Into This River I Drown (42 page)

“Your mother invited us,” he says, checking himself out in the mirror again.

“Vanity,” I scold him.

“It would be rude not to go. Do you like this tie?”

“It’s okay, I guess. I don’t know why you want to wear a tie.”

“Oh.”

“She also invited Abe.”

“Yes. Good. I like Abe.”

“And the Trio.”

“Nina. Ah, little one. She is so special.”

“And Mary and Christie,” I remind him. “Who don’t know you sprout wings like a butterfly.”

He stops looking at his reflection to scowl at me. “I’m
not
a butterfly. I am big. Impressive, even. Suzie Goodman told me I was the most impressive specimen of man she’d ever had the pleasure of seeing.”

I roll my eyes as I finish his tie. “And why were you talking to Suzie Goodman?” I ask, ignoring the flash of jealousy that I want no part of. I know as well as Cal does that he’d never do anything with her. He just likes to get a rise out of me. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, though I do cinch his tie more tightly than I need to.

“I was reading on the computer that you have to keep your man interested, so it’s always good to make sure he knows others are.”

I frown at him. “Angels are not allowed to go on the Internet.”

He winces. “Probably a good idea. That place has so much
porn
.”

I don’t want to know. Okay, I do. “Let’s just get through this so we can come back to Little House.”

Cal kisses me gently before walking out of our room. “Sure thing,” he calls over his shoulder. “I did learn some things on the Internet that I want to try on you. It’s not
all
bad.”

I stare after him as his laughter floats back to me.

It’s
a warm spring evening, the Jump Into Summer Festival now only a week away. Mom has invited Cal and me up for dinner at Big House with the rest of the family. She and I have kept our distance from each other since that night in the cemetery weeks before. It wasn’t anything unusual for us, at least at first. Even though we live right next to each other, there’s been times since I moved into Little House that we have gone months without seeing each other. We leave notes here and there. Maybe a text message or two. A voice mail if it’s really important.

But now I have a life preserver of sorts, someone who is trying to keep me afloat. He has his hand curled in mine as we walk up the hill toward Big House, the sun already starting to set. A sweet breeze that smells like the trees washes over us, and for a moment, a brief second, I’m able to forget about everything that has happened, and everything that could still happen. For a moment, I’m walking up the driveway to Big House with my boyfriend to have dinner with people I care about. For a moment, I’m twenty-one years old and don’t know what true pain feels like. I am young and alive and ready to face anything the world throws at me. I don’t have a goddamn care in the world. Nothing can touch me. Nothing can hurt us. As long as I have this man by my side, as long as I can look the four women and one man who wait for us in Big House straight in the eye and tell them everything I’m feeling, then nothing else matters. It’s a lovely thought, deceptive though it might be.

Nina waits for us on the porch. She stands as we approach her, looking almost shy. “Do you like my new dress?” she asks, twirling around. “It was blue so I thought of Blue.” And it is, a dark-blue sundress that reminds me of his wings. It has little ruffles on the shoulders and white flowers sewn into the fabric. “Mary helped me pick it out.”

Cal lets go of my hand and stands in front of Nina, then bends over until they are face to face. “It’s the prettiest dress in the world,” he tells her seriously. “And you look very beautiful, little one. But then you always have.”

She giggles as she blushes, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. I should have known she would be perceptive to the changes in him, that she could see things no one else would. She stiffens against him and her eyes go wide. “How?” she whispers as she stares at me. “What did you do?”

Wow. It sure is bright today.

The stars?

Oh, no
.

The moon?

Bless the moon, but no. What did you do today?

I was at work, Nina. You know that. At the store
.

No, Benji. What did you
do
?

I wait, feeling uneasy.

She pulls from his embrace and looks up at him. I can’t see his face, but his posture is tense. “Things are different,” Nina says as she squints, as if trying to physically see just what she felt. For all I know, maybe she can.

“It’s not a bad thing,” I hear Cal say in a low voice.

