Capturing Angels

by V. C. Andrews

  I put my fingers on his lips. “Je ne regrette rien,” I said. “Listen to Edith Piaf. Don’t even mention the possibility.”

  I rose and began to dress. He lay with his hands behind his head, watching me.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

  “I’m stopping at Whole Foods on the way home to pick up a ready-cooked chicken. For the first time in a long time, I have a real appetite,” I said.

  I started for the bedroom doorway.

  “Grace . . .”

  “Don’t say anything else, Sam. Sometimes words get in the way.”

  “I’ll call you,” he called from the bedroom before I reached the front door. “About the case,” he added.

  I held the door open a moment, took a deep breath, and called back. “Good.”

  Then I stepped out like someone who had just been given a good prognosis by her doctor.

  “You’re going to live,” I whispered to myself, and headed for the elevator, my car, the store, and home.

  11

  A Cursory Prayer

  John had set the table. He would often do that. He always did it better than I did, with the silverware, dishes and glasses geometrically perfectly placed, the napkins crisply folded, and the bottle of wine aerating in a carafe. Before Mary’s abduction, if she wasn’t with me wherever I had gone, she would help him. Everything she did had the same exactness and perfection. She was always looking for her father’s approval, no matter how small the task.

  John could make the most mundane activities look like works of art, but he had that approach to whatever he did in his life.

  “Ah, I wondered where you had gone and what we were going to have tonight,” he said when I pulled the chicken out of the grocery bag. “Perfect.”

  It didn’t surprise me, of course, that he wouldn’t immediately bring up my angry reaction on the phone.

  “I’ll warm it up,” I said, “and fix up some vegetables and sweet potatoes.”

  “And I’ll do a salad,” he said. I saw that he had already begun.

  We worked side by side. It was almost as it had been, a family symphony, the two of us in the kitchen with Mary quietly doing the little she could and looking very serious. Her face, which usually resembled mine, moved from my face to his whenever she concentrated on something intently. Out of habit, I glanced to my right and then to my left, looking to see what she was up to. John caught that and grimaced. Instantly, I replaced his disapproving face with Sam’s compassionate one, but my whole body tightened as if I, like Lot’s wife, had looked back on Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I was worrying about you after that phone call.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “What?”

  “That you were worried. Was it on the news I missed?”

  “Very funny. So?”

  “I’m okay,” I insisted.

  He nodded and turned back to his salad preparation. “I understand you met the Los Angeles detective who was first on the case,” he said nonchalantly as he cut some carrots.

  I paused, my heart beating faster. “How did you know that?”

  “Right.” He raised his right forefinger. “How would I know that? You didn’t tell me. The detective certainly didn’t tell me. Ah, David Joseph, the FBI agent, told me.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  He turned to me, holding the glittering vegetable knife like a candle in the darkness. “I speak to him periodically, Grace. What do you think? He’s even stopped by my office a few times.”

  “He has? When? You’ve never said anything about it to me.”

  “They had nothing to tell us. What would I say? I didn’t want to get your hopes up and then have nothing concrete to tell you, did I?”

  “Still, I would have liked to have known you were still on the investigation,” I said.

  “Still? Of course, I would be. I’m just more realistic about it,” he added, turning back to the salad preparation.

  “Realistic? Is that the way you categorize it?”

  “Yes, realistic. Why should I bring more suffering into our home? That’s what false hope does.”

  I returned to what I was doing. “At this point, I’d like to have any hope, false or otherwise,” I muttered.

  “Don’t be foolish. Anyway, David Joseph assured me they’re still doing some very vigorous investigating. When he has something significant or new to tell us, he will.” He paused and looked at me again. “Why did Molly Middleton bring up the Samson James incident this morning?” he asked. “It happened quite a while ago. Why did she bring it up today?”

  I froze for a moment. I hadn’t mentioned Sam’s interrogating her. “She said Lieutenant Abraham questioned her about it, and she was disturbed. She thought she might have done something wrong talking about Mary and Bradley.”

  “So, you mentioned that to him? Is that how he knew about Bradley Middleton’s recovery? Because I never mentioned it to any of them, nor did Margaret. I asked her.”

  “I guess,” I said. “I can’t recall what I did and didn’t say. It was very traumatic for me. I actually couldn’t get into the department store on my own. I was standing there frozen when he called to me.”

  He ignored my last statement. “I wonder what he’s after there, questioning Molly Middleton about that.”

  “I don’t know, John. We’ll have to wait to see,” I said. “Maybe you’ll hear from the FBI about it soon, and when you do, I hope you’ll tell me immediately.”

  “Yes, of course. How about some blue cheese in the salad tonight? Did you remember to get some? We’re out.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  I handed it to him. He held the package without taking it for a moment and stared at me. Then he smiled. It was a smile I hadn’t seen in quite a while, a smile I recalled winning me over when we were first dating. There was a certain light in his eyes, a look of desire that on anyone else’s face I would have called pure lust.

