Heather Graham (11 page)

Because there was no God!

Had there been a God, little children, in wretched villages with no running water, wouldn’t have died as skin and bone corpses with big bloated bellies. She wouldn’t have seen so many little ones maimed—armless, legless, footless—blown to bits. They looked back at her as she tried to help them, silently begging to know
why
? Before, she’d had the answers.
God’s will.
Rewards for suffering came in heaven, and God welcomed His children as His little lambs; they would find welcome, peace, freedom from pain.

Freedom from pain.

She would be free…

She didn’t want to die.

She was terrified of dying…

She would do anything in the world to stop death. Whether she closed or opened her eyes, she could see too clearly. How damned funny. Just about everything on her had rotted. But she had fantastic vision. Eyes opened, eyes closed.

Eyes opened, she saw the truth. She was a pathetic old woman used up and useless and dying.

Eyes closed. The wrinkles were gone. She was young inside. And beautiful still. And she could not die, could not die …

Terror seized her. Filled limbs that should have been numb with death.

She was so afraid she wanted to cry out. To scream. To reach for a hand to hold. To shout and deny what was happening. To cry and blubber and shriek out that she was afraid. If she could only believe again, enough to pray. She didn’t want to ruin the pride and grace of her life with such a cowardly demise. If only…

She started suddenly, eyes opened as she looked around the room.

She’d heard a voice. Not Father William’s well-known tones. A different pitch. One she didn’t know.

Mary, I am coming!

There was no one with her. No one at all.

She wasn’t just dying. She was losing her mind.

She began to curse the God she didn’t believe in anymore. She tried to tell herself that it would be all right. She did have family. George would come to be with her. And maybe Scottie. She loved Scottie so much. If he were to come, and hold her hand…

Scottie wouldn’t come.

But George would. She wouldn’t be so alone. So—

So terrified.

She wouldn’t hear voices then.

No, she wouldn’t hear them for long.

Death was rushing upon her with the speed of a roller coaster. And she was on a downhill ride, shrieking silently into the night.

Rowenna’s head was spinning. She hadn’t been shot, which she had thought at first, and to her amazement, her heart was beating a thousand miles an hour in relief. She’d been hit on the head by some kind of a projectile, though, she realized, fumbling around the floor where she had fallen when her desk chair had catapulted backward. Her fingers closed around her image of the god Wodin. The bullet that had discharged from her gun had hit the figure; the figure had hit her head. Amazingly, both were only knicked now.

But she wasn’t alone, and she knew it.

“Who is there?” she shouted furiously.

“She’s alive,” the feminine voice.

“Yes, and you’re on your own. I’ve got to go.”

“What?” The single word was a shriek of amazement.

“Cath, I have to go, you’ve got to understand.”

“Oh, right. Mine is the tough one this time so you’re in a hurry.”

“Cathy, it’s the strangest thing, I can feel her. I’m being called, and I’ve assured her I’m on my way. On top of all that…”

“What?”

“I have to make a stop.”

“Where?”

“At the nephew’s house.”

“The nephew?”

“We’ll meet up shortly; I’ll call you.”

Rowenna heard the sound of a kiss. A quickish kiss; the kind a husband gave a wife before leaving for work in the morning.

“I’m insane. I don’t need to kill myself; they’ll just come and lock me up.”

“You are insane,” she heard. The female voice. Then there were hands, touching her.

She shrieked.

“I’m just trying to help you up!” she heard.

Why? What was going on?

She should have locked the door. She’d been warned over and over to do it. Who would have known that the people who broke into her house would be weird thieves who’d try to keep her alive rather than strangle or knife her?

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I’m going to call the police imme—”

“Why? To have them arrest you for trying to kill yourself? Suicide is against the law, you know.”

“Who are you, and what is it to you?” Rowenna said. She’d seated herself on the desk chair. Now she was aware that the woman who plagued her had perched atop her desk.

“At least you
had
a child. And you’re twenty-seven years old! You could have a dozen more.”

Rowenna went dead silent for a moment. “A dozen more would never make up for one lost,” she said quietly. “Ask any mother who has lost a child.”

