Falling From Grace (71 page)

I put my notebook down and flipped the book back to the first poem, the one that I had avoided because it seemed to go on forever.
 
Miss Maggie had never steered me wrong before when it came to things to read, so I took her word for it and settled in.

As I read, I realized that this poem was about angels, and that I had read it before.
 
I read further and stopped at a verse that sounded so familiar, much more familiar than having simply read it once in passing.
 
It was an intimate familiarity.
 
I continued reading, figuring that the memory would come back to me as I kept going.

The further I read, the more personal the dialogue became, and I found myself imagining that I was the angel named Ianthe, who shone brightly and was madly in love with her angel lover Angelo.
 
My mind took me into their world, and I felt the incredible emotion that surrounded the two lovers, their love being so strong, so demanding of their energy and attention, they failed their duty as angels, and were locked out of Heaven.

I realized that deep inside of me, I secretly wished that Robert would do the same for me, for love.
 
I was instantly filled with shame at my selfishness, and closed the book, not wanting to read anymore of angels or the price one paid for loving someone too much.
 
Robert had already paid a price for loving me.
 
I couldn’t demand he sacrifice again because I wanted him near me.
 
I couldn’t even think it.
 
But I did.
 
I thought it, and then I hit myself for thinking it.
 
I must have looked like a complete idiot, smacking myself in the forehead and talking to myself while doing it.

Taking my little moment of insanity as a sign that it was time to leave, I went to place the book back on the shelf, but found that Miss Maggie was standing there, her hands full of some ancient looking books.

“Ah, Grace, there you are.
 
Did you read the poem?
 
Wasn’t it lovely?”

I shook my head.
 
“Not really.
 
I think that there are some things that you simply don’t sacrifice for love.”

She looked at me in shock.
 
“Really?
 
Like what, dear?”

The inability to lie paid off for me then because it was a question that I had wanted answered myself.
 
“Your dreams.
 
You don’t sacrifice your dreams for love.
 
Especially if you’ve had them for your entire life.”

She smiled a knowing smile and patted me on my shoulder.
 
“You know, dear, sometimes the things we dream about are merely the heart’s way of protecting us from what we really want, and what we’re really afraid to lose.”

I watched as she placed her books on the shelf and took the book from my hand and placed it back in its original slot without even having to look.
 
I suppose that is what comes from being a librarian for so long.

“I’m gonna get going so I can start on this paper of mine, Miss Maggie.
 
It was really nice seeing you, and thank you for the little talk.”

She waved her hand, “Bye Grace.
 
I hope you found what you were looking for.”

***

When I arrived home, I rushed to the stairs, raising my hand in a mute greeting to the loud male chorus of “hey Grace” that arose from the living room, and headed up to my room.
 
I threw my book bag onto the bed and took out my notebook, needing to read the notes that I had jotted down.

The poems that I had copied for my dissection essay were no longer holding my attention.
 
My mind kept drifting back to that first poem, and how selfishly I had reacted to it.
 
It was like it was pulling all of the worst possible feelings I had inside of me and laying them on top of everything that made me who I was.
 
It smothered everything, and all I could think about was Robert and me, tumbling through the sky.

I tossed my notebook onto the ground and placed my face into the mattress.
 
The whole day had started out as a mission to complete an assignment, and it had turned into a life-altering experience where I was suddenly the bad guy, and I didn’t like it.

***

It took me another week before I was able to finish the final draft of the essay.
 
I took the easy way out, and wrote about the Raven and Lenore.
 
I knew that it would just disappear amongst all of the other essays about the Raven and Lenore, but I didn’t really care at that point.
 
I just wanted to get the assignment done and out of the way so that I wouldn’t have to think about any Poe poems anymore.

When I turned it in, I felt relief when I saw it disappear under another essay, exactly as I expected it.
 
I didn’t think about it again until that Friday, when Mrs. Muniz called me to her desk before class began to discuss it.

“Grace, I would like to ask you to consider doing this paper over again,” she said matter-of-factly, holding out my neatly typed, double spaced essay in her hand while tapping it with the other.

My head jerked back in response to her suggestion.
 
Do it over again?
 
“Any reason why, Mrs. Muniz?”

She pulled open a manila folder on her desk and pointed at the contents inside.
 
More essays.
 
“You have an incredible gift for writing
—
a passion for it
—
and yet there isn’t even an ounce of emotion in this.
 
You might as well have been writing about earthworm mating habits.”

I took the insult in stride because I knew that she was right.
 
I hadn’t put as much effort into the writing as I did with avoiding the thoughts that were running rampant in my mind.
 
I took the essay from her hand.
 
“I guess I could do better.”

She seemed annoyed by my response.
 
“You can do more than better, Grace.
 
If you want to turn that in, and accept the grade it would receive, then that’s fine.
 
But, if you want to turn in something that will get you the grade you deserve, then please do.
 
You have until the end of next week to decide.”

I nodded and returned to my desk with my essay, unsure of what I was going to do.

The answer came by way of Lark, who had been avoiding me since we returned to school the Monday after Thanksgiving.
 
