The Scent of Rain and Lightning

41

BLEEDING AND BROKEN, Laurie lay on the chalky, rocky earth in a daze of shock and pain. Her consciousness faded in and out as her five senses surged in to startle her awake and then disappear again: smell of her own urine soaking her sundress; tastes of dirt, of beer and catsup; sounds of the wind that whipped her dark hair stingingly into her open eyes and moaned and sang around the rocks; sight of enormous clouds rushing east; painful stab of rocks beneath her shattered back.

It all blinked on and off as she woke up, faded out, woke up.

At first she felt terrified of lying helpless on her back, because she feared drowning with her face to the sky. Thunder rumbled the ground beneath her, making her shudder involuntarily, making her broken bones rattle agonizingly inside of her like seeds in a gourd. Flashes of lightning illuminated the landscape in nightmarish relief, turning rocks to gargoyles looming over her.

But then the first storm passed, and she found herself staring up into a sky so clear and deep blue-black that it hurt her heart to see it. In a moment that changed her, Laurie felt grateful to have been flung onto her back, her poor ruined back, so that she might see this astonishing beauty.

She had not known the world could be so lovely.

She’d always thought of the landscape of Rose, Kansas, as boring, had never understood when other people raved about its supposed glories, its famous soaring rock monuments and its sunsets, its flat horizons and dramatic cloud banks. Now she understood: it was wonderful! It looked transformed and magical in the shifting, changing light of the moon, stars, and clouds. Light rolled over the Rocks like waves, changing their colors from soft orange to gold to white to silver to black and back to gold again.

It appeared strange, enchanted, like the landscape of a fairy tale with a tragic ending. She had thought herself a princess, too special, too beautiful for her own hometown. Hugh-Jay had played her wealthy prince, and the big house in Rose had been their castle where they were going to live happily ever after inside its thick stone walls that were supposed to keep the three of them safe.

The Rocks above her looked now as if they had been washed in delicate pastels she would have stolen for a dress.

She had literally never noticed such beauty in the world before.

If her arms could have moved, she would have reached up to touch the amber moon and the winking stars that appeared from under the clouds as they scudded west to east. A memory from high school surprised her, because she couldn’t remember ever having paid much attention: From Missouri to the Colorado border, Kansas climbs nearly half a mile in altitude. Which teacher had said that? She couldn’t recall, and wouldn’t previously have cared, except that now the memory felt like someone kind had come to keep her company in her loneliness.

Thank you, she sent to the unremembered teacher.

Thank you, she repeated, to taste its novelty in her mouth.

But then that memory of the slant of Kansas gave her a sudden dizzying feeling of lying on a bed with her head lower than her feet.

Oh, God!

The world tilted back into flatness again, and she stopped worrying about dying by choking on her own seasick vomit.

She stared up, and felt entranced by the sky again, and soothed by the cool wind between storms. She felt embraced by the vast landscape that had previously felt so barren and dead to her. It wasn’t lifeless at all! The eighty-foot rock formations that rose beside, and above, and all around her looked like living creatures now, protectively watching over her with their sharp, cold faces.

Why did you let me fall? she asked them, sadly, but without blame.

Everybody in her county was proud of them, these Testament Rocks.

Geologists and archaeologists traveled from all over the world to study the soil or dig for fossils here, and yet she had declared these formations-these amazing, huge, natural sculptures-stupid and boring. There was a sphinx! There was a castle! Over there were towers and pyramids and eagles made of rock! At other moments those same rock formations stood out starkly on the plain like giants who had paused in a long walk; she now thought they looked wise and fascinating, like living beings who knew the secrets of the ages.

And yet the Rocks had let her feet skid, let her hands grasp air, let her plunge screaming through darkness and rain, falling through sickening yards of space, falling like a bird with oiled wings that wouldn’t fly, like an angel in a spinning dive to earth.

I’m no angel, Laurie admitted to the Rocks above her.

She had a feeling they already knew that about her.

Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

Once they would have been tears of self-pity; now they were for Jody.

She felt a pang of love so painful it made her cry out with pity and sorrow for her child. For a few moments, for her three-year-old daughter’s sake, she fought what was coming. She tried to move, to rise, to run, but it was torture, and impossible.

Her heart and thoughts continued the fight for a little while longer.

When that made no difference, she tried pleading.

Please, she feverishly begged whatever might be listening, take care of her and protect her.

She wished her daughter could know that her mom had fought hard to live.

Headlights like two distant tiny moons would soon be coming if Meryl had told her the truth, but Laurie didn’t believe their puny light would reach her in time to save her.