“Hold on, son. And no. I don’t think Calico would understand if you made her a heart. You show her you love her by how you treat her. You take care of her. You spend time with her.”
“Should I pet her a lot?”
“That would be good.”
“Should I bring her apples to eat? She likes carrots too.”
“Not too many. You don’t want to make her love sick.”
“Moses!”
Georgia stood below me, her hands clinging to my legs as if to keep me on the fence, and I was teetering the way Eli had when he raised his arms to make a heart. I gripped the nearby post and slid down inside the corral, my body brushing against Georgia as I did. We both jumped, but neither of us gave ground. The horse she was working with, Cuss, had strolled to the other side of the corral, and we were alone. Alone with the sunset and the horses and Eli’s memories.
“Holy crap! Don’t do that! I thought you were going down!” Her face was so close I could see the specks of gold in her brown eyes and the little groove between her brows that indicated her concern. I stared too long and watched as the groove of concern became a scowl.
“Moses?” she asked doubtfully.
I lifted my eyes from her face and saw Eli, still perched on the fence, his curls lifting in the soft breeze as if the wind knew he was there and welcomed him home.
“He’s here, Georgia. And when he’s near, I kind of get lost in him.”
Georgia jumped back as if I’d produced a snake and offered it to her. But her eyes scanned the nearby area as if she couldn’t quite help herself.
“Thank you for not letting me fall,” I added softly. I felt disoriented, still feeling the dizzying effects of being in two places at once. Eli’s memories carried me away completely, and returning to the present was jarring. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, the little windows into his life, so complete yet so insufficient. I wanted to stay in his head all day. I wondered suddenly if horses and girls spoke the same love language, and I knew instinctively that Eli was trying to help me with Georgia, telling me how to woo her.
“Is he still here?” Georgia asked, interrupting my thoughts.
She didn’t have to tell me who ‘he’ was, but her question took me by surprise. I didn’t know when she’d started believing me, but I wasn’t going to argue about it. I looked back where Eli had been perched and discovered that he was gone. He had the attention span that was probably typical of a four-year-old, and he flitted in and out without warning. I shook my head.
“No.”
Georgia almost looked disappointed. She gazed beyond me, past the corral to the hills that squatted west of Levan. And then she surprised the hell out of me.
“I wish I had your gift. Just for one day,” she whispered. “You can see him. And I’ll never see him again.”
“A gift?” I choked. “I’ve never thought of it as a gift. Not ever,” I protested. “Not once.”
Georgia nodded, and I knew she hadn’t considered it a gift either. Not until now. In fact, she hadn’t ever known what to think. I’d guarded my secret and let her believe I was crazy. Deranged even. The fact that she now seemed to believe me, at least to some extent, made me giddy and nauseated all at once. And I owed her as much honesty as I could give her.
“For the first time in my life, I’m grateful that I can part the waters. That’s what Gi called it, parting the waters. I’m grateful, because it’s all I’m going to get. This is all Eli and I get. You got four years, Georgia, and this is all I get.” I didn’t say it angrily. I wasn’t angry. But she wasn’t the only one who was suffering, and sometimes there is comfort in the knowledge that you don’t suffer alone, sad as that is.
Georgia bit her lip, flinching, and I knew what I was saying wasn’t easy to hear.
“Do you remember that girl I painted on the underpass?” I said, trying to be as gentle as I could and still explain.“Yeah.” Georgia nodded. “Molly Taggert. She was just a few years older than I am. They found her, you know. Not long after you left town. Someone killed her.”
I nodded too. “I know. She was Tag’s sister.”
Georgia’s eyes widened, and she stiffened abruptly, as if she had suddenly put it all together. But I didn’t want to talk about Molly. Not right now. And I needed her to listen. I reached out and tilted her chin toward me, making sure she heard. “But you know what? I don’t see Molly anymore. She came . . . and she went. That’s how it is every time. Nobody hangs around very long. And one day, Eli will go too.”
Georgia flinched again, and her eyes filled with tears that she valiantly tried to hold back. We stood there, neither one speaking, each of us battling the emotion that had buffeted us from the moment our eyes met in a crowded elevator nearly a month before. Georgia was the first to give, and her voice shook as she gave me honesty in return.
“I cry every day. Do you know that? I cry every damn day. I never used to cry. Now, not a day goes by that I don’t find myself in tears. Sometimes I hide in the closet so I can pretend it isn’t happening again. One day, I’m going to have a day when I don’t cry, and part of me thinks that will be the worst day of all. Because he will truly be slipping away.”
“I never used to cry either.”
She waited.
“In fact, that was the first time.”
“The first time?”
“Out there, in the field. The first time I remember crying . . . over anything, ever.” I’d pulled the waters down to make it all stop, to hide the image of Georgia’s horrified face screaming Eli’s name, and for the first time, the waters had spilled from my eyes.
Georgia gasped, and I looked away from her incredulous face, and felt the waters tremble and shift inside me and start to rise again. What was happening to me?
“You think your tears keep him close?” I whispered.
“My tears mean I’m thinking about him,” she whispered back, still standing so close to me I could have leaned forward and kissed her without taking a single step.
“But all your memories can’t be sad. None of his are. And you’re the only thing he thinks about.”