Stacy, who had learned about what had happened and had repeated the same story that Lark had told to explain Robert’s absence from school, had been acting as a slight go-between, understanding that I was full of questions that Lark just couldn’t answer, and Lark was full of answers that I just didn’t want to hear.
 

Stacy had continued with my Tae Kwon Do classes in the same upbeat and yet violent manner since Robert’s call, but today, she was giving, or should I say, she was more open to my getting in a few good hits without feeling the need to retaliate in some painful manner.

“What’s up, Stacy?” I asked once class was over and we were on our hands and knees wiping the floor and mats.
 
“You’re not usually this…nice.”

She threw her rag on the ground and placed her hands on her thighs as she sat on her heels.
 
“Lark has been bugging me to get you to talk to her.
 
She doesn’t want to just pop up in your head, or at your house, and so she’s been doing it in mine.
 
She has a lot of stuff she has to say to you
—
stuff about Robert.”

My heart started racing when she said that Lark had something to tell me about Robert.
 
Was he coming home?

Stacy held her hands up, her face screwed with what looked like too much information.
 
“Ugh
—
Lark wants to know if she can come and talk to you now, because I’m kind of done with this mind-telephone operator thing.”

I nodded my head, and then there she was, as if she had been there the whole time.
 
“You were hiding out nearby, weren’t you?”

“Well, I’m not as quick as my brother, plus I get a kick out of seeing the two of you beat each other up,” she replied.
 
Looking at her was painful.
 
She was so beautiful in her own way, but she was also so similar in appearance to Robert, I had to look away.
 
I didn’t want to see anything that looked like him until it was him.
 
I didn’t want to ruin his face in my mind.

“Well, thanks,” Lark huffed, “I’m glad I’m able to ruin Robert’s perfection in some way.”
 
She took a step towards us and Stacy shrieked.

“Take your shoes off!
 
No shoes on the floor!”

Lark rolled her eyes and removed her sneakers.
 
She padded over to us in her socked feet and then gracefully knelt down and assumed a very ladylike seated position that I knew I would have never been able to pull off.

“I wanted to tell you, Grace, that Robert is coming back-”

“When?” I grabbed her arms, interrupting her, too anxious to hear anything else but a time, a date, anything.

Her eyes narrowed as she pulled her arms out of my grasp with a slinky, effortless movement that made my grip
—
the strongest I could have ever formed
—
appear weak hearted.
 

“He doesn’t know for sure.
 
His call wasn’t what he expected.
 
It wasn’t what I expected, that’s for sure.” I detected a little bit of dismay in her eyes, but then her eyes widened and she smiled widely.
 
“He says that he loves you, and that you’ll see him soon.
 
And, he says to read it again.”

Her smile was infectious, made more potent by the news that Robert loved me
—
even after achieving his greatest dream
—
and that he was coming back to me soon.
 
But that last part, about reading it again.
 
What exactly did he mean by
it
?

Lark shrugged her shoulders.
 
“He just said to read
it
again.”

I looked at her with doubt written plainly on my face.
 
How could she not know what he meant?

She shook her head, annoyed by my thoughts.
 
“He’s going through a lot right now, a lot of information is flowing through his mind, the entire history of our kind, things that we only find out after we receive the call.
 
There is too much information in there to sift through, Grace, and I’m sorry if I didn’t stop and take the time to run through everything to find out what he meant.”

Immediately contrite, I reached my hand out to hold hers.
 
“I’m sorry, Lark.
 
I’m being an ingrate.
 
I was trying so hard to not think about Robert and here you are, with so much of him in your head.
 
I’ll figure out what he meant on my own.
 
It shouldn’t be so hard, right?”

And, it turned out that it wasn’t.
 
The next day, Stacy, Lark, and I went back to the old library.
 
I was convinced that whatever
it
was, it was something that I had read here.
 
I scoured the fiction section, looking for anything of importance that I might have read.
 
Stacy sat on the floor with a book in her hand and proceeded to read.
 
I asked what she was reading, and she held the book up.
 
I rolled my eyes.
 
“Don’t you think you’re a little old for that?”

She grinned.
 
“No one is too old for a little Seuss.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I headed towards Lark, who had posited herself in the poetry section.
 
“I found a few books that might interest you.”
 
She held up a couple of books with worn covers.
 
One of them I recognized as the Poe book that I had read a week ago.

“I read this one already,” I mumbled.

Read it again.

Confused, I took the book, ignoring the other one in Lark’s hand, and went to find my own corner to sit down.
 
I flipped the first few pages until I came upon the first poem.
 
It was the one that I had avoided that first time, the one that I had gone back to read after Miss Maggie had insisted, the one that had made me start to imagine being enough to leave Heaven behind.

I found myself once again becoming immersed in the rhythmic verse as I was swept away by the tale of an angel doing as she had been commanded, and two who had not.
 
I read it twice, and had started to read it again for the third time when something struck a chord within me.

That feeling of familiarity that I had felt the first time I read the poem had returned, this time with far more clarity.
 
I could hear the voice in my head, see his face.