I leaned in and whispered, “I can see your wings, man.” I extended mine to their full glory.
“Oh, I didn’t see yours before. Let’s get out of here before we make a scene,” he said. “Nothin’ to see here, people.” He tugged on my shoulder, pulling me down the walkway. “Once we get to the end, cloak yourself and meet me on Pier 39.”
“I hate that place. Too crowded.”
“My souls are down there. I’ve got to get back. Just saw your little stunt and flew over here.”
I followed him to Pier 39, although it was hard to keep up with him. We stayed cloaked and found an empty bench to occupy.
“So what’s your name?” I said.
“Leo.” He looked like a newer version but not as new as Zack.
“I’m Lucian.” I shook his hand.
“Oh, Lucian. I heard about you.”
“What’d you hear?”
“You the one who married one of your souls.”
“Word spreads fast,” I said.
“Yeah, I was banging this chick, Abigail—”
“Yeah, I know her.” Fucking Abigail, such a big-mouthed brat.
“Sweet little ass, huh?” Leo said. I just shrugged like I had no idea what he was talking about. “So what were you doing on the bridge?”
I was texting Evey and mindlessly responding to Leo at the same time. “Just trying something out.”
Me: You ok?
Evey: Yes fine, have fun.
“Trying something out?” Leo said.
“Well, I have this theory. Since I’ve been with my soul, my angel gifts, so to speak, have been failing or fading. I don’t know, just changing.”
“So what’s your theory?”
“That I’m becoming a human.” I looked at him and arched my eyebrows.
He shook his head. “Nah, no way. It can’t happen.”
“Really, you don’t think it’s possible?”
“No.”
“Evey, my wife, is pregnant.”
“With what?”
“See, that’s my point,” I said. “It’s not a litter of fucking puppies, man. She’s pregnant with my baby.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s true.”
He looked off into a restaurant, seeming to think about what I had said. “Hey, let me get these two home. Then you wanna grab a drink, and we’ll talk some more?”
I looked into the restaurant and saw a couple enjoying a meal. “Are those your souls right there?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like they’re enjoying themselves.”
“Give me a second.” He opened his hand and revealed a giant roach.
“No, you can’t do that.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, I can. These two never stay home. I’m constantly following their asses around the city. I could use a beer.”
He left me on the bench, then a moment later he was following two very angry people out of the restaurant. Leo was laughing and waving for me to follow. I would never have done that to one of my souls.
WE ENDED UP at the Star Wars bar, and Han, the bartender working when Evey first met me, was manning the bar once again.
“You,” he said when we sat down. “I thought you’d be dead.” He addressed Leo, “Your friend can drink.”
“Whiskeys and IPAs,” Leo said.
Han poured us two fingers of Whistle Pig and some local IPAs in pints. Leo dumped part of his IPA beer into his whiskey, so I did the same. I’d told Evey that I wouldn’t drink like that, but we were fighting, and I needed something. I downed the first cup then the second, and I was toast. My body wasn’t recovering very fast.
Leo was looking at me strangely. “Why are you so fucked up, man?”
“I don’t know. This is what’s happening to me.” I shook my head. “I can only have one more, then I gotta get home.”
“Home?” he repeated. It wasn’t exactly angel-speak.
“Yeah, I gotta get home to Evey. She’s pregnant, and she’s gonna get mad at me for getting trashed.”
“The old ball and chain, huh? Been married a few days and you’re already fighting and in trouble?”
“No, it’s not like that,” I said, but it kind of was. “I just wanted to know if you had ever heard of anything like this happening?”
“What?” Leo said.
“Angels falling for their souls and what happens to them. Can they have babies?”
He laughed. “Fallen angel, what a cliché.”
“Yeah, I know. Just tell me though.”
“No, I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“I got to go.” I threw some cash on the bar and waved to Han.
He smiled and waved back.
“Bye,” Leo called but didn’t turn around. “Good luck with all that cosmic shit you’re fucking with.”
“Asshole,” I said under my breath.
I texted Evey.
Me: B home n 5
Evey: Can you get me some Cherry Garcia?
Ice cream cravings already? That was a good sign.
Me: Of course!
When I came in holding a pint of Evey’s favorite ice cream, she was smiling and as happy as ever. “There’s my prince,” she said.
“I have a feeling that anyone holding a pint of Cherry Garcia would be your prince.”
“Not true,” she sang. “Have you been drinking?”
“Yes, but I know my limit now.”
“Good.” She kissed my nose while she took the ice cream from my hand.
“Can I lick this off of you?” I asked.
“Best idea you’ve had, husband.”
Things finally felt right again. I was licking ice cream off of Evey’s thighs, and heaven was here on Earth. I was sure of that.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE that Lucian was searching Want Ads for a job. He was lying next to me in our bed, circling ads and laughing at how overqualified he was.
“This one says, ‘Must be bilingual.’ Should I put on my résumé that I speak seventeen languages?”
“Don’t be arrogant. People don’t like arrogant.”
He rolled over and kissed my tummy. “Hello, baby.” He looked up at me. “Should we find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“We can find out at the next ultrasound.” So far, everything was coming along perfectly. We were pregnant with an actual baby, as far as the doctor could tell.
