But now, there was a tightness in her abdomen. A teasing urge to join him, to feel warm water slide over her skin. Watching it wash over his. To have it wash away his apprehension and her lost memory. She stepped toward the closed door, but the ball in her stomach tightened uncomfortably and started filling with knots. She put a hand over the area and stood still, waiting for the knots to loosen and unbunch.
It might not be such a good idea to join him. But still, she needed to know more about this environment. Daman’s living space.
She studied the room. It was distinctly ruffled, lived in. Things had a place, but they weren’t organized in any particular fashion. It was functional, more than anything else.
A gray guitar was set up on a stand shoved into the corner next to her. It was partially obscured by the open curtain. She pushed the material away to have a better look. It was the fluffy coating of dust that had made her think it was gray. She trailed the tip of her finger through the dust, leaving a shiny streak. The color beneath was warm honey, shiny despite the neglect. She strummed the wires and listened to the disharmonic mix of sound. She was sure this wasn’t the way it should sound. It should feel pleasant to listen to hear notes coming from these strings. She wasn’t sure how she knew that. She was also aware of a certainty that this instrument used to be played nearly every day, but had been abandoned long enough for the strings to loosen, to become dull and lifeless. She straightened, looking about the room.
She felt comfortable here. It was a space that drew her. The cushions on the couch were drooping and rumpled, in much need of re-stuffing, but it attracted her. The scatter cushions were stacked at one end; there was an indent in the stack, positioned so that a person would lie on the couch and watch television. A smile touched her mouth. She could sit on that couch and feel like she’d sat there a thousand times before. She drew her fingers along the back of the couch, feeling the cracked leather undulate beneath her fingers as she moved. She could picture Daman spread-eagled on the couch, so tall his feet would fall off the end, arms slung behind his head as he watched television. It was a comfort, the sense of coming…home.
She was calm at the thought. She could watch him for hours like that. Watch him, oversee, keep him safe until his dreams charged his mind, a place where spirit could meet spirit. She could wait for that time with infinite patience, lose herself in the peace that it provided. A special time. A time that would be calm, yet pull her from other things. Important things she had to do, but couldn’t bear leave him to do. She could picture herself perched on the arm of the couch watching him so clearly in her mind.
Right a wrong.
She jolted, a frown pulling her brow. The thought had whispered from nowhere and it sunk to the pit of her stomach, swirling heavily, almost painfully. She felt the need to move, to shake the unsettledness the words brought to her.
She moved to the dusty sideboard that held a smattering of framed photos. They were a feminine touch, the photos in matching, rather chic silver frames. She picked one up, fingers running over the pattern in the frame.
She recognized Daman. He was arm in arm with a woman dressed in white. Their wedding day. A frown touched her forehead. She knew about weddings, and how people looked when they made their vows before God and their family. It was a happy occasion. Daman and the woman looked happy in the photograph. She smiled, tracing the woman’s gown. She was happy for them, joyous, but also wanting that for herself, knowing that could never be. Her finger touched the woman’s face.
Her frown deepened. The nagging feeling intensified. She could almost picture the woman in her mind, see her speaking to her, conversing. But that could never be. As an angel, there was no connection between them and the living. And yet…a picture snapped in her mind. An image of the woman’s face. She was very sad. She’d been crying, her eyes red and swollen.
An acute feeling of connection balled in her stomach, quickly followed by a stab of guilt. The sadness enveloped her, so intense it was suffocating. She dropped the frame and it clattered to the top of the side-board, falling face forward. She couldn’t bring herself to right it. She staggered backward until her back pressed against the cold wall. Her hands trembled and she clutched them to her chest in an attempt to stop them.
With all certainty, she knew the woman in the photograph. Knew the connection she felt with Daman extend to the three of them. There was sadness involved, guilt—whose she didn’t know—remorse, and…love. They mingled, pressed on her, made her chest compress and stopped her breathing.
She didn’t like these emotions, didn’t like how her body followed so closely to them. She had to find calm, peace, but didn’t know what she should do. Her body overpowered her ability to conquer the impact of these darker emotions. She tried to scream, but a strangled, wordless sound was all that escaped her mouth. Tried to draw breath, but her lungs had seized.
She staggered to the light-filled living space. She wobbled on unsteady legs, leaned an arm out to steady herself, tipping the sideboard. The photographs clattered over, landing with a series of loud slaps onto the top. One fell to the floor, the glass shattered on the floorboards, a tinkling of screams at her feet.
At the loud sound her voice loosened and a low moan escaped her mouth. All she could draw into her lungs were small gasps of air, her throat was still too tight to breathe properly. Her vision swam as she fought to remain upright. She had to get to Daman, he would know what to do. She pressed her shoulder to the wall, using it to prop herself as she moved. Strangulated, gasping sounds escaped her mouth. She had her hand to her neck, as though that could help her loosen the grip inside.
She reached the corner as her vision swam in tear-filled eyes, her legs now too weak to carry her. She dropped to one knee, falling heavily to the floor. She propped a hand to stop her sinking all the way to the ground.
