s mother was passed out on her usual cocktail of wine and Ativan after a busy day of exercising, gossiping, and attending her pottery class in Newnan, while her father was, as always, on a business trip. Maddie’s parents were divorced—her father lived in Atlanta, but her mother and stepfather were on a cruise around the Mediterranean to recover from their couples’ trip to a golf resort in California. Maddie didn’t mind. Her sister supposed to be watching her spent all her time in Little Five Points with her boyfriend, helping him set up his craft beer business. For the whole of spring break, Maddie had the house to herself. A fifteen-year-old’s paradise. Emma and their friends spent most days and nights since middle school there getting stoned, watching Netflix, fooling around, and raiding the wine rack. But that night, like the rest of the week, was just for the two of them. The ultimate thrill. An act to bond them for life. Emma shivered again.
She turned off the cart path onto Maddie’s quiet street, past the Lexuses and SUVs tucked away behind their gates. Most houses were dark inside. It was ten o’clock. The city died around nine. Shops closed and adults lay in their beds watching television after putting the children down. The adults always commented about what a great place it was to live, how it was named one of the top one hundred cities in America by several magazines, how safe it was to raise children. It truly was a bubble, an oasis in the urban sprawl. Great for some, death for teenagers, especially ones without driver’s licenses. The golf cart paths only went around the city, and there are only so many trips to the shopping center, The Avenue, a teen could make. There were only so many shows to binge watch or parties to attend with the same people they’d all known since kindergarten, talking about the same gossip. Maddie often commented it was as if their life forces were slowly being drained by the boredom, the sameness. How something had to be done to save their minds and spirits. And it would be done that night.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” Maddie said after opening her front door.
She was a beautiful girl, they both were, but it was Maddie who made heads turn, especially since she added purple and pink in her long shiny brown hair. That night her long limbs and thin frame were dressed in all black, as was Emma per Maddie’s strict instructions. All part of the plan.
“Sorry. Mom took forever to pass out,” Emma said, walking inside the three-story Georgian with all her bags.
“You got everything?” Maddie asked.
Emma set down the bags on the marble vestibule floor right below the crystal chandelier. “Yeah. They had everything at, like, Kmart.”
“Eww, you went to Kmart?” Maddie asked with a sneer as she checked the bags. “Did you have to take, like, seven showers after?”
“Totally.”
“And you paid in cash, right?”
“Of course!”
“Good.” Maddie picked up some of the bags. “Then let’s get this shit to the boathouse already. He just e-mailed the Craigslist account. He’ll be here in ten,” she said in singsong.
Ten, Emma thought, another chill running down her spine. If Maddie noticed the quick expression of sheer terror on her best friend’s face, she didn’t let on. Or she didn’t care. Maddie never seemed to care. Since they were children, Emma always wished she could be as self-assured, as strong, as cool and collected as Maddie, but felt she never came close. Well, that night, she’d finally prove herself to Maddie, prove she was worthy of being the best friend, the sometimes lover, and true BAE to a goddess like Madeline Whitlock. Emma picked up the rest
of the bags and trailed behind her goddess.
The rare times her parents were home, Maddie commandeered the boathouse for her social gatherings. Before her grandmother died, the Whitlocks converted it into a small apartment. The only thing that kept Maddie from making it her private residence full time was the size. It was barely bigger than her mother’s master bedroom. That night it appeared larger than normal, with only a couch and chair in the living room. Earlier in the day the girls had moved everything into the bedroom so they could lay the plastic sheeting on the floor. Maddie even made sure they bought plastic covers for the chair and couch.
She thinks of everything, Emma thought with awe. Emma’s father often chided her about forgetting the basics, like not wiping off the counter right after use and rolling the toothpaste incorrectly, never mind about her grades. Maddie of course got all A’s while Emma worked hard for her B’s. One day her father’s constant berating, his constant pressure proved too much for Emma, and she actually broke down crying in class after getting a C on a calculus test. But Maddie knew how to make it all better. She made sure Mrs. Adler found the texts on Mr. Adler’s phone from his mistress. For months Mr. Adler was too busy trying to keep his marriage from falling apart to pay any attention to Emma. No matter how many second or eightieth thoughts Emma had that night, they didn’t matter. She owed Maddie for that act alone.
“Want something to drink?” Maddie asked as she poured two tumblers of whiskey.
“Should we be drinking? Don’t we, like, need our brains at maximum?”
Maddie sauntered over to Emma as she so often did, as if she owned the room and the rest of the world, and handed the glass to Emma. “One won’t hurt. We need to toast, anyway.” She held up her glass and Emma did the same. “To us. The baddest, hottest bitches in the PTC. And to the experience of a lifetime.”
Both chugged their alcohol, but only Emma shuddered. She hated whiskey. “What if he doesn’t, like, show up or something?” she asked, silently praying for that exact thing.