Summer Of My Secret Angel (38 page)

“If I can’t take my mom’s place, then I will
go with the both of you.” My voice had an unnaturally calm note
that surprised me here, at the edge of life and death.

“Please, put it away.” With lowered palms,
he gestured for me to set the gun down.

“No.” I gave a desperate laugh. “No, you
can’t leave me here all alone. You can’t just walk out of my life
tonight or tomorrow and think I’ll take it just like that.” I
snapped the fingers of my free hand on the last word. “You can’t! I
won’t let you. I want to come with you. And if this is the only
way, then it’s fine with me.” The mouth of the pistol had lowered
while I spoke and now I pressed it back into place. “I’m not going
to let go of you.”

“Jona, will you please put the gun down?
This is not an option. Suicide never is.”

He didn’t understand. To me, this had
nothing to do with suicide. Not in the usual way. I didn’t want to
end a lousy life. If that had been my wish, I’d have done so a long
time ago. This was about him. And about being with him. In the
afterlife.

I love you,
I thought so hard I hoped
he could understand.

“If you kill yourself, Heaven will be denied
to you. You’ll go to a different place, worse than anything you’ve
ever known.” The fear in his face seemed real. “There’s no way for
me to follow. Now put it down, in Heaven’s name. Please!”

I hesitated. Suddenly, I felt completely
insecure. What if he was right? What if I got this wrong, and he
wouldn’t be there, at the other side? And then a much worse thought
haunted me: What if he didn’t want to have me on the other side at
all? He seemed fine with the way things were turning out. He wasn’t
fighting it, like I was. As an angel, he must’ve had means, ways to
fix this. But he was just waiting patiently until all was over.
Until he could return to his sunshiny place with no thought of me,
or how much he’d hurt me the day he left.

The day he would take my mother with him
instead of me.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. My
hand slowly sagged down, and I shook my head in utter despair.

Julian must have thought he’d broken through
to me, talked me down. He started forward, but at his first
movement, I raised both my hands with the gun clasped between them.
This time I pointed it right at the center of his chest.

“Fine,” I whispered. “If you don’t want to
take me with you, then you won’t take my mom either. Go to hell,
Julian.”

For the count of a heartbeat, Julian seemed
more hurt by my words than the prospect of being hit by a bullet.
But he gathered himself quickly. “You can shoot me if you want. It
won’t help you one bit. And after today, you should have realized a
bullet would never be fast enough to hit me.”

He took a step forward, a bit uncertain it
seemed. He didn’t yet trust that I wouldn’t shoot after all. And a
good thing he didn’t. Because I had every intention to stop him
from reaching me.

“Stay where you are.” My finger trembled on
the trigger.

But I didn’t shoot at his next step. Or the
next.

As he skirted the desk, our gazes locked at
all times, I tracked his every step with the gun’s mouth. The final
blow never came.

We stood face to face for the length of a
breath. Then he slowly reached for the weapon. “Give it to me.”

I had run out of options. Realizing I
couldn’t shoot either him or myself, there was only one possible
way to get where I wanted: to take one step forward and proceed
into his arms.

Eventually, I surrendered and let go of the
gun. Julian placed it on the desk, never taking his eyes off me. He
closed the remaining distance between us with one last step and
took me in his arms. I shoved my hands up his chest and locked them
around the back of his neck in a clinging embrace, burying my face
in his shoulder.

Julian rested his chin on the top of my head
and hugged me tighter.

“Love you,” he whispered, but I couldn’t
tell if I’d really heard it, or if the sound of it only played in
my mind.

I wished I could tell him the same, just
once, so he’d know before he disappeared forever. But sobs rocked
me in his arms, and I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Never before
had I felt so helpless.

The darkness in Julian’s room matched the
grief inside me. My cheek against his chest, the tear-soaked cotton
of his shirt stuck to my skin. Aftermath chills of what had
happened in my uncle’s study raced through my body. But warmth
emanating from the angel I embraced soothed the nerves that were on
the edge of breaking.

