by Ramy Vance
I heard the front door open and my PopPop walked through. He was a much younger man then, still in possession of a full head of hair and not yet in possession of a beer belly. “Honey,” he said, “you home?”
“Yeah, Dad,” she said, closing her door.
My PopPop walked through the house. “What’s that smell? You better not be smoking again. I told you, young lady, that if I caught you with that—”
He opened the door to see my mother holding a tampon.
“Dad!” she cried.
“Oh God … Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
My mother raced over to the door and slammed it in his face, crying out, “You have to knock. I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“I know honey. I just … I … I’m so, so sorry.” GoneGodDamn! My mom was badass. Not only was she having a rocking good time, she totally did something I never thought possible growing up.
She got PopPop to apologize.
I started laughing. Thank the GoneGods I was invisible, because I would have woken up the entire neighborhood with my howls.
“Honey,” PopPop said after a couple minutes, “I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you. I’ll make some popcorn and we can curl up on the couch and watch The Merv Griffin Show. What do you say?”
My now-dressed mom opened the door and gave PopPop a big hug. “Yeah, that sounds great.”
↔
“So that’s my dad. Sneaking around, chasing tail.” I ran my hands through my hair.
Bella came up behind me and gave me a tight squeeze. “I guess the apple doesn’t fall from the tree.”
“Yeah, and I guess parents are all scary when it comes to protecting their young. I owe Judith an apology.”
Penemue rubbed his hands in that way he did just before we arrived. “They were in love. Deeply and completely. Love of the young and foolish …”
“Then why wasn’t he around? Why didn’t he know about me?”
“Do you truly wish to know?”
I paused. The past is the past, but now that this doorway had been opened—now that I knew he wasn’t some asshole who knocked up my mom and left—I wanted to know.
I needed to know.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Very well, then.”
Once more, Penemue opened up his palms and blew.
↔
Now we were on the dark street, following my dad as he hopped around, getting dressed as he walked. Finally clothed, he made his way downtown.
As we followed him, I felt one thing permeating the air ... happiness. My father was happy. Happy to be in love. Happy for what the future held. Well, what he believed it held.
Just happy.
We got downtown, where he walked into a restaurant that in present-day Paradise Lot is the Stalker’s Café. In his time, it was called Angels.
He sat at the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender gave him a curious eye and, knowing he wasn’t going to get one, downgraded his drink to a cola.
Three young ladies stood at the bar, all of whom chuckled at his failed attempt. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said, eyeing the three of them. Let me tell you, they were Holy Guacamole gorgeous. I mean … wow.
Not that my father noticed. I could still feel his love for my mom, and that made me … what? Love him? I don’t know, but I liked my father a hell of lot more than I thought I would should I ever get a chance to meet him.
“No, you can’t,” purred the first lady, who lifted her finger.
As if the bartender had nothing else to do but serve her, he walked over with a beer. She pointed at my father and, throwing caution and the legal drinking age to the wind, handed it to him. “So, young Luke,” she said.
“Luke?” I said. “So that’s my dad’s name. He was a Jedi before there were Jedi.” I couldn’t help but beam with geeky pride.
“Jean-Luc,” Bella whispered. “Your name.”
I nodded with understanding. It wasn’t just that my mom was trying to be clever with the whole “John, Luke, Matthew—only missing the Mark (well, not anymore)” thingy.
She wanted me to carry a bit of my father with me—always.
As soon as I finished speaking, the lady who had handed my father a beer looked right at me. From the way her eyes looked through me, I knew she couldn’t see me. But she responded as if she’d heard me. And there was fear in her eyes.
Her fear was chased away by the other two coming up to her. “Sister,” they said, “you were saying?”
As if remembering herself, her smile returned. “Young Luke, how good it is to meet you.”
My father looked at her in confusion. “How do you know my name?”
“What the fuck?” I said. I didn’t need this conversation to continue to know exactly what was happening. This lady—these ladies … they were Others. It was so damn obvious.
But how could my father know? This was before the gods left. Before the world knew that every kind of mythical creature ever written about (and then some) was real. To my father, this was just some weird, incredibly sexy lady who knew his name.
The existence of Others in the mortal realm before the gods left was bad news. Whatever they wanted with him was bad news. I knew it. Bella knew it. Penemue knew it. These ladies knew it.
Everyone but my father knew it.
“Stop this. Stop this now!” I screamed.
Now all three of the ladies were looking at me—well, through me. They had heard me.
“You stay away from my dad,” I growled. “Do you hear me? Stay away!”
The lips of the one who had been speaking to my father curled into a snarl. “This is none of your concern.” She drew out a ball of thread from her purse and pulled at the thread. Before I could do or say anything, the world around us melted away.
And suddenly Penemue, Bella and I were standing in the empty void that we had been in when the darkness washed over us.
