Chide me, dear stone. ...
... O thus she stood,
Even with such life of majesty (warm life,
As now it coldly stands), when first I woo'd her!
I am asham'd; does not the stone rebuke me
For being more stone than it?

Nancy,

You will surely die soon. Bruce—your brother—doesn't want you to, feeling unfinished business between you and him, things he wants to say ("I love you," etc.). But you understand what he hasn't said. Bruce is a good man, but—let's face it—he tends to cling.

As for me, I want you released from what this disease has done, is still doing. When Bruce says he hopes you won't die for a long time, I shout inside myself, OH LET HER! But you're merely my sister-in-law. I've known you for only twelve years. Bruce grew up as your older brother, celebrated birthdays and Christmases with you. He watched you surrender those cat-eyes glasses for contacts, observed your skinniness turn womanly, your hair move from mousy to full under God's alchemy. Then—bang!—you were beautiful, and there were three guys wanting to marry you. Your mother says you chose Andy because he was so boyish and fun. Even now, you're protective of him.

You and Andy and your five children were in Hawaii when we met. You used the motorized wheelchair. You could still move a little, could still talk. I can almost remember your voice. What an amazing woman you were—supervising your kids, organizing them, helping them plan supper (simple fare like Lynn Wilson's burritos and cherry Jell-O!), overseeing their chores. I'm such a lousy organizer and was in awe of you.

In the twelve years since, I've watched disease paralyze you completely, take your movement, then your speech, then your ability to swallow, now your eyesight. I've become obsessed with multiple sclerosis. For years, I've been reading about your disease. Now I'm at it again, revising this novel, putting more pieces together. For years I've been working plot lines and dialogue and metaphors as a way, I suppose, of speaking for you. I'm unable to give up on it. Like you?

The book is not about you and those you love, but you are its springboard and soul. I've mentioned some of my projects to you but haven't been bold about how much they mean to me or—how much I hope they might mean to you or even your children. Perhaps it will make them remember painful things, perhaps it will make them angry. I hope they'll get beyond their anger, though, and let the book lead them to the past where they can face it fully; remember the hardest and best lessons you taught them; remember you for better and for worse.

You don't seem aware of much just now. You've had a fever for a week. The nurses can't get it down. You sleep most of the day; you're listless when awake.

Am I waiting for you to die before I let myself call this work finished? I keep thinking it complete, then I read it again and see that there's more to do.

So we're at another beginning. Andy has metamorphosed into my character, Ben, a geologist. Ben is blond, has a receding hairline, black-framed glasses, ruddy skin, and eyes as blue as a butane flame. In many ways, he's like Andy, though not so boyish. Ben is sullen, quiet, scholarly. I've set him, in this first chapter, in Zion National Park, and sprained his ankle. You remember Zion, with its cliffs, ominous monoliths, canyons of rocks jutting up like a petrified, rusted forest? Anyone could sprain their ankle there.

Ben, in khaki, is sitting cross-legged on a granite boulder, his ankle much better since he's had it wrapped at the ranger station where a strange woman gave him an ankle massage and told him she was throwing his pain into Zion's air so he wouldn't feel it anymore. And he doesn't, though he credits the double strength Tylenol the rangers gave him, not that woman's fingers.

At this moment, he's working on his book as intently as I'm trying to work on mine. He doesn't see the strange woman approach. She's dressed in a peasant blouse and jeans, her bleached hair is short. He doesn't look up until she speaks. He can't see her. The setting sun—almost touching those distant, rusted cliffs—is in his eyes.

She repeats herself. This time he understands: "There are ghosts around here."

He shades his eyes but still can't see her.

"Haven't you heard about them?" She steps forward—as though out of Zion's rocks themselves. The regal way she stands, he will later decide, is much like his wife's way, though his wife does not stand anymore. She is lying in bed, busy with slow dying at home. (Though she is not you, Nancy, she couldn't have come to life without you.)

"How"s the ankle?" The woman's voice is warm, musical, reminds him of a viola.

"Better."

"I told you." She slips her hands into her pockets. "Massage therapy does spiritual healing the way a doctor can't. Or won't. There was lots of negative energy around that ankle," she says. "Maybe more than the sprain?"

"I'm not sure what you mean." He speaks after a moment's hesitation. He's never been outgoing and doesn't strike up conversations with unfamiliars.

"In that book you're doing? You ought to mention the ghosts. Ghosts sell like hotcakes." She walks towards him. "I can tell you all about ghosts." She offers her hand as though that announcement were her business card. He's not sure if he's meant to shake it or if she's suggesting another massage.

He shakes it.

"My name's Cody," she says. "I don't think we got around to names at the station."

