Сигрид Нуньес - Salvation City

“Another thing I need you to promise—and this is the absolutely most important thing—is that you won’t let anyone turn you against your parents. Don’t let anyone try to tell you they didn’t love you, because they always loved you very, very much. Don’t believe anyone who tries to tell you that because they didn’t believe in God, they’re now in hell. Because that’s a lie, Cole, a sick and terrible lie. And if there really is a God and some kind of afterworld, a place we’ll all meet again, trust me, your mom and dad are there and deserve to be there as much as anyone else. And I don’t want you ever, ever to forget how brave your mother was. The last thing she did in her life was to help other people. I’m very proud of her for that, and you should be proud of her, too.”

He thought it would be such a relief when she was gone, and that he’d be glad. But after she drove away he went to his room and he cried for a good long time.

HE SAT ON THE STAIRS, listening to Tracy. She was in the kitchen, cooking dinner and talking on the phone to her sister.

“Don’t that beat all? And I tell you, Taffy, you could train every tot in Indiana on that potty-mouth of hers. And right in front of the boy, too. But I could tell he was used to it. Can you imagine having to send him back to live with folks like that? Well, yes, yes, it could! That’s why I say, you got to start praying, we got to get everyone praying right away. You know, Wyatt himself spent a good four hours on his knees today. He’s upset now Cole will think he’s a liar. But I talked to the boy myself a little while ago, and I explained. We prayed night and day on this matter, we prayed and we fasted, and the Lord’s message was clear. And Cole was doing just peachy before that witch flew in on her broom. Now Wy’s afraid she’s gonna make some kind of scandal, you know, with her wild accusations and such. Says she’s probably got a whole mess of lawyers and self-called child experts on the case. I always knew this day might come, but I just about throw up if I even think about Cole leaving this house. Far as Wyatt’s concerned, that’s his son. And you know Cole being here has been such a help in keeping him steady, too. Full moon don’t affect him like it sometimes can. Drink don’t tempt him. I have talked to Cole, and I think he gets it. I told him Wyatt loves him more than he loves hisself. I told him how sometimes a person can seem like a he-man on the outside but inside they’re really like a child, and he looked at me like he knew what I was talking about. That boy is sharp .

“I know what Satan is up to. But Jesus created us a family here, and he can’t mean for Cole to be snatched away just to be corrupted and lost all over again. How can that be? Imagine, a woman like that. Mouth like that. Even a roach’d think twice before crawling in there.

“That’s right. That’s what I keep telling myself. We just got to hang on a little longer. And you know, Taff, the whole time the boys were gone I had that feeling I was telling you about. That whirlpool-stomach feeling? Like something’s about to happen? Something big? Now I got it all the time.

“Ouch! Darn near chopped my own finger off. Hey, listen, that’s Jesus telling me to quit gabbing and focus on my task. Wyatt should be home any minute and he’s gonna need my full attention. What? Of course! Starlyn’s welcome any day of the week and twice on Sunday, you know that. We’re blessed she seems to like it here more and more. But I don’t want you to be jealous about that, you hear?”

MEMORY DREAMS. Dr. Hassan had told Cole that they might happen. People with amnesia sometimes dream of things they actually experienced but can’t remember at all, not even after being told about them. “And then sometimes, perhaps triggered by the dreams, the waking memory of those events comes back to them.”

He is back in Little Leap, he is crawling through the house on his hands and knees when he discovers his mother in the bathroom, pitched over the toilet bowl. At first he thinks she is being sick, as he himself keeps being sick. Then he sees that she is drinking greedily, scooping up water from the bowl with both hands.

His mother is leaving the house. She is wearing her winter coat and her blue bandanna. She warns him to lock the door and not to let anyone in. “Even if they tell you Jesus sent them.”

He is in the kitchen, trimming the mold from the last slice of raisin bread. The raisins are like bits of gravel.

He is standing outside his parents’ room. Through the half-closed door he sees someone sprawled across the bed. Really, all he can see is a pair of bare legs. A woman, not his mother, the legs are too dark to be his mother’s, the legs are black. He steps back, not wanting to intrude, not wanting to disturb this person, this mystery guest, he cannot imagine who she is—they do not know any black women in Little Leap—and he cannot imagine why she has been put here, in his parents’ room, instead of in the guest room down the hall.

The way she lies there makes him think she’s asleep, but it is daylight (the only time he’d be able to see since the power went out), and she is not still, she is restless, her legs keep moving, moving, as if she was dreaming of climbing stairs, and she is talking to herself, a muttering singsong that spooks him.

A single thought is being hammered like a nail to the inside of his skull: something must be done. But the thought that should follow—what it is that must be done—doesn’t come, and will not ever come, there is just the hammering, harder and harder, the nail being driven in deeper and deeper, until there is only pain, unimaginable pain.

He didn’t let them in. They broke in. He hears them banging and shouting. He hears them coughing and gagging, sees the scurrying beams of their flashlights before they tumble pell-mell into the room.

It’s okay, you’re safe now, they say. But they look as if they were seeing a ghost.

A woman’s trembling fingers caress his cheek. “Poor little thing.”

He says, “Are you from Jesus?” and everyone smiles.

He dreams. He remembers.

Now an old story comes back to him, a story his mother liked to tell—and one he liked to hear—about a man who saved a younger man from being run over by a subway train. A seizure had sent the younger man sprawling onto the tracks. The other man had only seconds to decide what to do. He jumped onto the tracks and lay down, protecting the convulsing man with his own body. The train rolled just inches above his hunched back.

Once, the story came up when his parents were having some friends over for dinner. The others laughed when his mother confessed that she thought about the Subway Superman all the time. He was the person she most wanted to be.

“Don’t laugh, it’s true. I’d rather pass a test like that than win the lottery. Maybe it’s because I’m the kind of person who’s afraid of everything and can’t imagine ever doing such a thing myself. But just think, with something like that on your résumé, you could be at peace with yourself. It wouldn’t matter what mistakes you’d made, or whatever stupid, shameful, petty things you might’ve done. Anytime you started to be down on yourself, you could look back to the day you proved to the world you were a good human being. How could you ever hate yourself again? Plus, everyone would have to treat you with respect, no one could say they were better than you.