Days of Little Texas (24 page)

“Palmer
,” I say.

“Yeah. He’s, like, my uncle or grandfather or something with a whole lot
of greats
attached to it.”

I walk a couple of steps toward the window.

“He’s—he was the overseer, Ronald Earl. At the old Vanderloo Plantation. Once upon a time.”

“You mean …”

“Yeah. The guy with the whip. They are showing me he had a hand in the auctions, too.”

I watch her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I … didn’t know it was
me
he was connected to. I didn’t
remember … didn’t remember my
name
. Till they showed me just now. It felt like I was inside the book.”

“So what does this mean?”

“Well, now I know there was someone … someone who was like the
catalyst
, you know? Do you know what that means?”

I smile. “I’m not a complete ignoramus. More about seventy-three percent.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You mean somebody who set off all the bad stuff.”

Lucy nods and takes my hands. “Well—it was going on long before he ever came around. But another thing a catalyst can do is accelerate something. From what they’re showing me, I think he’s the one—my ancestor, Thaddeus Palmer—he made it possible for it to hold them. The pain he caused. The hatred and fear …”

“So you coming back, doing this for them—is it like making up for something he did?”

“How do I know? But I think it’s an important part of it.”

“But doesn’t that… doesn’t it make you
mad?
You’re basically saying you died just so you could help fix something some long-ago relative did.”

“If that’s the way you want to look at it.”

“I don’t believe the Lord … I don’t believe He would sacrifice your life like that.”

“What about all that ‘sins of the fathers’ stuff, huh? I know a little about this Bible jazz, too. Curses that carry
down through generations for something somebody else has done.”

“Oh yeah?” I say. “How about Ezekiel, chapter eighteen, verse twenty? ‘The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.’”

Lucy rolls her eyes and ruffles my hair, laughing. “You’re a real
freak
, you know that? How do you know what He thinks? How do you know He’s even a
he?
”

“Everybody knows that.”

“So you know every little thing about Him, huh?”

“Well… I used to think … well… no. But He wouldn’t
kill
somebody for that.”

“Even if it freed a lot of people? So they could go
home?
”

I remember something Certain Certain once told me: “Soul’s a soul, Lightning. No matter what state the body’s in.”

Lucy takes my hand. “Look, maybe … maybe it was just my time, Ronald Earl, you know? He, She, whatever is up there … knew that, correct?”

“Sure. He knows the number of every little hair on your head….”

“So maybe, knowing His plan for me, it was a good thing to do? Since it was going to happen anyway? Can I ask you something?”

“Anything. Ask me anything you want.”

Lucy pinches her lips. “Are you afraid of dying, Ronald Earl?”

I wasn’t expecting this. “Well—I pretty much think about it nearly every day. It’s kind of like my
job
to think about it.”

“Why?”

“To help people. Help them know what they are supposed to do with their lives. So they can have eternal life.”

“Life is eternal,” Lucy says. “Already.”

“I’m coming to figure that out,” I say, stroking her fingers. “Okay, to help them have a
good
eternal life, then. Protect them from—from things like whatever is on that island.”

“You’re dodging me,” Lucy says, looking deep into my eyes. “Are you afraid of dying?”

I take my hand away. “Everybody is, aren’t they? I don’t guess I’m so much afraid of it as I am scared about… what happens, you know? The things we can’t see, can’t know as long as we are down here. Like, do we just slide into the dark, waiting on the Last Days?”

“When the dead in Christ shall rise?”

“Don’t make fun of me. What if somebody’s not good enough? What if…”

“They go to hell? Is that what you’re worried about, Ronald Earl? There is no hell.”

“How do you know?”

“Hell isn’t a place. It’s more like a
condition
. You understand?”

“I think so.”

“God expects us to be merciful, right?”

“Sure.”

“And He’s perfect, right?”

“He’d have to be, or nothing would make sense.”

“Okay, then His mercy must be perfect. It has to be, because He’s perfect. So just think how much more perfect
His
mercy is than ours.”

“But… if somebody does really bad things, evil things—”

“They’re already there,” Lucy says. “Already in hell. Nothing can be worse for a person like that than to live the life they are already living.”

“Oh.”

Lucy beams. “See, you understand.”

“No, I just know the way people like you think.”

“People like me?” she says, sitting on the bed. And I hear just how ridiculous that sounds when she says it.

“No, well… you know … people who don’t go to church. People who don’t believe the way they’re supposed to believe.”

Lucy’s eyes twinkle.
“Supposed
to believe? Don’t make me kick your ass. I told you before—you’re bigger than that. Way bigger.”

“I just wish I understood more, that’s all,” I say, feeling the red come up in my face.

“You’ve
always
understood,” Lucy says. “Whether you believe it or not. That’s why they picked you. That’s why they brought us together.”

“What do I understand, Lucy? I don’t know anything
about what it’s like for you. What it’s like over
there
. When you’re
home
. Can’t you tell me?”

Lucy takes a long breath. “Okay. Okay. Have you ever almost died?”

“Well, I got struck by lightning once.”

“That’ll do.” She pats the bed. “Come here. Sit next to me.”

“You’re not going to do anything weird, are you?”

“Compared to what?” she says, laughing.

“Not funny.” But I come over and sit down. Lucy lays back crossways on the bed.

“Lie next to me,” she says.

