I could see an old and beautiful olive tree just up ahead.
The sun was high, and in front of the olive tree was a clearing. I waited only a moment until I saw the wheat on the other side begin to pulse with the arrival of someone who did not crest the stalks.
She was small for her age, as she had been on Earth, and she wore a calico dress that was frayed at the hem and the cuffs.
She paused and we stared at each other.
"I come here almost every day," she said. "I like to listen to the sounds."
All around us, I realized, the wheat was rustling as it moved against itself in the wind.
"Do you know Franny?" I asked.
The little girl nodded solemnly.
"She gave me a map to this place."
"Then you must be ready," she said, but she was in her heaven too, and that called for twirling and making her skirt fly out in a circle. I sat on the ground under the tree and watched her.
When she was done she came toward me and breathlessly sat herself down. "I was Flora Hernandez," she said. "What was your name?"
I told her, and then I began to cry with comfort, to know another girl he had killed.
"The others will be here soon," she said.
And as Flora twirled, other girls and women came through the field in all directions. Our heartache poured into one another like water from cup to cup. Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.
FIFTEEN
At first no one stopped them, and it was something his mother enjoyed so much, the trill of her laughter when they ducked around the corner from whatever store and she uncovered and presented the pilfered item to him, that George Harvey joined in her laughter and, spying an opportunity, would hug her while she was occupied with her newest prize.
It was a relief for both of them, getting away from his father for the afternoon and driving into the nearby town to get food or other supplies. They were scavengers at best and made their money by collecting scrap metal and old bottles and hauling them into town on the back of the elder Harvey's ancient flatbed truck.
When his mother and he were caught for the first time, the two of them were treated graciously by the woman at the cash register. "If you can pay for it, do. If you can't, leave it on the counter as good as new," she said brightly and winked at the eight-year-old George Harvey. His mother took the small glass bottle of aspirin out of her pocket and placed it sheepishly on the counter. Her face sank. "No better than the child," his father often reprimanded her.
Getting caught became another moment in his life that brought fear--that sick feeling curling into his stomach like eggs being folded into a bowl--and he could tell by the closed faces and hard eyes when the person walking down the aisle toward them was a store employee who had seen a woman stealing.
And she began handing him the stolen items to hide on his body, and he did it because she wanted him to. If they got outside and away in the truck, she would smile and bang the steering wheel with the flat of her hand and call him her little accomplice. The cab would fill with her wild, unpredictable love, and for a little while--until i