CoffeeHouse Angel

by Suzanne Sellars

  I ran up the front steps and slipped into the building just as an old guy was leaving.

  Irmgaard lived in apartment 201. I knew that because I always helped Grandma address our Christmas cards.

  At first, Irmgaard wouldn't open her door. "It's me," I said. No response. "Irmgaard, please let me in. Grandma had another heart attack." The door swung open. Irmgaard clutched the knob, her eyes wide with alarm. I flew inside. "Don't worry. She didn't have another heart attack. She's fine. I need to talk to you about the message."

  Irmgaard pulled a black shawl around her shoulders. The place was freezing and barren, with only an old thrift store table and one single wooden chair. The only thing that hung on the white walls was a wooden cross. No television, no photographs, no radio. It looked like a convent cell in the middle of nowhere rather than an apartment next to a teriyaki hut. The place gave me the creeps. Why would a person live with no comforts? Like some sort of punishment?

  "Irmgaard?" I looked her right in the eyes. "Each day that you don't take the message, it gets heavier and heavier." I pointed to the window. "Malcolm's sitting down there.

  He can barely move. The message is crushing him. I think he might die. Or cease to exist. Or something like that. It's very confusing."

  She pulled the shawl tighter, shrinking beneath its folds.

  "Look, if it's bad news I'll help you. Grandma will help you. The Boys will help too.

  But maybe it's good news. Maybe it's something amazing." I forced a feeble smile, picturing Malcolm doubled over. "There's not much time."

  Dark shadows circled her usually beautiful eyes. Her silence didn't feel comfortable or hypnotic. It felt eerie and chilling. She knew he was an angel, but she didn't seem to care. I recognized the tight look on her face. "Irmgaard, why are you so scared?

  Please tell me. I can't help you and I can't help Malcolm if I don't know. He's in real danger."

  She nodded, then motioned for me to sit in the chair, which I did while she went into the other room. What was she doing? I fidgeted and was about to yell her name when she returned with a folder in her hands. She set the folder on the table, then stepped away. I opened it.

  Three newspaper clippings lay inside. The top clipping had a photograph of a mangled car. Local Husband and Wife Killed in Crash. I'd never seen the article before. Why hadn't my grandmother ever showed it to me?

  My heart sped up as I read. According to the article, my mother and father had been driving in unusually thick fog on their way to a weekend stay on the coast. On a curvy stretch, where the highway wound around Lake Crescent, an oncoming van had swerved to avoid a deer and had crossed the center line. My parents died immediately.

  I scanned the photo for signs of them but only found the aftermath, caught in black-and-white, grainy and fading.

  The next clipping had the headline: Funeral Held for the Svensens. The funeral had taken place at the Nordby Lutheran Church. A photo showed Grandma, Grandpa, and me holding hands as we left the church. I hovered over the photo, trying to take in every inch that had been me at age three. My Mary Janes, my wool coat buttoned to my chin, my little sad face, my long hair, braided and golden. The only memory I had of that day was that I had to sit very still in the front row of church and that Grandpa kept handing me caramels, one at a time, as my reward for sitting still. I could still see his big calloused hand opening to reveal each sweet cube, as if it had appeared magically. But I remembered nothing more. My three-year-old mind had chosen to save the caramel memory, probably the only happy memory from that day.

  I hesitated, sensing that something terrible waited in the third article. Driver of Van Released from Hospital.

  The unidentified driver of the van that caused the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Svensen was released today, after two weeks in the hospital for treatment of a punctured lung and three broken ribs. The photo of the van showed its front end, completely crushed. On the side of the van were the words: Abbey of St. Clare. The clipping said that St.

  Clare's Abbey was set in a remote location in the Olympic Mountains, and that the nuns only ventured into the outside world for supplies, which is where the van's driver had been headed on that fateful afternoon.

  I looked up at Irmgaard. She stood as rigid as a statue, her arms clutching the shawl.

  Her face empty of color, her expression filled with anguish.

  I didn't want to read any more. I knew what the article would tell me.

  I leaned closer to the photo. Two paramedics were bent over a figure laid out on a stretcher. I squinted.

