the bullets would fall was God’s decision, is what Vern would say. We might never know.
Cherry spun in circles like an overgrown toddler. She was in the God zone now. The body chanted around us. Spirit song. Vern’s voice. God rain down on us, as we offer ourselves up to you! We are the wise, bringing hope to the land!
There was one comfort and only one: We were women together in our suffering. I watched us all together on the tarp. Our short hair matted to our faces. Our bodies weighed down with our purpose. We seemed so weak like this, but then Denay surged up to a stand and screamed in pain and I thought then she seemed stronger than she ever had, her eyes full of rage toward something, perhaps just rage against her pain.
I vomited onto the tarp, the wine rich and unwelcome. The tarp was not pure anymore. Taffy had turned gray and was slumped like a tired doll. Her stuffed belly was down between her legs now and she sweated in streams. No one seemed to notice her. She kept murmuring, Vern? But everyone, even Vern seemed to be separated from us by an invisible wall. They hovered like a committee of vultures, but they did not touch our blessing.
HOURS OR MINUTES passed. Time was nothing. The sun moved slowly over us and then it began to set. Perhaps the rains were nigh. The clouds were eating blue, peeling back the sky. No one was pushing a baby out yet, but my stomach cramped over and over, my spine a dull throb. I closed my eyes and I saw Revelation’s great white throne. I saw the book of life. I saw God’s hand upon it. And then I saw clearly what I’d never wanted to again. My mother, our apartment. The time I’d told her about Sapphire Earrings, told her I didn’t like being alone with him. She talked to him about it. They screamed and yelled. You’re no mother to that girl, he had said. At least I care. He packed his things and didn’t come back. I was overjoyed thinking a new life could begin, a better life, but she lay crumpled in our sheets. “Who do you want to live with?” she’d asked me.
“What do you mean?” I’d said. I curled my body next to her but she didn’t reach out to me.
“When I’m gone,” she said.
“Where are you going?”
I begged her. I wept. Still she was cold. I saw the empty pill bottle. I watched the sleep greet her.
“Go play outside,” she had murmured. I touched her hand and she flinched.
I had run from her down to the canal. I thought of jumping in and letting the cool blue water take me. The undertow was a strong pull, I knew, though the surface was placid. Valley kids were raised never to go near the canal. Someone always did though, the lure of it too much. I sat on the edge, tempted my toes in the rush. I felt the forceful carry of it. I lowered myself down so both ankles were covered. I couldn’t see anyone around. The water was cool but not cold. My hand slipped and then I was in. For a moment my breath caught, my body froze, and I went under. This is how it happens, I thought. This is how to drown. I heard the rush of the water, my own blood pumping in my ears. But then there was the sun above me. My face broke the top. I felt a hand grab my own, pull me up and out. The hot bake of the dirt was beneath me again. When I looked up I was alone. The sun dried me and I walked back to the apartment in a trance.
I had tried to prepare myself for what I would find. But she wasn’t there. The Rabbit was still in the parking lot. Inside, furniture had been moved around in a rush. A streak of vomit by the bedside. I lay in the empty bed and waited. In the morning she returned beaten-looking and half gone. But alive. I let myself think she had not gone through with it because of me and I loved her more. That was only a month before Vern brought the rains and saved us and put light in her eyes and I let myself forget the whole thing. We never talked about it and soon I knew that hand