Abandon

NINETY-ONE

G

loria’s head lay in Rosalyn’s lap, and she saw that lonely lantern still burning in the middle of the cavern, its flame a little lower than before. The pain had intensified into something like the worst aftereffects of drunkenness she’d ever experienced, her body begging for water as it slowly dried and wilted. Still alive, she thought.

Now only moans and soft bellows disturbed the silence, the whimpers of those waiting to die, wanting it more than a drink of water, worse than air.

She looked up at Rosalyn. “Hey,” she whispered.

Rosalyn’s eyes were open, but the old whore made no answer. She had died while Gloria slept, her mouth inflated by the gigantic tongue, eyelids cracked, blood rolling out of them and down her cheeks. Even while she’d been alive, the absence of water had allowed the mummification of her body to begin, the skin on her face shrinking, lips shriveling, gums blackened, nose withered by half, flesh leathered into the color of ashen purple, with livid streaks where the blood had pooled.

Gloria felt a glimmer of release that her friend had passed.

Again, she obsessed on water, imagined bending down on the shore of Emerald Lake, splashing her face on a bright summer day. She kept replaying the last drink she’d ever taken—snow melted in an iron pot over the fire in their cabin. She could still picture Zeke filling her cup on Christmas morning, remembered how the water had chilled the tin, how when she touched it, her fingerprints had appeared as ghostly, fading condensation on the metal.

The sound of weeping drew her attention. She could barely raise her head from Rosalyn’s lap, but when she did, she saw a woman lying ten feet away against the wall of the cavern, touching the blond hair of a boy perhaps two or three years old. The woman had managed to pull him into her body and she kissed his eyebrows and his parched little lips and cried tearlessly. Her husband had died several hours ago and his body lay sprawled nearby on the floor.

The woman rolled her son across the rock toward his father and lay down between them. She held their hands and stared up at the ceiling, her lips moving, and she would not get up again.

Gloria closed her eyes. She thought about her husband and her son, wondered if they could see her dying in this cave.

Then she sensed him, opened her eyes, and across the cavern stood Ezekiel, dapper in that four-button sack coat, his Sunday best, and shining as if illumined by footlights.

Though his lips did not move, she heard his voice perfectly.

He said he was sorry she’d suffered, but that it was almost over, that he’d glimpsed the place where they were going, and there were no words for pain or loss there, and no past.

Our boy’s there, he said, and I’m told he’s been askin for us. There’s some kind a beautiful place waitin on our souls, Gloria.

What’s he look like, Zeke?

Like Gus, I suppose.

He ain’t grown?

I don’t know.

Will he always be a little boy, or will he grow up into a man?

I don’t know the answer to that.

You go on to him.

I wanna wait for you, Glori.

You won’t be waitin long.