The Miracles of Ordinary Men (11 page)

“What about him?” Julie threw her hands out to her sides and narrowly missed hitting one of the wings. “It's his life, Bryan. He made that very clear.”

Sam pressed his hands to his temples. Two years ago, Julie and Bryan had been his closest friends in the world. “We should go back downstairs.”

Bryan rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He reached back and pulled the doorknob and almost collided with Father Jim, who stood with his hand poised to knock on the door. “Oh.” Bryan shook his head, once more embarrassed. “Sorry, Father.”

Chickenhead made a strange sound, then ran to Father Jim's feet and rumbled. He bent and picked her up. “That's all right.” He nodded to Sam. “Are you all right, Sam? Everyone downstairs is worried.”

“I'm fine,” he said. No one would believe him, but only the priest knew exactly what he meant. “I just wanted to rest.”

“There aren't that many people,” said the priest. “Doug, Janet, and Kenneth. A few people from the church, and your friend, Emma. Father Mario. Everyone else went home.”

“Emma?” said Julie. “I don't know an Emma.”

“She's from school,” Sam said. “A student. It's nothing.”

Father Jim looked from Sam to Julie to Bryan, then back. “You don't have to come down,” he said. “I can tell everyone that you'd prefer to be alone. If you like.”

“No.” Sam moved toward the door. “I'll come down.” They followed Bryan down the stairs, Sam at the rear so no one could step on the wings. Then they were in the kitchen, and there was Emma, there was Doug. There was Father Mario, small in a corner of the room.

He ignored the glare from Janet and made his way to Emma first, because she was alone. Alone, awkward, uncomfortable. Pale. She hovered over the sandwiches and held a glass of juice in her hand.

“Mr. Connor,” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

“No one calls me Mr. Connor here,” he said, trying to be funny. “To everyone here I'm just Sam. You might as well say it too.”

“Okay.” She took a gulp from her glass. “I know I shouldn't be here — I just wanted to say — ”

“It's nice that you're here,” he said. Somehow, surprisingly, it was true. “It was nice of you to come.”

She shrugged. “I just wanted to say — I'm really sorry. It must have been such a shock.”

“Yes.” Shock was everywhere. In the air, in the floorboards beneath his feet.

“How are you . . . otherwise?” She was looking at everything except the wings.

“Fine.” He could see Julie watching them, trying not to pay attention. “I'm fine.”

“Have you told anybody else?” Why was she speaking so low? Couldn't she see everyone turning toward them, flagged by the drop in her tone? Julie's eyebrows were so high they looked fake, painted on.

“Father Jim,” he said. “He can see them. Father Mario too.”

“Really?” She glanced over at the priests. “What does that mean?”

“You tell me.”

She looked troubled. Her hair shone against the blackness of her dress, and her eyes were very green. How had he not noticed her eyes before? “They . . . they look like they're taking all of your energy. Like leeches.”

“Leeches.” That was a good word. He hadn't thought of that word. “You could say that.”

“What do they say?” She gestured to the priests.

He snorted into his fruit punch.
Everyone wants to know why — even me.
“Religious psychobabble. God works in mysterious ways
.
Etcetera.”

“Maybe it's not psychobabble,” she said. “Ever think of that?”

“Yes.” He wasn't lying. “All the time.”

Emma nodded jerkily. She drank the rest of her juice and then placed the glass carefully on the table. “I'll pray for you,” she said. “If it helps at all.”

“Thank you.” So many people, so many prayers. The wings twitched at his shoulders.

“You can . . . call me,” she said, awkwardly. “If you need anything.”

“I don't have your number.” This was ridiculous. This was dangerous ground. He could see Julie inching closer, her own glass in hand.

“Here,” Emma said. She handed him a scrap of paper. “My number. And my email. Use it whenever you want.” She smiled. “See you later, Mr. Connor.”

“Sam,” he said, but she was already moving, making her way to the door. He watched until she left, and then he turned his head, and there was Julie.

“Are you
sleeping
with her?” she asked. Her voice shook.

“What?” More shock. Underneath it, yes, a hint of laughter.
So much hysteria
,
so little room
. “Of course not.”

“Oh.” Julie ducked her head. “It just — you just looked so intense, the two of you.”

Intense. There was another word. “Are you sure you're not pregnant?” he asked mildly.

Her voice went even lower. “I don't know.”

“Oh.”

“You can't have sex with a student, Sam.”

God, he was tired. “I'm not having sex with a student,” he said. “Don't you think I have other things to worry about?” He drained his glass. “I think you should go.”

