The deck groaned, and Max shifted toward the storm door. Footsteps creaked on the wooden boards, the sound distinct, like the swirl of his mom’s teaspoon in a mug or her cough echoing at night. It was her.
Sure enough, Mom appeared on the deck outside in a white nightgown that was almost see-through. Ugh. Max cringed.
“What are you doing?” he snapped, a breeze brushing through the screen carrying the sickly sweet scent of cheap perfume or maybe day-old flowers. “Chloe was in here, alone, playing on the stove.”
Mom’s mouth lifted in an unnerving grin, cheek cocked to the side. Max knew what she looked like drunk. Staggering, crying, and puking were involved. But his mom stood steady, and her eyes weren’t glassy. Instead, her gaze was stretched wide and was oddly bewitching.
Who was she? He gulped. “You need a robe. Come in.”
“Why? Don’t like the way I look?” She slithered her lithe body, wind lifting her hair. There hadn’t been a breeze during his entire sticky run. Now every leaf in his yard stirred and his mom’s curls bounced.
“Did you know Chloe was cooking?”
“She said I could!” Chloe whined.
“Oh, I just love the smell of burned meat. Don’t you?” Mom tilted her head, nostrils flaring above exposed teeth.
“Are you okay?” Max asked, carefully choosing his words. “You’re acting…strange.”
“Am I, little pet?” She never called him that. “Tell me, how should I act?” She snapped her teeth together in three quick chomps.
“For the love of God, Ma, what is up with you?”
“Love?” She laughed, only it wasn’t her laugh. This was deep and rough. “Love is pathetic. It’s weak. I bring you strength. I ease your suffering. I will resurrect your mind. Join me!”
She was making no sense. She’d been babbling nonsense like this for almost two weeks. At first, he thought it was self-help lingo; then she started spouting it in her sleep.
Behind her, the wind picked up, sending a plastic bag dancing about their yard with spinning emerald leaves. Next door, a German shepherd barreled at their wooden fence, rattling it with his heavy paws. His black muzzle growled, his dark eyes pointed at his mother like he’d never seen her before. She pet him almost every day. It hopped on hind legs, his bark growing vicious.
Mom laughed, cackles rising with a sound that wasn’t hers. Instinctively, Max nudged Chloe behind him.
“Why don’t you go watch TV. I’ll make you a sandwich,” he whispered, trying to sound normal, but his voice was shaking. “You want bananas with your peanut butter? Or jelly?”
“Jelly,” she croaked, seeming unable to move. Max placed a clammy palm on her shoulder and pried himself from the spot where he’d been rooted. He guided Chloe toward the living room. “What’s wrong with Mommy?” Chloe mumbled in a nearly inaudible whisper.
Max had no answer. Still, he parted his lips to respond, but—
“Oh, my little pets, Mommy’s never been better.”
That voice. What was wrong with her voice?
Woodenly, Max turned to see Mom hovering in the screen door, silhouetted by the sunset, ochre light emanating around her frame, gleaming through the sheer white fabric of her fluttering gown. “The pain is gone, little pets. I have been rewarded. And soon, I will take away your pain too, take away everyone’s pain.”
Max dug his fingers into Chloe’s collarbone. “Go to your room,” he ordered through clenched teeth.
“But—”
“Go.” Max pushed her toward the narrow hall, and Chloe ran, bare feet squeaking on the floorboards.
As soon as she was out of view, Max swiveled back to the figure glowing in the doorway.
Her cheeks were pushed too high and her eyes offered a challenge. Come, boy, come to Mommy. You’re not afraid, are you?
He was, but still he stepped toward her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Vera
Vera wriggled into her black scrubs and double knotted the dangling white string at her waist. Her shift started in an hour. She was a part-time “food service assistant,” an overly official title for someone who delivered meals to hospital patients. Last year, during her first week on the job, her boss suggested she wear scrubs in “a cheery color!” like lavender or salmon; Vera chose black. She realized this was leaning in to her Cruella de Vil reputation in town, but she didn’t think it was her responsibility to skip about in sunny yellow just so strangers would stop prejudging her. She wore what she wanted.