He yawned. “Are you tired?”
“Yeah, but not that tired. It’s only seven,” I said.
“Mm, I can’t wait to meet you,” he said to my stomach.
I was eleven weeks pregnant. We were a family. Lucian and I had fights, but we were a family, and we were working things out and figuring out how to be normal.
“You have an interview tomorrow, don’t you? At that financial firm?”
“Yeah. I’m going to drive you to work, then I’ll pick you up,” he said.
“Okay.”
In the morning, we got up like it was any other day. Lucian made my favorite breakfast—avocado on toast with olive oil and tomato. I smiled when I took it from him. “You’re too good to me.”
“It’s only because you’re carrying my baby,” he said with a smirk.
“By the way, I meant to ask you. Does our little one have an angel hanging around?”
He squinted and shook his head slowly. “No, it’s just you and me until she’s born.”
“She? You know?”
“No, no, just have a feeling. Wishful thinking, I guess.”
“You want a girl then?”
“I’d be happy either way, but yeah, I was just thinking how beautiful and kind-hearted she’d be… like her mom.”
We drove across the bridge as Lucian sang along to Leon Bridges. “You have a good voice,” I told him.
“So do you.”
“You’ve never heard me sing.”
“Evey, I’ve heard you sing a million times.”
I blushed. That’s right—he’d heard everything. “That’s not
fair.”
“Sing with me.”
I tried to sing along but couldn’t hold a candle to Lucian’s singing. He said he’d been doing it longer, which was a silly understatement. He dropped me at Tracey’s warehouse, and then headed off for his job interview.
As he was pulling away, he stopped the car, rolled down the window, and said, “Check your messenger bag. I made you lunch so you don’t have to leave. Please don’t leave here without me. Text me if anything comes up.”
“Don’t worry about me. Good luck.” I kissed him once more through the open window.
I spent the morning doing sketches for Tracey, and by lunch, I was starving and feeling woozy. I hadn’t texted Lucian because I didn’t want to distract him, but I was feeling mildly crampy. By two o’clock, the cramps were getting worse. I called Dr. Smythe.
“You should come in, Evelyn, so we can do an ultrasound and check you out. If it gets worse, go to the ER.”
As soon as I pressed End on the phone, I texted Lucian.
Me: I’m feeling crampy. Gonna ask Tracey to drive me to the doctor’s.
Lucian: No, I’ll be there in two minutes.
Tracey was in the back room as I stood at the front window waiting. I felt a gush of fluid between my legs and a sharp, shooting pain. I dropped to my knees on the hard concrete. Blood seeped through my jeans. I heard a thud as Lucian landed hard just outside of the door. He had flown there.
“What was that?” Tracey said as she came walking out from the back room.
Lucian completely ignored her. He was laser-focused on me. He stalked over to me and lifted me with ease. His wings were spread and flapping.
“No,” he whimpered. “No.”
“How are we going to get there?” I asked.
“Oh my God,” Tracey said, falling to the floor when she saw Lucian.
Lucian finally realized she was standing there, witnessing the entire thing. He set me down gently. “One second.” He marched with resolute concentration toward a terrified Tracey.
“No,” she said, holding up her hand in an attempt to block Lucian from whatever he was about to do.
He pressed a thumb to her forehead. Her eyes rolled back in her head. “Stop, Lucian, you’re hurting her.” He didn’t even seem to hear me. Tracey was writhing on the floor. The smell of burning skin wafted toward me, as Lucian pressed his thumb to her forehead even harder.
“Stop, Lucian,” I screamed.
He pulled away, turned to the empty space next to him, and spoke to someone I couldn’t see. “I had to. I’m sorry. She’ll be fine.”
Tracey was still unconscious.
“What’s going on?” I started to cry.
Lucian was at my side in a millisecond, and I was in his arms again. “She’ll be okay. I couldn’t let her say anything. We have to go.”
A moment later, we were in the air, flying fast. We landed hard on the roof of San Francisco General Hospital. Lucian was undeterred and mysterious again. My angel, trying to protect me. I couldn’t see my husband in him anymore.
He didn’t speak as he carried me to the roof door and kicked it open with little effort. In the elevator, he scanned my body.
“It’s over,” I told him. “She’s gone.”
“No.” There was no expression in his eyes. He managed to carry me into triage without even checking in and yelled, “My wife needs help quickly.”
A nurse was at my side in a moment. There was blood all over my pants, but the pain had stopped. Lucian slumped into a chair in the corner, rested his elbows on his spread knees, and dropped his face into his hands. I couldn’t tell if he was crying, but he was obviously in pain.
“It’s okay, Lucian,” I whispered.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” the nurse said.
There was a blur of doctors and nurses. I heard the words miscarriage, hemorrhaging, and hematoma. My clothes were removed. I was cleaned and then moved to another room. I was woozy, but Lucian was next to me, still inscrutable.
“What’s happening?” When I tried to sit up, I lost consciousness.
