The Law of Moses (18 page)

The group session was full of vulnerable people who I could terrorize. Adults of all ages, with all sorts of disorders and problems. Their pain and despair was a throbbing, inky black behind my eyes, with no color and light to create hope or escape. I was eighteen, and some eighteen-year-olds were apparently still treated as juveniles, depending on the opinion of the doctors. But when they’d brought me in, I was housed with the adults. Apparently the kids were a floor below. I was grateful I wasn’t housed with them. Kids made it hard to be cruel.

Dr. Noah Andelin, a psychologist with a neatly groomed beard that he most likely wore to make himself look older, was conducting the group session. He stroked his beard when he was thinking, and it gave him a perpetually melancholy air. He was far too young to be a doctor, and way too young to be so serious. And sad. He had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. He made me uncomfortable. He made it hard for me to be cruel too. And I needed to be cruel. To be left alone, I needed to be cruel. I picked on the therapists and techs when I could, and when I couldn’t, I would pick on the patients that picked on everyone else. Sadly, they were usually the ones with the most loss. I usually ended up biting my tongue and pushing their dead away. I was an asshole. But I wasn’t a bully.

I sat there, the bridge wide open, on the look-out for ammo when Molly stopped flitting and danced right in front of my eyes, blonde hair flowing, showing me all the same old things. I almost groaned out loud. This wasn’t what I wanted. But then she started to hover around the edge of the circle, standing between two men across from me and staring back at me expectantly.

“Who knows a girl named Molly?” I blurted out, not thinking.

Dr. Andelin stopped mid-sentence. “Moses? Did you have something you wanted to say?” His voice was gentle. Just like it always was. So gentle and kind. It made me want to pick him up by his lapels and toss him into the wall. I had a feeling there was some fire in him somewhere. He tried to hide his physique beneath ridiculous tweed jackets with patches on the elbows, like a college professor from the 1940s. All he needed was a pipe. But he wasn’t a weakling. I’d sized him up. It was something that came naturally to me. Who can hurt you? Who is a physical threat? And Noah Andelin, with his sad eyes and his neat little beard, could be both, I was convinced of it.

As soon as I spoke, I felt stupid. Molly didn’t belong to anyone here. She was here because I was . . . though I had no idea why.

“What did you say?”

The question came from the man to the left of Molly, a man who looked about my age, barely old enough to be on the adult floor. His green eyes were sharp, though his posture was relaxed, his hands folded loosely in his lap. I could see a long jagged scar that ran from the bottom of his palm to the middle of his forearm. From the looks of it, he didn’t want to live very badly.

“Molly. Do you know a girl named Molly? A dead girl named Molly?” I should have borrowed some of Dr. Andelin’s kind and gentle approach. But I didn’t. I just asked.

The boy leaped from his chair and flew across the circle to where I sat. I was so surprised I didn’t have time to prepare before his hands were wrapped in my shirt, yanking me to my feet. I found myself nose to nose with a fire-breathing, green-eyed monster.

“You son of a bitch!” he spit in my face. “You better tell me how the hell you know anything about my sister!”

His sister? Molly was his sister? My head spun as he shoved me again, but this time he didn’t want answers. He just wanted to knock me down, and we both fell back, upending my chair, and I forgot about Molly and enjoyed the way it felt to let go. We hit the ground with our fists flying and people screaming around us.

I almost laughed out loud as I caught him in the stomach and he immediately punched back, catching the grin as it crossed my lips and leaving blood in its wake. I had forgotten how much I liked fighting. Apparently Molly’s brother enjoyed it as well, because it took Chaz and three other men to break it up. I made note of the fact that Noah Andelin hadn’t hesitated about wading in and was the one sitting on my back, shoving my face into the floor to restrain me. The room was chaos, but between the upended chairs and the scrambling legs of the staff trying to get the other clients out of the room, I could see Molly’s brother in the same position as I was, his head turned toward me, cheek against the grey speckled linoleum floor.

“How did you know?” he said, his eyes on mine. The din around us quieted slightly. “How did you know about my sister?”

“Tag. No more!” Dr. Andelin barked, sweetness and light all run out.

Tag? What kind of name was that?

“My sister’s been missing for over a year, and this son-of-a-bitch acts like he knows something about it?” Tag ignored Dr. Andelin and raged on. “You think I’m gonna shut up? Think again, Doc!”

We were both pulled to our feet and Dr. Andelin instructed Chaz and another orderly I didn’t recognize to stay. Everybody else he ordered out. A plump brunette therapist named Shelly stayed behind as well, and she hung back as if to document the meeting as Dr. Andelin righted three chairs in the center of the floor and instructed us to sit. Chaz stood behind Tag and the other orderly stood behind me. Noah Andelin sat equidistance between us, his shirt sleeves rolled up and a little blood on his lip. Looks like I clipped him on accident. Chaz handed him a tissue and Dr. Andelin took it and blotted at his lip before eyeing us both and straightening in his chair.

“Moses, do you want to explain to Tag what you meant when you asked if anyone knew a girl named Molly?”

“A dead girl named Molly!” Tag hissed. Chaz patted his shoulder, a reminder to calm down, and Tag swore violently.

“I don’t know if she’s his sister. I don’t know him. But I’ve been seeing a girl named Molly off and on for almost five months.”

They all stared at me.

“Seeing her? Do you mean you have a relationship with Molly?” Dr. Andelin asked.

“I mean, she’s dead, and I know she’s dead because for the last five months I’ve been able to see her,” I repeated patiently.

Tag’s face was almost comical in its fury.

“See her how?” Dr. Andelin’s voice was flat and his eyes were cold.

