Throughout the first year, there were days when I couldn’t get Calico to budge. He would just stand there, perfectly still, his back to the wind. I thought he was depressed because he missed Eli. But over time, I realized he was mirroring me. I wasn’t lying down anymore but I wasn’t moving forward either. So I’d started working a few more jobs, taking care of myself a little better, and trying to take steps, even if they were small. Even if it was just so Calico would run again.
In the last few months, my horses had started to crowd me, to nip at me and nuzzle me. I supposed they felt my need to touch and be touched. Any mother could tell you that a child invades her space from the moment of conception. And for years after, space does not exist. It was one of the things I had missed. I’d even yearned for it. And then Eli died, and I had all the space I had thought I wanted. Not just a little space. Outer space. Galaxies. And I’d floated in it in agony, longing for the days when there had been no such thing.
Now the horses were crowding me, taking the space away, and I welcomed their heavy bodies and nudging noses, the way they tripped me up and followed too close. It healed me even as I pushed at them and begged for room to move. They knew better. Apparently, my body was saying one thing when my lips said another.
I had let Moses kiss me. And in that moment I was guessing my body and my lips had said the same thing. Sure, I had pulled away. But not right away. I’d let him kiss me first. I had opened my mouth to him and kissed him back. And today the horses were crowding around me again like I was sending out a homing beacon. They were swarming me and they were restless, mimicking the buzz I felt beneath my skin, mirroring my nervous energy. Sackett wouldn’t meet my gaze and hung his head as if he was guilty of something. Looking at him, I realized then that I was ashamed of myself.
I’d let Moses kiss me. And he had no right to kiss me. He’d asked me if I wanted him to go. I shouldn’t have waffled. I should have demanded that he go. Instead, I’d let him in. And he’d kissed me like I was still the girl who had no pride and no rules where he was concerned. Now he was gone, and Kathleen’s house was locked up tight. He’d been gone for two days. No explanation. No goodbyes. For all I knew, I wouldn’t see him again for seven more years. I realized my lips were trembling and there were tears in my eyes, and Sackett suddenly laid his head on my shoulder.
“Dammit, Sackett. Dammit all to hell. It is time to make some new, stricter laws in Georgia. From now on, anyone named Moses is not allowed in. No visits, no crossing boundary lines. Nothing. No one named Moses is allowed in Georgia.”
I’d spent the night before on my laptop trying to dig up every last piece of information I could on Moses Wright. He wasn’t on Facebook or Twitter. But neither was I. We had established a website and Facebook page as well as a Twitter handle for our Equine Therapy Sessions, and I haunted social media under that cover. But when I googled Moses Wright, I was amazed at what I found. The BBC had done a special on him, and there were videos all over YouTube of his painting sessions with clients, although the camera was usually trained on his canvas, as if Moses wanted to keep his face from the screen. There was a Times article about him and about his ability to “paint for the dead,” and People magazine had done a small feature about the “other-worldly brilliance of Moses Wright.”
I realized then that he had made an impressive name for himself and he was a bit of a star, though it seemed he did his best to keep the lowest profile possible. What had Tag said, just in passing, about them traveling all over the world? Judging from the volume of information coming from all corners of the globe, I had no doubt it was the truth. There were hundreds of pictures of his paintings but few of him, though I did find a couple of shots of him at some gala for a hospital. He stood between Tag and another man, a man the caption listed as Dr. Noah Andelin. I found myself wondering again how Moses and Tag had ended up together. Their connection was deep, it was easy to see. And I realized something else. I wasn’t just ashamed. I was jealous.
“You still talk to your horses.”
I jerked and Sackett shifted, not liking the spike of energy that shot through me or the fact that my fingers had yanked at his mane.
Moses stood silhouetted in the barn door, holding what looked to be a large canvas in his hand.