"Ben Morgan." He glances at his notebook, then back at her. "Thank you for the—"

"Healing? You're welcome." She sits on the dirt by his feet, hugging her knees.

"Swedish massage therapy, wasn't it?"

"No, I don't do Swedish. Mine's Navajo massage. I learned it in Blanding. Took a class. I'm a healer."

"Quite a title. Does it come with a certificate?"

"Not a paper one." She commences to talk and goes on talking, sensing no limits to verbal intimacy with a stranger whose ankle her fingers have known. She talks about her wanderings, about Buffalo Woman whom she claims to have seen in vision, about her father's idol. Jack Kerouac.

Such an interruption would usually have incensed Ben, who hates having his writing stopped. Cody's interruption does not bother him. He is intrigued, drawn to her. When she tells him about Kerouac, he mentions that his wife loves the guy too. Then he describes his wife Merry, then the disease—how it's punctuating her body processes with so many comma splices and question marks, killing her casually, cell by cell.

M. S. It stands for Merry's Sickness.

"That's what I felt," Cody says.

He suggests she explain herself.

"That's the negative energy around your ankle." She stands, reminding him again that Zion is full of ghosts. Then she leaves.

The sky has gone indigo. Ursa Major is spilling glitter. It's too dark for Ben to work on the manuscript anymore.

He goes to the tent, makes himself a peanut butter sandwich, does his nighttime do's, and recalls with some embarrassment how freely he has just spoken to Cody. How had she opened him up like that? It was as though she'd been massaging him with her voice. No touching, just her voice working its way under his skin. Had she been coming on to him?

"No way," he says out loud. He's been talking to himself since Merry lost the last other speech eighteen months ago.

He can see the mountains and monoliths silhouetted against a sky that's sinking into blackness. The highest peak points a jagged linger towards the Pleiades. He can smell the pine tree to the left of his tent, and the musky spikes of sagebrush around him. He can hear the wind coaxing orange dust from Zion's rocks. Easy urgings, steady erosion.

When he sleeps, Merry moves into his dreams.

She talks to him, says she loves those ironized mountains, but that ultimately ("Let's be honest, huh, Benj?") she prefers the ocean. Santa Barbara. At Zion, she feels awe and claustrophobia. Then she leaps from one huge, fully lit, rusted cliff to another—thighs naked and muscular, arms outstretched to the sun-dazzled clouds. But when he reaches for her, she's gone. His dreams often end this way: The instant he moves, she vanishes.

"Merry." He opens his eyes, then opens his tent. And Merry is there, shadowed, because the dawning sun is behind her. "Mer."

He puts on his glasses as she comes towards him. When he can see her face, it isn't hers. It's Cody's.

Ben thinks many things in the two seconds before he realizes what's what, muses himself into belief, or superstition, or whatever you want to call that half-dreamed state where all things are possible. (Yes, I know you, Nancy. You'd call it faith, and you'd want him possessed of it. He'd disappoint you.) He asks himself—though not in words—if a dream might be so sweet it could move into reality. In a flash—gone the instant it enters his mind—he wonders if God has given him Merry again with minor alterations and major mending. ("Are you my wife?" Not spoken.)

Such musings are not the norm for him. He recovers quickly, recalls Cody, recalls his own identity as a geology professor whose ankle she has touched and as a Mormon who has only occasionally been inclined to the spiritual side of things. Cody's face is darker than Merry's, her lips fuller. But her lean body and her stance are undeniably like his wife's.

"Hello," she says in that viola voice—not Merry's. (Does he even remember Merry's?)

"Hi there." His own voice is morning-tired and raspy.

"Wondered if you'd like some coffee.?

"I don't drink it. But thanks."

"Oh. You're one of those ..."

"Good for you. Caffeine defeats the spirit," she says. "Listen, I wanted to tell you something." She kneels before the tent door as he stretches himself up.

"How did you know I was here?" he asks.

"Don't worry, I didn't follow you. When I was standing on a rock over there," she points, "I happened to see where you went." She smiles, sharing a secret now. "I was supposed to see."

"Is that right? Was my ankle calling you?"

"No."

"Was it—whazzername—Buffalo Woman? She wanted you to see?"

"Uh huh."

"Of course." He hides his own smile by looking down. "And what did she want you to tell me?"

"No, I wanted to tell you something. I wanted to tell you I can heal your wife." She speaks so easily. She might have said "I wanted to tell you it's a nice day" in exactly the same tone. "Same way I healed your ankle," she says. "Pain's gone, isn't it?"

"I took Tylenol."

"That defeats the spirit too, you know. Your body has power to heal without drugs."