  From the stretcher, Irmgaard's face looked back at me.

  Thirty

  I didn't say a word. I sat back and took a long breath, inhaling the horrid truth.

  Irmgaard burst into tears and flung herself at my feet. Numbness spread over my body as if I were watching a movie. How could this be true? The woman who had worked with us each and every day, who had filled our stomachs with wonderful soup, who had filled the shop with the aroma of freshly baked krumkake and had become part of my family, had killed my parents?

  This was someone else's life.

  "I don't understand," I murmured. But I did. The facts were printed right there in that article--irrefutable evidence. Irmgaard kept crying, her head bowed. Anger rushed through me, intense and physical. I wanted to lash out, to blame her for all that had gone wrong. For an instant I felt true hatred. I admit it. But the feeling left as quickly as it appeared. I looked down at her. Her hair was sheared so short I could see patches of white scalp. Part of her punishment, I realized, along with the nothingness of her apartment and her vow of silence. She hated herself.

  I held the article in my trembling hand. "Did my grandmother know about this when she hired you?" I asked.

  Irmgaard nodded, her shoulders heaving between sobs.

  To forgive is to set someone free, Grandma had mumbled from her hospital bed. This was the person she wanted me to forgive, not stupid Mr. Darling. But how do you forgive someone for causing the death of your parents? I needed time to work it out--

  it was too much to digest right then. Would this forever change the way I felt about Irmgaard? She was still the same person, the one who had taught me how to cook and how to knit. How to see an angel when I had only seen a homeless guy.

  "It was a horrible accident," I said, to her as much as to myself. "Nothing can change what happened. Malcolm can't even bring them back to life."

  Malcolm. He was in the car, struggling to breathe. There was no time to work out my feelings.

  I slid off the chair and knelt beside Irmgaard. "My parents are dead. But you and me, we're here. And all we can do is to keep going, Irmgaard, to try to make things work without them." She stopped crying. The guilt she had carried was as heavy as the message that threatened to crush Malcolm. "You've got to take that message. I know you're afraid. I went into Java Heaven yesterday and faced Mr. Darling. I was scared to go in there, but I did it. I don't know what that message says, but if you don't take it, something terrible is going to happen to Malcolm. Please take the message, Irmgaard. If it's bad news, I'll be there to help you. You won't be alone."

  She didn't get up. She just knelt there in some sort of trance. What more could I say?

  How could I convince her to take that message? I hurried to the window. Only a few cars sat in the parking lot. But something had changed. The Buick didn't look quite right. It was still tilted from the weight of the message, but it seemed closer to the ground. Why couldn't I see the tires? Why was the car moving? Oh my God!

  I threw open Irmgaard's door, ran down the stairs to the first floor and out the front door. A couple of joggers stood in the parking lot, pointing. "Don't go near it," one of them cried as I ran toward the car. The tires weren't visible because they had sunk into the pavement!

  "Get away from there," another jogger said, waving wildly. "It's a sinkhole. I just called 911."

  "My friend's in there," I cried, yanking open the driver's door. The air inside
the car was as cold as Irmgaard's apartment. No tropical aura, no scent of the Highlands.

  Malcolm lay slumped against the passenger window. "Malcolm, get out of the car." I pulled on his arm. He didn't move.

  The car shuddered, then sank a few more inches. I slid down the bench seat and wrapped my arms around his waist, but I couldn't move him. I scrambled out of the car and ran to the passenger side. "Somebody help me," I yelled. Because of the car's tilt, the passenger door was partially submerged in the sinkhole and wouldn't open. I ran back to the driver's side, but before I could climb back in, a man grabbed me.

  "Are you crazy? The whole thing could cave in at any moment," he warned, pulling me toward the sidewalk. He wore a uniform from the mini-mart. A crowd had gathered. Women with cotton between their toes and foil packets in their hair hurried out of a beauty salon.

  "He's stuck in there," I yelled, pulling free of the man's grip. I ran back to the car.

  "I'll try." The teriyaki hut's owner climbed in and tried to move Malcolm, but Malcolm stayed slumped against the passenger window. The car tilted even farther.