I hadn’t realized I was still talking to Sackett, and I did a quick examination of what I’d just said. I believe I had just uttered an embarrassing rant on Moses not being allowed in Georgia. Oh, Lord, I prayed fervently, you can make the blind man see and the deaf man hear, so it shouldn’t be too much to ask to make this man forget everything he’s just seen and heard.
“What does Sackett think about those new, stricter laws in Georgia?”
I looked up at the rafters, “Hey, thanks for comin’ through for me, Lord.”
I loosened the cinch that secured the saddle around Sackett’s middle and pulled the saddle from his back, hoisting it onto the saddle horse and removing the blanket beneath without looking at Moses. I was kind of surprised that he remembered Sackett’s name.
Moses took a few steps inside the barn and I could see a small smile playing around his lips. I gave Sackett a firm pat on his rump signaling I was done, and he trotted off, clearly eager to go.
“You’re back,” I said, refusing to embarrass myself further by getting angry.
“I took Tag home. He had big plans to train for his next fight old school, like Rocky, but discovered that it’s a little more appealing in the movies. Plus, I don’t do a very good Apollo Creed.”
“Tag’s a fighter?”
“Yeah. Mixed martial arts stuff. He’s pretty good.”
“Huh.” I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know anything about the sport. “Didn’t Apollo Creed die in one of the movies?”
“Yeah. The black guy always dies at the hands of the white man.”
I rolled my eyes, and he grinned, making me grin with him before I remembered that I was embarrassed and ticked off that he had kissed me and left town. It felt a little too much like the past. The grin slipped from my face and I turned away, busying myself shaking out the saddle blankets.
“So why did you come back?” I kept my eyes averted. He was quiet for a minute, and I bit my lips so I wouldn’t start to babble into the awkward silence.
“The house needs more work,” he replied at last. “And I’m thinking of changing my name.”
My head shot up, and I met his smirk with confusion.
“Huh?”
“I heard there was this new law in Georgia. Nobody named Moses can even visit. So I’m thinking a name change is in order.”
I just shook my head and laughed, both embarrassed and pleased at his underlying meaning. “Shut up, Apollo,” I said, and it was his turn to laugh.
“Good choice. Apollo it is. There aren’t any laws in Georgia about guys named Apollo, are there?”
“No,” I said quietly, still smiling. I liked this Moses. It was a Moses I had liked before too, the Moses who teased and taunted and pushed and prodded, setting my teeth on edge while making me love him.
“I brought you something,” he said, turning the canvas around and holding it in front of him so I could see.
I could only stare.
“Eli helped me,” he said, quietly.
I couldn’t look away even though his words repelled me. I didn’t want this Moses. I wanted the Moses who smiled and teased. I didn’t want the Moses who talked about the dead as if he were intimately acquainted with them.
“I started seeing him for the first time after I saw you in the elevator at the hospital. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t put it together, not until I stepped back from the painting and saw you, riding a horse, holding Eli against you. And still . . . I didn’t understand. I just knew I had to come here and find you.” He stopped talking then. We both knew what had happened next.
“I want you to have it,” he insisted gently.
When I didn’t move to take it, he set it gently against a stall and lef
t me alone with the gift from my son.
Georgia
EACH DAY THERE WAS ANOTHER PAINTING. One was left on the front seat of my unlocked truck. One was propped up on one of the tack shelves in the barn. And they were all of Eli. Eli sitting on the fence, his face so sweet and serious I could almost remember a moment just like it, as if Moses had taken a photo and turned it into art. But he had no photos. I’d taken them back. And there were no photos that even came close to what Moses created—the detail in the curls of Eli’s bowed head at bedtime reading the worn yellow storybook, the depth of his brown eyes fixed on his horse, Eli’s little feet in the dirt and his finger carving his name into the mud. The swirling brushstrokes and vivid color were signature Moses—even the mud looked decadent—and I couldn’t decide if I loved the paintings or hated them.