Vera bounded down the creaky stairs, her hand skimming the banister. Morning light glinted through the stained-glass windows that were the primary reason her parents had bought the house. Right in the center of the staircase, where the landing pivoted toward the living room, were three slender windows featuring artful glass patterns in ruby, sapphire, emerald, and amber. It was like living in a church, which was where her parents spent most of their time anyway, so why not bring their work home with them?
“Aunt Tilda, I’m leaving!” she called on her way to the door.
“Breakfast!” her aunt hollered, emerging from the kitchen with a spatula coated in egg. “I don’t want you touching hospital food.”
“That’s literally my job.” Vera cocked her head.
Her aunt rejected all forms of hospitals, doctors, pharmaceuticals, Western medicine, Eastern medicine. She believed in God. God will cure all. God’s will be done.
Vera once told her that God created chemo; her aunt left the room.
Obviously, Vera believed in a higher power. She couldn’t grow up in a family like hers, seeing the things she’d seen, and not believe there were other forces at work. She had faith, but that faith also extended to science. Whenever Vera wheeled her squeaky cart into a hospital room and saw a family collapsed in a puddle of helplessness, Vera dreamt of med school and one day being able to help sop up the mess.
“I’m gonna be late.” Vera dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of toast and a sausage link. “I’ll eat a good lunch,” she promised as she raced from the house, ignoring her aunt’s pleas.
The front door yawned as she thudded across the porch toward her beat-up sedan. It was a guilt gift from her parents on her sixteenth birthday. The door was dented, and it slumped every time she opened it. The car also took two turns of her key to get it started, and the gas gauge didn’t really work, but it had four wheels and drove. Vera loved it.
She navigated herself to work on autopilot and methodically moved through her day—fill the tray, serve the food, collect the dishes. Repeat. The smiles got her through the monotony, and the proximity to the medical world kept her coming back. Plus, every paycheck took her a little further out of Roaring Creek.
“Here you go, Mr. Gonzalez.” Vera lifted the hospital-grade pasta off her cart and set it on the swivel table attached to the patient’s bed. She made sure the steamed carrots were closest to him, because he liked those best. Then she peeled off the foil top to the apple juice, knowing his arthritis made it hard for him to pinch.
“Gracias.” The old man nodded, wisps of gray hair dotting his sun-spotted head. He smiled with the glint of a young man. “I used to be a cook, you know. In the army. I peeled potatoes!”
“Hmm.” Vera hummed, already knowing this story.
She headed back to her cart, and a woman wheeled past the open door, Get Well Soon silver balloons trailing behind her.
“My Maria loved my cooking,” Mr. Gonzalez went on. “Especially my croquettes! Chicken, and sometimes a little jalapeño…” He winked.
Vera half listened, her eyes busy avoiding a makeshift altar resting on a small table near the window. Every time she passed it, the hairs rose on her arms. Vera supported religious expression. Of course she did. First Amendment and all that. But she swore the air in the room grew colder the closer she got to it.
Plus, it had grown. Atop a disposable tablecloth now sat fresh lemony carnations in a glass bubble vase. There were black and white candles—not burning, of course—along with a chocolate bar with frayed gold foil, a crumpled dollar bill, a small jar of what Vera hoped was dirt, and a gold-trimmed chalice seemingly filled with water. But it was the object in the center that caused icy fingers to slither down her neck—a twelve-inch statue of an ivory skeleton in a white robe with matching feathery wings. Its bony hands held an ivory torch, a skull carved into the handle, and it was upside down, the flame at its feet extinguished. It was weeping, black streaks marking its face.
“The Angel of Tears,” said Mr. Gonzalez, noticing her gaze.
“Yes, I know.” Vera nodded stiffly.
Just get out of here.