  The man panicked and climbed to safety.

  "Roll down the window," one guy yelled. "Maybe we can pull him out on this side."

  The passenger window was already level with the ground, so I had to move quickly.

  Sliding down the bench again, I reached across Malcolm and turned the old-fashioned handle as fast as I could. Once the passenger window was open, two men reached in, but still, Malcolm wouldn't move an inch. The ground shuddered. The men fell back as the car sank deeper.

  Malcolm seemed to be asleep. "Wake up, Malcolm. MALCOLM!" I shook him and pulled on his arm. Would he get swallowed up? Is that what happens to angels when they get demoted? Would I get swallowed up? Is that what happens to girls who fall in love with angels? "MALCOLM!" Why wouldn't he wake up? "Please, Malcolm, I want to help you. I want--"

  The third bean.

  "Malcolm, give me that bean right now. With all my heart I desire that you don't die.

  You hear me? With all my heart! Give me that bean. Please, Malcolm. I want that bean." I grabbed his satchel from the floor and dumped it upside down, but nothing fell out. No packet, no bean.

  My eyes filled with tears. What was I supposed to do? Not even Superman could lift that envelope.

  But wait.

  There was one other person who could lift it.

  "Irmgaard!" I yelled out the window.

  "Get out of there," a lady cried from the sidewalk.

  The car tilted and the driver's door slammed shut. I pulled myself up the bench seat, rolled down the window, then climbed out of the car. Irmgaard stood on the front steps of her building, terror in her eyes. Terror had invaded my entire body, but at least I was trying to help. "Irmgaard! You're the only one who can save him."

  Half the passenger window was below the pavement. I lay on my stomach at the edge of the sinkhole and reached in, taking Malcolm's cold hand. My pulse pounded in my neck. "Malcolm, Irmgaard's coming."

  "Katrina," he whispered. "If anything happens to me--"

  "She's here. She'll take the message. IRMGAARD!"

  "If it hadn't been for this message, I would never have met you." His eyes stayed closed. "I'm glad I met you, Katrina. I'm glad you let me be a part of your life."

  Those sounded like dying words. This was not going to be a death scene. No way. I let go of his hand and twisted around. "IRMGAARD!" She was there. She lay down next to me as the window sank lower. "Hurry. Take the envelope. It's tucked in his belt."

  She reached in with her slender arm and easily lifted the envelope out of the car.

  The change was instantaneous. The sinkhole stopped trembling. A cloud of warm air drifted from the passenger window. Malcolm sat up and looked at me. His eyes went electric blue. YES!

  As I got to my feet, he crawled out through the driver's window and stood on the side of the car. The crowd yelled at him to move away from the hole. An ambulance whined in the distance. A police car barreled into the parking lot.

  "Get away from that sinkhole," Officer Larsen ordered. Irmgaard and I stepped away.

  "How'd this happen?"

  I didn't know how to answer that question. How could I possibly explain? "It's an emergency," I told him. "This time it's a real emergency."

  As Malcolm leaped off the car my eyes got all misty. I rushed to him and threw my arms around his neck. He hugged me back, his arms strong and tight around my waist.

  My heart slowed. I buried my face in his long hair and inhaled the sweet smell that I had come to love. "Thank you," he whispered in my ear.

  Officer Larsen strung yellow tape around the hole. Firefighters arrived. "We've got ourselves a sinkhole," he told them. "Everyone out of the parking lot."

  Malcolm and I wandered over to the sidewalk. "I want to thank Irmgaard," he said.

  We found her sitting in a cement playground behind the apartment building. The envelope lay in her lap. I sat next to her and put my hand on her rigid shoulder. "It will be okay," I said calmly. "I'm here with you. We're both here."

  She nodded. Then slowly, she peeled back the golden flap. She pulled out a little piece of paper. One word floated on the page--one simple word that a person may take for granted, while another may desire it with all his heart.

  Live.

  As the three of us breathed in that word, the paper and envelope dissolved into nothing.

  Thirty-one

  The next few days flew by. I basically ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, as my grandmother would say.