There was one of me. In it, I smiled down into Eli’s upturned face, and I was beautiful. Unrecognizably so. It was the Pieta starring Georgia Shepherd, and I was the loving mother, gazing at my son. My mother found that one when she went out to rake leaves. Moses had left it sitting on our doorstep. I was two steps behind her, but she found it first. And she held it for five minutes, staring down at it in agony and wonder, tears running down her face. When I tried to comfort her, she gently shook her head and went back inside, unable to speak.
Moses returning had been incredibly difficult for my parents, and I had no idea how to make it better. I had no idea if I could. Or if I should. And I didn’t know if his art was helping. But Moses’s pictures were like that, glorious and terrible. Glorious because they brought memory to life, terrible for the same reason. Time softens memories, sanding down the rough edges of death. But Moses’s pictures dripped with life and reminded us of our loss.
I remembered how Moses had talked about art, about anguish, and I knew then what he meant. His pictures filled me with sweet anguish, an anguish so ripe and red that it threatened to turn bad if I looked away. So I found myself staring at the pictures constantly.
Other than the paintings, left where I wouldn’t miss them, Moses kept to himself and watched me from a distance. I would see him across the pasture, standing at the fence that separated Kathleen’s back yard from our property. He would always lift his hand, acknowledging me. I didn’t wave back. We weren’t friendly neighbors. But I appreciated the gesture all the same. I wondered at the brazen kiss with his hand around my braid and at his teasing in the barn, and hardened myself against further contact, though he made sure I saw him every day.
Most of the time, when I was running therapy sessions, Mom or Dad would join me as another set of eyes, watching the horse while I kept my gaze on the folks or vice versa. But Dad had another round of chemo scheduled, and Mom was going with him. They were going to stay in Salt Lake for a few days with my older sister and her kids before heading back. Mom didn’t want to leave with Moses back in the neighborhood. I just had to bite my tongue and remind myself that I had made the bed I was now lying in. Literally. I’d lived at home too long. I’d relied on my parents through Eli’s life and Eli’s death, and now, at twenty-four, it was my own damn fault that they still treated me like I was seventeen.
Surprisingly enough, it was Dad that convinced Mom that I’d survived Moses once and I would survive him again. I didn’t especially like his choice of words, but I held my tongue. Dad had been awfully quiet since our morning conversation the day after my very first run-in with Moses. Eli’s death was in the air again, the anniversary approaching and making us all cringe and hold our breath, wishing for it to pass us by. Moses coming into town this month, of all months, felt like an omen. And not a particularly good one. Mom was jittery, Dad was pensive, and I was a wreck, if I was being honest with myself.
It was probably a good thing that I had a few days to myself, that it was only me in the corral. The horses were tuned into me, and they didn’t like my mood at all. It took me a good hour, brushing them down, cleaning their hooves, getting my head straight and working out my own stress before I conducted a session with a small group I saw every week.
But my angst returned in full force when Moses wandered over at the end of my class. I didn’t want to draw attention to him or to myself, and when I realized he wasn’t going to talk or interrupt, I finished the session and bid the group goodbye as they loaded back into the treatment center van and drove off. I returned to the corral, hoping Moses had gone, but he remained, as if waiting for me. When he saw me coming, he climbed down from the fence and walked toward me. His brow was furrowed, and I tried not to give any credence to the way my breath caught and my hands shook when I watched him approach. He still appealed to me on a very primitive level. And I didn’t want that. I was afraid of it. I despised myself for it.
“He keeps showing me random things,” he said, shaking his head, not even pausing for a greeting or small talk. That was just like the old Moses, and I didn’t want to question him. I didn’t want to know what he was talking about.
“Eli keeps showing me random things,” he repeated, and I felt myself soften even as my heart lurched wildly. I could not resist the lure of Eli, of hearing about him, even if it was all a fairytale told by a man who I really wanted to hate.
“Like what?” I whispered, not able to help myself.
