by Amy Harmon
Her pain was so heavy it filled the air around us, and when I tried to breathe, it filled my lungs and made my throat close and my chest scream for oxygen. But she didn’t stop.
“After the accident, the only truth I was sure of was that Eli was dead. I’d killed him. And that was something I was going to have to live with.”
Georgia looked at me fiercely, her old fire lighting up her eyes as if expecting me to argue with her. But arguing was something I rarely did. I’d learned long ago that people were going to think what they thought, believe whatever they were going to believe, and speaking up wouldn’t change their minds. So I met Georgia’s gaze and waited.
“He’s dead, Moses. That’s the truth. I’m alive. That’s also the truth. I didn’t mean to kill him. Another truth. I would give him my life if I could. I would trade places if I could. I would do anything to have him back. Give anything. Sacrifice anything. Anyone. That’s the truth too.” Georgia stopped abruptly and inhaled deeply, her breath shuddering and skipping like her throat was too tight to draw it in all at once. She broke eye contact, turning her head as if my seeming acceptance of her truths rattled her a bit.
“So please don’t lie to me, Moses. That’s all I ask. Don’t lie to me. And I won’t lie to you. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. But don’t lie to me.”
She thought I was lying. She thought I was doing the crazy thing with her. She didn’t believe I could see Eli. She wanted me to tell her the truth, but when everyone called your truth a lie, what then?
“You’re afraid of the truth, Georgia. People that are afraid of the truth never find it,” I told her. But she didn’t look at me, staring up at the sky once more, signaling that the conversation was over. I waited for several long minutes and finally rose to my feet, leaving her there, the Lady of Shalott, the Lady of the Lake, lying in a sea of grass. My legs were shaking and I felt drained all the way to my bones as I walked away.
“I did what I came to do,” I told Tag. Although I had no idea if that was the truth, it sounded good. If that was what Eli needed me to do, to see, then it was done. Finished. All I knew was I wanted to leave, and the sooner the better.
“We’re not done painting, though,” Tag tried again.
I continued gathering supplies.
“There’s another mural upstairs. Or did you forget about that one?” Tag asked.
“I didn’t paint anything upstairs. I was pretty strung out. But I’m pretty sure I never went upstairs.” I’d walked down those stairs and out of the house, straight to the barn where I found Georgia. And I’d never walked up them again.
“Come on. I’ll show you.” Tag climbed the stairs eagerly, and I followed decidedly less so. I was sick to death of seeing my handiwork. My stomach had been as knotted as a fisherman’s net since I’d stepped inside G’s house. And it hadn’t eased yet. But when Tag pushed open the door to my old room and pointed at the wall, I realized that it wasn’t my handiwork I’d forgotten about.
The stick-figure mural was still there.
“Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m thinking this is a Moses Wright knock off. Similar styling . . . but not quite there yet,” Tag said, squinting his eyes and stroking his chin like he was actually studying a piece of artwork.
“It was Georgia.”
“No shit?” Tag said in mock surprise, and I laughed, even though I was choking on the memory.
The last Saturday before school started, Georgia failed to show up on the fence line at lunch time like she’d done every other day. By the time I packed it in, I’d convinced myself that I was better off. Good riddance. I never wanted her anyway. I stomped up the stairs into the bathroom, showered with my teeth gritted and anger coming out my ears, only to walk into my room with a towel wrapped around my waist and halt in amazement.
Georgia had painted a mural on my bedroom wall.
It looked like a child’s comic strip, complete with stick figures and speech bubbles.
The female stick figure had long blonde hair and cowboy boots and the male stick figure had bright green eyes, a paint brush, and no hair at all. The awkward stick people were holding hands in one frame, kissing in the next, and in the final frame, the girl stick figure—Georgia—was kicking the boy stick figure—me—in the head.
“What in the hell . . .” I breathed.
“Nice outfit!” Georgia chirped from where she was seated, cross legged, in the middle of my bed.
I shook my head in disbelief and pointed to the door. “Out.”