The door to the bedroom swung open. She made out Daman’s blurry face, contorting to open-mouthed shock. “Angel!” His voice punched the air.
She held her hand out to him. He fell to his knees beside her, gaze searching her body, hands on her arms, shoulders, everywhere.
“What’s wrong?” He cupped her face in his palms, gaze tearing into her soul.
His touch let her throat loosen and she dragged in enough air to fill her lungs. Her senses stopped swimming and her vision cleared as she lay panting, resting her head against his chest. He enveloped her in his arms, wrapping them around her, pressing her close. The steady thump of his heart calmed her, his skin warmed hers. She placed her hand over one of his, hooked her fingers in his, stayed there until her heart kept pace with his and his body’s heat saturated her senses. She closed her eyes, feeling peace saturate her mind.
She felt so right to be in his arms. As though she’d waited a long time to feel them around her, and now the moment was finally here, she’d found a peace which sunk to her core. She drank in his freshly washed scent, mixed by clean skin and tangy soap. She could stay here forever, wanted the moment to be eternal, but knew in this world, nothing was forever. There was no such certainty.
“Are you feeling better?” His voice was a deep rumble from within his chest. The warm feeling enveloped her again and her lips curled into a smile. It was new to her, hearing a voice sounding from within the body and she found she liked it.
She nodded. He released her so that she had to move against him so that he could see her.
“What happened to you?”
A shiver stole through her; she was still coping with how her body had reacted. “The woman in the photo. I think I know her. She’s familiar to me.” She gripped Daman’s upper arms, “I see her face in my mind. I know she’s very sad, but there’s nothing I can do.” Her fingers tightened. “But I can’t remember why. Or how I know this.”
Daman’s mouth thinned into a straight tense line. His eyes led to the photographs that were smashed on the ground. “You know the woman in those photographs?”
She nodded, swallowed hard
knowing she was telling him something that would hurt. It was a pain she also felt, but couldn’t hold it back knowing how important it might be to him. “Who is she?”
He stared at the broken frames. The moment stretched. He leaned and picked a corner from the rabble of glass shards. He’d picked the one with his arm slung around the woman’s shoulder. The one where he’d looked the happiest.
“Michelle. My wife.” His voice was hard and dry. There was so much pain in that low tone she wanted so desperately to wipe away. But there was no way she could.
“You’re with her,” she said.
He nodded. “This was taken in much better times. Happier times.”
“You knew her very well.”
His eyes glazed. For a moment he was in a different world, a different time. The lines eased from his face. In an instant the hard edges snapped back, but the pain remained.
“I didn’t mean to tip them from the table. I couldn’t stand, couldn’t breathe. I leaned and they fell,” she offered.
“I loved her very much” he said the words on a breath, “But she’s gone and she’s not coming back.” She pressed her fingers into his forearm, wishing with all her strength she could help him, wanting to with such urgency she felt the weight of it press within her chest. “I wish I could help. I wish I could tell you how I feel the things I do.”
His eyes landed on her, cleared. He was drawn back to the present and she felt the full weight of his presence. “I want you could tell me, but you can’t. This tells me more than anything that you shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong to this world.” He breathed out hard through his nostrils. “There’s someone I know that might be able to help. I haven’t seen him in a long time, but he’s the only person I can think of that might know how to return you.”
She knew with all certainty she didn’t want to go, that being here was a gift, but it only brought things up for him that were buried. Her being here only hurt him. She didn’t know how much more she would remember, and how much more pain he could take. If only to save him, she would go. She would leave to give him peace.
She nodded, rallying against falling into his arms again just to be in his embrace. She was on the verge of awakening, feeling more than she ever had in, it seemed like, an eternity. Her body that was so new, feeling things, both good and bad, was fascinating. What she felt in her mind had a definite physical effect to her body. She wanted to be with him, touch him, immerse herself with his thoughts, his conversation, his body…his presence.
But with gut-wrenching reality, she knew it would never be. She gazed at his face, drinking in the sight of him, committing it to memory so she could remember at any time she chose. “All right,” she whispered.
“We’ll go there tonight.”
She let him gently help her to stand, felt the cool air reclaim her skin the moment they no longer touched. She could remember that also, his touch, the way it made her skin tingle and her insides coil as though everything was wound tight. She would commit everything to memory because when the forgotten came to claim her again, she could reach out with her mind and satisfy herself that she had been here, she had existed. She had been human.
For a split second, she had become part of a reality with Daman.
And she liked it.
Chapter Six
The bell tolled, reverberating through him, long and low like a death march. Five times. Six. He peeled his hands from the steering wheel, dropped them in his lap. The windows had fogged and it still rained. Heavy drops splattered over the windows and pelted the roof. It was almost too loud to talk even in this confided space. So he didn’t.
It had been a long time since he’d been here. Three years to be exact. He hadn’t been back since that black day God took his life away. The day all that was good was taken away from him. It had never come back.
She had never come back.