I closed my eyes, trying to find some peace
before I paid my mother another visit. Maybe the last one.

At Julian’s stir underneath me, I jerked
upward, wide awake. “Mom?” I glanced around the room. Daylight had
swapped the darkness in the room already.

Julian brushed tender fingers over my
forehead and cheek. He pressed a kiss to my brow. Looking at his
calm and beautiful face helped me catch my breath. “Everything’s
all right. Your aunt is just a little worried because your mother’s
still asleep. I can sense her fear. I better go down and let
Charlene wake up.”

The lump in my throat eased with a swallow.
I sat on my legs. “Okay, I’ll just pop to the bathroom and then
come down with you.”

His lips pressed together and his brows
pulled to a frown, giving me the impression he was about to
contradict.

“Don’t you dare leave me behind!” I held his
gaze for the length of a breath, eyes narrowed.

“I better not let you out of my sight,
anyway. Who can say what reckless idea you’ll come up with next?” A
sense of honesty shadowed his taunting.

He waited while I used the bathroom. Cold
water revived my tired eyes. My hand back in his, we headed
downstairs. Marie’s anxious whisper to Albert in the hallway
drifted to us.

“Something wrong?” Julian said as we
approached them. His perfectly innocent tone gave me more
chills.

“It is Charlene. She did not wake up this
morning when I walked into her room to help her get dressed. She
looks like she is asleep, but what if she fell into a coma?” My
aunt sounded close to cracking as she clasped her hands together.
Fear flashed clearly in her eyes. “I was just saying to Albert that
we better call an ambulance.”

Julian stepped toward her and touched his
hand to her forearm. “Jona and I kept her awake long last night.
She’s probably just exhausted. Let her rest for a few more minutes.
I’m sure she’s fine.”

I was already heading into my mother’s room,
but even with my back to him, I felt the lie in his words. She
wasn’t going to be fine. Today very well might be her last. Maybe
someone should tell Marie. She would want to say her goodbyes,
too.

But how to break the news?
Sorry Marie,
but you know Julian—the angel—was taking care of my mother while I
was still furious with her. Now that everything is fine between us,
God is going to collect her soul.
Not quite the words someone
wanted to hear when they were expecting “Good morning, did you
sleep well?”

My mom lay on her side, facing the door when
I entered. Although her eyes remained motionless behind closed
lids, her breathing seemed steady enough for someone sleeping.
Not dead.
Yet a hint of uncertainty stopped me in the middle
of the room. Regarding her for a long moment, the aching in my
chest welled, and my breathing hitched to staccato sighs.

Gentle hands wrapped around my shoulders.
“You can wake her. She’ll hear you,” Julian said into my ear.

Dragging a deep breath, I crossed to her bed
and settled down. My first touch to her arm coaxed out a moan.

My mother rolled to her back, her lids
slowly opening. “Good morning, sunshine.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth, trying to
strangle the tears burning to the surface of my eyes. There was
nothing good about this morning. My mom was going to leave me.
Again. Without a word, I collapsed beside her and let the pain come
out in hard sobs.

She scooted backward to lean on the
headboard, dragging me with her. Then she hugged me so tightly I
could hardly believe she had the strength for it. “Don’t cry, my
baby. Everything will be good—you’ll see. I’ve lived my life and
found a happy ending with you. I’m not grieving.”

She sounded bright and sober-minded. Neither
fear nor sorrow rang in her words. “And I don’t want you to be sad
either. You’re young and have a good life to live. Promise me
you’ll stay with Marie and Albert. They can be the parents you
always wished for.”

“I never wished for anything but for you to
come back. How can I not be sad when
He
’s going to take you
away from me?” The words ripped from my clamped chest as if they
tore my throat bloody. This time not even Julian’s loving hand on
my neck could soothe me.

“
Mon Dieu
, what happened?” My aunt
whirled into the room as though she expected the worst, her face
horror-stricken. At the sight of my mother sitting upright Marie’s
gaze lit up. She pressed a hand to her chest, breathing a sigh of
relief. “
Dieu merci!
You are awake. I was so worried this
morning when you kept sleeping though I shook you.”