“No, one life can never make up for another. That’s obvious. And I can’t tell you that the pain isn’t there, and that it isn’t horrible. But do you know what I think?”

“Am I supposed to care?”

“If you’re ready to kill yourself, you might as well listen to me first.”

“I don’t have much choice, apparently.”

“No, frankly you don’t. Unless you think you can will yourself to death.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“You should know. You, of all people, should know.”

“I—”

“I’m an angel on your shoulder, right now.”

“What—”

“Cathy Angel. It’s my name. Honestly. My husband, Don, just left.”

Rowenna curled her fingers into her palms as her hands lay in her lap. “I don’t care what your name is; you have no right to be in my house.”

“You don’t really want to die.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you know what you’re planning is absolutely wrong. That you’ll completely destroy, not just yourself, but the lives of those who love you.”

“But my family is … gone.”

“There are other people who love you. Those kids at the school will be haunted for the rest of their lives, wondering what they could have done, hurting. Rowenna, you don’t want to die.”

Rowenna gritted her teeth. “Fine!” she agreed. “You’re right. I want to go back. I want to start my pregnancy over; I want to have a healthy child. I want to keep my parents and my baby off that airplane. I want—” She broke off. She could sense Cathy Angel—or whoever the hell the woman was—leaning toward her.

“Your marriage back?”

Rowenna inhaled sharply. “He left me!”

“Is that it? If you die,
he’ll
be haunted, agonized, for the rest of his life?”

“No! No! That’s the truth, he did leave me.”

“Right. But maybe you didn’t want to admit that you couldn’t be perfect, even if you’d given birth to an imperfect child. Your husband knew you needed help. Admitting that meant abandoning your baby—to you. So you abandoned your husband instead.”

“He’s a grown-up! He—”

“Oh, Rowenna! Even grown-ups need help! Surely you’ve realized that now.”

Rowenna was quiet for a moment, looking down at her hands, seeing nothing but shadowy gray. To her amazement, tears stung her eyes, then swept down her cheeks. The strange woman in her house made no attempt to tell her not to cry.

“You didn’t cause your baby to be imperfect—though you’ve accused yourself of that over and over again because you remained so active until the birth.”

“How could you possibly—”

“And you didn’t cause that plane to crash. You know that!”

“But—”

“But your parents wouldn’t have been on it if it weren’t for you. You lived; they died.”

“You can’t understand the hurt.”

“Indeed, I do.”

“Then—”

“You need a good dose of Percodan, or Codeine. Tylenol III was always my favorite.”

“
What?
”

“I’m speaking figuratively, of course.”

“Ah. Then just what is it you think I should do for this kind of pain? What would work like a good dose of Codeine?”

“Call your husband.”

“What?”

This time, Rowenna jumped out of her chair. She shook her head vigorously. “He left me. And I’m blind now!”

“Not worth staying with?”

“Now I’m—”

“You’re a cripple, as your son was?”

“Yes, maybe, something like that.”

“Not true. Forgive yourself, then forgive him. And when you’ve done that, you’ll quit being afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Oh, are you lying! And on top of attempting to commit suicide! For a good Catholic girl, you are living dangerously.”

“I grew up Catholic. That doesn’t mean—”

“Oh, yes, you believe. You believe in the world, in the goodness out there—in beauty, in myth, in legend. Why else study angels?”

“You know, I really am incredibly aggravated. I want you out of my house—”

“Do you have an herbal tea in the kitchen?”

“What?”

“I really would love a good cup of herbal tea.”

“If you know everything else—”

“I’ll just check on the tea. You call your husband.”

“I—I can’t!” Rowenna said in a panic. “You’re not listening—he left me!”

“Only after you left him.”

“I never—”

“But you did. You left him to wallow in guilt and perfection and motherhood. You left him as distinctly as he left you. Then, when his pain was just as deep, you refused to share your agony with him. To learn to live with the pain together. Call him.”

“If … if that were true,” Rowenna protested, “he certainly wouldn’t want to hear from me now! It’s Christmas Eve; he probably has a date. He—”

“He’s probably sitting home, remembering Christmas Eve last year, just as you were doing. I’m going for tea. Call him.”