He’d been punished for all his faults, his sins and misdeeds. A day didn’t go past when he didn’t remember her. His wife. The years had passed and guilt had come to overshadow his love.
The bell tolled twenty-four times that day. One for each year of her too-young life.
Each day since he’d lived to see revenge taken for the life that never should have been. The police psychiatrist had tried to have a go at him. Make him right. She’d tried for quite a time, making him her cause. Save the unsavable. He thought she’d breathed a sigh of relief when she transferred interstate. The definition of revenge in her book didn’t extend to the kind he had in mind.
In a way it would have been a relief to have died last night. If he still believed in that sort of stuff; that life goes on and all the hype that had been stuffed down his throat as a kid and Michelle was in a better place.
If there had been a God, then Michelle would never have been taken from him in the first place. She was the one who had deserved to live. She’d done nothing wrong except love him. If he could go back in time, he’d gladly stop himself meeting her again, if only she could have her life back. That she never would meet him. That was the only justice that could be done.
She’d paid the ultimate price for him.
It didn’t stack up. The life of a scumbag was no equal substitute for Michelle’s life.
Angel stirred in the seat next to him. He forcibly shook the desolate thoughts from his head. He was surprised to find it had gotten cold in the car, the heat long given way to the winter night outside.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was so cold in here?” he asked.
“I…you looked…lost in your thoughts.”
Damn. He sighed. He touched her hand and found it was cold as ice. “You’re freezing. Let’s go into the church. I hope the Father has the heat going.”
Daman flipped up his jacket collar against the rain and jogged up the church steps, holding Angel’s hand. They took shelter in the doorway while he grabbed the large gilded knocker and slammed it against the door. The booming knocks sounded hollow in the cavern beyond.
Angel held the edges of her jacket tightly under her chin. He maneuvered her so that she was sheltered against most of the rain, while he knocked again.
“What were you thinking of?” she asked. Her breath condensed in the frigid air. Her lips were turning blue and she tried to stop her teeth from chattering.
“Nothing,” he said shortly.
“Your thoughts wouldn’t have taken you away like that if they were about nothing.”
“I…it doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Maybe if you shared them they might be easier for you.”
He couldn’t tell an angel that didn’t remember she was an angel. She would have no answer for him that wasn’t said before. It was a past that had been written with blood and nothing could change that. He was sick of the comments, mostly the ones that were meant to make him feel better and get on with life. The tap on the hand, the slap on the back, how-are-you- doing-today-my-friend, not wanting to hear the real answer. It didn’t matter because nothing was going to change what happened and nothing was going to make him feel better about it until the bastards responsible died in jail and rotted in hell.
Then, when he had nothing else to live for he’d see himself off to a place where he could be with Michelle once again to live the life they should be living now.
He went to knock again when the door opened and a face appeared in the shadows. Daman flicked the collar of his jacket down so his face could be seen. The door opened further and the rather round face of the old priest appeared. “Daman Quade? I haven’t seen you since…”
“Sorry, Father, I know it’s been a long time, but don’t get your hopes up. I’m not here so you can save my soul, I just need some assistance on another matter. May I come in?” He stepped aside. “Father Joseph, this is Angel. She needs your help.”
The Father opened the door enough for them to walk through and ushered them in. They stepped into the foyer of the church while the p
riest closed the door against the gush of frigid wind. Although the church was drafty, the solid oak did its job in shutting out the rain and the biting wind of the bitter winter night.
The priest stepped around them, “Come. This way.”
Daman went to walk after the priest, but Angel stepped in front of him into the long central aisle of the church. Either side of them, gleaming oak pews were set in neat rows, the backs well-worn through years of handling through the worship of mass. The central passageway was marked in a different pattern of brown and cream tiles, meticulously laid in straight lines. As they walked, Daman took time to look at the church. The last time he’d been here, it had not been the time for sight-seeing.
Flying buttresses were held up by huge granite columns, making the ceiling impossibly high. The central aisle led to the steps upon which the white marble altar was set. It was beautifully handcrafted by masters of their trade. Mosaics of Christ’s life were inlaid between pure white columns, upon which the top of the altar was set. Seven lit candles had been placed in a neat line on the top, throwing a flickering light over the intricate golden candelabras either side of the altar area.
Beyond the altar on the wall behind the stage was a huge sculpture of Christ on the cross. Intrigued, Daman followed Angel. She’d paused, caught on the statue of Christ, wounded and dying on the cross.
“What is it, Angel?” he asked quietly. His voice echoed into the far recesses of the empty building.
She indicted the sculpture. “The Crucifixion of Christ.” Daman nodded, waiting while she thought.
“Why do humans remember him at his time of death? It is such a small sum of who he is. He has done so much more for humankind than this. Why remember his death when he has given so much life?”
“My child, we remember Christ gave his life for us so that we may go on to live a life beyond this one in heaven,” Father Joseph walked to her side.
“Oh, but you do live on. I thought everyone knew that,” she said.
Daman barely spoke, the knowledge that could be so close at hand was hiding behind the veil of a lost memory. “Angel, what life do we go to?”
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