Read Online The Law of Moses by Amy Harmon - Free Book Online Page B

that danced on the walls. We swam for a long time, unconcerned with the lateness of the hour, unafraid of discovery, strangely at ease with one another.
    It wasn’t until I braced my arms on the ledge, my legs kicking out behind me in the water, resting momentarily, that I noticed the light bouncing off the water gave the wall in front of me an iridescent sheen. I reached my hand out to touch it, tracing the watery reflection with my finger, wondering how I could recreate the sheen with paint. Georgia moved to my side, holding onto the ledge, watching my finger as it painted invisible lines.
    “When you paint . . . do you know what you’re going to paint before you start . . . or do you just let your heart take over?” she asked softly. It was a good question—a sweet question—and her sweetness unlocked something in me that I kept guarded most of the time. Still, I chose my words carefully, not wanting her to know everything about me, not wanting to ruin the moment with ugly truths, yet not wanting to lie and ruin the memory when the moment had passed.
    “There are so many things that I see . . . that I don’t want to see. Images that come into my mind that I would rather not think about. Hallucinations, visions, or maybe just an overly vivid imagination. My brain might be cracked, but it’s not just my brain. The sky is cracked too, and I can sometimes see what’s on the other side.”
    I sneaked a look at Georgia, wondering if I’d scared her with that last confession. But she didn’t look scared. She looked intrigued, fascinated. Beautiful. So I kept talking, encouraged.
    “When I was younger I was scared a lot. When I would visit Gi, she would try to tell me stories to calm me down. Bible stories. She even told me about a baby named Moses. A baby found in a basket just like me. That’s how I got my name, you know.”
    Georgia nodded. She knew. Everybody did.
    “Gigi would tell me the stories to fill my head with better things. But it wasn’t until she started showing me artwork that things started to change. She had a book with religious art in it. Someone had donated it to the church and Gi brought it home so that nobody at church would see all those paintings of naked white people and get offended. She colored all the naked parts in with a black Sharpie.”
    Georgia laughed, and I felt the air lodge in my throat. Her laugh was throaty and soft, and it made my heart swell like a balloon in my chest, fuller and fuller until I had to sneak breaths around its increased size.
    “So you liked the pictures?” Georgia prodded after I stayed frozen and silent too long.
    “Yes.”Georgia laughed again.
    “Not the naked people.” I felt ridiculous and actually felt my face get hot. “I liked the beauty. The color. The anguish.”
    “The anguish?” Georgia’s voice rose in question.
    “It was an anguish that had nothing to do with me. An anguish everyone could see. Not just me. And I wasn’t expected to make it all go away.”
    Georgia’s gaze touched on my face like a whisper and drifted away almost immediately, drawn to my tracing fingers.
    “Have you ever seen the face of the Pieta?” I wanted her eyes on me again and I got what I wanted.
    “What’s the Pieta?” she asked.
    “It’s a sculpture by Michelangelo. A sculpture of Mary holding Jesus. Her son. After he died,” I paused, wondering why I was telling her this. I seriously doubted she cared. But I found myself continuing anyway.
    “Her face, Mary’s face . . . it’s so beautiful. So peaceful. I don’t like the rest of the sculpture as much. But Mary’s face is exquisite. When I can’t take the stuff in my head, I think about her face. And I fill my mind with other things too. I think about the color and light of a Manet, the details of a Vermeer—Vermeer includes the tiniest things in his paintings, little cracks in the walls, a stain on a collar, a single nail, and there is such beauty in those little things, in the perfect