Angel Baby (Heaven Can Wait)

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Are you quite done?” Herc asked.

  “With what?”

  “Lambasting the living in an attempt to glorify yourself.”

  “I thought you were going to knock off the mind-reading.”

  He shrugged. “Sorry I’m not sorry. Occupational hazard. More to the point, what in the world were you doing coming on to Sam while you were married to Jonah?”

  “Truthfully?”

  “Um, let’s see…” Finger to his lips, he said, “No, I’d much rather hear another lie.”

  To that smart-ass statement, she flipped him a bird. “Truthfully, yeah, Police Chief Sam is a hunk, but I only had eyes for Jonah. Problem was, he only had eyes for that damned diner. I wanted him to notice me… I wanted his attention so badly, that I didn’t care if it was for all the wrong reasons.”

  After she fell quiet for a moment, just staring at the events unfolding on screen, Herc asked, “Did Sam ever tell Jonah what you did?”

  She shrugged. “Not that I know of. Guess I got lucky in that respect. They were always close. Close enough that, right before Jonah married me, Sam told him not to go through with our wedding. To hold out for something—someone—better.” She swiped at what felt like a tear. Funny, even when she’d had a body she’d done less blubbering than she did now as a vapor ball.

  “How did that make you feel? To know your future husband’s best friend not only didn’t like you, but didn’t approve of you?”

  “Duh? How do you think it made me feel? Like a piece of—” She stopped just short of admitting how she’d truly felt, to instead opt for the more politically correct euphemism for her feelings. “Dog-doo, all right? I felt like a big old stinky pile of dog-doo. And, looking back on it, after all the crap I put Jonah and now Katie through, I guess all along Sam was right. I am no good. Jonah should’ve steered clear of me, and—”

  “And you’ve got that pity train of yours rolling right along the same old track. Come on, Geneva, whaddaya say if, just for fun, we jump that track and head the train south? Miami? Rio? Pityville is starting to be such a bore.”

  Chapter Ten

  “So?” Jonah leaned forward from his perch on the edge of the sofa. “Let’s hear it, Doc. What’d you find out?”

  The doctor sighed before scratching his head. “Seeing how I’ve only come across one other case like this in all the years I’ve been practicing medicine, I’m certainly no expert, but it looks to me as if this little lady has a textbook case of post-traumatic retrograde amnesia.

  Angel spilled a weak laugh. “That seems like an awfully big name for me just forgetting a few things.”

  “Yes, well...” Doc glanced her way. “This could turn out to be an awfully big problem. I don’t mean to alarm you, but while you seem fine on the surface, just to be safe, I’d like Jonah to take you to Little Rock for more extensive tests.”

  “Why?” Angel argued. “You just said I was fine.”

  “You probably are, but like I always say—”

  “‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’ ” Sam beamed.

  The doctor and Jonah glared.

  Doc cleared his throat, “As I was saying, most likely your memory will return on its own, but until then, sit tight—nothing too strenuous.”

  “Does that mean my husband has to wash all the dishes?” She winked.

  Jonah held his breath. Was this where Doc reached his breaking point for helping to carry out what was becoming a group delusion?

  “Right.” Doc nodded toward the front door. “Jonah, Sam, before I go, I need a word with you two outside.”

  “Sure.”

  Angel’s expression darkened. Turning to Doc, she asked, “Is there something else you’re not telling me?”

  “Not at all.”

  Jonah nearly tripped in his haste to get the doctor out of the house. “This concerns official diner business, right, Doc?”

  The doctor’s mustache bobbled above his deep frown. He gathered his battered black leather bag, then cast his patient a feeble wave on his way out the stained-glass front door.

  Outside, on the same front porch where as a boy he’d played marbles and drunk gallons of lemonade, Jonah, all grown up, found himself in the curious position of still playing games. Only this time they were deadly serious. He wasn’t just playing with Angel’s life, but possibly those of her husband and children. Sure, every bit of the deception he was carrying out was for Katie, but that didn’t make any of it right, just all the more painful.