She lowered next to me on the mattress and
skimmed her fingers through my hair. “But why are you crying,
chérie
?”

The bile rushing up my throat kept me from
answering. Marie turned her head toward Julian when he planted his
hand on her shoulder and urged her with a flick of his head to
follow him outside. “Can I have a word with you?”

Confusion creased her forehead. “Yes, of
course.” Her movements when she rose from my mother’s bed were
reluctant, as if she already sensed Julian had bad news.

As the door clicked closed, I sank deeper
into my mom’s embrace.

It didn’t take Julian long to return with a
sobbing Marie in tow. One look between the sisters seemed enough to
confirm what Julian must have told her. My aunt knelt next to the
bed and grabbed my mother’s hand. She kissed her palm and squeezed
it. “You should have told me sooner.”

I caught my mother’s questioning glance.
Julian cleared his throat. “I told her what the doctor said on
Saturday. That you might not recover from the cold.”

Wondering whether the doctor had really said
this, or if Julian made it up to cover the truth, I rose from the
bed and crossed to him on slow steps. He wrapped his arm around my
shoulders and pressed me tenderly against him.

“It would be unfair not to give your aunt a
chance to say goodbye to her sister,” he whispered. “She doesn’t
have to know everything, just this much.”

I agreed silently, his calming scent
comforting me.

While Marie and her husband talked to my
mom, encouraging her that everything was going to be fine and the
doctor must have been mistaken, Julian ushered me into the kitchen
to have breakfast. But apart from a few sips of tea, nothing would
go down. My stomach churned.

With the warm cups in our hands, we just
stared at each other across the table. It was a hard fight against
the tears wanting to spill over, but I remained strong. And so did
Julian. His blank face revealed nothing, but his heavy sighs cut
the silence. He rubbed his hands over his face, then reached for my
hand and brought it to his lips. Warm breaths coming through his
nose caressed my fingers.

“Will you remember me?” I said with a hardly
audible whisper.

Instead of answering, he furrowed his brows
in a puzzled way.

I forced a hard swallow before I could speak
again. “You said you will make me forget everything about you. So I
wondered if you would remember me once you’ve returned to
Heaven.”

Julian coughed. His throat must have hurt
him as much as mine did. “Of course, I will remember you. I’ll
treasure our moments together. Forever.”

Each breath I took filled my chest with
rocks. A small part of me anticipated the time when I would forget,
for the pain wouldn’t be so excruciating anymore. But it was easy
to silence and bury that part of me under more heavy stones.

Marie came in a few minutes later, her eyes
glistening and her nose red. “Henri just called and said one of the
modules of the sprinkler broke. Water is flooding the vines. I will
go with Albert to help them fix it. It won’t take long.” She waited
for us to nod then scurried to the door with her gaze focused on
the floor. In the threshold, she stopped and looked over her
shoulder. “If anything happens, if your mother’s condition gets
worse, call me in immediately.”

We both nodded again and returned to my
mother’s room.

“Is there anything I can get you?” I asked
her. A wet cloth lay on the nightstand, and I patted her burning
forehead with it.

“No, dear. Just stay with me while I rest
for a moment.” Her eyes had already closed, so I remained silent
and kept caressing her hot face.

Julian knelt on the floor, his chin
supported on his bent arm that rested on my lap. There was no way
to say whether losing him or my mother would hurt more. But the
aching coupled together was too much for one person to bear. I
yearned to close my eyes like my mother and escape the pain.

After a half hour in which my legs went numb
and my back started to ache, Julian stood and steered me to the
wide chair in front of the window. He slumped down first, pulled me
onto his lap, and cradled me against him.

“You know, as an angel,” he said softly,
with the weight of honesty in his voice, “I’ve seen many beautiful
things and experienced thousands of wonders. But the most beautiful
thing I’ve ever seen is you. And with you I’ve had the best moments
of my life.”

Knowing he spoke of sixty-odd thousand
years, his words filled me with warmth. “You certainly are the best
thing in my life, too.”