↔
“No—no!” I screamed. “Get me back there, now.”
“I can’t,” Penemue said.
“You can’t, or you won’t?”
“I cannot.”
“You have to. Take me back. Take me back!” I pounded my fists on Penemue’s chest as unexpected tears streamed down my face. “I have to help him. I have to save him.”
But the angel didn’t move. He just accepted my rage and frustration as I begged him over and over to take me back. Bella came to my side, seeking to calm me down, but the angel raised his hand, gesturing for her to step away. “He needs this,” Penemue said. “Let him feel this fully.”
I don’t know how many times I hit him, but I know I raged long enough for my arms to grow tired. And as my fury subsided, Bella came to my side and did what she always did when I was in pain: she made it better.
She pulled me into her embrace, stroking her hand over my hair the way I always imagined my mother would have done if she’d lived. She whispered softly into my ear, and it didn’t even matter what she was saying.
Just the sound of her voice was enough.
Finally calm, I asked, “Why can’t you take us back? I thought you ruled this place.”
“I do,” Penemue said. “But not everything belongs to this domain.”
“But you can read his soul. You know what happened to him?”
“I do not.”
“But surely you know what they said to him.”
The twice-fallen shook his head. “There are magics at play here that are greater than my gifts.”
“So, what? Some fucking Others kidnapped my father to do what? Use him—kill him? What?”
“Again, I do not know.”
“Then tell me what kind of Others they are.”
Another head shake. “I am sorry, Human Jean-Luc Matthias, but I have shared all I know.”
“Then what good are you?” I rasped.
Penemue hung his head low, looking to the emptiness below us in shame.
“This is bullshit.” I stepped away fro
m Bella and Penemue. Walking in the void did nothing to temper my anger. Some GoneGodDamn Others had messed with my family before the gods left. Why? Who? These were answers I so desperately needed. I turned back. “What can you tell me?”
“Only this. After that encounter, your father disappeared, both from your mother’s life and from my ability to read his soul.”
“How?”
“I do not know.”
“Has something like that happened before?”
Penemue nodded. “At times. But only when the gods wish something from the mortals. There have been many like your father, but the famous ones are few. Jesus, Isaiah, Enoch … a few others throughout history.”
“So, what? They gods took my father to be a … what? Prophet?”
“Unlikely,” Penemue said. “Those names I mentioned are the ones who made it into mortal history books. Most who disappear do not. And their purpose is unknown to me.”
“Then who does know?”
Penemue shook his head. “That is not for—”
“Don’t give me that shit. ‘Not for mortal knowledge,’ ” I mocked. “The gods are gone, and that shit doesn’t fly anymore.”
“If you had allowed me to finish,” Penemue said, “I would have said, ‘mortals or Others to know.’ Only the gods may know. And, as you have just observed, they are gone.”
“Jean,” Bella said, “I might be able to shed some light on this. When I was in Heaven, I saw carvings on golden pillars, the ones that I told you about. There were several depictions of humans being lifted from earth by celestial bodies. What Penemue said is true—the gods did take humans to do things for them.”
“Like what?”
“Prophesize and …” Bella hesitated.
“What?”
“Explore.”
↔
“Explore? What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t really know. I’m only going off the carving I saw, but as best I can tell, the gods can’t go everywhere. They need humans—well, more specifically, human souls—to open up certain pathways. There were a bunch of carvings that showed these souls entering domains to other worlds, planes of existence. I really don’t know what to call them.”
“And what happened to them?”
“They disappeared,” she said. “I haven’t had long enough to properly study them all, but as best I can tell, these explorers never come back.”
I looked at the angel. “I don’t suppose you know anything about this?”
“I do not,” Penemue said in a flat tone. “I know nothing about what Bella speaks of … nor have I heard of these golden pillars. You must understand, Jean-Luc, that there were places in Heaven forbidden to us. Now that Bella is alone in Heaven, she has access to rooms in that mansion that no angel or human soul has ever seen.”
“Oh, great. So we don’t know what happened to him, and as best we can tell, he was sent on some one-way ticket out of here. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”
“I am sorry,” Penemue said.
“Don’t you ever get sick of apologizing?”
Penemue grimaced at my words. “You are right, Human. I do apologize too much. So indulge me one last apology: this is where we say goodbye. It is time for you to go home and for me to continue my penance.”
The twice-fallen lifted a taloned finger and started ripping a hole in the darkness like tearing a cloth.
“No,” I said.
“We had a deal, Human Jean-Luc—your father’s story before your departure.”
“Yes,” I said, “but that story isn’t over yet. Take me back to my mom. I need to know what happens with her.”
Penemue sighed as he considered my request.
“The story isn’t done. Not until I see that part of it,” I said.
Penemue nodded. “You are correct, Human Jean-Luc Matthias. Your mother’s part in the story hadn’t finished. What do you wish to know about her?” he asked, clearly skeptical about my delay tactics.