  Instead of gulping lemonade, he swigged cool morning air, for ever since the mystery woman he’d christened Angel had entered his life, he never could get enough. Enough air, enough courage, enough looks into her fathomless aquamarine eyes.

  Across the yard—across the whole mountain-ringed valley—a soft breeze clacked through still bare maples and oaks. The sloped pastures and lawns around the house were already greening, complete with a smattering of daffodils and dandelions bobbing their welcome to the warmth soon to come. The forsythias that’d lined the dirt drive with sunshine every spring for as long as he could remember were also deep in bloom. His mom’s favorite red bud looked ready to pop, as did the ten or so dogwoods he’d long ago helped his grandfather plant.

  Life had been so simple back then. All through his high school years, his folks urged him on to college. You’ll never be happy here, they said. Become a doctor, lawyer, big-time businessman. Go out into the world and make something of yourself. Yet, for as long as Jonah could remember, all he’d wanted to be was a carbon copy of his dad. Had the man died without ever realizing just how special his life had been? How idyllic in the eyes of his only child?

  Jonah gazed out at the tree-lined mountains and, at their feet, the rolling hills, dazzling in the green carpet nature laid out for the myriad of color yet to come. All his life he’d woken to this view. Yet today, in some indefinable way, it’d changed. Or no—maybe more to the point, he’d changed. And he wanted his old self back. The happy-go-lucky guy who saw the best in everyone. The guy who’d trusted Geneva when she told him he was everything she’d ever dreamed of in a husband.

  Doc said, “This is some pickle you’ve gotten yourself into, Jonah.”

  “Yessir.”

  “When were you planning on telling this woman she’s not your wife?”

  Hands tucked deep in his pockets, Jonah shrugged.

  Sam said, “In his defense, Doc, he’s doing his best by her. But as for now, there’s nothing more to be done until I figure out who she really is.”

  “I suppose,” Doc fingered his bag’s worn handles, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like any of this. The fact that she took Katie to her breast tells me, somewhere out there is a baby missing his or her mother.”

  “Okay,” Jonah stared across the valley, then back to the doctor, “message heard loud and clear. But until Sam finds that family of hers, what should I do?”

  The older man took a good minute to chew his mustache, then, “Much as I hate to say it, after you take her to Little Rock for tests, the best thing might be nothing. As far as you comfortably and morally can, let her go on thinking she’s your wife—just be damn careful about leaving her alone with Katie. Not for a minute do I think Angel would do her intentional harm, but if she has any internal bleeding, that could lead to a sudden stroke.”

  “Sure.” As much as Jonah hated the thought of anything being physically wrong with Angel, he didn’t even try denying the euphoric relief flooding his system. For now. For maybe the rest of the day—or even week—Katie’s savior could stay.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Ha! Take that, Blondie. Looks like you can’t have my baby after all.”

  “And who exactly will this be a good thing for?”

  Geneva slanted a sharp look Herc’s way. “It’ll be good for Katie, that’s who. She already had one mother. The last thing she needs is another.”

  “Oh, really? Is that why she’s thrived both mentally and physically in your absenc
e?”

  “That was different,” Geneva said, with a twirl of her chartreuse hair.

  “How?”

  “Well ...” She was wondering if she’d have to think on that one, but then the answer came to her, turning out to be pretty straightforward. “Because I’m dead. All kids are sad when their mom or dad dies. It’s natural, isn’t it?”

  “True. But, to Katie, you didn’t die, you just took off without even so much as a good-bye. Do you have any idea how stressful something like that is to a child of any age? Let alone an infant?”

  “Do I know? My own mother abandoned me.”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  “Like, if my own mother didn’t love me, then how in the world would I ever find anyone who did.”

  “Good.”

  “No, that’s not good—that sucked.”

  “Right. Of course it did, which is why I want you to remember those feelings. I want you to recall those days when you felt as if no one in the world would even notice if you disappeared.”

