The Law of Moses (35 page)

“Salt Lake is two hours away, less than that the way I drive. You’ll call if you need me, won’t you?”

I nodded.

“I know you, Mo. You won’t call.” Tag shot a hand through his mop and sighed.

“I’ll call,” I promised, but knew in my heart Tag was probably right. It was hard to need.

“You want my advice?” Tag asked.

“No,” I answered. He just rolled his eyes.

“Good. Here it is. Don’t go slow, Mo. Don’t go easy. Go hard and go fast. Women like Georgia are used to holding the reins. But you broke her, Mo. And then you left her. I know you had your reasons. You know I get it. But she won’t let you break her again. So you have to take her. Don’t wait for her to say please. ‘Cause it won’t happen.”

“We’re not talking about a horse, Tag.”

“The hell we aren’t. That’s her language, Mo. So you better learn it.”

Moses

GEORGIA CAME BACK AGAIN that night, knocking on the door, carrying another offering, only this time it wasn’t the photo album. I tried not to be disappointed. I wanted more, but when I’d arrived home that afternoon the book was no longer on the kitchen counter, and I had no doubt that Georgia had come and taken it away.

She shoved a pan of brownies in my chest and said in a rush, “I took the photo album.”

I nodded, the brownies in my hands. “I saw.”

“I just wanted you to know. I’ll put together a book for you. I have so many pictures.”

“I would like that. Even better than homemade brownies.” I tried to smile but it felt forced and I told her to hold on as I set the brownies down on the kitchen counter and joined her on the front steps, wishing I knew what to say to make her stick around.

“I didn’t make them. The brownies, I mean. I’m a terrible cook. The only time I tried to make brownies, Eli took one bite and spit it out. And he ate bugs. I was sure they couldn’t be that bad, until I took a bite. They were pretty terrible. We ended up calling them frownies instead of brownies, and we fed them to the goats. It’s a wonder Eli survived.” She stopped abruptly, a stricken look washing over her face. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and tell her it was okay. That everything was okay. But it wasn’t okay. Because Eli hadn’t survived.

Georgia stepped back off the steps and tried to pull herself back together, smiling brightly.

“But don’t worry. I bought those brownies from Sweaty Betty. She makes the best baked goods in the state of Utah.”

I didn’t remember anyone named Sweaty Betty, and I had my doubts with a name like Sweaty Betty that they would taste any better than Georgia’s frownies. In fact, I was pretty sure I would be letting Tag eat them all.

“You’ll have to try again sometime,” I suggested as she turned to leave. I was talking about her frownies, but I really wasn’t. And maybe she knew that, because she just waved and she didn’t pause.

“Goodnight, Stewy Stinker,” I called after her.

“What did you say?” Her voice was sharp and she stopped walking, but she didn’t turn around.

“I said goodnight, Stewy Stinker. Now you say, goodnight, Buzzard Bates.”

I heard her gasp and then she turned toward me, her fingers pressed to her lips to hide their trembling.

“He keeps showing you kissing him goodnight. And it’s always the same.” I waited.

“He shows you . . . that?” she whispered brokenly.

I nodded.

“It’s from his book. He . . . he loved this book. So much. I probably read it to him a thousand times. It was a book I loved when I was little called
Calico the Wonder Horse
.”

“He named his horse—”

“Calico. After the horse in the book, yes,” Georgia finished. She looked like she was about to collapse. I walked to her, took her hand, and gently led her back to the steps. She let me, and she didn’t pull away when I sat beside her.

“So, who’s Stewy Stinker?” I pressed softly.

“Stewy Stinker, Buzzard Bates, Skunk Skeeter, Butch Bones, Snakeyes Pyezon . . . they were the Bad Men in Eli’s book.” Georgia said Pyezon like Popeye would say poison, and it made me smile. Georgia smiled too, but there was obviously too much grief in the memory to make it stay, and her smile slid away like the tide. “So if they were the bad guys, who were the good guys?” I asked, trying to coax it out again.

“They weren’t the bad guys, they were the Bad Men. It was the name of their gang. Stewy Stinker and the Bad Men.”

“No false advertising there.”

Georgia giggled and the shell-shocked expression she’d worn since I called her Stewy Stinker faded slightly.

“Nope. Simple, straightforward. You know exactly what you’re getting.”

I wondered if there was hidden meaning in her statement and waited for her to clue me in.

“You’re different, Moses,” she whispered.

“So are you.”

She flinched but then nodded. “I am. Sometimes I miss the old Georgia. But in order to get her back, I would have to erase Eli. And I wouldn’t trade Eli for the old Georgia.”

I could only nod, not willing to think about the old Georgia and the old Moses and the fiery way we had come together. The memories were burned in my head and coming back to Levan made me want to revisit them. I wanted to kiss Georgia until her lips were sore, I wanted to make love to her in the barn and swim with her in the water tower, and most of all, I wanted to take away the wave of grief that kept knocking her over.

“Georgia?”

She kept her eyes averted. “Yeah?”

“Do you want me to go? You said you wouldn’t lie to me. Do you want me to go?”

“Yes.” No hesitation.

