John Wray - Godsend: A Novel

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To the men and women of CAIR

and to the cause they serve

DEAR TEACHER here I am now where you said Id never be.

Im writing this from the place that you told me about and its as beautiful and terrible as everything you said. You said blue sky and cold and bad roads and worse water. You said snow in the houses and shit in the streets. A *godfearing people* you said. All those fancy descriptions. All that talking down to me like I was six years old.

Its cold here ok but I never feel cold. Im with people that know me. Im with people that will die for me and on my best days when Im not afraid I know Ill do the same.

Can you think of one thing you can say that about?

You were right about this country and the way that it would take me. Dear Teacher I should have known better. I should have been careful. You were right about all that but you were wrong about one thing.

You said Id never make it to this place. And here I am.

The day her visa arrived she came home to find the pictures on the mantelpiece turned to face the wall. She felt no urge to touch them. Theyd looked fine from the front, catching the light in their brushed-nickel bevels, but from the back their inexpensiveness was plain. Puckered gray cardboard, no stronger than paper. These were no sacred relics. They held meaning for three people only, of all the untold billions, believer and unbeliever alike. And not even for those three people anymore.

She found her mother in the bedroom with the ridgebacks and the pit. The room smelled of old smoke and Lysol and beer. The dogs raised their heads when she opened the door but her mother kept still, both hands slack in her lap, staring out the window at the cul-de-sac. The T-shirt she wore said SANTA ROSA ROUND-UP and she sat upright and prim on the high queen-sized mattress with her bare feet planted squarely on the floor. The girl studied that proud ruined profile from the foot of the bed, trying as she often did to find her likeness there. For the first time in her life, in all their eighteen years together, she had no need to guess what her mother was waiting to hear.

It came, she said.

What did?

You know what did. My visa.

Her mother made a gesture of dismissal.

I thought maybe it wasnt going to get here in time. I really thought it wouldnt. If it hadnt got here

You told me youd be home by five. Five oclock at the latest. Thats what you told me and I fixed my day around it.

The girl looked down at the pit. I know Im back late. I went for a drive.

Dont think I dont know where youve been, Aden Grace. Dont mix me up with somebody who cant tell shit from taffy.

Im sorry. She reached down to scratch the pit between the ears. Im not trying to keep anything from you, Mom. I guess Im just excited or whatever. Maybe even

Ive asked you not to lie to me. You owe me that kindness. Dont you owe me that kindness? Ive asked you not to complicate my life.

Ill be gone this time tomorrow, said the girl. I guess that should uncomplicate some things.

Her mother turned toward her. You think Im just counting the minutes till youre up in that plane? Look over here, Aden. Is that what you think?

No. I dont think that.

All right, then.

I think youre waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

Her mother gave a clipped laugh. Your old dad said the same thing to me once. You know what your trouble is, Claire? he told me. Youre always expecting some failure. The failure of a person or the failure of a given situation. She laughed again. The failure of a given situation. Those were his words exactly.

Youre drunk.

Right again, girl. Pat yourself on the ass.

I didnt even have to tell you. Im old enough now. I could have packed up my stuff and just walked out the door.

Thats exactly what youre doing, far as I can see. Walking right out the door. Or am I missing something?

The light above the cul-de-sac lay thick against the hillside and glimmered down through air gone dim with pollen. The same air shed moved through and breathed all her life. A hummingbird circled the feeder by the pool and found it empty. It had been empty for days. She asked herself how long that small bright bird would keep on coming.

Try to remember to fill up the feeder, she said.

Her mother dragged three fingers through her hair. You going to see him before you jet off? Is that part of your plan?

I dont know.

You dont know much, do you?

I might go and see him.

I never asked where you got the money for the ticket. I guess I must already know the answer.

Youre wrong. I asked him for money at Christmas. He told me it was out of his purview.

His what?

Thats what I said. He told me to go home and look it up.

Well doesnt that just sound like our professor. She coughed into her fist. I tell you what, though. I bet it gooses him in all the right places, this life plan of yours. I bet he feels fulfilled and justified.

Hes got no reason to feel one way or the other about it. None of this is on account of him.

Who do you think youre talking to here, Aden? Who do you think youre fooling?

Im telling it to you as clear as I can. I cant help it if you dont want to listen.

For those with ears to hear, let them hear, said her mother.

Thats about right.

That comes from a different book, though. Not the one in your pocket. She curled her toes into the carpet. I should have made you learn that book by heart.

You tried to, said the girl.

Noticed that, did you? I guess that counts for something.

Its not your fault I turned out like this. She bit down on her thumbnail. You did what you could.

Her mother turned back to the window. Im tired. Go on out and leave me alone.

I will if you promise to sleep.

Ill sleep when Im ready. She arched her back and lit a cigarette. I cant say Im going to miss your goddamn fussing.

A jet passed overhead as the girl turned to leave. The house was on the flight path up from SFO and shed always loved to hear the planes go by. It was a carelessly built house, cheap as the frames on the mantel, but when it shook she felt less separate from the world.

Im going for a walk, she said. Ill be back in an hour. Ill make us some dinner.

Whatever you say.

He never paid a cent for it. I saved up from work. The church got me a discount on the ticket.

Dont you call it a church. Theres a word for that place you go to, Aden. Even I know the word.

You can forget it as soon as Im gone, said the girl.

Her mothers face caught the light as she pulled the door closed. Impassive and prideful, prepared for the worst. She recognized her likeness there at last.

* * *

She walked down Hidden Valley Drive to the cemetery, past Carmens Burger Bar, past Ramirez Pawn N Carry, then up Pacific toward the junior college. On Mendocino she stopped in front of a shop window and shaded her eyes and looked in through the glass. A pyramid of mobile phones, leather protective cases for the phones, matching plastic belt clips for the cases. She imagined a world in which she might possibly enter that shopin which she would work and save to buy the items offered there for saleand it was not a world in which she cared to live.