  “What?”

  “Suddenly, you look better than I expected you would tonight, Grace. Your face has some color.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not wearing any makeup,” I said, and turned away quickly. I was sure I was turning even more crimson.

  John knew how I looked after I made love. I was afraid of his perception. No other man could look at me and come quickly to the conclusion that I had recently had sex with another man, I thought, and then I told myself that I was just being foolish or looking guilty. It was ridiculous to think that he could see such a thing so long after it had occurred. Get hold of yourself, Grace Clark, I thought.

  “What’s ridiculous about it?” he asked. “It was just an innocent comment. Anyway, you don’t have to jump down my throat for giving you a compliment.”

  “Sorry,” I said, turning and softening my smile. “I was more surprised than upset. It’s been a while.”

  “I see. But you know I give out compliments only when I believe they’re deserved or justified. That way, they have real meaning, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, John. You’re right.”

  “I was thinking that we’d take my father to dinner Friday night, drive up to Sherman Oaks and take him to that steak house he likes.”

  “Fine.”

  “We should see more of your parents, too. Maybe next weekend, we can spend a day or two in the desert. We haven’t been there since . . .”

  “I’ll see,” I said. “It’s depressing being around my mother. She doesn’t look at me without her eyes tearing up, and my father isn’t much better.”

  “So, it’s good for us to buoy them up a bit.”

  “For us to buoy them up? For us? They didn’t lose a child. We did.”

  “It’s charitable, Grace. It
’s the way you can show your love. You think about the pain other people suffer, too.”

  I shook my head at him. “Why didn’t you go into the clergy, John? Why didn’t you become a priest?”

  He smiled. “Simple. I wouldn’t have had you,” he said. “And Mary and the new child we’ll have someday. Some of us are meant to be shepherds, and others are meant to be the sheep.”

  “Excuse me if I don’t baaa,” I muttered, and we returned to the dinner preparations in silence.

  We brought everything to the table and sat. I glanced at the empty place mat at Mary’s seat. John had already folded his hands against each other, his fingers forming the temple. He waited for me to fold mine.

  After he said his prayers, we began to eat.

  “So,” he began, “it’s rather like divine intervention, your just happening to run into that detective at the mall, don’t you think?”

  For the first time in a long time, I thought I could agree with him, but for more reason than he would or maybe could imagine.

  “Yes.”

  “What made you finally want to go back there? You told me you were having trouble doing that.”

  “I wanted to revisit the scene in hopes I might think of something new.”

  He nodded. “Very logical. It’s always when we put something away for a while that we begin to see things we hadn’t seen. Did anything come to mind, anything new?”

  “I think I realized the exact moment when Mary’s hand left mine.”

  “And that was?”

  “Just after we came up the escalator.”

  He nodded. “You told this to the detective?”

  “He went through it with me even though he wasn’t there for any investigating. He was off work and doing some personal shopping.”

  “I see.” He continued to eat and then paused as if he had just remembered something. “Margaret was quite upset about her phone conversation with you this morning. She, too, thought she might have done something wrong. She said you practically accused her of spying on you.”

  “That’s the way it felt.”

  “Worrying over you and spying on you are two different things, Grace,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Where did you go last night?”

  “I didn’t feel like staying home alone. And,” I quickly added, “I didn’t want Margaret’s company. Worrying or spying, she still makes me feel like I have a caretaker now.”

  “I understand. So, where were you?”

  “I just . . . had something to eat on Third Street, looked at some shops, and came home.”

  It occurred to me almost the moment the words were spun out of my mouth that I could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many times I had not told John the truth about something I had done. People lie because they want to deceive for selfish reasons, they want to spare someone something unpleasant, or they are afraid of the person to whom they are speaking. I had so few occasions for any of those three reasons, but at the moment, I was lying for all of them.

  From almost the first time I had met John until now, I had idolized and respected his powers and vision. Over time, his super-self-confidence had begun to annoy me, but when we first met, I was drawn to his certainty and self-assurance. How I wanted to be more like him. As he had said earlier, he couldn’t even lie to himself. He couldn’t give out false compliments. Someone that honest surely had the power to recognize untruth when it came from someone else, especially someone he had loved and been with for so long.

  However, if he did see through me, he didn’t reveal it.

  “Well, I assure you that poor Margaret does agonize over this tragedy and worries, not spies,” he said. “Few people have friends like her.”

  “I’ll apologize. I just wasn’t in the mood to receive any calls or visitors.”

  “You can’t continue to be a firecracker, Grace. You really should see the therapist. She has an excellent reputation. I did some more checking up.”

  I slapped my fork down and fumed for a moment.

  “What?”

  “Did you ever consider why it is that you don’t need a therapist, John? Isn’t the loss of Mary as deep a loss for you as it is for me, regardless of what you think is God’s will?”