  “Why would I dredge all that up? It hurts.”

  “Of course, it does. But sometimes pain is the key to healing. This is what I keep trying to teach you, Geneva, that in order for you to right your past wrongs, you first have to face them. You have to admit that you abandoning your own child was every bit as horrific as your own mother abandoning you.”

  “I hate you,” Geneva spat. “You’re nothing more than a pompous, toga-wearing, conceited, overbearing brute.”

  Lightning strobed, gnashing and slashing the air all around them.

  Teach looked up, nodded, then pressed his palms together prayer-like before saying, “Of course, I completely understand.”

  “Understand what?” Geneva darted a glance over her shoulder to make sure the lightning show was over.

  “Mr. Big is displeased.”

  “By your lack of teaching skills?” She snorted. “Can’t say I blame him. So now what? Do I get a new teacher? Someone I hope a little hunkier than you?”

  Teach shook his big head. “In fact, what you have gotten, my dear girl, is your very own ticking clock.”

  Nose wrinkled, she said, “I don’t get it.”

  “Precisely. You don’t get much of anything I've been trying to say, which is why Mr. Big has seen fit to impose a time limit on your work. Not as a punishment per se, but as a gentle kick in the pants.”

  “Oh, that’s great. God kicks people’s asses when they screw up?” She looked to the sky, only to be rewarded with three more stinging strikes. “Ouch!” She covered her ears to the deafening thunder. Her nostrils flared from the lightning’s sulfurous stench. “Those are getting close.”

  “And just think,” Herc said with a tight grin, “if, in six weeks’ time, Jonah, Angel and Katie haven’t become a family in the purest sense of the word, that’s just a preview of the heat you’ll soon endure.”

  Face scrunched, she said, “Let me get this straight—just because you’re a bad teacher, I’m being punished?”

  “Not punished, Geneva. In difficult cases like yours, Mr. Big prefers to think of it in terms of tough love.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Please, Jonah?”

  At quarter till eleven, Jonah, with Katie in his arms, had his hand on the back door. He should have been at the diner already. But after the doctor left, Angel drilled him about his discussion on the porch. Coming up with all those creative answers took longer than he’d thought. And now this?

  “Please let me watch Lizzy.”

  Angel’s teary-eyed pleading broke Jonah’s heart but there was no way, after what Doc had advised, that he’d leave Katie alone with a delusional stranger. “Like I already told you,” he said, hand on the doorknob, “me taking Ka—I mean, Lizzy, with me is what the doctor said is best. He wants you to rest—especially after overdoing it with all that cooking this morning.”

  “But I feel fine.”

  “Angel, I—” Jonah cupped his hand over her slight shoulder, instantly regretting even this casual touch. Drawing back, he wrapped both hands safely around his child. “I know this may sound strange after the conversation we had last night, but...”

  “Go on,” she urged, tears still glistening. Her touch feather-light, she reached up, smoothing his perpetually mussed hair. “I don’t want anyone saying I let my husband go off to work without looking his best.”

  “Thanks.” He was at first annoyed by her proprietary gesture, then oddly touched. Geneva had always been asleep when he left for work. As for her caring about his hair, she’d forever been after him to grow it long like a rock star. Like there were a lot of those roaming Blue Moon’s quiet streets.

  “You’re welcome.” Her haunting gaze still shone but she didn’t shed even a single tear.

  He wanted to pull her into his arms and whisper that everything was going to be okay, but since he had no crystal ball, he kept his hands to himself. What he needed to do was just go. But no matter how badly he yearned to escape, he couldn’t ignore his screaming need to say more, to try making her understand that his taking Katie wasn’t a personal attack—just his only way of protecting his daughter. “Look,” he finally said, “I know me taking the baby doesn’t make sense to you, but I’m worried about your health. That’s all. Please, humor me? Just this once?”

  “Under one condition.” She raised her delicate chin.

  “What’s that?” He was almost afraid to ask.