Moments later, I came to and heard Lucian yelling something, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I closed my eyes and wanted to disappear. I had lost the baby.
Then I was in an operating room, and a doctor I didn’t know was telling me that he was going to perform a procedure to remove the fetus, placenta, and hematoma. Lucian was holding my hand. They sedated me.
I didn’t remember anything after that until I woke up in a recovery room. When I opened my eyes, I saw Lucian sitting in a chair in the corner. All of the lights were off, and the curtains were drawn. I couldn’t see his face well enough to read his expression. “I’ve gone too far,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t fix this. I can’t erase your memory. I can’t erase the memories of everyone I’ve met because of you. I only have one choice now, Evey.”
“Don’t you dare.” I knew what he meant. “You do not get to leave me, Lucian.”
“I can’t see you like this, knowing that I did this to you.”
“You did not do this to me. I had a miscarriage. Women have them all the time.”
“You don’t care? You don’t care that we lost our little girl?”
I started to cry. “Was it a girl?”
He nodded in the darkness. I cried full, quiet sobs, but Lucian didn’t come to comfort me. Instead, he left the room. I rolled onto my side and cried even harder.
“Please come back to me,” I said, but he didn’t. “Don’t do this to me.”
I knew he could hear me. He couldn’t have gotten far.
The doctor came in and said he wanted to keep me overnight. I said, “Okay,” and then dozed off alone. I woke sometime after midnight. It was completely dark, but I could see that Lucian was back, in the same chair again. I smelled whiskey. I closed my eyes and feigned sleep, but a moment later, he was standing over me; I could feel him.
“Why? Why, God?” He was in pain. Tormented Lucian would not be easy to talk to. My eyes were closed when I felt his lips on my forehead. “Good-bye, Evey. I love you.”
Without opening my eyes, I said, “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, forget it. It’s not happening.” I looked up at him.
His face was swollen and red with tears. “I can’t put you through any more hell than I already have.”
“I had a miscarriage. It had nothing to do with you.” I started to cry. “What are you going to do? Kill yourself? You’re going to leave me after we’ve been married and I’m lying in a hospital bed because I’ve had a miscarriage? How could you do that to me?”
He shook his head and smiled, small and tight. “You won’t remember anything,” he said softly. He looked pleased with himself.
“I want to remember everything.”
“Not this.”
“Lucian, please.”
The nurse came in and pushed more pain medication through my IV.
“Please, Lucian, don’t do anything stupid.” As I started to doze off from the pain medicine, I chanted the prayer out loud. The nurse was gone. It was just the two of us.
He held his hand to my forehead and said it with me. “Angel of God, my Guardian dear to whom His love commits me here, ever this night be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.”
Everything was black after that.
SHE WOULDN’T REMEMBER a thing, and no one else would either. I’d be gone and leave no mark at all. Poof, just like that. She’d be free of me. Someone would be assigned to protect her, she’d meet a real man, and everything would be fine. She’d have babies and healthy pregnancies and a good life and a great career. I’d gotten her this far; I couldn’t ruin her now.
It felt like days that I was standing there, on the edge of the highway. All it would take was walking five feet. I saw a bus coming and timed it. Five… four… three… then my phone buzzed.
Evey: I need you now. Please, I’m hurting.
Every time I thought about Evey in pain, it
felt as though I was being burned at the stake. Was this His divine comedy?
Flying back to the hospital, I fell to the ground three times. I could barely fly anymore.
When I entered her hospital room, she was shaking her head at me. “Some husband you are. Running off to kill yourself while your wife sobs in a hospital room alone.”
“You don’t understand, Evelyn.”
“Neither do you,” she yelled.
There was a nurse on the other side of the room, restocking the cabinets.
“Take it easy.”
“I know what you were gonna do. Are you insane? The doctor said that had I not had that hematoma, the baby and pregnancy would have probably been normal.” She jabbed a finger at my chest.
“Ow, easy.”
“Come closer, you jerk.” Evey grabbed my ear and yanked me toward her face.
“Geez, relax. I fell hard three times on my way over here. I’m kind of sore.”
“Bet getting your ear tugged on is nothing compared to being hit by a bus,” she whispered. I started to pull away, but she yanked me back down. “Did you hear anything? They said the fetus was otherwise healthy.” Her voice was getting louder. “No wings detected. Just normal human baby parts, Lucian, you ass.”
I shook my head. “Shh. No need for name-calling, Evey. Anyway, I still don’t think it’s possible.”
“Will you just wait and see? What if you really are becoming human?” She glanced at the clock. “I’m tired. It’s four in the morning.”
It was getting close to magic hour. I could have gone out and gotten drunk or tried to find answers, but instead, I crawled into bed next to Evey and rested my head on her chest. I put my hand on her belly, and she laced her fingers through mine. We cried together and then fell asleep. Our baby was gone.
THINGS CHANGED OVER the next few weeks. I insisted on using condoms, but soon gave up on that. It’s just not the same. Tracey gave me a job working in the warehouse, which allowed me to stay close to Evey, but it also irritated her. She wanted independence. I understood, even though she often forgot that I had always been there. She’d tell me it was just different now.
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