She laughed. “I’ll shut my eyes.”
I grumbled and stomped to my dresser. With one hand I gathered up some clothes and stomped back out, slamming the bathroom door as if I was truly irritated. I wasn’t. I was thrilled to see her.
I came back, fully dressed, with my arms folded, and I stood in the doorway and stared at her hideous drawing.
“Are you mad at me?” Her brow was wrinkled and her eyes were worried, and she wasn’t smiling anymore. “I thought you would laugh.” She shrugged. “I told Kathleen I was going to surprise you. And she said, ‘Go right ahead!’ So I did. I used your paints, but I put everything back.”
“Why are you kicking me in the head?”
“It’s our story. We meet. You save me. I kiss you. You kiss me back, but you keep acting like you don’t like me even though I know you do. So I’m kicking some sense into you. And man, does it feel good.” She grinned cheekily, and I looked back at her depiction. That was some kick to the head.
“It’s a terrible mural.” It was terrible. And funny. And very Georgia.
“Well, we can’t all be Leonardo DiCaprio. You painted on my walls, I’m painting on yours. And you don’t even have to pay me. I’m just trying to bond with you over art.”
“Leonardo da Vinci, you mean?”
“Him too.” She smiled again and laid back on my bed, patting the spot beside her.
“You could have at least given me some biceps. That doesn’t look anything like me. And why am I saying, ‘Don’t hurt me, Georgia!’”
I plopped down on the bed and purposely landed partially on top of her. She wiggled and scooted breathlessly, trying to free herself from my intentional squishing.
“You’re right. Maybe I should have written those words coming out of my mouth,” she giggled. But there was a look in her dark eyes that had me ducking my head and burying my face in her neck so I wouldn’t have to think about the inevitability of her pain.
She stroked my head and I breathed against her skin.
“Are we bonding over art?” she whispered in my ear.
“No. Let’s bond over something you’re actually good at,” I murmured back, and felt her chest vibrate with her laughter.
“She wanted to bond with me over art,” I said, smiling a little.
Tag chuckled and crossed to the stick figures. He traced his finger over the heart Georgia had drawn over the kissing stick -figures. “I like her, Mo.”
“She could always make me laugh. And she was right,” I confessed.
“About what?”
“I was always acting like I didn’t like her, even though I did.”
“Imagine that,” Tag said mildly. But his eyes found mine as he turned away and left my bedroom.
“Mo?” Tag called as he descended the stairs.
“Yeah?” I found I wasn’t ready to part with this mural yet, and stood, soaking it in as if I’d discovered a ghostly Picasso, painting away in my old room.
“You’ve got company, man. But take your time. It’s not the female variety.”
When I came back outside, Tag was leaning against a white SUV with Juab County Sheriff’s Department emblazoned on the side, talking to Sheriff Dawson like they were just a couple of cowboys shootin’ the shit after a long day in the saddle. Sheriff Dawson hadn’t changed much—maybe a few more lines around his blue eyes. He leveled them at me and they were decidedly cool. That hadn’t changed either.
“Didn’t you and my dad do some horse business
a few years back?” Tag just continued talking, easy as you please, pretending not to notice the change in the temperature or the fact that the sheriff wasn’t really listening anymore.
Sheriff Dawson shot Tag a look. “Uh, yeah. Yes, we did. But it’s been more than a few years. I shoed some of his horses and sold him a couple Appaloosas he liked.”
“That’s right. You and I talked about rodeo a little bit. I used to do a little steer wrestling when I wasn’t raising Cain. You did some team roping didn’t you?”
“A little. I was a heeler. But I had more success in calf roping.” The sheriff’s voice was mild, but he wasn’t distracted by Tag’s good ol’ boy conversation skills, and as I walked toward him, he ignored Tag completely.
“You sellin’ the place?” he asked bluntly. He didn’t extend his hand and I didn’t offer mine.
I shrugged. I didn’t owe him any explanations.