"Does it?" Ben laughs. Not loud, not hard—and he feels rude because it's clear Cody doesn't intend any of this as a joke. Then she moves her hands, slowly, and something changes. Things get quiet. There suddenly aren't any birds, no wind. The air itself goes reverent. Cody repeats, "I can heal your wife. She needs me more than the ranger station does."

He doesn't agree to drive her home with him—not right then. It takes her three days to persuade him—three "visitations," he will later say. But it doesn't feel like acquiescence when he agrees; it feels all right. Cody is a free spirit, willing to work, experienced not just as a "massage therapist," the term he insists upon rather than "healer," but as a nurse's aide, and he does need help with Merry.

"I was a nurse's aide ten months, that's all," Cody says as they pack his rust-rimmed trunk.

"That's experience. That's what I'll pay you for: taking care of my wife's physical needs. And—no offense—I prefer you keep quiet about these gifts. Don't make her hope." He shoves his backpack into a small space above the cooler.

"I didn't say I have gifts." She defends herself with familiar, quiet dignity. "I never would have known. It was the Cheyenne elder. He told me, in ... "

"Montana. Yes. And it was Buffalo Woman in Blanding."

"That's right."

"You get new visions every time you drop your suitcase." He slams the trunk shut, then winks, making light of his disbelief.

"Not always. Sometimes."

"I can't wait for the visions you'll get in our house," Ben laughs.

She laughs with him, then repeats her theme. "I can heal her."

His smile drops. "I'm serious, Cody. Don't say that. I'm going to introduce you to my family as a nurse who does some work with massage. Period."

"How's your ankle?"

"Fine. Good."

"Healed?"

"No. But I can tolerate the pain."

"Let it go, Ben. You're holding on to it." She makes it more a question than statement.

He says, "Am I?" packing the words with doubt.

"You're holding on to a lot of pain," she says. "More than you know."

Sad. Sweet. Warm. Steady. Tired.

Cody entered the Morgan family emotion when she entered their house—so strong it lifted her head and made her arms rise slightly. It spoke to her cells, moved through skin to sinew.

Sad. Sweet.

Ben, holding her suitcase, was leading her towards a cane-shaped lamp. But it was Merry—still unseen—who pulled her forward, the emotion getting brighter and stronger until Merry was before them, reclined, smiling on the burgundy couch.

Ben said, "Mer, this is Cody."

Two white pillows supported Merry's head. She had a face made to be beautiful but strained past beauty now, the skin tight, pale, shiny over cheekbones. Her hair—acorn-brown, dull, silver-streaked—was in need of shampooing; her smile built saliva in the mouth corners.

Was her smile the glow point of those feelings?

Warm. Steady. Weary.

Or was it beaming from Ben's eyes? "I think you'll like her, Mer." He'd already set the stage, already told Merry the need was plain: it was time for extra help, and he'd found an inexpensive "nurse" at Zion. As a result of his spraining his ankle.

From Merry's eyes? As gold as Buffalo Woman's. Eyes like a caged lion's. Even without her glasses, Merry's eyes would have shone. The glasses magnified them and reflected her visitor's face. Those eyes could swallow anyone.

"Ben's told me everything," Cody said, kneeling to be level with Merry.

Merry blinked.

"I'm not a certified nurse. But I do have experience." She looked at Ben for approval. He nodded, then called upstairs to his daughters. The girls tromped into the room, halting when Cody, still on her knees, raised her eyes to them.

Cody took them in. They were as Ben had described them: azure-eyed, dimpled Janny with waist-length, spiraled blonde hair; Elizabeth, rounder than her sister, hair shorter, straighter, closer to dishwater than blonde, goldish eyes like her mother's—both girls regarding her with suspicion. And Ben in black-rimmed glasses, the sheen of his skin almost a glare where forehead merged with scalp, a face which, at that particular moment, wanted to die.

"Well, girls, I hired us a nurse," Ben said. It was half announcement, half apology. "This is Cody.

Cody, my daughters: Elizabeth, she's just starting her senior year at Logan High. And Janny, she's a sophomore." He glanced at each when he said her name, then away.

Elizabeth and Janny watched their father, Elizabeth's eyes clicking back and forth like the timer on a bomb.

"Your dad's told me about you already," said Cody. "Good things."

Janny was staring her father down. "Dad, can I talk to you?"

"Don't worry, Jan," he answered. "Things are all right."

"Dad!"

"It's time to face facts, isn't it?" Ben turned not to Jan but to Cody; the girls could catch his words on the ricochet. "You both missed school while I was at Zion."

"Sister Olson canceled out at the last minute," Elizabeth defended. "The Relief Society ..."

"I only missed a half day," Jan said. "Just geometry."

"Aren't you failing geometry?" He faced her now.