I matched his tone and leveled my own flat gaze in his direction. “The same way I can see your dead wife, Doctor. She keeps showing me a car visor and snow and pebbles at the bottom of a river. I don’t know why. But you can probably tell me.”

Dr. Andelin’s jaw went slack and his complexion greyed.

“What are you talking about?” he gasped. I’d been waiting to use this on him. Now was as good a time as any. Maybe his wife would go away and I could focus on getting rid of Molly once and for all.

“She follows you around the joint. You miss her too much. And she worries about you. She’s fine . . . but you’re not. I know she’s your wife because she shows you waiting for her at the end of the aisle. Your wedding day. Your tuxedo is a little too short in the sleeves.”

I tried to be flippant, to force him out of his role as psychologist. I dug around in his life to keep him from digging around in my head. But the savage grief that slammed across his face slowed me down and softened my voice. I couldn’t maintain my attitude against his pain. I felt momentarily shamed and looked down at my hands. For several heartbeats, the room was as still as a morgue. Appropriately so. The dead were everywhere. Then Dr. Andelin spoke.

“My wife, Cora, was driving home from work. They think she was blinded—temporarily—by the sun reflecting off the snow. It’s like that sometimes up here on the bench, you know. She drifted into the guardrail. Her car landed upside down in the creek bed. She . . . drowned.”

He supplied the information so matter-of-factly, but his hands shook as he stroked his beard.

Somewhere during the tragic recount, Tag lost his fury. He stared from me to Dr. Andelin in confusion and compassion. But Cora Andelin wasn’t done—it was like she knew I had the doctor’s attention and she wasn’t wasting any time.

“Peanut butter, Downey fabric softener, Harry Connick, Jr., umbrellas . . .” I paused because the next image was so intimate. But then I said it anyway. “Your beard. She loved the way it felt, when you . . .” I had to stop. They were making love and I didn’t want to see this man’s wife naked. I didn’t want to see
him
naked. And I could see him through her eyes. I stood up abruptly, needing desperately to move. Way too much information, Cora Andelin. Way too much.

The orderly got nervous and immediately shoved my shoulders, urging me to sit back down. I considered swinging on him and then sighed. The moment had passed, and no one wanted to tussle anymore. Not even Tag, who looked as though his brain had been wiped clean. He was looking at me with a dazed expression.

But Dr. Andelin was dialed in, his blue eyes intense and full of his own memories, and something else too. Gratitude. His eyes were full of gratitude.

“Those were some of her favorite things. She walked down the aisle on our wedding day to a Harry Connick song. And yeah. My tux was a smidge too short. She always laughed about that and said it was just like me. And her umbrella collection was out of control.” His voice broke, and he looked down at his hands.

The room was so heavy with compassion and thick with intimacy, that if the five others present were able to see what I could see, they would have looked away to give the lovers a moment alone. But I was the only one to witness Noah Andelin’s wife reach out and run a hand over her husband’s bowed head before the soft lines of her inconsistent form melded into the flickering light of the fading afternoon. The room had windows that faced west, and though I had my complaints about Utah, the sunsets weren’t one of them. Cora Andelin became part of the sunset. I didn’t think I would see her again. And I hadn’t even needed to draw.

“If you know all that—about Dr. Andelin’s wife—then I want you to tell me about Molly,” Tag whispered, straightening in his chair and swinging his gaze from Dr. Andelin back to me.

Noah Andelin rose to his feet. I didn’t look at his face. I didn’t want to see if I’d destroyed him. I’d disappointed myself a little. Where was the badass I had decided to be?

“Tag. I promise we’ll revisit this. But not now. Not now.” And with a nod to the orderlies, who seemed as shaken as he was, we were all ushered out of the room.

Georgia

IT WAS WEIRD, the things I missed. I missed his mouth and his green eyes and the way he could be sweet without knowing he was being sweet. I missed the smooth length of his throat, the place my nose would settle when I was close to him. I missed the paint brush twirling through his fingers and the way one side of his mouth curled slightly higher when he smiled. I missed the flash of white teeth and the sparkle of the “devil in his eye.” That’s what his grandmother had called it. And she was right. He had a naughty twinkle in his eyes when he was relaxed or laughing or teasing me back. I missed those things desperately.

The worst part was, I couldn’t grieve for him. I had to hide all my feelings, which I’d never been good at. My family had a saying, “Georgia ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” And I wasn’t happy. I was devastated. The whole town was still in shock over Kathleen’s death, and even though Moses hadn’t smothered her in her sleep or slashed her throat, the town still acted as if he had. My parents weren’t much better. Moses had been weird. And weird was easily suspect. Weird was frightening and unforgiveable. But I found I missed that too—he was weird and wonderful and totally different from anyone I knew. From anyone I would ever know. And he was gone.

I got asked to my senior ball, which was held the last Saturday in January. Terrence Anderson asked me, of all people. I guess he’d decided he liked tall girls after all. Or maybe he just wanted to make Haylee jealous since they had broken up just after the school year started. I considered telling him no. Lord knows I had plenty of excuses. But Mom told me it was bad manners and that I should be grateful, after all that had happened, that people were moving on. I had laughed hysterically at that and Mom had sent me to my room, convinced I was sick. I cried myself to sleep and felt no better the following day.

I accepted Terrence’s invitation to the dance, but I wore a black dress because I was in mourning, and the highest heels I could find just to make him feel stupid. If he was going to use me that was fine. But I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. And that night, sitting on the bleachers in the high school gymnasium, watching couples dance and sitting beside a seething Terrence, I missed Moses most of all. It wasn’t hard to imagine how he would look in a tux or a nice suit, I could have worn four inch heels and he would still be taller than me, and I had a feeling he would have liked my black dress and the way my body was changing.