Chaz’s grandfather had loved him. So I told Chaz what I saw, what his grandfather kept showing me. And Chaz had listened, his eyes huge in his black face. The next day he didn’t come to work. But the day after that he’d found me and thanked me. And he cried when he did. He was a big, black, mountain of a man, bigger than I was. Stronger than I was. But he wept like a child, and he hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. And I realized it didn’t always have to be a weapon. What I could do didn’t have to hurt people.
“Moses?” Tag pulled me from my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way . . . but, if, you know, there’s more, and it’s not bad. It’s not scary. It’s not the zombie apocalypse. It’s not fire and brimstone . . . at least, not as far as you can tell, then why do you stay?” His voice was so quiet and filled with emotion, I wasn’t sure if anything I said would help him. And prophet or not, I wasn’t sure I knew the answer. It took me a minute of thinking, but I finally had a response that felt true.
“Because I’ll still be me,” I answered. “And you’ll still be you.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t escape ourselves, Tag. Here, there, half-way across the world, or in a psych ward in Salt Lake City. I’m Moses and you’re Tag. And that part never changes. So either we figure it out here or we figure it out there. But we still gotta deal. And death won’t change that.”
Moses
MOLLY TAGGERT’S REMAINS were taken back to Dallas for burial, David Taggert Sr. decided to put his ranch up for sale, and Tag and I were both scheduled for release from the Montlake Psychiatric Facility. I had some money and my clothing, though I hadn’t needed either during my stay. My clothes had been boxed up and sent to Montlake when my grandmother’s possessions were divvied among her children, at least the possessions she hadn’t left to me.
A lawyer had been allowed in to see me about two weeks after I’d been admitted. He’d told me about my grandmother. Told me she had died of natural causes, a stroke. And then he told me she’d left me ten acres on the north end of town, her house, her car, and everything in her bank account, which wasn’t much. I didn’t want Gigi’s house, not if she wasn’t in it. Gigi wouldn’t expect me to go back. The sheriff had made it clear that no one wanted me back. I asked the lawyer if I could sell it.
The lawyer didn’t think anyone would buy it. The land would sell—he already had a buyer—but no one would want the house. Small towns and tragedy were like that. I asked him if he could have it boarded up for me, which he did. When it was all said and done, house boarded up, Gi’s funeral paid for, my medical bills—the part not covered by the state—cleared, the land, my Jeep, and Gigi’s old car sold, the lawyer brought me the key to her house and a check for five thousand dollars. It was more money than I expected, more money than I’d ever had, and not enough to get me very far.
I imagined my extended family liked me even less now than they had before, and I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed into any of their homes, which was fine. I didn’t want to be there, truthfully. But I didn’t know where I would go either. So when Tag brought it up the night before we were both free to leave, I didn’t have much to say.
“When you get out, where you gonna go?” Tag asked at dinner, his eyes on his food, his arms on the table. He could eat almost as much as I could, and I was pretty sure Montlake’s kitchen staff would enjoy a little reprieve when we left.
I didn’t want to talk about this with Tag. I really didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. So I fixed my gaze to the left of Tag’s head, out the window, letting him know I was ready for the conversation to end. But Tag persisted.
“You’re eighteen now. You are officially out of the system. So where you gonna go, Mo?” I don’t know why he thought he could call me Mo. I hadn’t given him permission. But he was like that. Worming his way into my space. Kind of like Georgia used to.
My eyes flickered back to Tag briefly, and then I shrugged as if it wasn’t important.
I’d been here for months. Through Christmas, through New Year’s, and into February. Three months in a mental institution. And I wished I could stay.
“Come with me,” Tag said, tossing down his napkin and pushing his tray away.
I reared back, stunned. I remembered the sound of Tag crying, the wails that echoed down the hall as he was brought in to the psych ward the night he was admitted. He’d arrived almost a month after I did. I had lain in bed and listened to the attempts to subdue him. At the time, I hadn’t realized it was him. I only put two and two together later, when he told me about what brought him to Montlake. I thought about the way he’d come at me with his fists flying, rage in his eyes, almost out of his head with pain in the session with Dr. Andelin. Tag interrupted my train of thought when he continued speaking.
“My family has money. We don’t have much else. But we have tons of money. And you don’t have shit.” I held myself stiffly, waiting. It was true. I didn’t have shit. Tag was my friend, the first real friend, other than Georgia, that I’d ever had. But I didn’t want Tag’s shit. The good shit or the bad, and Tag had plenty of both.
“I need someone to make sure I don’t kill myself. I need someone who’s big enough to restrain me if I decide I need to get shitfaced. I’ll hire you to spend every waking minute with me until I figure out how to stay clean without wanting to slit my wrists.”
I tipped my head to the side, confused. “You want me to restrain you?”
Tag laughed. “Yeah. Hit me in the face, throw me to the ground. Kick the shit out of me. Just make sure I stay clean and alive.”