Touched By Angels

  “Joshua will make me a good husband, too.”

  “I forbid you from seeing this Joshua again,” her father said sternly.

  “Daddy, I’ve never defied you. I’ve always done what you’ve asked, but I love Joshua with all my heart. I need to see him. I need to be with him.”

  Her parents stared back at her, too shocked to respond right away.

  “How did you meet him?” The question came from her mother a moment later.

  “We met at the Thanksgiving Day parade. Then, before I had a chance to analyze how I felt about him, Carl asked me to marry him. I didn’t want to agree, but at the time it seemed like the best thing to do. You and Dad were so pleased, and you both like Carl.”

  “He’s been like a son to me,” her father admitted sadly.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Hannah whispered. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you.” Before either one could say anything more, she rushed out of the apartment.

  “Hannah, please, don’t go,” her mother shouted from the top of the stairway, but Hannah pretended not to hear. Never in all her life had she ignored her mother and father.

  Hannah caught a taxi outside the deli and read the driver the Riverside Drive address Joshua had written down on the back of his business card.

  “It looks like it might snow,” she said, glancing toward the darkening sky. The sooner she reached Joshua, the better. She needed him now as never before. When she told him what had happened, he’d come with her and together they’d talk to her family and make everything right.

  The driver mumbled something in return that she didn’t understand.

  Several minutes later the cabdriver pulled over to the curb and flipped off the meter. Hannah gazed out the car window at the high-rise apartment building and experienced a sense of relief. The man she loved, the man she’d defied her family to marry, lived in this building.

  “Lady, are you going to stare out the window all day?”

  “No, sorry.” She returned her attention to her purse and pulled out her wallet. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a familiar figure. Looking up, she saw Joshua coming out of the building. She raised her hand and was about to call him when, suddenly, she stopped. The happy shout died in her throat.

  Joshua wasn’t alone.

  Standing beside him was the most beautiful, elegant-looking woman Hannah had ever seen. Joshua slipped his arm around the other woman’s waist, bent down, and kissed her gently on the lips.

  Her heart pounding like a locomotive chugging uphill, Hannah hurled herself back against the seat, not wanting him to see her.

  “Lady, are you going to pay me or not?” the cabbie asked a second time with far less patience.

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Hannah leaned forward just far enough to peek at Joshua. It was apparent the two were long-term acquaintances. The woman with him gazed up adoringly, as though this were the happiest day of her life.

  “Please,” Hannah whispered. “Take me home.”

  “You got the money or don’t you?” the taxi driver asked.

  She handed him a twenty-dollar bill for security. “Now take me back,” she pleaded. She’d go home because she had nowhere else to go. With her tail between her legs, her heart heavy with pain, she’d return to her family, who would love and support her despite the fact that she’d deeply embarrassed and disappointed them.

  “All right, if you want to go back, then fine, I’ll take you.” The driver hesitated, and Hannah met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Is everything all right?” he asked gently.

  “No,” Hannah whispered.

  She was too late. Joshua had found someone else.

  Mike Glasser was buried two days later. Father Grady was scheduled to say the funeral mass and had spent considerable time counseling Mike’s mother, Louise.

  Brynn was one of the first to arrive at the church. She slipped into the pew and knelt down on the padded kneeler. Since hearing the news, she hadn’t cried. It might have helped if she’d been able to release her grief, but she held on to it with both hands, clenching it to her breast, fearing what would happen if she ever let go.

  Mike’s death was a constant, painful reminder of how badly she’d failed him and her other students. How badly she’d failed herself.

  Emilio walked into church and sat in the pew directly across from her. Yolanda and Pearl arrived together and sat in front of Brynn.

  The huge church was nearly half full with a number of other students and faculty members from Manhattan High. Mike’s suicide had had a powerful impact on those who’d known him.

  Organ music, deep and somber, filled the church. Mike’s mother and a handful of other relatives arrived. Together they walked down the center aisle. Louise Glasser’s shoulders were bent under the weight of her grief. She appeared to be leaning heavily on the girl walking beside her. The two clung to each other. It didn’t take Brynn long to realize the one with Mike’s mother was Suzie Chang. They needed each other.

  Brynn had met with them both, separately. They’d come together as strangers with a common bond. Both had loved Mike. Both deeply grieved his death.

  Organ music surged through the church as a man’s voice, hauntingly melodic, rang loud and clear from the choir loft. The voice, a baritone, reached out and consoled with music those who’d gathered to mourn Mike’s death. Brynn recognized the singer’s voice immediately.

  Roberto.

  Even from this distance his voice filled her with a bitter sadness. It settled in the pit of her stomach, and a chill came over her as she closed her eyes and soaked in the comfort of the song. She pretended it was Roberto’s arms around her.

  Since her last meeting with Roberto, Brynn had tried to push all thoughts of him from her mind. By the sheer force of her determination, she’d partially succeeded. Despite her efforts to purge him from her thoughts, she couldn’t keep from feeling that something important, something vital, was missing.

