End Times (33 page)

“Please!” she cried over the noise, her hands above her head as if they could deflect their horrible words. “It wasn’t what you all think; it was in self-defense. The jury acquitted me!”

“Liar!” they screamed, mouths twisting around the word like rubber Halloween masks, fists in the air. Through the shouting and the chaos, the angry words hurled at her like rocks through a glass window, bruising her harder than any stone ever could, Daphne saw Uncle Floyd and Aunt Karen huddled together, looking small and weak and overwhelmed. Betrayed. She had meant to tell them the truth someday. Now she was too late.

But it was Deirdre Varley, not Floyd or Karen Peyton, who came barreling at her across the funeral home. “You killed my grandchild,” she wailed over the din. She staggered forward, skinny hands outstretched in anger, ready to close around Daphne’s throat. “My holy grandson, the prophet—you brought the devil to this town, and you killed him with your bare hands!”

Her kitten heel caught on the carpet and she went pitching forward, arms windmilling in a frenzy of black bouclé and crepey white flesh. She sprawled on the ground at Daphne’s feet, too overcome with grief and anger to stand, beating her puny fists on the floor and calling Daphne a baby-killer over and over again, her voice scraping at Daphne’s last tiny shred of self-control.

Vince pushed through the crowd to help her up, and she collapsed in his arms, wailing. He tried to drag her away, but she turned, narrow lips spewing recriminations. “I see you for what you are!” she crowed. “You’re the work of the devil—and my grandson’s blood is on your hands.”

“But it was on the tablet!” Daphne cried. She felt surrounded and trapped, hunted like an animal, ensnared by their hate. “I could read it, the Aramaic, all of it! It said there would be seven signs and wonders, and one of them would be the death of a firstborn.”

Her words cut a swath through the chaos, trailing silence behind.

“The tablet?” someone asked.

“From Elk Mountain?” another echoed.

“The ancient Aramaic?” a third intoned.

“Yes!” she sobbed, hands open in supplication before them, an offering, a plea. “I don’t know how or why, but I could read it. It said there would be the death of a firstborn, and a whole bunch of other stuff: a plague, a prophet, a battle between the Children of God and the Children of the Earth. I didn’t know the firstborn would be Janie’s—if I had, I would have tried to do something, I swear!”

“You could read the tablet?” Pastor Ted asked doubtfully.

Daphne nodded. She felt the disbelief radiating off of the crowd in waves, acrid contempt scenting the air, and she wished she’d said nothing. Across the room, she saw Uncle Floyd staring at her, bushy eyebrows high on his forehead. For a moment, there was the old glimmer of affection in his eyes, the tiniest trace of the admiration she’d earned by helping discover the oil and landing a job at the rig. He looked like he wanted to believe her. But he was the only one, and in his bereavement and confusion, his last gasp of faith wasn’t enough.

“I doubt they teach that in Detroit,” Vince Varley sneered.

“She’s a filthy liar,” Doug cut in, “just like I said.”

The congregation nodded, simmering, pumped up on coffee and fury, the storm of accusations a potent outlet for their misplaced, unprocessed grief. They shook and sneered, lashing at her with their eyes and words, a pack of wolves surrounding their prey.

Pastor Ted took stock of the situation. He approached Daphne cautiously, like a cop about to put down a rabid dog. “I think it’s best you leave,” he said solemnly. “This is a delicate time for our congregation, and we’d appreciate it if you left us alone to take care of our own.” His eyes were the coldest blue, and somehow his gentle, tactful authority hurt more than all their brutal name-calling combined.

“You’re asking me to leave?”

His nod was short, curt, the message unsaid but clear:
not asking. Telling.

“And don’t come back!” someone shouted.

“And take your dirty baby-killing boyfriend with you!” another shrilled.

“Go away!” the crowd chorused. “Go away! Leave us alone! Don’t come back!”

Her eyes, blurred with tears, searched the angry faces and landed on the Peytons. They clutched each other, trembling, staring at her with looks of hopeless shock. She met their eyes and raised her eyebrows slightly, a question, a plea. But it was too little, too late. Karen buried her head in Floyd’s chest, her shoulders shaking, and after a moment Floyd, too, forced himself to turn away.

She had no other choice. The community she’d begun to think of as hers, the town she had started to call home, the family she’d become a part of, were all rejecting her, throwing her out the door like yesterday’s trash.

“Okay,” she said simply.

She turned and walked out the door, her back to everyone and everything she’d come to love.

MILK. She was full of milk, drenched with it from the inside. It felt like milk had replaced all the liquid in her body, her blood, sweat, and tears. Sweet milk, white milk, inside of her, everywhere.

Milk filled her chest, pulsing inside her breasts until they were sore. It leaked from her nipples, leaving slick white trails inside her bra, leaking through until it felt like she was swimming in it, drowning in it, immersed in a pale white sea.

It was for him, but he wasn’t there.

Where was he, her son, Jeremiah, the prophet? She’d given him a good name, a Bible name, a name worthy of the burden he’d bear, the light he’d bring to the world. She had carried the name along with him in her body for months, knowing she had to see him first to be sure.

She’d seen him. She’d been sure. But where was he?

She’d seen him emerge from her body, into the world, Jeremiah, her son, the prophet. But he was gone, hiding somewhere, taken from her, leaving her full of milk, bursting.

She ached for the feeling of his tiny mouth suckling at the nourishment she had to offer, the secret formula of motherhood. Without his mouth her body was wasted. Her arms should have been holding him, so there was nothing to do with her arms. Her lap should have been rocking him, so there was nothing to do with her legs. Her mouth should have been kissing him, so there was nothing to do with her mouth, no words to say, no reason to speak, not until they brought her baby back to her. Her ears, listening for his cries, heard nothing else. Her eyes, watching for him, were empty to any other sight.