Except they weren’t delay tactics. There was more to this story that I wanted to know. “You’re the soul-reader,” I said. “And you know my soul, do you not? So you tell me.”
Penemue tilted his head as if confused. Then a small smile touched the corner of his lips. He nodded. “Very well, my friend. Let us finish this story.”
Rubbing his hands together, he blew one last time.
Anything, Everything
We were transported back to my mom’s bedroom. Empty tissue boxes were littered about. So were a couple tubs of rotting ice cream buckets. Guess Mom was the cliché, drown-your-sorrows-in-ice-cream kind of gal. But who could blame her? The love of her life was gone.
And all I felt—all we felt—was that sorrow.
I’d like to say that the scene was overwhelming—soul-crushing—terrible, and leave it at that. But I can’t, because it was also familiar.
I drew Bella in close, grateful that my pain had healed. She had come back to me.
My mother would not be so lucky. She would never know what happened to my father. Where he went, or why. For all she knew, he’d gotten cold feet and ran away.
And running away isn’t always just across state lines. Sometimes people take more permanent measures to make sure they can never come back.
There were maps on the walls. Letters and notes to herself. She was trying to find him. Well, she was trying to find him until this day.
My mother walked in from the hallway, holding a 1970s pee stick. Empty Hell, those things were huge back then.
She stared at it intently, waiting for the blue or pink stripe to appear. I could sense her anticipation. There was dread in her emotions, except the dread was not for any one outcome, but for either outcome.
She dreaded being pregnant. And she equally dreaded not being pregnant.
The thing about dread is that it cannot exist without its opposite, and I felt my mother’s hope as well.
Her eyes widened. She frantically grabbed the box to confirm what she was seeing, and the rush of feelings that followed were too complicated to unravel. Hope, fear, joy, sadness—they all mixed together in the kaleidoscope of emotions that make us human.
But there was one thing I could sense above all: peace. She had already accepted the outcome and had chosen to make the most of it.
As if sensing the monumental change that was coming, there was a knock on the door, followed by my PopPop’s voice. “Honey, I got pizza. Want me to bring you a slice?”
My mother didn’t answer, and I could hear PopPop sigh from the other side of the door.
“I ahhh … know this has been a tough few weeks for you, and although I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you, I can guess. A bad breakup. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but when your mom left, I locked myself away, too. So yeah, I’m going to guess it was a breakup.”
There was a pause, followed by another sigh. This was the one he gave whenever he was debating saying or doing something. “You know what got me through it? You did, honey. Seeing you every day. Your smile, your giddiness. Your stubbornness. All of it. You got me through it. And if … if there’s any way I can help you get through this, well, know I’m there for you, whatever it is.”
More silence, but now my mom was crying.
My PopPop stood at the door for a long moment before I heard the shuffling of his feet.
My mother called after him. “Do you mean it?”
“Mean it, honey?”
“You’ll do anything?”
“Of course. Anything.”
“I think you’re going to regret that,” my mom said as a smile so big it touched her eyes painted her face.
↔
There was more crying, some yelling, but my PopPop meant what he said. Anything. And as Penemue guided us through the next few months of my mother’s life, I felt her peace. And her joy.
She always wondered what happened to my father. But she also saw that he hadn’t left her alone at all. There was someone coming to keep her company in his a
bsence.
Me.
↔
“Is that the end of the story you wished to know?”
“Not quite,” I said. “I want to see one last thing. Well, feel one last thing. It was something you’ve told me about before, and I want to feel it for myself.”
“Are you sure? I truly do not know how the human mind will handle such an experience.”
I closed my eyes as I contemplated what I wanted to know—to feel—and then nodded. “Yes … but Bella, you don’t have—”
“We’re in this together,” she said, coming up behind me, “in this life and the next.”
“Very well, then.” Penemue rubbed his hands together and took me to the moment of my mother’s death.
I’ll Love You Forever, I’ll Like You for Always
Three days after I was born, my mother died. It wasn’t fair and I will forever hate fate or destiny or the gods or the cold, uncaring universe for doing that to me. My mother died and I was robbed all the kisses and cuddles, songs and stories, reprimands and laughs that so many take for granted.
But life is what it is … and I had my PopPop to care for me. And my PopPop had me.
So when Penemue transported us to the hospital on the day she died, I felt pain. Incredible, unrelenting pain that was unlined by one emotion burning so bright it locked away the agony, making it barely an afterthought.
Joy.
Joy for what was coming.
Joy for who was coming.
That was what my mother was feeling above all else, and to say that my heart simply swelled with joy would be like comparing a kitten to a lion, a paper airplane to a jumbo jet. It doesn’t compare, because I was feeling what she was feeling, but I also had my own joy because I could share this with her.