I scoot closer, feeling the heat she is giving off, like a living furnace.

“Closer.”

I get up against her now, the whole side of my body tasting that heat through her dress. I’m wondering what she wants me to do, but mostly I’m just not caring, on account of I’m touching her. For me, she is everything and swallows up everything, and all the bad things go away in the swallowing.

“Now,” she says. “Lay your head on my—on my chest.”

She lays there looking at the ceiling, not at me. Waiting on me to do it. I scrunch up on my side, tight against her, but it’s hard to do it this way.

“Put your arm under me,” she says.

She lifts up enough to let me slide my arm under, and then she is holding me as I hold her. I ease my head over. Settle my head onto her chest. So slow, so gentle, I can feel
each part of her. First the dress, then Lucy herself, in separate pieces.

“Shhh,” she says, putting a finger to my mouth.

Now my ear is flat against her. I wait, but nothing happens. After a little while I look up at her.

“Okay, I don’t think it’s going to work this way,” Lucy says. “We have to try something different.”

“What?”

“Look, I don’t want to scare you or anything but… it’s not going to work unless it’s skin to skin.” She waits, looking at me.

“Okay,” I say.

Lucy grabs the hem of her dress, starts skimming it up her body. I shouldn’t look, but I do. Her legs are thin, but they’re so smooth and perfect. The dress is past her knees now….

“You want me to shut my eyes?” I say.

Lucy stops. “A little late, huh? You’re so innocent, you know that?
In-no-cent
. But that’s one of the reasons I love you.”

She starts pulling again; her legs widen out, so soft and curved … then her underwear, then above her underwear, her belly button like a tiny scooped-out shadow. All the way to just under her bosoms. She stops again.

“They’re called
breasts
, Ronald Earl.
B-r-e-a-s-t-s
. It won’t kill you to say it.”

“Lord, okay.
Breasts.” Can you read my mind?

Lucy smiles. “Not all the time. Only when you
really
want me to.”

She goes to skimming the dress again—and she doesn’t have a bra, there’s just the swell of her skin. She’s not like that girl Genna at the rest stop. Lucy’s breasts are … small.

“You can start breathing again,” she says. “Now lay your head down like before.”

I lay my head over again, my ear flat against her warm skin. So tight against her, the air goes out of my ear like a suction cup. I’m stuck to her chest. I can smell her skin. Can feel the wet corner of my mouth
right there
.

I don’t know what she needs me to do—then I figure maybe it’s just laying still and quiet so she can concentrate.

I can hear it—I can hear her heart. And it’s beating so
fast
. I didn’t know a heart could beat so fast.
Kadump, kadump, kadump
. Then …

“Oh Lord.”

Something is changing.

The side of my head, my ear, my cheek, my jaw, all these parts of me—they start to lose their feeling. They start feeling just the same as Lucy’s soft, hot chest. They are all the same parts, mine and hers; there’s nothing between them, on account of there
is
nothing between them—they are pieces of the same body.

“Ohhhhh.”

My head—it starts to
sink
into her. She’s letting herself go all soft, and my head is going down
into her
, I’m
sinking
.
Sinking straight into her, and I’m still, so still, afraid if I even twitch a muscle, I will ruin it.

I’m passing through, except I’m falling, there’s nothing else but falling and falling and—

“Open your eyes,” Lucy whispers.

First it’s all over white, bright as looking into the middle of the sun, but somehow the brightness doesn’t hurt my eyes. Things start to settle around me, take shape. I’m sitting in a garden on a little bench made out of black iron. Leaves are floating in the air all around me, leaves so pure green it makes me ache to look at them. I can see veins running all through them, like I’m looking at them under a magnifying glass.

And I can smell something like honeysuckle, only it’s a hundred times, a million times, the smell of honeysuckle, but still, it’s not overpowering. I could lay there breathing in that smell till the Judgment.

I can’t see water, but I can hear it, dribbling and splashing like a song spilling over this place.

This place—I’ve fallen into Lucy’s
heart
. And I know what she said about hell must be true, because it’s true about heaven. It’s not a place, either.
It’s a gift you are given
.

Lucy sighs, and I can feel her sigh roll through me like a golden warm day. The garden disappears. I can’t see anything, only black. Then there is a chain, monstrous heavy, links big around as my wrist.

The chain sets to wrapping itself around me, starting with my legs, then pinning my arms to my sides, crushing the air out of my chest. Then it comes up around my mouth and I can taste it, can taste the rusty metal as it covers my nose and last my eyes, all the while pulling tighter and tighter. I can’t—I can’t stand it anymore. I have to pull myself back. Get out of her. Back into the room, away from her.

Can’t breathe
.

The chain is still wrapped around me, those cold links. I fight, trying to tear the chain off. Too big, too heavy, I—I—I—

Lucy claps her hands in front of my eyes, one big slapping noise. I see her white blue eyes. I suck in a big breath and fall over on my back.

She has given me a taste of how it feels to be held like those people are being held. The agony they must have been suffering all these years … to be
separated
that way—I have no choice. I have to do it. Have to help them break free.

So they can go
home
again
.

I lay there awhile, my breath coming in short, shaky gasps. Lucy puts her warm face on my chest, cooing to me till I start to feel myself calming down.

“Let me know when it’s okay,” she says, stroking my cheek. “Let me know. Because we need to talk. We have to make a plan.”