I felt the word reverberate in my chest and was surprised at the pain that echoed behind it. Yes. Yes. Yes. The word taunted. It reminded me of how I had shunned her the same way that last night in the barn.
Do you love me, Moses? she’d asked.
No, I’d told her. No. No. No.

“Yes. I want you to go. And no. I don’t want you to go,” she amended in a rush of frustrated, pent-up breath. She stood abruptly, threw her hands in the air, and then folded them across her chest defensively. “If I’m telling the truth, then both are true,” she added softly.

I stood too, bracing myself against the impulse to bolt, to run and paint, like I always did. But Tag said I was going to have to take her. He told me not to go slow. And I was going to heed his advice.

“I don’t know what the truth is this time, Moses. I don’t know,” Georgia said, and I knew I couldn’t run this time. I wouldn’t run.

“You know the truth. You just don’t like it.” I never thought I’d see Georgia Shepherd afraid of anything. I was afraid too. But I was afraid that she really wanted me to go. And I didn’t know if I could stay away. Not again.

“What about you, Moses? Do you want to leave?” Georgia threw my words back at me. I didn’t answer. I just studied her trembling lips and troubled eyes and reached out a hand for the heavy braid that fell over her right shoulder. It was warm and thick against my palm and my fingers wrapped around it tightly, needing to cling to something. I was so glad she hadn’t cut the braid. She had changed. But her hair had not.

My left hand was wrapped in her braid and my right hand snaked around her waist and urged her up against me. And I felt it, the same old charge that had been there from the beginning. That same pull that had wreaked havoc on our lives . . . her life even more than mine. It was there, and I knew she felt it too.

Her nostrils flared and her breath halted. Her back was taut against my fingers and I splayed them wide, trying to touch as much of her as I could without moving my hand. Her eyes were fixed on mine, fierce and unblinking. But she didn’t resist.

And then I bent my head and caught her mouth before she could speak, before I could think, before she could run, before I could see. I didn’t want to see. I wanted to feel. And hear. And taste. But her mouth filled my mind with color. Just like it always had. Pink. Her kiss was pink. Soft, sunset pink, streaked with gold. The rosy blush swirled behind my eyes, and I pressed my lips more firmly against hers, releasing her hair and her body to hold her face in my hands, to keep the colors in place, to keep them from fading. And then her lips parted beneath mine and the colors became leaping currents of red and gold, pulsing against my eyes as if the soft sweep of her tongue left fire in its wake.

The color popped like a needle to a balloon as Georgia suddenly wrenched herself away, almost violently. And without a word she turned and fled, along with the colors, leaving me panting and drenched in black.

“Careful, Moses,” I said out loud to no one but my sorry self. “You’re about to get thrown.”

Moses

WITH ONLY THE ONE VEHICLE BETWEEN US, I had to take Tag back to Salt Lake the next morning. I spent two days away, one day clearing my schedule for the next month, and for those who were insistent on keeping their appointments, making arrangements to have them come to me in Levan. If the people weren’t talking already, I’m sure they would be when I started holding painting séances in my grandmother’s dining room.

I spent the next day shopping at a furniture store to outfit the house with the bare necessities. I wasn’t sleeping on the floor and sitting against the walls indefinitely, so I bought a bed, a couch, a table and four chairs, a washer and dryer, and a chest of drawers. I spent enough money that the furniture store gave me free delivery, even to Levan, and I gladly accepted. In addition to the furniture, I gathered some clothing, some painting supplies and blank canvases, and the picture I’d painted for Eli before I’d even realized who Eli was. I was going to give it to Georgia. She had shared her pictures with me. I was going to share my pictures with her, if she would let me.

The trip back to Salt Lake had been fruitful in other ways too. Eli was back. I’d seen him for a second in my rear-view mirror as I’d driven away from Gigi’s house. I had turned back immediately, slamming on my brakes and yanking on the wheel, turning my truck around and drawing questions from Tag that I couldn’t answer. But Eli hadn’t reappeared, and I finally gave up and headed out of town once more, hoping that I hadn’t just seen him for the last time. I thought I caught a glimpse of him the next morning from the corner of my eye, watching me as I loaded some of my paintings in my truck. And then, last night he’d appeared at the foot of my bed, just like the first time, as if leaving Levan had forced an intervention.

He showed me Calico running in the fields and Georgia reading to him and tucking him in, just like before, but he showed me some new things too. He showed me chicken noodle soup, the noodles so fat there was hardly any broth. And he showed me his toes curling in the dirt, as if he liked the way it felt. I knew they were his toes because they were short and childlike, and as I watched, he made his name above his toes with one small finger, tracing the letters carefully in the dark earth. Then I watched as his hands built a colorful tower, struggling to snap the Lego pieces one on top of the other.

It was the oddest thing, little snippets and snapshots of the life of a little boy. But I watched them, with my eyes closed, letting him pour the pictures into my head. I picked through the images, trying to understand him better. I didn’t want to miss something important, though it all felt important. It all felt absolutely vital, every little detail. I fell asleep dreaming I was helping him erect a wall made out of a million colorful plastic bricks. A wall that would keep him from leaving for good, the way Gi had left for good.