Envy

Chapter 51

  Down below, in an attractive suburb of Caldwell, Susan Barten sat in her living room, wide-awake even though it was four a. m. Upstairs, her husband and her remaining daughter were sleeping in their respective beds, and all was quiet above, around, and below her.

  She was used to this silent, painful sitting in the dark. The last stretch of uninterrupted rest she had gotten had been the night before . . . "it" had happened.

  As usual, she sat in the armchair next to her couch, with her eyes trained on the front door. This was her perch, the branch she locked her feet onto as the winds of fate blew gales at her loved ones, peeling off layers of who she was and what her family was and how she'd expected to pass her time on earth.

  She always faced the door Sissy had once gone in and out of so regularly - and this had been true even after the first couple of nights, when the initial hope had bled out, leaving nothing but a paralyzing fear behind. It was still true even now, when there was a concrete reason to know that her daughter was never, ever returning home again.

  God, to think she felt lucky there was something for them to bury.

  At the thought, tears itched in the corners of her eyes, and she found herself thinking about that Dr. Seuss book, the one that had been so ubiquitous at the high school graduation, the one they had bought for Sissy along with those dove earrings and that dove necklace and that dove braclet.

  Oh, the Places You'll Go!

  An early grave was not what any of them had contemplated.

  Why couldn't this destination of hers have been medical school? Or Eurhen t Or New York City?

  Or just to a hair salon in downtown Caldwell, or a vet's office, or an elementary school to teach?

  Why couldn't it have been what all of her classmates had been granted?

  Why did it have to have been that Hannaford supermarket on that particular night . . .

  Susan balanced on the tipping edge of madness as the hundreds of different avenues open to her elder daughter presented themselves in a list . . . and she wondered yet again why, when the dice had been rolled, had they come up with -

  A shout erupted out of her mouth before she was conscious of making the sound, and her legs were the same - doing their duty to get her out of the chair and around behind the thing before she was aware of moving.

  A man had come through the door.

  A huge man with blond hair had entered her house without actually opening the way in, and he was now standing in her front hall.

  Staring at her.

  Wait . . . she knew him. He was the one she had given that necklace to. He was the one who had looked devastated along with her.

  And he was devastated still.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked softly, strangely aware that however he had arrived, he was not here to hurt her or what was left of her family. "Why have you come?"

  The man just stared at her without answering, his harsh face saddened to the point where it seemed as if he were on the same edge she was.

  Feeling unsteady, Susan rounded the armchair and all but fell back into it. Then she placed her hands on her knees, and rocked back and forth slowly.

  "I already know they found her," she said. "I know they found . . . my daughter. . . . "

  The man came forward as she began to sob, and after she tried to wipe her eyes, she found that he had crouched down at her feet.

  "You said you were going to bring her back," she choked out.

  When he nodded to her, she took that to mean he still intended to make good on the promise, but surely he knew such a thing was impossible.

  "I'm glad you came," she murmured, thinking out loud.

  He remained silent, and as she looked into his strange eyes, she voiced the guilt she had not spoken to anyone else: "I killed my daughter. I sent her out for those groceries. I asked her to go . . . and if she hadn't . . . she wouldn't have . . . "

  There was no going any further as she began weeping. And as she cried her heart out, the massive warrior stayed with her, sharing her pain and her solitude and her regrets, his big hand coming to rest on her shoulder and easing her, his presence a balm over the raw burns that covered her even though her skin was outwardly still intact.

  When she calmed down some, he put his hands on hers.

  At the contact, magical warmth entered her and traveled up both sides of her arms, the tide moving into the chasm in her chest, filling her.

  It was then that she saw he had wings. Great gossamer wings that rose over his huge shoulders and caught the light, even though she had left the house in darkness.

  "You're an angel," she whispered,ransfixed. "You are . . . an angel. . . . "

  He showed no reaction, just kept staring up at her, his beautiful eyes and his healing touch elevating her even though she remained seated.

  Eventually, he removed his hands from hers, but the warmth he had given her stayed inside her body.

  "You have to go?" she said sadly.

  He nodded, but before he rose to his great height, he pulled open his shirt. There, at his throat, was the delicate necklace she had given him, the dove of peace suspended from its little chain.

  She reached out and touched the links that were warm against his glimmering skin. "I know you will take care of her. "

  He nodded once . . . and then he was gone. Instantly.

  With jerky movements, Susan jumped out of the chair and rushed across to the front door. Unlocking it and throwing it wide, she leaped onto the cold concrete of the stoop.

  No sign of him. But he had been there.

  The warmth he had given her was still with her.

  As she looked up to heaven, she saw that it was snowing: Little white flakes were drifting down slowly from the sky, their weaving paths like that of the destinies of people, ever changing, never the same, moving around obstacles seen and unseen.

  Letting her head fall back, she felt the tiny spots on her forehead and cheeks as if they were small, kind hands sent to brush her tears away.

  The angel would be back, she thought.

  And Sissy, wherever she was, was not alone. . . .

  It was a long time before Susan stepped back into the house, shut the door, and quietly made her way up to the bed she and her husband had shared for decades. As she slid inside the sheets, he roused briefly.

  "You all right?"

  "We have an angel," she told him. "He's watching over us. Over Sissy. "

  "You think?"

  "No," she said, going into her husband's arms and closing her eyes in exhaustion. "I know. "

  And with that, she fell into a deep, abiding sleep . . .