Thicker Than Blood - The Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy

He doesn’t ask her to believe. Only to muse. Particularly on evil. He says that evil is a misnomer for the diamond core of man’s soul.

In parting, god says, 'Consider how you might rid yourself of that definition, Elizabeth. Next time I come, I’ll tell you how you might do it, and if you’re interested, I’ll free you. If not, you may continue with your plans to die in the darkness you now inhabit and never see Jenna or John David again.'

# # #

Pain divided by cushions of beautiful numbness…

# # #

I can see the sound from my bed. Blue sky. Navy water. A thread of green running between. Sometimes the leg throbs. Sometimes it burns. Sometimes I don’t feel a thing, not even my eyes.

Those are the blissful times, and I stare out the window and watch clouds gather over the sound and do not wonder or care where I am.

# # #

Orson keeps vigil at my bedside. He says I’m going to die. I tell him I don’t care one way or the other.

# # #

I lie in a windowless stone-walled room, a bare light bulb shining above my head.

An old man I’ve never seen before is stitching up my leg below the knee.

He glances at me and stops, his arms red up to the elbows.

The old man wipes his brow, says, 'Give him some more gas, Beautiful.'

# # #

Sometimes I see a strange sky. Cloudless. Sunless. Bright blue but without depth, almost as though I were staring into a blue television screen. While I stare at this sky, a voice speaks into my ear. Then I see things. I see the things it tells me to see.

# # #

Violet King has begun to splinter. Solitude can do that to you. Silence and unending darkness will most certainly do that to you. Her eyes have not seen light in fifteen days, her world now six by six by eight, enclosed by cold stone walls.

Her last memory is of a lavish yacht. She doesn’t recall how she earned the fracture along the top of her skull. Though it is healing, stitches would’ve helped, and the headaches have not let up.

She is still being fed and watered. One square meal a day. And though she thinks she wants to die, she continues to eat the slop that is put before her, ravenously. She believes if she doesn’t eat, she will die. The possibility grows more enticing each day, and though the idea of starving herself to death is occurring with increasing frequency, she has not yet taken the first step, which would be shoving the plate of food back under the door.

Vi was raised to think that if you commit suicide, you go to hell. It is the belief of a Catholic, not a southern Baptist, but for some reason her father believed it, so she believes it, too. However, as her notion of hell is eclipsed by her reality, she may reconsider her conviction.

# # #

The meal is always the same: an apple, steamed broccoli, browned hamburger meat, and two slices of white bread. Sometimes she keeps it down. Usually she doesn’t. Her morning sickness rages on. Incredibly, she has not miscarried.

# # #

The baby growing inside her is the only reason she’s still alive, the only reason she continues to eat. Vi has taken to talking to her stomach. She also sings. But the sound of her voice makes her cry. She hears the brokenness of it. A person she doesn’t know.

# # #

Today is Thanksgiving, but Vi has lost all concept of time. Lately, she can’t distinguish between sleeping and consciousness. It’s all that same quiet darkness. Hope has ceased to exist even in her dreams.

# # #

One day she decides that she’s in hell, and that the world of light and love and a man named Max was something she had imagined to pass this black eternity. She had become so good at dreaming, at conjuring that pretend, perfect life, it had alleviated her torture here. But something has snapped her back into hell. She will try to dream it all up again.

# # #

She fails. Her mind is leaving her. She hasn’t eaten in two days, because she doesn’t think she’s pregnant. Becoming a mother was a part of that lovely dream. Her deepest fear now is that she won’t die. Souls don’t require sustenance. She is unbreakable and will go on forever, a bottomless container, capable of holding oceans of pain.

# # #

I drift so far back. Is this a memory? A dream?

It’s a Saturday in late June. I’m nine or ten. Daddy wakes us up at 6:00 a.m. and tells us to get dressed. Mom’s at the beach with her sisters. Just the boys this weekend.

We climb into the station wagon and ask Daddy for the fifth time where we’re going, but he only grins and says, 'Have to wait and see.' He’s a great lover of surprises.

We ride in the front seat, me in the middle. At a nearby bakery, Daddy buys a dozen doughnuts, and I hold the box in my lap. By the time we reach the visitor parking lot of Stone Mountain State Park, the box is empty and our fingers sticky, our faces stained with chocolate icing and jelly and custard fillings. I’m a little mad at Orson, because he ate all of the creme-filled chocolate ones.

We reach the summit of Stone Mountain a little before 11:00 a.m., and Daddy throws a blanket out on the rock. With one strong warning not to go beyond the ledge of stunted pines, where the dome of granite begins to slope precipitously, he sets us loose—something Mom would never have done.

Orson and I spend the next hour chasing each other across the acres of sunlit rock. The June sunlight is strong, and the water collected in the small craters of the mountain is warm as bathwater. We take off our shoes and socks and dip our feet in and pretend we’re on the moon.

After lunch, we lie down on the blanket beside Daddy. Orson drifts off, but I stare out across the folds of Appalachian forest rippling off into the horizon. June bugs zip by, clicking noisily, and a yellow jacket seems interested in the uneaten triangle of Orson’s peanut butter and honey sandwich.

I glance over at Daddy and see that he’s asleep, too. I lay flat on my back and stare up at the sky which has begun to fade from the crisp blue of morning into the bleached baby blue canvas that may birth thunderstorms in several hours. I feel a prick. The yellow jacket must have stung my arm.     

And I stare at the sky and stare at the sky and it turns bluer and flatter and the mountains disappear and Orson and Daddy disappear and then a voice speaks out of the heavenly pixels.

'That was a lovely memory, Andy. So nice to hear you speak of Orson. Your brother was very special.'

I feel like I’m floating. I try to speak, but now my words come out mangled.

'Don’t talk, Andy. You couldn’t possibly form a coherent sentence. The pain was coming back, so I gave you another injection. Shall we go deeper this time? How about I talk and you listen?'

'Muuh. Ah. Muuh.'

'Don’t try to speak anymore, Andy. I just want you to absorb my voice. I know you’re still a little disoriented. Not sure where you are. Maybe you’re afraid. Well, you’re going to let go of all of that. Fear has its place, but not here, not now.