  “Kiss me good-bye?”

  “Angel...” He raked his fingers through his hair. “In light of, well, everything... I really don’t think kissing would be appropriate, do you?”

  “If I didn’t, would I have asked?” The teasing glint in her eyes was a welcome replacement to confusion and pain. “Come on, just one simple kiss.”

  “I already told you, I—”

  “I know, I know, you don’t think it’s appropriate, but let me show you my side of the coin. Here I am, mad-crazy in love with my husband, with no memory of anything bad ever happening between us. All I want in this whole big world is to once again be your wife in every sense of the word and yet, at every turn, you deny me that pleasure.” She cupped her hand to Katie’s head, then slid it down the infant’s back to rest on his forearm. “We took vows, Jonah. You promised to love and protect me.” Looming tears returned, shimmering brighter than ever. “I-I somehow know I’ve always felt protected by you but, now, with you flinching from my slightest touch and refusing to even kiss me, I have to wonder if I ever really knew you at all?”

  Jonah closed his eyes. Why did she have to get heavy? Why did he have to feel her pain as if it were his own?

  “Look,” he kissed Katie’s forehead. “I can’t deal with this now.”

  “Then when, Jonah? I can’t go on like this indefinitely. We’re husband and wife, yet you treat me as if I’m a stranger.”

  He opened the door, then turned his back to her. “I’m sorry. Trust me when I say it’s nothing personal.”

  “Nothing personal?” Her voice dropped to a throaty whisper. “How can I not take it personally when not only does my husband want nothing to do with me, but he obviously doesn’t trust me enough to even let me spend an afternoon caring for our baby?”

  Exhausted and scared and more than a little confused himself, Jonah made the mistake of turning to her. There was something about her that was so exotic, so far removed from the everyday doldrums of Blue Moon, that he couldn’t drag his gaze from hers. Those fathomless depths beckoned like deep tropical pools. Those full, trembling lips soundlessly begged for the comfort of a kiss.

  She parted them, licked them slowly.

  Turn away, every ounce of Jonah’s body screamed. But he didn’t—physically couldn’t.

  More wisps of her hair had sprung free of her ponytail, rioting against her flushed cheeks. He wanted to brush those wisps back. He wanted his fingertips gliding across her petal-soft skin. He wanted his mouth pressed against hers. He wanted to know her. Possess her. Be
certain that when he came home from the diner that night, she’d be there, waiting for both him and Katie. Missing them, holding them, yearning for them like they yearned for her.

  Only the joke was on him, because he didn’t even know her.

  He didn’t know her name, favorite music or perfume. He didn’t know if she liked her kisses hard or soft. If she liked her lovemaking gentle or rough.

  Most of all, he didn’t know if somewhere out there she had a husband who would rightfully beat the shit out of him for even thinking such things about his wife.

  And so while Jonah wanted nothing more than to brighten Angel’s expression by pulling her into his arms and kissing her till neither of them could breathe, he instead willed his pulse to slow, banishing that idyllic image of her from his mind before turning his back on her and walking out the door.

  Even long after her husband was gone, the house’s silence crushed Angel, refusing to let her forget that she wasn’t just alone in the present. If Jonah had his way, she’d be alone even after he came home. All she’d wanted was a simple kiss. Why had he turned her request into such a big deal?

  Even though he’d told her to relax, after the humiliating way she’d poured out her heart to him, only to be rejected, finding relaxation seemed laughable. Right now, she needed to crawl into a hole and die, but then she wouldn’t get to see Lizzy when Jonah brought her home from the diner. So, instead, she turned her attention to tidying.

  Which took a whopping twenty minutes.

  Seated at the kitchen table, one elbow on the polished oak, chin in one hand and drumming the fingers of her other, she clamped down on her lower lip, trying to remember even a small morsel from her past—anything. Did she enjoy chewing gum? What had her wedding dress looked like? What had she done as a pastime during the endless hours she now knew she’d spent alone?