  He thought for a moment, as though I had asked him an excellent question. It struck me that this pensive demeanor of his after something I had asked used to amuse me, if not flatter me. It was as though I had asked something beyond my intellectual capacities, and he would have a better image of me. Right now, however, it was annoying. He looked more like someone humoring someone else.

  “Everyone faces crisis differently, I suppose. We come from different backgrounds, different experiences, and simply have different constitutions. It’s not unlike why some people can’t eat spicy foods and some can.”

  “I hardly think it’s like that.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the best answer I can think of right now,” he said, making it seem that I was in desperate need of one.

  “I’ve told you a number of times now. I don’t want to see a therapist.”

  “Well,” he said, sighing, “it’s not going to be of any value unless you do want to.”

  “Exactly.”

  I picked up my fork and ate. In his inimitable fashion, John smoothly segued into describing his company and the changes it was undergoing. If I could close my eyes and rewind time, this dinner would seem no different from dinners before Mary’s abduction. Was Sam right? Was John’s way of living as if nothing was different the best way to cope? I told myself I didn’t care. I didn’t want to cope. I wanted to feel the loss of my precious little girl all day and all night. I wanted to reach for her, to listen for her, to smell her hair and kiss her soft cheeks. I ached to do it all, and I would not tolerate any therapy, any psychology, theology, or logic that would keep me from feeling it, from suffering because I didn’t have her.

  As soon as we had finished eating and I had begun to clear the dishes, the doorbell rang.

  “Oh, I expect that’s Margaret with another homemade dessert for us. She mentioned she was going to make something,” he said, rising. He paused in the doorway and turned back to me. “You can apologize to her now, if you like.”

  “Yes, teacher,” I said, and he laughed.

  “Now, that’s the Grace I married, the witty and satirical one.”

  He continued to the front door. I began rinsing off the dishes and putting them into the dishwasher. I sensed that they were both right behind me, watching me, so I spun around.

  Margaret was carrying one of her angel-food cakes with chocolate icing. It was absolutely Mary’s favorite. She liked it more than Margaret’s pies. I simply stared at it. She knew it was Mary’s favorite. It was almost cruel of her to have made it and brought it.

  “I do want to apologize for upsetting you this morning,” she said.

  “No, it was my fault. I’m sorry, Margaret. I know you mean well.”

  “How about some coffee and some of this delicious cake?” John said.

  “I’ll have some coffee. I don’t know if I can eat anything more,” I said, and started on the coffee.

  Margaret put the cake on the table. “You know,” she said, sitting, “it might be a comforting distraction for you to come with me to the senior center one of these days. We’re always looking for more volunteers.”

  “Distraction?” I said.

  She glanced at John. “I mean, some respite from your heavy burden, Grace. A soul can stand only so much. We are all being tested all the time, but we can best endure when we take our minds off ourselves and help others. It’s better than going to therapy.”

  “Help others? Better than therapy? What are you two, a team?” I said.

  John laughed. “No good trying to fool her, Margaret. She’s too smart. We confess that we’ve pu
t our heads together to come up with something to help you, Grace, since you’re so dead set against professional therapy.”

  “You’ve got to believe that someday your Mary will be returned to you,” Margaret said. “It’s important that you be strong and healthy when she does. She would need someone like that, don’tcha think, dear?” She seemed ready to burst into tears herself.

  “I do believe she’ll come home,” I said.

  “Yes, but someone in your state of mind is so vulnerable to so many things, and I’m not speaking only of colds and such. The world is full of predators, as you know, as we all know. Satan is always just around the corner,” she said, nodding. “Satan appears in all forms to confuse men so they take their eyes off of God. We must pray for God’s strength and guidance every day.”

  “Don’t turn my house into one of your churches, Margaret,” I said, but not meanly or sullenly.

  Even so, John’s eyes narrowed. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them,” he recited.

  “Amen,” Margaret said.

  “All right, all right. I’ll think about it,” I said. “Catering to the elderly might bring me some comforting distraction. Okay?” I asked John.

  He nodded. “We’re just trying to help each other,” he said. He put his hand on Margaret’s shoulder, and she put hers over his. “We’re all suffering through this together.”

  I turned to the coffeepot. The two of them were making me feel even guiltier than I was making myself feel. I wanted to shoot past them and out the front door, just run and run forever down the street so I could get away from my house and them as quickly as I could. But wasn’t I running away from myself more?

  “I’ll cut the cake,” John said when I reached for three coffee cups and saucers.

  Margaret, who knew our house as well as I did, rose to get the milk and sugar. Moments later, I was sitting at the table with them and staring down at a piece of cake that John had cut for me despite what I had said.

  “I’m getting a visitor tomorrow,” Margaret said.

  “Oh?” John sipped his coffee. “Relative? Someone from Ireland?”