never will.
I've seen a little. I've also met some good people out in the world. They're not as bad as you say they are.
Lord God frowns and rises from the table with a faint pneumatic hiss.
That's a fine kettle of fish, he croaks. Man comes home from war, from getting his body blown to hell and back for your sake, so all the fat can sit around and complain about everything. His wife leaves him. His child mocks him.
I'm not mocking, says Ruby. I don't want to marry a stranger. Is that so crazy?
Lila grabs a skein of Ruby's red hair in her fist and cries. Ruby puts a pacifier in her mouth and rocks her, one hand on her belly. The pacifier muffles the sound until she spits it out and cries harder, her face turning purple.
She shouldn't get gas after feeding, not on breast milk, says Lord God. It might be something you're eating. You're not eating too much red chili, are you? She'll get those spices through your blood.
Ruby carries Lila to the wooden rocking chair in the living room. The crying subsides as she rocks, until Lila only whimpers. From the kitchen comes the sound of the clink of silverware and china, Lord God putting away the dishes.
Ruby rocks and waits. She needs to get ready for school. That is what she should be doing. But she watches the kitchen door and waits. Aloud she says, Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you.
Lord God finishes clearing the table and stands in thought. He is out of work and has given up looking for more. He lives off disability but it's hardly a living. He preaches now at the Lamb of the Forsaken Fundamentalist Church of Latter- Day Saints. His congregation is mostly lost souls and the lonely, living hand to mouth. He drinks his coffee and surveys the empty expanse of his day before him.
He walks with a thump and hiss to the doorway of the living room, where he stands and watches Ruby coddle Lila. A child of mixed blood, misbegotten in the hardest of times. The Lord gives us choices and we don't always make the right one.
Your baby girl needs a father, he says. Any fool can see that. You're going to marry Page.
Not a man with two wives already.
I had a vision, says Lord God. The Lord spoke to me. He told me Page is a good man. Better than you know or have known.
Says you.
Says the Lord God Jesus Christ. I'm right. And you know it.
Ruby takes Lila to her bedroom, kissing her forehead as she carries her propped against her hip. She changes Lila's diaper and finishes getting ready for school. She listens to Lord God talking to himself in the kitchen down the hall. It has become a habit with him, a kind of running commentary of his thoughts, spoken aloud in a whispery, intense tone. Sometimes he seems to be talking to her mother now that she's gone, arguing with her, firing back at her female sass. She hears him say, Is that what you'd have me do, Juliet? Is that what you want? Just tell me and I'll make it so.
Ruby slips a gauze face mask around her neck and arranges it at her throat like a white choker necklace. She can't stand the thing but school regulations require it, everyone insane about germs. With the fever that has swept the country, wearing face masks is now mandatory in public places.
Two years ago it was the fever snuck up like an ugly rumor and nobody believed it at first. Soon you saw people fainting at the supermarket. Later a shopping mall closed after a rent- a- cop discovered a Pakistani woman two days dead in the parking lot. They had to close down the unemployment offices to prevent the contagion in line. People out of work and sick too made it insult to injury.
In school that term Ruby studied Native American customs and learned that they had called it the Fever Moon. Somehow it made more sense than anything you heard from the talking heads on the screen. Doctors saying they have no cure but what can you do anyway? They don't know. They're making it all up. They like to hear themselves talk, to look important. They don't know when it will end. When the next thing will begin. They blame the birds.
Lord God calls out, You miss the bus, don't plan on getting a ride from me.
Ruby stands at the window, watching a lone Grief Bird on the railing. It stares back, like a shape- shifter waiting for her next move.
Lord God stomps his peg leg on the front porch. Ruby grabs her book bag and marches past him. She keeps moving down the front walk. Red Creek Road is a two- mile stretch of potholed dirt from their front yard to Highway 96. When she passes the junipers near the mailbox, she catches sight of the yellow school bus pulling away. She has to turn and head back.
It came early, she mumbles as she passes him.
You're late again, says Lord God. You'll be late for your own funeral.
Ruby stops and stares at the sky. Snow clouds bulge over the mountains. The wind whips dust into her eyes, makes her squint. She does not want to give Lord God the satisfaction of acknowledging his words and warnings.
I'll take you to meet Mr. Page on the way to school. He is just the thing you need.
She goes through the front door, back inside the house. Lila sits in her plastic play swing and smiles like a cartoon baby when she approaches. Ruby leans in to kiss her cheeks and forehead, trembling. Lila grabs a curling lock of Ruby's hair and holds on tight, as if she's holding the reins of a roan pony. A clear dribble of drool shines her lips.
Ruby disentangles her hair from Lila's fist, whispering, Mommy has to go now. I'm going to miss you and think of you every minute I'm away until I can come back and take you away too. Mommy loves you so much and she won't do anything to hurt you. For now Grandpa will take care of you.
Ruby's eyes well with tears as she kisses her baby's lips, soft and wet with drool. She tells her she's sorry. She swears she'll be back to get her as soon as she can. A day or two at the most. She covers her face with her hands and tries to stop her sobbing. She hears Lord God on the porch, opening the door, telling her to hurry.
He tells her he doesn't have all day. We have to get Lila dressed and in the car seat too, he shouts.
Lila puts her hands over her eyes and then pulls them away dramatically. She wants to play. Ruby's voice breaks when she says, Peekaboo! Lila covers her eyes again and Ruby starts to cry as she leaves the room. When Lila takes her hands away, the room is empty. Mama, she calls. Mama!
Ruby rushes through the smoky kitchen and out the back door. Lord God follows her but is several steps behind, his prosthesis slowing him. Did you hear me? he calls. You need to dress your girl. I'm not a taxi. You want a taxi you get a job and pay for one.
She runs past the woodshed, Grief Birds rising and cawing, her backpack slapping her shoulders. At the fence she tosses her backpack over, grabs a crooked post, clambers over the sun- bleached rails. She turns her body sideways to straddle the rough- hewn cross- ties. A rusty nail catches her jeans until she wriggles free.
For a moment she takes one last glance at the house— a faded white box set against the redness of the sky beyond, a smoky plume rising from the stovepipe. Lord God on the back steps, bearded and angry as a statue of Brigham Young, perplexed and one heartbeat from judging her to have lost her ever- loving foolish female mind.
The high desert beyond the woodshed is brown grass sloping upward, toward the mountains. To the east dry gulches