  Once, a year or so before, Brynn had lost her purse. A knot had formed in her stomach that refused to go away until she was able to replace everything that had been lost. A similar sensation had been with her since her last meeting with Roberto. She was lost, and the way she felt just then, nothing would ever be right again. She supposed her thinking was melodramatic. In time she’d be able to put these weeks in New York behind her.

  As Roberto had encouraged her from the beginning, she would return to where she belonged. But she wouldn’t go back to Rhode Island the same as when she’d left. No, when she headed home, she’d be bringing a lot of emotional baggage with her.

  Father Grady said the mass. A wake was scheduled in the parish hall immediately following the service. Brynn knew she was expected to show. It was as good a time as any to tell her students that she wouldn’t be back in class following winter vacation. Already they’d been assigned another teacher, one with more experience than she.

  Most of Brynn’s apartment was packed. Depending on road conditions, she should be ready to leave in another day, two at the most.

  When the service was over, Mike’s family filed out first, then each row followed in turn.

  Brynn stayed behind. She wanted a few moments alone before she headed over to the parish hall. With her head bowed, she tried to pray. Lately it had been a losing battle. Every concern she gave to God had claw marks all over it.

  Not only had her abilities as a teacher been questioned, but her faith, once so stable and sure, had been badly shaken. She recognized that in time it would right itself again, but just then even that looked doubtful.

  Footsteps sounded on the tile floor behind her. Brynn kept her head lowered, resenting the intrusion. She needed this time alone. She wasn’t ready to join the others.

  To her surprise it was Roberto who slipped into the pew and sat next to her. He didn’t say anything, simply sat at her side, his head bowed in prayer.

  After a while he touched her forearm. “The others are waiting.”

  “I know,” she whispere
d back. “Tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  He didn’t leave.

  “I’m fine, Roberto. I appreciate your concern, but there’s nothing to worry about.” She hoped her weak smile would convince him she was telling the truth.

  He didn’t budge. “I know you too well to believe that.”

  She stiffened. His words set fire under her. “You don’t know me at all, you never did.”

  Seeing that he wasn’t going to leave her, she stood abruptly and made her way out of the pew and down the side aisle. Her crisp steps echoed in the empty church.

  She must have risen too quickly, because she hadn’t gone more than a few feet when her head started to swim and the room began to spin. Reaching out to the end of the wooden row, she caught herself in time to keep from collapsing.

  Roberto was at her side in an instant. He murmured something impatient in Spanish and led her to the back of the church.

  “Stay here,” he insisted, and disappeared. No more than a minute passed before he returned with a glass of water.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” she insisted. She didn’t want him to touch her. Didn’t want him close to her. He was the one who wanted her out of his life. She’d go. Kicking and screaming, she’d abided by his wishes. However difficult, however painful. He had no reason to complain.

  “When was the last time you had anything to eat?”

  Brynn couldn’t remember, but she wasn’t about to let Roberto know that. “I’m fine,” she insisted stiffly. “I’d appreciate it if you’d kindly leave me alone.”

  “Brynn, please listen.”

  “If I understood you correctly, you don’t want anything more to do with me. All I ask is that you respect my wishes, as I have yours.”

  He hesitated, and Brynn felt a small sense of satisfaction, knowing her words had hit their mark.

  “Allow me to escort you to the wake. Please.” She knew that the “please” had cost him a great deal.

  “Why?” She didn’t understand the necessity of this.

  “It’s a little thing, isn’t it?”

  It would be petty to refuse him, so she agreed. His arm came around her shoulder. She meant to shake it off, but the moment he brought her close to his side, the tears that had refused to come broke free in a surging dam of grief.

  Brynn sank into the pew at the back of the vestibule and wept as though her very soul had been ripped from her body.

  “It’s all right,” Roberto whispered, cradling her in his arms, pressing her head to his chest.

  She didn’t mean to cling to him, but her pride be damned, she needed him as she’d never needed anyone.

  He spoke again in Spanish, his voice low and soothing. Tucking her head against his shoulder, he rocked back and forth gently.

  “You were right,” she admitted when the shoulder-shaking sobs had abated. “You tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. Now Mike’s dead and—”

  “You can’t blame yourself.”

  On a conscious level Brynn agreed with him, but deep inside she felt she carried a portion of the blame. Mike had trusted her enough to write her. She was the one person in all the world to whom he felt comfortable enough communicating his last wishes. Yet she’d been oblivious of his pain, deaf to his needs. The boy had been desperate, and she had been blind.

  In retrospect Brynn realized that Mike had been trying to tell her in subtle ways of the hopelessness he experienced. His essays had been full of it. The dark side. Despondent words from a despondent youth.

  Abruptly, Brynn pulled away from Roberto. In addition to his comfort, his embrace was a painful reminder that he wanted nothing more to do with her. If this was a contest, she was declaring him the winner.

  “I won’t be coming back,” she announced firmly, surprised at the strength of her voice. “I’ve already given Mr. Whalen my letter of resignation. In January the kids will have a new teacher.”

  “Do Emilio and the others know?” Roberto asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “When do you plan to tell them?”

  “Now.”

  Something flashed in his eyes. “It’s for the best.”

  She noticed that Roberto didn’t try to talk her out of leaving. She realized that was what she wanted, what she longed with all her being for him to do.