“But you hurt,” she says, her lip quivering. “You ache in the haze of your mind. The pieces are shattered and you’re trying to put them back together. Why do you want to remember so bad? Aren’t you happy here? Can’t you just live for now instead of then?” Her gaze flickers over to me as she says this last, and I have to look away.

“Because,” he whispers as his shoulders slump, “I have to know what happened. I have to know what I did. I have to find out what I can do to make things right. This is my test, I think.”

I start forward, wanting to wrap myself around him, to take him away from here back to the moment where nothing could touch us and none of this stuff mattered. But I stop as Nina speaks again. “If you did do something wrong, could you forgive yourself?”

“I am more worried about others forgiving me.”

“Your Father?”

He sighs. “Among others.” The intent of his words isn’t lost on me.

“We make mistakes,” Nina says kindly. “It’s a part of who we are.”

Cal starts to tense again. “I am not one of you,” he says bitterly.

“You are more of who we are than what you used to be,” I say, finding my voice. “If you won’t go back, then we’ll find some way to fix this, I promise you.” I say this fiercely, as if I can make him believe with words alone. There’s much I feel I have to say to him, but I can’t find the right words.

“Sure, Benji,” he says, smiling weakly at me. He looks like he doesn’t believe me in the slightest, but he holds out his hand to me anyway. I don’t hesitate.

“Remember what you’re here for, Blue,” Nina says, looking at our joined hands. “If this is a test, I think you may be doing it right.”

“Cross your heart?” Cal asks.

She doesn’t hesitate and my heart skips a beat. “Hope to die.”

“Stick a thousand needles in your eye,” I finish.

“Thank you, little one,” he says, holding out his other hand. She laughs quietly to herself and takes it, her hands so little in his.

“I like your tie,” I hear her whisper as we walk up the stairs. “Very handsome.”

“I bought it for Benji,” he whispers back. “I made some money from Benji working at the store and wanted to look nice for him.”

I stumble on the last step, and he looks at me funny. “You okay?”

I nod. “Nina?” I ask, without taking my eyes off him. “Can you give us a minute?”

She giggles again, and I hear the door creak as it opens and then closes after her.

And then I kiss him with everything I have. “You look so fucking hot in that tie,” I pant at him as our lips separate. “Sorry I didn’t say that earlier.”

He flushes and looks shy again. “It’s really okay?”

“Better than okay. Thank you. You don’t need a tie to impress me, but thank you.”

The smile he gives me then is brilliant, and that warmth I saw earlier in his eyes blossoms like fire. I think I know what it means. I think I know what it says.

I have to find a way to fix this,
I think frantically as I kiss him again.
This can’t be an ending. This must be the beginning.

“Cal, where in California are you from?” Christie asks, causing me to choke on a piece of bread.

We’re all sitting around the large dining room table, Abe on my left, and Cal to my right. Nina and Mary sit across from us. My mother and Christie sit at the ends of the table. I give serious thought to telling Christie to shut her fucking face, but I don’t think that would quell the innocent question I took to be overtly suspicious.
She’s family
, I remind myself.
She’s not like everyone else.

I jump in. “Redding.”

“San Diego,” my mother says at the same time.

“Sacramento,” Abe says at the same time.

Everyone stares at us.

“He traveled a lot,” I say hastily as Cal watches me. “He never stayed in one place for too long. Kind of his thing.”

“I moved around a lot,” Cal repeats as I resist the urge to kick him under the table. “Always moving. Kind of my thing. Lola, would you happen to have any green clover marshmallows? I think I would like some.”

My mother smiles weakly I as stifle a groan. “Sorry, Cal. Fresh out. I’m sure Benji has some back at Little House when we’re finished.”

“Rosie told me you had a thing for those,” Mary says, eyes sparkling. “I found that to be so dear.”

“Rosie is a good person,” Cal says as he chases a carrot around his plate with a spoon. “She carries that shotgun around with her everywhere and made me cupcakes. I like people like that.”

“Do you?” Christie asks, amused. “It seems to me shotguns are a scary thing.”

“I’m not really scared of much,” Cal says. He glances at me and smiles. This look is not missed by anyone at the table.