Rowenna wasn’t sure how, but she was certain that the woman was gone, from her office at least. She moved her fingers across the desk.

Touched something metal. The gun. Her fingers wrapped around it. She set it in front of her, biting lightly into her lower lip. She would have hurt him; she knew that. She would have hurt Joshua badly if she had shot herself, killed herself. Had she wanted to hurt him even more than he had been hurt already?

Her fingers shook. She lifted the gun, set it down again. She reached across the desk.

The gun, the phone. Punishment, forgiveness.

If he would forgive her.

She had to forgive herself.

She was too, too afraid to dial…

She cleared her throat. “Excuse me! Whoever you are—Ms. Angel—when you’re getting that tea, would you perhaps pour me a glass of wine?”

“Chicken!”

Rowenna managed a smile.

“Yes, very,” she said softly to herself.

Still, she picked up the receiver and held it. She wasn’t quite ready to dial.

But holding it was like…

Practice.

George Garrity sat in the upholstered leather chair in his living room, staring at the Christmas tree he had put up by himself. It was crooked; decidedly, it was completely half-assed. He’d put up some ornaments, some tinsel. He’d set an angel atop the tree.

He could have used help. He had kept believing that he just might get some.

But he hadn’t.

Now he looked toward his son’s room and waited. He didn’t knock on the door—nor did he break it down, though doing that occurred to him from time to time. He remembered being a kid. He remembered peer pressure. He remembered the coming of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the entire British Invasion, the first Woodstock, Richard-Harris-in-MacArthur-Park, long hair, and all manner of creepy clothing. He’d always wanted to be a good dad, had had visions of being both tolerant and wise. He’d always wanted a son, had one, and now, to his great sadness and distress, he couldn’t ignore what his son had become. A punk. He didn’t know if Scottie did drugs regularly, but he was sure Scottie had tried a few. He was dragging the kid through high school, trying to keep him home and off the streets, while losing his cool at times and wishing to hell he could dunk his son in the nearest river.

When had it all gone so wrong? Some of it was easy to see. He and Jennie had divorced when Scottie was five. For a while, Scottie had been passed back and forth between them. Their differences had been irreconcilable, mainly because Jennie had grown bored with George. She didn’t love him, and that was that. He hadn’t hated her for not loving him; he couldn’t get mad because she cheated or never wanted to be home. She just didn’t love him. Nothing could change that. Still, once it had been accomplished, the divorce hadn’t been bad. Scottie had split his time between his folks. But when he had turned ten, George had started dating Judith. Judith was, to George, a godsend. She never stayed with him when he had Scottie; it just wasn’t right, she said. She tried in every way to be good for Scottie. Nothing worked. Because Jennie’s romances began falling apart right and left, she started to tell Scottie that Judith was the one destroying the relationship between George and herself. Jennie undermined George’s authority bit by bit, and Scottie, though a punk, was no fool. When Dad said no, he went to Mom. But he couldn’t live with Mom because Mom had just latched on to a younger guy. She was traveling, or so she told Scottie. George was so tired and worn most of the time that he didn’t totally blame Jennie, either. He had to be at fault, as well, for Scottie to be so damned hard to get along with. Judith tried to tell him that his son was sixteen now, and even if Scottie had been a bit brainwashed and spoiled by them both, it was time he started trying to be an adult. Not that the kid was a criminal as yet—or not that George knew about. Scottie was surly, and he was rude. He never ate dinner when George cooked; he waited until his father was in bed and raided the icebox for sandwiches and cookies. He was mean to Judith who quietly avoided him, and kept telling George to have patience with him. He’d had a few part-time jobs, a record shop, a fast-food joint, a movie theater. He’d lost all three for spending his working time hanging around with his black-jacketed, stringy-haired buddies. Not that George gave a damn about black jackets or hair. It was the sneers on the kids’ faces when they grunted their hellos to him that bothered him. It was wondering where they went at night in their beat-up cars and what they kept in the trunks and glove compartments.