“Tag here says you’ve been painting. That’s good. People might get the wrong idea if they see what you painted all over that house.”
Tag shifted slightly, and a look crossed his face that I’d seen a few times before.
“You here for any purpose, Sheriff?” I asked calmly. I wondered if he had known Georgia was pregnant when he came to question me at Montlake about Molly Taggert. It was February, and Georgia would have been far enough along for someone to know. It shed some light on the snide comments and the little asides he had shared with his fat deputy. Sheriff Dawson was a close friend of Georgia’s family. I had no doubt he knew all about Eli. For that matter, I had no doubt the whole town did. I wondered suddenly if my son had been treated with scorn or fear because of me, because of the things I had done. I wondered if Georgia had. The thought made my hands grow cold and my gut twist uncomfortably.
“I’m just here to find out what your plans are,” he said plainly. Tag’s face contorted again.
“Oh, yeah?” I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried not to think about how people might have treated Georgia when they discovered she had my baby in her belly. I tried not to think about how people might have looked at her and Eli when they were out and about in the community. I tried not to think about them whispering or watching closely to see if Eli was going to turn out like me.
“Georgia has suffered too much. Her family has suffered. They don’t need you here adding to it, churning up a lot of talk and trouble all over again.”
I couldn’t argue with any of that, but it pissed me off that he was suddenly the family spokesperson.
“Georgia’s a beautiful girl, isn’t she?” Tag blurted out. “She seein’ anyone? Hell, Sheriff. I don’t see a ring on your finger. You ever think about givin’ her a shoulder to cry on during all those troubled times? You’ve got twenty years on her, but some girls like older men, right?”
I had never wanted to pound my friend’s face in more than I wanted to at that moment. And there had been several times in our travels when we’d come to blows. I wanted to slap the smirk right off Tag’s face, and I wasn’t the only one. Sheriff Dawson’s ears were red and his concerned, public-servant face had slipped into something else.
“Seems a little weird to me, Sheriff. But I’ve seen stranger things. Small-town connections are like that. Hell, everybody’s related to everybody. Everybody knows everybody. I’m not even from here, and I know way too much.”
The sheriff’s blue eyes were narrowed in on Tag’s face, and though he kept a benign smile in place, I could see he wasn’t overly pleased with Tag’s two cents. Tag just sat slumped against the SUV, totally relaxed, completely unbothered by the enemy he had just made.
We all turned as a delivery truck rounded the corner and bounced along from pot hole to pot hole. The carpet had arrived. Sheriff Dawson slid into his SUV and pulled his door shut as the delivery truck pulled in with a jerk and a belch.
“If you paid half as much attention to those pot holes as you’re payin’ to Moses, the whole town would be happier, I’m thinkin’.” Tag continued to talk, only stepping away from the SUV as Sheriff Dawson started it up, put it in reverse, and began backing out.
“You’re right about one thing, Mr. Taggert,” Sheriff Dawson called out his window. “Everybody knows everybody. And everybody knows all about Georgia and Eli. And Georgia deserves a whole helluva lot better.” He met my gaze through his windshield, shook his head as if he couldn’t believe I’d had the gall to return, and drove away.
Moses
THE CLEANING LADY—who turned out to be a cleaning girl—couldn’t come until the next day, though I tried to bribe her with more pay. She was seventeen, and her boyfriend had a football game she didn’t want to miss. I’d torn her name from a flyer hanging on a bulletin board in the country mall, the little gas station that sat at the crossroads where the old highway forked, one road leading south to Gunnison, the other leading west to the old coal mine and a dozen other little spots on the map that could hardly be called towns anymore.
We threw our sleeping bags on the new carpet in anticipation of spending our first night in the house—and last night if things went as planned. We’d slept out on the grass the three previous nights, and it had been a little colder than either of us liked. Tag had made a teasing comment about us sleeping in Georgia’s barn to keep warm, but the look I’d sent him had shut him up immediately. I’d told Tag about the morning my grandmother died. He knew I’d spent the night with Georgia in the barn that final night. He knew I’d come home and found my grandmother dead on the kitchen floor. The night in the barn had been the last moments of Before. They’d been my last moments with Georgia. Sleeping in the barn was no laughing matter.