“Good to know,” Christie says. “Do you have family back in California, Cal?”

Dammit.
He speaks before I can stop him. “I have a Father,” he says quietly. “And many brothers.”

Not quite a lie.

“Big family?”

“You could say that.”

I start to sweat.

“Are you the oldest?”

He shakes his head. “Youngest.”

Oh, that’s right. He’s only a couple of hundred years old.

“What about your mother?”

“Jesus, Christie,” I snap. “What’s with the third degree?”

She looks surprised. “I just wanted to get to know your friend better. Seems everyone in town just adores him, and I wanted to see what all the fuss is about. Besides, if he’s going to date
my
nephew, I think I have a right to know him better!”

“Dating? We’re… we’re not—” I sputter. “We’re just… shit.”

“Language,” Nina scolds me.

“We’re dating,” Cal tells the whole table quite loudly.

Abe and Nina grin. My mom looks stressed. Mary looks confused. Christie looks triumphant. I look embarrassed, I’m sure. And Cal? Cal looks pretty damned pleased with himself.

“I guess,” I mumble. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”

Dinner resumes, conversations veering here and there. Sometimes I speak up, other times I listen. I try to include Cal, steering the conversation away from any dangerous topics. My mom had asked me before why we just didn’t tell Mary and Christie about Cal since they were the only ones here who didn’t know, but I’d asked her to keep it under wraps for now. Mary, though I love her, isn’t known for her discretion, and I didn’t need Cal’s coming-out angel party to include the whole damned town. In my head I saw the swarms of media that would descend on Roseland, cameras flashing, reporters shouting. Then scientists would come and whisk him away to some secret underground testing facility where they would experiment on him, trying to find some way to hold him hostage and try to ransom him off to God. It was an awful thought, but one I believed to be entirely plausible. I put the kibosh on that idea as soon as it’d come from her mouth.

Dating,
I think, barely able to restrain the eye roll. The concept behind it is so completely ludicrous I can’t even grasp it. One does not
date
a guardian angel, even if one is having sex with a guardian angel. Even if one has developed…
feelings
for said angel that defy logic or explanation. At the very least, I don’t deserve someone like him, to be sure. One can’t get smaller than being a small-town boy from a place like Roseland. I run the town’s only gas station, which still bears the name of my dead father. I have no prospects for the future. I am drowning in my own grief. I am selfishly motivated and desperate for answers I don’t know how to get.

But even then, even with these thoughts, even with the conversations around us, something happens. Abe is talking about the caves in the back hills again, most likely filled to the brim with gold nuggets the size of ponies. Christie listens with rapt attention, her eyes glittering with excitement. Mary and Mother are discussing the upcoming festival, and what they’ll need in order to prepare all the pies that have been ordered. Nina sits counting the peas on her plate with a look of pure concentration on her face, her tongue peeking out between her teeth as she moves each one from one side of the plate to another. This is my family, and the noise around me is soothing in a way it hasn’t been in quite a long time. That’s mostly my doing, I know, given my self-imposed exile in the Land of Sorrow. But hearing the overlapping voices and laughter, seeing the bright eyes and smiles, does more for me than I ever thought it could.

The strangely joyous moment is only confirmed when through it all, the noise, the laughter, the brightness of the room, I feel a hand on mine underneath the table. I turn my hand palm up and long fingers brush along the skin, causing the hairs on my arm to stand on end. I’m electrified as Cal brushes the tips of my fingers with his own. This is nothing erotic, though my dick thinks it’s a fine idea. The touch is not meant to be about sex. It is
touch
, feelings conveyed through a simple action that mean more to me than any words. He slides his fingers between my own, engulfing me as we blend together. I can feel him watching me out of the corner of my eye, and I think to turn, but realize I don’t have control of my emotions. It’s too much. It’s all too much, and I think about getting up and leaving the table. But he knows, like he always does, and squeezes my hand tightly, letting me know that he isn’t going to let go, no matter how hard I fight against it. Only he knows at that moment what is running through my head. Only he knows.