I wondered how that was possible, when I’d just covered her with a blanket. I wanted to go to Georgia. She was afraid. She hadn’t seen death before, not like me. But I was strangely numb, and my mind spun dizzily, still caught somewhere between the ground on which I stood and the Red Sea in my head.
But then she came to me, just like she always did. She found me. She wrapped her arms around me and started to cry. She pressed her face into my chest, ignoring the splotches of red, purple, and black that stained my shirt and smeared across her cheek.
“Oh, Moses. What happened? What happened here?”
But I couldn’t cry with her. I couldn’t move. I had to pull down the water. Gigi wasn’t coming back with me. I couldn’t find her, and I couldn’t stay any longer, not on the far side of the bank where there were only colors and questions.
Georgia pulled away, her face streaked with paint and confusion. “What’s wrong Moses? You’ve been painting. Why? Why, Moses? And you’re so cold. How can you be so cold?” Her teeth chattered as if she was truly chilled by my presence.
I laughed helplessly. I wasn’t cold. I was on fire. I wondered suddenly if Georgia had felt the ice in my hands, because that was the only place I was cold. I was hot. Burning. My neck and ears were on fire and my head was a raging inferno. So I concentrated on the walls of water, the towering sides of the channel in my mind, the channel that I needed to close. I didn’t answer Georgia. I couldn’t. I pushed away from her, blocking her out as I sought to block out the rest of them.
“Water is white when it’s angry. Blue when it’s calm. Red when the sun sets, black at midnight. And water is clear when it falls. Clear when it washes through my head and out my fingertips. Water is clear and it washes all the colors away, it washes all the pictures away.” I didn’t realize I was speaking until Georgia touched me. I pushed her away, needing to concentrate. I was pulling it down. The walls were starting to fall. I just needed to concentrate a little harder. Then I felt the ice start to spread from my hands up my arms and across my back, cooling my neck and calming my breath. And I was floating in it. The relief was so great my legs shook and finally, I reached out for Georgia. I could touch her now. I wanted nothing more than to hold onto her now. But just like the pictures in my head, Georgia was gone.
Georgia
WHEN I BURST THROUGH THE DOOR into the kitchen, the screen banging loudly, my mom whirled as if to reprimand me. But she must have seen something in my face. She set the bowl of potatoes down with a clatter.
“Martin!” She called for my dad as I stumbled toward her.
She’d been trying to keep everything warm on the stove. When Moses and Kathleen hadn’t shown up at eleven, we wondered a little. Kathleen Wright wasn’t the type to be late. At all. By 11:15 my mother was calling her house. But the phone just rang and rang, and Mom started to fret about cold turkey and mashed potatoes. So I volunteered to run over and see if Mrs. Wright needed help with anything and to hurry her and Moses along. She had insisted on bringing the pies for dessert even though my mom had resisted, saying they were our guests.
I hadn’t wanted to go. I felt raw and tired, and I didn’t need to see Moses any sooner than I had to. I already didn’t know how we were going to sit across from each other without a scarlet letter appearing on my chest. Moses would handle it fine. He just wouldn’t say anything. And I would sweat and squirm and not be able to taste anything I ate. Which made me angry and gave me courage as I flew out the door, the dusting of snow we’d gotten over night crunching beneath my boots. My Wranglers were stiff and clean, my best blouse pressed, and my hair carefully arranged in perfect waves. I even wore make-up. All dressed up for Thanksgiving and no one to see me. It was rude to be late for Thanksgiving dinner, and I picked up my pace as I neared Kathleen’s little, grey brick house and stomped up the front steps.
I knocked several times and then entered, calling out as I did.
“Mrs. Wright? It’s Georgia.”
The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like turpentine. Paint. It smelled like paint. And it didn’t smell like pies. It should have smelled like pies.
I stopped immediately. A little foyer lay beyond the front door, just big enough for a coat rack, a little bench, and a flight of stairs. To the left there was a tiny sitting room, to the right, the dining room, which sat off the kitchen. Along the back of the house was a big family room that Kathleen Wright’s husband had added on forty years ago. It was accessible by walking through the kitchen or walking through the tiny sitting room. The first floor rooms made a sloppy, misshapen circle around the miniscule foyer with the staircase leading up to a bathroom and three small bedrooms on the second floor. I looked up the stairs, wondering if I dared go up them. The house was so quiet.
Then I heard a soft, swishing sort of sound. Swish, swish, swish. And then a foot fall. And one more. I placed the sound almost immediately. I’d listened with closed eyes to that sound several nights in a row as Moses painted my room.
“Moses?” I called, and I stepped through the door into the little dining room. Three steps and I saw her. Kathleen Wright was laying on the kitchen floor, covered in a lacy quilt that looked as if it had been dragged from her bed.
“Kathleen?” My voice squeaked as it rose in question. Maybe I should have run to her side. But it was so bizarre. I guess I didn’t know what I was seeing. So I tip-toed, as if she were truly sleeping and I was intruding on her odd little nap.
I knelt by her side and pulled back the covers just a bit. Her grey curls were visible above the edge of the quilt, but I couldn’t see her face.