Kirstin Valdez Quade - Night at the Fiestas - Stories

Morgan whipped around and looked at her mother. “Why shouldn’t we talk about the teachings of the Prophet? Revelation is important. You know that.” She stood. Claire could feel her rage vibrating around them. Morgan pointed at her mother. “You’d better know that!” she shouted, then ran down the hall. At the far end, a door slammed.

Outer Darkness. There was no such thing, thought Claire. She was an atheist, so there couldn’t be.

If Claire were away from her family when the end came — say, if it happened tonight while she was in Nephi City — she would be cast out alone, with no one to hold her as she drifted around in the vast, airless blackness. Her mom and Will and Emma might be destined for Outer Darkness, too, but they’d have each other.

She pictured the three of them as they were now, probably reading books on the couch at home, the lamplight warm and yellow. They’d be reading The Mammoth Hunt , Emma’s favorite book, laughing at the antics of Fern and little Sam, the Ice Age siblings. Emma, with her dimpled hands and silky honey-brown curls, surrounded by her mother and father, all their heads touching. They were perfect, the three of them: related, joined. A triangle, the strongest shape there is.

LATER THAT NIGHT, Claire found Patsy and Morgan lying together on Morgan’s bed. Morgan’s face was pressed into her mother’s chest, and Patsy’s fingers were twined in her hair. Claire stood in the doorway, watching them. Four more days. She missed her mother with an intense, full-body longing that hit her so hard, so squarely in the chest, she couldn’t breathe. She knew she’d begged to be allowed to come here with Morgan; why then did she feel she’d been sent away?

Much later, when Claire woke in the night, Patsy was gone and Morgan was sleeping. Claire opened the bedroom door. At the end of the long hall, a light was on.

In the sanctuary, Patsy was in a long rose-printed nightgown, hunched over the phone. Claire stood in the dark of the hall, watching.

“It has been a while!” Patsy laughed gaily in the way Claire loved. “Three kids, yeah. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. A lot.” Her voice dropped, and then Claire realized that something was wrong. Patsy was drinking Fruit Coolers. She had a box of them, and there were four empties, the one in her hand half-full. Her voice rose and tightened. “Anything you wanted. I’d do it now.” She listened for a long time. “I know it’s late. I’m sorry. I know.”

Patsy hung up, then threw the bottle against the wall. It hit with a crack but didn’t break. Claire watched the bottle empty itself into the carpet, and thought again of Outer Darkness. She could feel it gusting inside her, cold and vast, as if she’d swallowed a bite of it at dinner and it had swelled to fill her.

Patsy dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my gosh.” She hit the floor with her fist. “Fuck,” she wailed softly. Then: “Jesus. Jesus. Jesus Christ .”

When she lifted her head, she looked directly at Claire, as if she’d known she was there all along. Patsy’s mascara was smeared, her eyes dark and red.

“I’m sorry,” Claire croaked and backed down the hall.

Patsy caught up with her and put an arm around Claire’s shoulder. “You poor thing. You’re sad. I’ve made you sad. Are you sad?”

Claire shook her head.

Patsy kneeled before her, dragging on Claire’s hands. “I was just talking to an old friend, but I’m okay now. Everything’s okay.”

“Is it true about Outer Darkness?” And as if responding to its name, the emptiness inside Claire dilated. “Is it true I can’t be with my family in the Celestial Kingdom?”

“Oh, gosh.” Patsy looked stricken, and her eyes welled with tears again. “It is true,” she said. “I’m so sorry, honey. I don’t know what to tell you.” She dropped her head, then looked up suddenly. “But it will be okay!” She jumped to her feet and steered Claire down the hall with both arms.

She pushed open a swinging door. The dark room was empty but for a pool sunken in the floor, a huge square expanse of tiny bathroom tiles. Four steps and a metal handrail led down.

“This is the baptismal, Claire.”

“Wow,” said Claire. She thought baptismals were supposed to look like birdbaths, or grander, more sacred-looking, like the marble-edged pools in the book of Maxfield Parrish paintings her parents had. This was so ordinary, like a drained swimming pool, except smaller and cubic.

Patsy descended the steps, put the stopper in, and turned the faucet.

While the baptismal filled, the two of them stood at the edge. Patsy held Claire’s hand so hard it hurt. Outside the pebbled glass windows a phosphorous streetlight shone. The water was black, the pool too deep for its proportions.

Patsy shut off the faucet. “Do you know what this means?”

Claire listened to the quiet of the church and the sounds of water dripping and a gurgle in the pipes. This was it, the moment her life would change. Claire’s chest was tight, her mouth dry. What surprised her is how accidental this all felt: imagine if she hadn’t woken up, imagine if she’d slept through her chance. She nodded.

Patsy led her by the hand into the warm water. Claire had never been submerged in her clothes; her pajamas dragged around her legs as she took each step. When they were in the center of the pool, they stood facing each other until the black water stilled around them. The water was high on Claire’s chest. The line of wet climbed Patsy’s nightgown, and where the thin fabric clung to her breasts, the rosebuds looked like welts.

Claire breathed in the steam and the scent of Patsy’s lotion. Her mind was quiet, waiting.

“It’s okay, honey,” said Patsy. “Deep breath.”

Patsy cupped one hand behind Claire’s head and held both Claire’s hands in her other, then tipped her back into the water.

Claire’s eyes flew open. She couldn’t see anything in the warm dark, except, somewhere, a shifting haze of orange light. For a moment she felt bodiless, as though she’d become the water, but then the weight of it pressed around her, squeezing her lungs and throat. Claire opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, she had surfaced. She sputtered and coughed and blinked the stinging water from her eyes.

“Now do me,” said Patsy, and she settled herself in Claire’s arms.

Claire cradled her awkwardly, aware of the slippery warm skin at Pasty’s neck and of the sucking of her own t-shirt against her belly. Patsy’s gown drifted beneath the water as graceful as mermaid hair. Claire gazed down at Patsy’s calm face and her closed, waiting eyes.

“Do it now, Claire. ”

When Patsy came up, water streamed from her face. She was smiling. “That’s what we needed,” Patsy said softly, the ends of her red hair dripping. “A new start.”

Claire smiled back. For a long time, it seemed, they stood smiling at each other, like people in a movie in love. Then Claire remembered the strange phone call.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Why were you so sad?”

Patsy pulled her close. “You could be my daughter,” she said. “I feel like you are.” Patsy kissed her on the mouth.

Warmth and happiness flooded Claire. “I know,” she said. “Me, too.”

Patsy pushed Claire’s hair back, and shivers went down Claire’s spine in wave after wave. It was almost too much, this happiness.

Patsy cocked her head, coy. “Can I tell you a secret? Promise not to tell?”

The sense of her loyalty brought tears to Claire’s eyes. She wanted to do something for Patsy, to sacrifice, to obliterate herself for this woman. “I promise.”

Patsy put her face close, and Claire could feel her breath on her lips when she whispered. “No one knows where we are. Not Mr. Swanson. Not your mother. No one.”