It was after we’d eaten a couple cans of soup and almost a loaf of bread between us that the doorbell rang, clanging through the empty house and jarring us both. I almost expected Sheriff Dawson to be standing outside with assorted townspeople armed with torches, but Georgia stood on the doorstep, her face drawn with indecision, clutching a big book to her chest.
“I thought . . . thought . . .” she tripped over the words and stopped. Then she took a deep breath and met my eyes. She said each word crisply, not allowing herself to stumble again.
“I have pictures of Eli. I thought maybe you’d like to see them.” She held out the big book, and I realized it was a photo album. It was at least five inches thick with the pages overflowing and the binding bulging around them. I stared at it, not taking the book, and her arms slowly lowered. Her jaw was tight and her eyes were hard when I finally lifted my eyes. She thought I was rejecting her. Again.
“I do. I would like to see them. But will you look at them with me?” I asked softly. “I want you to tell me about him. I want stories. I want details.”
She nodded and took a hesitant step inside when I opened the door wider and ushered her in. Her eyes took in the bare walls and the new carpets and she visibly relaxed.
“I wanted her clock,” she said.
“What?” I was staring at the smooth length of her hair and the way it fell from her shoulders, down her back and ended only a few inches above her waist.
“That cuckoo clock she always had in here. I loved it,” she explained.
“Me too.” I wondered where it had ended up. I hoped it wasn’t in a box somewhere.
“Was there anything left in the house?”
I shook my head. “Just the paint.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I hadn’t spoken them. I don’t know what it was about Georgia, but she’d always had that effect on me. She breached my defenses and my truths started spilling out with all their warts and garish colors.
Georgia just looked at me in that same frank way, as if trying to peel back my layers. But then she shrugged and let it go. We traipsed through the kitchen, and I apologized for the lack of furniture. We ended up sitting with our backs to the wall in the dining room, the book on our laps. Tag busied himself in the kitchen and greeted Georgia with a smile and a question about Cuss.
“You get thrown today, Georgia?”
“Nah. I rarely get thrown anymore. I’ve gotten better at waiting them out.”
“It won’t be long until he gives you his head,” I murmured. Georgia looked at me sharply and I cursed myself silently once more.
“I’d like to watch you sometime. Moses and I have seen the world, but it’s been too long since I’ve spent any real time with horses. Maybe you’ll let me have a ride before we leave.” Tag smiled and winked at her again before excusing himself and heading for the front door. I hadn’t missed Georgia’s flinch when he mentioned us leaving.
“I’m heading into Nephi for a little refreshment and possibly a game of pool. That honky-tonk is still on Main, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. We don’t call it a honky-tonk though, Texas. That’s stretching it a little. We call it a bar. But there’s a pool table in the back, and if you’re lucky, someone to play with who can still stand,” Georgia said dryly.
“Did ya hear that, Moses? She’s already given me a nickname. Tag 1, Moses 0.” He cackled and let himself out the front door before I could respond.
Georgia laughed, but I wanted to follow him out and throw his ass to the ground. Tag didn’t always know when to shut his mouth.
But as soon as he was gone, I would have gladly welcomed him back.
The house was far too quiet without him, and Georgia and I were stuck in an empty room with everything and nothing to say. It felt oddly right and horribly wrong to be sitting beside her, our shoulders touching, our legs stretched out, side by side. With a deep breath and a shaking hand, Georgia opened the book and filled the silence with pictures.
There were pictures of a tired-looking Georgia with a messy braid and hollow eyes staring at the camera with a small smile, a black-eyed infant with a swollen face topped by a tiny blue hat in her arms. There were close-ups of wrinkly feet and miniature fists, of a naked behind and a mass of black hair. Everything documented down to the smallest detail, as if every detail had been noted and celebrated.