Free Paper Faces by Rachel Anderson Page A

hens that laid eggs, and of the church eagle of glinting metal that glowed like gold. She was finding out many new things that Baby would never know of.
    â€œWould you say,” Dot asked, “it’s more like London, or more like round about here?”
    â€œWhere, dear?”
    â€œAt heaven.”
    The goat stopped abruptly and tried to chew at the hem of Mrs. Hollidaye’s brown jacket.
    â€œYou know, my dear, the gospels are not at all clear on that point. Personally I would like to believe it to be peacefully verdant. As it says so clearly in the Psalms. Walking in green pastures. Beside still waters.”
    Dot did not know what Psalms were, but she felt she was beginning to understand about quiet and gentle greenness because she saw it all around her. This seemed to be a place where, despite noises in the night and a few dangers like trees that grew inside you and made your throat choke, a person might feel safe for always.
    The goat suddenly trotted eagerly forward and Mrs. Hollidaye had to run to keep hold of the leather strap. They passed down the lane between high hedges.
    Dot said, “That’s all right, then. I’m glad he’s at a nice place like this.”
    Better than burning in Mrs. Parvis’s hot red fires of hell.
    The goat stopped again and leaned over to take a bite of springy grass beside the road.
    â€œI think he’s gone there too,” said Dot.
    â€œWhat, dear?”
    â€œHim. My old man.”
    â€œDerek? Not to heaven, dear!”
    So he had gone to that other place where, so Mrs. Parvis said, red-and-orange fires burned day and night so hot that glass and brick and even solid rock melted to liquid.
    â€œGloria and me went to see him once,” said Dot. “I don’t reckon he’s there no more. She don’t talk about it. We had to go on the Green Line bus.”
    It had been a long ride to an enclosure full of low single-storied huts of corrugated iron with cinder paths around, and all set in a large flat field of sparse graying grass.
    â€œIt was military, Gloria said. She was blinking right. There was soldiers everywhere. They was at the gate, so we couldn’t go in. Gloria had to show this special letter what she had about him before they’d even look at us.”
    Dot wasn’t used to talking so much about her father. Usually Gloria told her to shut her trap. Mrs. Hollidaye didn’t.
    Some of the men inside the hut had peered out like timid ghosts. She hadn’t seen what her father looked like. He hadn’t come out and she hadn’t been allowed in. Gloria had gone in and a person at a window had waved once, but Dot hadn’t known if it was him. She’d sat on the stubby grass, cut short as the back of a soldier’s head.
    Afterward, Gloria had said, “That grass were clipped flat so there weren’t nowhere for a running man to hide.”
    They reached the big white gate at the entrance to Mrs. Hollidaye’s driveway. The goat twisted its neck to make a grab at a fallen twig on the ground.
    â€œNo one never comes back from there, do they?” Dot said.
    â€œFrom heaven, dear? No, I’m afraid you won’t see the baby again. Not till you reach heaven. But you never know, maybe your mother will be able to have another one later.”
    Dot hadn’t meant where Baby was. She knew she’d never see him again. She meant that place where her father was, wherever that was. She’d begun to guess he was probably dead too and they’d forgotten to tell her, just like nobody told her straight when Baby died.
    She was glad. She didn’t ever want to have to see him.
    Gloria came down, bright and freshly lipsticked, in time for tea. They were in the glass-roofed, glass-sided room that Mrs. Hollidaye called the conservatory. The conservatory was warm, light, and moist, filled with growing plants in pots. Through the glass and the vines overhead could be seen the blue sky and the