“His toes in the dirt, chicken noodle soup, Legos, pine cones, and Calico. Always Calico.” He shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “What do you think he’s trying to tell me?”
I suddenly found myself smiling. It was the oddest thing. It was the oddest and most wonderful, horrible thing. I was smiling and my eyes were filling with tears. I turned away, needing a moment to decide whether or not I was going to accept a new truth.
“Georgia?”
Moses waited for me to take several long, steadying breaths while I found my voice.
“Those are his favorite things. He’s telling you his greats.” My voice cracked and my eyes sought his.
His face went blank for a second and then his jaw dropped slightly as if a gong had sounded in his brain. He looked stunned. Flabbergasted even.
“His favorite things. He’s telling me his greats,” he repeated, almost to himself. “I thought he was trying to communicate something. Maybe teach me something.” Then Moses started to laugh.
“What? What’s so funny?” His baffled amusement was hard to resist, and I found myself smiling even as I wiped my eyes.
“That’s what they’re all trying to tell me. I never understood it before. The random items. The everyday stuff. It’s always driven me crazy.” He choked on the words, trying to speak around the mirth. And it really wasn’t that funny. In fact, maybe it wasn’t funny at all.
I just shook my head, still smiling at his wheezing laughter. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you know how many times I’ve painted a still life of the most mundane thing? Mundane things that never made sense, but that people, the dead, seemed to care about. Buttons and cherries, red roses and cotton sheets on the clothes line. Once I painted a picture of a worn-out running shoe.” He clasped his hands over his head, the laughter abating as the truth seemed to sink in. “And I always just assumed it had this great meaning that I just couldn’t grasp. The families love that stuff. They come see me, I paint whatever their loved ones show me. They leave happy, I make money. But I never understood. I’ve always felt like I was missing something.”
I wasn’t smiling anymore. My chest hurt and I couldn’t decide whether it was joy or pain that made it ache.
“And I was missing something, wasn’t I?” Moses shook his head. He turned in a circle, almost as if he couldn’t believe he’d just solved the puzzle that wasn’t ever really much of a mystery.
“They’re telling me what they miss. They’re telling me their greats. Just like Eli . . . aren’t they, Georgia?”
Moses
THE PAIN WAS A ROLLING, all-consuming wave inside of me. It had started small. Just an ache in my back and a weakness in my legs. I ignored it, pretending I still ha
d time. It was early yet. But as the hours passed and darkness fell, the heat from the street found its way into my belly, and I was ripping at my clothes trying to escape the searing pain. I was being burned alive. I tried to run from it when it paused for breath, and it would abate as if it lost track of me for a few minutes. But it always found me again, and the wave of pressure and pain would roll me under.
But worse than the pain was the niggling fear in the back of my jumbled brain. I’d prayed so hard, just like I had been taught. I’d prayed for forgiveness and redemption, for strength and for a chance to start over. And mostly I prayed for cover. But I had a feeling my prayers didn’t rise much farther than the simmering air above my head.
It hurt. It hurt so much. I just needed it to stop hurting.
So I begged for a pardon. Just something to take me away for a minute, something to help me hide. Just for a minute. Just something that would give me one last moment of peace, something to help me face what came next.
But there was no cover granted, and when the fog lifted and the fever broke, I looked down into his face and knew my scarlet sins would never be as white as snow.
I came awake with a start, breathing hard, the pain of the dream still gripping my stomach and curling my legs and arms into my chest.
“What the hell was that?” I groaned, sitting up in my bed and wiping the sweat from my forehead. It felt like the dream I’d had about Eli and Stewy Stinker, the dream that wasn’t a dream. And then I’d woken up and seen the girl, the girl Lisa Kendrick said was her cousin. She’d walked through my house and touched the wall. And I’d made the connection.
But I didn’t see the connection yet. Not this time. I stood from my bed and stumbled to the bathroom, washing my face and throat with cold water, trying to ease the heat on my skin that always came with episodes like this.