Her mind was an open wound. Her son, her baby, gone.

There were rooms full of light and rooms full of darkness, people speaking to her and dressing her and holding her hand. There was a needle in her arm and then there wasn’t, there was a blanket around her and then there was dawn. There were nurses and a doctor, her mama and daddy and Daphne, all crying. There was her own bed, there were phone calls, there was a ride in a long black car, and then they were all outside, sitting in rows, and Pastor Ted was speaking, but nobody was saying, “I believe.”

There was a wooden box, no bigger than a shoe box, that they buried in the ground.

Something was wrong, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they bring her baby back to her, that Jeremiah empty her of her endless supply of milk. Where was he? Where was her son?

There had been yelling, accusations, harsh words flung back and forth across a room that was all beige. So much yelling. She couldn’t understand, and she didn’t care, not unless it would bring Jeremiah back. After the yelling they’d taken her home, her mama and daddy, silent, shaking, gray. She had sat somewhere, looking at something, for a few minutes or a few hours, heavy, liquid, bulging with milk, and then Doug was there.

“Everyone’s hanging out up at the house,” he said, standing in front of her, his father’s elk head belt buckle level with her eyes. “So get yourself together. Let’s go.”

A flannel shirt above the belt buckle, his thick neck, a scowl. Doug. Jeremiah’s father. Did he know where their baby was?

“I said, let’s go. C’mon. Don’t you want to do your makeup or whatever?”

Her body remembered a motion from what felt like long ago. Like moving a pile of rocks, she shook her head: one turn to the left, one to the right.

“Okay, well, whatever, the gang’s already up there. They said to come get you. We’re drinking in memory of—well, you know. So let’s go.”

He wanted something: Doug, the enormous body before her, the thick shoulders and hot neck, the body she knew so well. He wanted something, and she wondered what she could give. She had nothing to offer. Nothing but milk.

“Janie, honey.” Her mama, sitting on the couch next to her, took up her limp hand in both of hers. She smelled like face powder and apple-scented soap. “Doug wants to take you out to spend time with your friends. Do you want to go?”

Out. Friends. The words had meanings, but they were confused in her head, swimming like little lost fish in a big white ocean, an ocean of milk. She felt her mouth go slack as she tried to understand, her lower lip heavy and wet. She was supposed to do something, for Doug. Doug needed something from her. He was in front of her, simmering with impatience, but somewhere deep under all that flesh and anger, he was as lost and confused as she was. As lost as their baby. Their Jeremiah.

She stood, slowly, keeping her body upright so she wouldn’t spill.

“Great,” Doug sighed in exasperation and relief.

“Take good care of her,” she heard her mama say to Doug as she stood swaying on the carpet, trying to remember which direction was out.

“I will,” Doug replied. But he was already out the door, heading to his truck. She pulled her body through space, wanting to be close to him, wanting him to hold her so hard she became part of him, the two of them melded together with just enough space left for an infant. She wanted him to touch her, take her hand, float with her on a sea of milk where neither of them had to think or feel or talk. But he just started the truck.

Darkness. Headlights. They rode roughshod over the potholes, her breasts bouncing painfully, leaking. The truck’s cab smelled like smoke and musty Slim Jims, and Doug’s mouth was a tough, straight line.

“I wish you’d snap the fuck out of it,” he said.

Her head was heavy. Keeping it above the sea of milk, up where there was air, was hard. So hard. She let herself tip sideways until her head rested on the broad, flat expanse of his bicep, the flannel soft against her cheek, the Abercrombie smell of him a small, sweet comfort.

He jerked his arm, sending her head arcing in the other direction until it smacked against the passenger window. Stars exploded around her temple, pretty little sparkles of pain.

“I mean, it was my kid, too. You don’t see me walking around like the living dead.”

She rubbed her head. A small bump was beginning to form. But at least she still had milk—she could feel its warm pressure inside of her, the slow dribble into her bra. She still had milk for Jeremiah.

“You gonna say something, or just sit there like a stupid cow?”

Like a cow. So he understood. The corners of her lips did something, pulling toward her ears.

“What the hell are you smiling about? What is
wrong
with you?” Doug shouted.

She didn’t like shouting. She cowered away from him, slumping against the door. She watched the trees out the window, branches brushing the glass, waiting for it to stop, for him to go back to being the pillar of Doug-flesh who had poured himself into her so many times, molding them together, begetting life.

Doug muttered something she couldn’t hear and lit a cigarette, opening the window, the cold rush of air and smoke an unwelcome surprise on her face. Did Doug smoke? She couldn’t remember. Everything from before was blurry, painted over in white. She’d bought baby clothes. She’d gone to the clinic. She’d given birth. But where was the baby?

They pulled up to the house on top of Elk Mountain. It was beginning to take form, rising from the earth like a big steel daddy longlegs climbing out of the foundation. There were sleeping construction vehicles and piles of sandbags and Sheetrock, a big blue tarp on the ground surrounded by signs saying
Do Not Enter
. Something important was under that tarp, something with an answer. But she couldn’t remember what, and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered with Jeremiah gone.

There were parked cars and a campfire, their friends huddled around it, coolers full of beer. One of the cars was pulled up close to the fire, doors open and lights on, a pop anthem blaring from the speakers.
Have a drink, or two, or three, or four, then drop it low so it hits the floor.

“Janie!” her friends said. She stepped out of the truck, feeling her way with her feet, trying to remember how to stand. They rushed to her, hugging her, taking her hand, asking if she was okay.

“Have a drink,” Hilary said, putting a can of something red, one of those alcoholic energy drinks that tasted like strawberries, into her hand. She hadn’t had a drink in nine months. “You look like you could use one.”

She put the can to her lips.