  She stood. “I’ll do it now,” she said, and boldly walked out the door.

  “What are we going to tell Gabriel?” Shirley demanded of her two friends. The three had gathered in the choir loft following Mike’s funeral, at a loss as to how to report their progress to the archangel.

  “This is the first time we’ve failed. He’ll understand,” Mercy offered.

  “He might accept one failure, but all three of us?”

  “What happened this year?” Goodness threw her arms into the air, thoroughly disgusted by this unexpected turn of events.

  Shirley cast them a disgruntled look. “It might have helped matters if you two hadn’t been playing on escalators and writing on billboards in Times Square.”

  “Blaming each other isn’t going to help.”

  “But it’s nearly Christmas Eve,” Mercy protested. “I can’t possibly see us turning everything around at this late point.”

  “Maybe there’s a chance if we work together.”

  Shirley shook her head slowly. “It seems to me working together is what got us into this mess.”

  “All right, let’s each report what’s happening with our charges,” Goodness suggested, and gestured for Shirley to go first.

  “Well, as you can see,” Shirley said, pointing to Brynn, who sat in the corner of the parish hall, “Brynn has said good-bye to her class. She’s miserable, and blames herself for Mike’s death.”

  “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” Shirley said, and sounded thoroughly miserable. “Gabriel was right, this assignment was too much for me. I’ll leave him to pick up the pieces. It’s going to take an archangel to bring about some good from this tragedy.”

  “Roberto loves her,” Goodness said, studying Emilio’s brother.

  “Yes, I know,” Shirley said sadly. “Letting her leave is a sign of how much he cares for her.”

  “There’s nothing more you can do?” Mercy asked. “Perhaps what Brynn needs is a little talking to from the three of us.”

  “I’m afraid that would send her packing faster than anything.”

  “Okay, okay,” Goodness said, looking to Mercy. “What’s happening with Jenny?”

  “I thought she’d be overjoyed to get this chance to star on Broadway. It’s been her dream.”

  “And she isn’t happy?”

  Mercy shrugged, apparently unable to come up with an explanation of her charge’s behavior. “She’s moped around the apartment for two days now. I’m afraid she wants Trey with her and a chance to star on Broadway, but she can’t have both.”

  “Oh boy,” Shirley muttered. “And what is Gabriel going to say about that?”

  “I don’t know, but I have the distinct notion he’s going to think I was responsible for getting the play’s director to notice her. I wasn’t, truly I wasn’t.”

  “I believe you,” Shirley murmured, but her opinion wasn’t the one that mattered, and all three knew it.

  “That leaves me to tell you about Hannah,” Goodness said, and her disappointment was keen. “She broke off the engagement with Carl.”

  “Good.” Both Shirley and Mercy brightened.

  “But it was too late.” Goodness told them that Joshua was dating Carol seriously now.

  “Joshua found someone else?” Shirley asked. “I don’t believe it.”

  Mercy crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “Men can be so fickle.”

  “In my opinion he still loves Hannah.”

  “But he doesn’t know that Hannah broke her engagement with Carl, does he?”

  “It might have made a difference,” Shirley insisted.

  “It??
?s too late,” Goodness informed them sadly. “Hannah saw him with the other woman.”

  “We can fix that,” Mercy said confidently. “This sort of thing is right up our alley.”

  “It won’t work. Not this time.”

  “Why not?” Shirley insisted.

  “Because Joshua has decided to cut his losses and look elsewhere for a wife.”

  “And Hannah?”

  “Hannah will live with her parents the rest of her life and never marry.”

  “Just a minute,” Mercy said, and rolled up her sleeves. “We can fix that, and while we’re at it, there are ways to deal with men as stubborn as Roberto.”

  “What about you and Jenny?” Goodness asked.

  Some of Mercy’s brightness dimmed. “I don’t know what we can do about Jenny and Trey.”

  Shirley rubbed her chin. “I have an idea. All isn’t lost yet.”

  Eighteen

  From inside his office Joshua heard the raised voices of the receptionist and an angry man. He stepped into the hallway and heard David Morganstern, Hannah’s father, demanding to see him.

  “It’s all right, Julie,” Joshua said, coming forward, “I’ll see Mr. Morganstern.”

  David shot the receptionist a look of triumph and straightened the cuffs of his coat sleeves. “I told you Mr. Shadduck would see me.”

  “He doesn’t have an appointment,” Julie told Joshua, “and he refused to make one.”

  “It’s all right, Julie.”

  Joshua escorted David into his office. The older man paused in the doorway and looked around. He didn’t seem overly impressed. “Mighty fancy digs you have here.”

  “Thank you.” Giving the impression of nonchalance, Joshua sat down at his desk and invited Hannah’s father to make himself comfortable. “What can I do for you, Mr. Morganstern?”

  David sat on the cushion as if he expected it to jump up and bite him at any moment. “I’ve come to ask you a few questions, young man. I recently learned, through no fault of my daughter’s, that you’ve been sneaking around with Hannah. I want you to know I don’t like it one bit.”

  Joshua folded his hands on top of the desk and waited.