"No, I'm dropping it."

"Oh, good solution. You need my permission for that, don't you?"

"Maybe."

"Shall we be honest?" he said, more softly.

"I am being." Jan was sassy. Cody enjoyed her.

"I called the school counselor from Zion." Ben's quiet words were armored with his authority. "You missed a full day, Jan, not a half. And you're failing history too. Are you planning on dropping that as well?"

"Isn't it illegal for parents to spy on their children? Doesn't that violate the First Amendment?"

"See?" he said. "You do need history." He gave her an eager grin, which she didn't return. "And Elizabeth ..."

"We couldn't leave Mom. She ..."

"You had good reasons to stay with her; I'm not doubting that. But that's not the issue."

"I thought we couldn't afford a nurse," Jan said.

"We've worked something out. Cody's being very generous ..."

"Full time?" This was Elizabeth.

"Full time."

Silence.

Sad. Sweet. Warm. Steady. Private, throbbing lights.

"Penny's not here, is she?" Cody broke in.

"What did Dad tell you about our sister?" Elizabeth was smiling hard above her resistance.

"Just that she's sad," Cody answered. "She left her husband?"

Elizabeth turned the same hard smile on her father. "Sounds like you filled her in."

"Shall we give each other a chance?" he said.

Silence. Then the emotion, in warmer, stronger waves—yes, waves! This emotion bound the Morgan family like a ghost embracing them, bringing them into its heart, baptizing them again and again in an intimate, pulsing ocean. Aching, yearning, tender heart-waves breaking, then pulling them all in.

This is Merry's soul. An ocean.

When Merry groaned, Jan and Elizabeth exchanged a glance.

"She wants to talk to us," Elizabeth said. "If you don't mind."

Cody touched Merry's fingers. "You talk?"

"She spells," said Jan. "We go down the alphabet and she blinks on the letter she wants. Her mind's all right. Don't treat her like she's retarded."

"I need to learn," said Cody. "Let me watch."

Elizabeth inched away from Cody's fingers. "Mom?"

A blink, then nothing, then Merry's moan. The process began.

"First half?" asked Elizabeth.

Blink.

"A? B? C? D?"

Another blink.

"D. Second letter. First half?"

Blink.

"A?"

Blink.

"First half?"

Blink.

Cody knew instantly what Merry was spelling. "Dad. Dad's right. Is that it, Merry?"

Blink.

"Dad's right." And she knew the second part. She could feel the thoughts resting in Merry's mind like snow on a roof, melting drop by drop when the girls offered the alphabet, sliding down the ice of her paralysis, landing with a blink. Cody wouldn't have been surprised to see each blink produce a tear. "About me?" she said, comprehending the whole. "About having me here?"

Again Merry blinked, firmly.

"You're good at this." Elizabeth's voice strained for a pleasant tone while Jan nurtured the accusing part of her silence.

"Part of my gift, I suppose." Ben shot her a "NO" glance, and she amended herself: "I hope I'll be good at it."

"I'm sure you will." Elizabeth's politeness was painful. "Anyway, I need to finish the dishes. Excuse me."

"And I need to rinse them," said Jan. "Desperately."

"Good to meet you, Cody." Elizabeth's tone was so cold it burned.

Ben shifted his weight, shrugged another apology as his daughters made for the kitchen. "Like I said, they don't accept strangers well. I told you, we're tight. Neither one brings friends home." He stepped towards the door. "Let me get your bags." And he left her with Merry.

Which Cody was glad of. She wanted to be alone with her, and knelt again. "Merry, I know you," she said. "In Blanding, when I was learning some Navajo ways, I saw a vision. You ever heard of Buffalo Woman?" She took Merry's hand, beginning a subdued petrissage, kneading the knuckles with her thumb. "Not many people have. But I saw her. I was in a sweat hut, learning how they do things in the Navajo world, and there she was—dancing!" She moved the hand, held it, then set it gently back onto Merry's lap. "Dressed in white leather, riding a white buffalo. And she had your eyes. Those same gold eyes." She rubbed her own hands together rapidly 'til she could see spiritual sparks. Then she made a circle around Merry's head. "Can you feel my fingers?"

No blink.

"When you don't blink, does that mean 'No?'"

Now she blinked.

"What I'm doing—I swear I'm not crazy—I'm touching your aura. Our spirits go far beyond the physical, you know. Your aura doesn't have any disease. It's very bright." She stroked Merry's other hand, then held both hands in her own, squeezing, willing her energy into Merry's flesh. "I'm going to heal you. You'll be so glad I've come." She squeezed again. "I can feel your blood pulse." She squeezed. "There are oceans inside you. Aren't there."

Merry blinked.