  On Wednesday morning, Mr. Health Inspector came by. He appeared to be in the same foul mood as last time, scowling and making "hmph" sounds. I made sure Ratcatcher was upstairs while he poked through the pantry, swabbing for bubonic plague. He set some test tubes and eyedroppers on the counter. Finally, he handed me a piece of paper. "You pass. But you must replace the broken dishwasher. Everything else seems satisfactory." What he did not say was: "I'm so sorry to have closed you down unnecessarily."

  "Great," I said, holding the door open for him. Passing the inspection was good news, but his visit had totally slowed us down. In order to make enough money to buy a new dishwasher, we needed to get the Ratcatcher Emporium up and running.

  When I say "we" I'm talking about Elizabeth, Elliott, Irmgaard, and The Boys.

  Malcolm had disappeared, again.

  Right after the "Sinkhole Incident," which is what the Nordby News had called it, Malcolm had grabbed his satchel and hadn't been seen since. But he'd be back. After all, he still owed me a magical coffee bean. And we were supposed to go on that date-

  -not that I was thinking about that. Not at all. Going on a date with an angel to the Solstice Festival was the last thing on my mind. The very last thing. Really.

  The sinkhole ended up swallowing three parking spaces. A crane was brought in to lift out the Buick. Except for a few scratches, the car was miraculously undamaged, which was great because buying a new car was not an expense I wanted to add to the list. The city engineer called the sinkhole a natural disaster even though there was nothing natural about it.

  That morning at Irmgaard's had changed everything. Now I understood her attentiveness and why she had kept a close eye on me all the time. Her life with us suddenly made sense. She had become a surrogate mother for her own sake as much as for mine. I would struggle with anger and blame, like any normal person. What I learned was that tragedy spreads out in a wide circle, like a drop of dye in a pool, touching many lives. We would work through it together.

  Over the days after the sinkhole, Irmgaard started to speak. The first thing she said was: "I'm sorry." People say I'm sorry every day. We say it about little things, about unimportant things, but this was the biggest "I'm sorry" I'd ever heard. We hugged and cried some more. Later, when Ralph sat at the counter and bid her good morning, she said, "Good morning." He nearly fell off the stool. But her words were few and carefully selected. Another person
might have the opposite reaction to getting her voice back. She might talk about everything, even if it was totally boring. She might sing all day, yell as loud as she could, and yodel from the rooftop. But Irmgaard treated her voice as if it was something precious that shouldn't be wasted. Odin said that if more people acted like Irmgaard and kept their stupid opinions to themselves, the world would be a better place.

  Things moved forward for our grand opening. I went to City Hall and got a temporary business license. Ingvar made a sign. Elizabeth painted it with the smiling cat logo she had designed. Odin and Ralph cleared the coffeehouse, stacking all the chairs and tables in the back office. Lars and Elliott set up some shelves that had been gathering dust in Officer Larsen's basement. The merchandise began to show up on Thursday morning. The cutest coffee mugs with Ratcatcher's fat face, plastic cat food dishes with her name, pink headbands with cat ears, black headbands with rat ears--all sorts of silly stuff.

  Mr. Darling poked his big arrogant head in about a million times to ask what we were doing. "You need a business license."

  "I have one."

  "You can't have a cat in a place that serves food."

  "I'm not serving food."

  "You--"

  "Why don't you mind your own business?" I said, right in his face, confidence rushing through me.

  He narrowed his eyes, then ran his hand along his thin ponytail. "You won't be able to save this place. As soon as the sale goes through, I'm kicking you out of here."

  "You have no legal right to kick us out as long as we pay the rent."

  He snickered. "You think that stupid cat is going to help you pay the rent? Ratcatcher Emporium. What a waste of time."

  Ingvar and Odin "escorted" Mr. Darling out the door.

  I tried to keep the emporium a secret from my grandmother because I knew it would stress her out, but the ladies from the shoe shop told her. "What's going on down there?" she asked over the phone. "I'm stuck in this hospital bed and you're doing I don't know what."

  "You said you wanted to close the coffeehouse."

  "Yes, but--"