She tossed a polite see-you-later grin his way. Then she paused at the sight of his face. His smile looked off. His lips were turned up, the corners straining toward his ears as they had been earlier, but now his mouth looked too wide and his lips too moist. A sudden smell wafted through the room. Her eyes searched for a bedpan, but it wasn’t human waste. The air was full of rotting sweetness, as if the carnations were dying, only the petals looked fresh. The stench hadn’t been there earlier. She was sure of it.
“El Ángel was there for my Maria,” he said, his voice suddenly scratchy.
Mr. Gonzalez suffered from dementia, had just had hip surgery, and was on a grand cocktail of new medications. Sometimes he thought he was back in high school and Vera was his date to the dance. Other times, he spoke at length about his days in Mexico. And almost every time she saw him, he mentioned his wife.
“El Ángel brings me good fortune. The spirit answers my prayers. It listens.” His voice was deep, croaking almost, and there was thick drool dribbling down his chin. He made the sign of the cross with a shriveled hand, joints swollen and stiff like a claw. When he kissed his fingers, gums bared, she saw his teeth—tawny and crisscrossing as if threatening to collapse onto the floor. A moment ago, his grin was gleaming.
“I prayed to El Ángel, and my Maria was spared. Do you know my Maria?”
A patient moaned in the room next door. An alarm buzzed. At a quick clip, a police officer jogged down the hall.
Then a frosty wind blew on Vera’s neck.
Go. Now, her brain ordered.
“Of course,” Vera lied, hugging her chest. Her job was to deliver food pleasantly and with as little interaction as possible.
She turned back to the door and lengthened her stride.
“El Ángel is here for you too.”
Three more steps. Just grab the cart and go.
A baby wailed nearby, rhythmic shrieks in bursts of three, and a heaviness fell in the room, the dust motes gaining density, growing more visible. What was that sweet stench? Like rotting lilies.
“My Maria is waiting for me,” he babbled. “And soon my soul will be rewarded. El Ángel makes it so. You just have to believe.”
Vera understood the intensity of belief. Catholicism flowed with the blood in her veins. Her aunt prayed to saints when she had so much as a flat tire. “St. Eligius, please assist me in my hour of need,” her aunt beseeched when their car broke down outside of IKEA. The woman was right: there was literally a patron saint of mechanics. But you know what else there was? Triple A. Vera called. Guess which one arrived first?
Now, if you asked her aunt, she’d tell you that St. Eligius sent the tow truck. Vera disagreed when it came to flat tires, and definitely when it came to medicine. Whether you prayed to saints or believed in nothing at all, a tumor was a tumor and the treatment was the same. For Vera, spirituality gave her a moral compass; it taught her right from wrong; it made her believe in a world bigger than herself; and it created a hopeful outlook more conducive to healing. But praying to what looked like the Angel of Death? When you’re trying to heal? That seemed counterproductive.
Vera clutched the handle of her cart, the cool metallic feel conjuring an image of her basement doorknob. Why would she think of that?
Her grip tightened.
“Are you ready, Vera?” Mr. Gonzalez’s words clawed their way to her ears.
That couldn’t be him speaking. She turned, eyeing the face that matched the too-deep voice. His pupils were swollen, gobbling every speck of warm honey that normally spilled from his eyes, and his skin was ash gray with inky blue veins spreading like vines.
“It’s glorious!” His tongue lolled. “I’ve seen it. The end! You must not fear death. It’s like fearing peace or harmony. Open your arms and let the warmth of the next life embrace you!” Creamy spit splashed, his lips making the wet smack of a raft hitting a pool. “Be ready, Vera. El Ángel welcomes you. Can you feel it?”
He never used her name. The man had dementia.
And where had she heard those words before?
He cranked his mouth wide, glaring at the ceiling. The lights crackled, then flickered.
“Let go and your mind will be resurrected. For it is through suffering that we reach a pure state of being! Join me!” he called to the heavens.
What the h—
“Death is beautiful. It’s just sleep. And it wants you, Vera. Oh, how it wants you….”
A hollow laugh broke out, his bald head tossed back with a film of sweat, black eyes crazed. “It wants you. It wants you. It wants you…,” he sang like a child keeping time with a jump rope on a playground in Hell.
Vera didn’t reach for a call button. She didn’t check if he was okay. She sprinted, an animal fleeing with a pulse faster than her feet. She wheeled her cart down the hall, nearly colliding with a nurse. She didn’t stop. She didn’t apologize. Vera panted, clambering away from the room, from the shrine, from…whatever that was, whoever that was…until she couldn’t hear his murderous laugh anymore.
CHAPTER SIX
The Gift
In a sterile hospital room, an old man begs for peace. His wife is dying, of that he is certain. The years have been good to them. Their children are healthy. Their days are quiet. But their minds, oh, their minds.
Age is a cruel beast.
The wife slipped first—years ago, maybe even a decade, if he were being truly honest. And at a time like this, why not be honest?
The first time he noticed, she forgot her father’s name. Then she forgot what day it was. Then she forgot she had grandkids.
Their children decided on a “home.” Though there was nothing homey about it. The room stank of Lysol, and the bed was lined with buttons. The walls were white. There were few pictures.
She slept. The light rise and fall of her frail chest the only way he knew she still existed. Through it all, the husband rubbed the loose skin on her hand. She was still her.
Then their son visited, dispensing questions with a familiar look in his eyes. Did he know what day it was? Who was president? The old man had watched this happen before. They’d stripped his wife of her humanity, her dignity. He’d let her become something they promised each other they would never, ever be.
Now he was next.
So he placed the statue of the Angel of Tears by her bedside, its ivory wings soaring toward the heavens, the extinguished torch pointed her way.
“Please show her mercy. Please give her peace.”
There was no answered prayer.
Next, he brought an offering, a bottle of sweet red wine. “Please let her leave this earth with grace.”
The following morning, a flush appeared on her cheeks.
He brought bread.
Then flowers.
With each gift, he felt a fresh vibration tingle within him, nothing dramatic, just a little hum. Slowly, she stopped moaning in her sleep. Her bedsores looked better. Her hair gleamed, more silver than ashen.
He was helping.
So on this day, he brings a candle, white for pur
ity. He places it by her bedside and holds her hand. “Please, Ángel, show her kindness. Let her leave this world as herself. I will do anything. Anything…”
For the first time in days, her eyelids flutter. They peel open, blue as the day he met her, and clear, oh so clear.
“Héctor,” she says, her breath sweet as candy. He can taste her kiss.
“I’m here, mi amor. I’m here.” Tears drip from his eyes as he touches her cheek, adrenaline coursing through him like a young man. He feels powerful.
“Te amo,” she says.
His smile stretches so wide, it strains his cheeks.
“I see it, Héctor.” Her eyes glow with the intelligence of youth. “I will see you there. I’ll be waiting for you.”
When the last breath puffs from her chest, it’s as if it puffs straight into his own. He grows dizzy. Storm clouds swirl before him. Blue flames erupt in his temples. He reaches for the bed rail to steady himself, leaning his head on her chest, which no longer moves.
Fever rushes through him as he inhales her scent, sickeningly sweet, like August flowers.
She is gone.
And something else has arrived. It’s inside him.
He lifts his head, his chest puffing for the both of them. His vision ripens. He removes his glasses and sees dust drifting in the air. He turns toward the closed window and hears a bee buzzing against the glass. Then the smells come—the pungent cleansers, stale air, and oh, yes, there’s Maria, the perfume lingering in her hair.
Something is changing within him.
Something he can’t control.
Something he doesn’t want to stop.
“Mr. Gonzalez?” says a nurse rushing into the room. “Oh, Mr. Gonzalez! Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss!”
She fiddles with the machines, her hands busy and her eyes glassy. She is filling with grief.
Only he is not sad. He knows the truth.
His wife is not gone. She is waiting for him.
Soon he will join her, but not until he spreads the word.
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