Julie bit her lip. How many times had he seen her do that, over how many years? “I'm sorry.”

“It's fine,” he said. “I'm just — I'm tired, Julie. I need to lie down.”

“Okay.” She leaned in and hugged him. Her arms slid beneath the wings, effortlessly, unknowingly, as though she'd been hugging him like this forever. Then, surprisingly, she kissed his cheek. “Call me. Please? If you need anything?”

“Sure.” He pulled away. When she left the room, he walked over to Bryan, who looked amused and antsy all at once. “Don't. Don't even think about it.”

Bryan shrugged. “If you say so.” He shot Sam a strange look. “Are you okay, Sam? I mean, apart from this. You seem . . . weird. I don't know. Since that day.”

“Since the hangover to beat all hangovers?” He tried to laugh — it came out forced, too loud. Everyone looked over. “No. I'm okay. Really.”

“All right.” Bryan, of course, was not convinced. Disheveled or not, he wasn't stupid. “Well. You know I'm leaving this week, right?”

“Yes,” Sam said, though in truth he'd just remembered. A tour of northern Italy for the haphazard chef. Who was not, in fact, all that haphazard when it came to his work.

“I'll be back just before Christmas,” Bryan said. “But you can email, if you want. Or call. When I figure out the number, I'll send it to you.” He paused. “I really am sorry, Sam.”

“I know.” Yet he wouldn't be all that surprised if Bryan went to Italy and disappeared. He wasn't even surprised to realize that this didn't bother him, though the fact that he didn't care made him uneasy. Who was he, now, that his life had become so small?

“We should go out again when I get back,” said Bryan. “And do . . . something.”

“Yes. Something,” he echoed.

Bryan cleared his throat. “Okay. Well — I should go.”

“Sure.” He walked Bryan to the door and got his coat. His normal, stylish coat that did not have rips in the back. “Let me know how it goes.”

“Will do.” Bryan had one arm in the coat and was already halfway out the door. He clapped one hand against Sam's shoulder and began to amble down the front path. Then he stopped and came back. “Tell Julie I'm sorry,” he said, sheepish. “I didn't mean to . . . everything feels so
strange.
You know,” and he cast his hands in circles, “you and her and me and . . . everything's just so different now.”

“I know,” he said. “I'll tell her.”

“Okay.” Bryan nodded, then walked down the path. This time he did not turn back.

Sam watched him get into his car and drive away. He stepped into the house and closed the door. He avoided the kitchen and went back up the stairs, into the bedroom, and there was Chickenhead, once more twitching her tail on the bed. He fell on the duvet and spread the wings over the bed, until they were both cocooned in feathers.

Bryan would be back at the end of December.

He would not be here at the end of December. The knowledge was heavy in his stomach. His mother's life had ended without warning; his own days were counting down, now, to only God knew what.

—

When he came down hours later, Father Jim and Doug were in the dining room, drinking tea. Janet had bought more Chinese food. More chopsticks. The sweet and sour sauce, in its pristine Styrofoam container, had a radioactive sheen.

“The house, you know,” said Doug. Without preamble, without looking at him. “The house belongs to you.”

“What?”

“When I moved in, Carol asked me if I would stay, were anything to happen.” He shook his head. “I told her I didn't want to stay if she wasn't going to be there. So she gave it to you. It's in the will.”

Strange that this news, of all things, should shock him so. He slid into a chair, the wings hunched behind him. “She never said anything about that.”

“Why say anything?” Doug's face twisted into a smile, a frown. “She thought she had years left. We
all
thought she had years left.” He lifted the teacup to his mouth. His hands were shaking; tea slopped over the brim of his cup and splashed over the saucer onto the floor. “Fuck.”

Doug was forty-two. Just past forty and a widower — but that's what one might get, you could argue, when one married a woman fifteen years older.
Chasing cougars. What a MILF.
The kids still made fun of that kind of thing at school. And yet here was his stepfather, newly old and alone in this great wide house. The unfunny end to the joke.

What might have happened, had he been there in time? A casual drop-in, just to say hello — a hand outstretched, another jolt of power from his abdomen, and Carol blinking up at him instead of his goddamned cat. But no — the
cat
was more important. The cat was the vehicle that would show him his power. His mother, the deer — these were expendable creatures, things that could disappear.

Janet came in from the kitchen. She slapped the top back on the container of sweet-and-sour sauce and slid into the chair across from Doug. “I think you should get some sleep.” She reached across the table, grasped his hand in her own. “I've got everything here, Doug. It's fine.”

“What am I going to do?” he said. He still hadn't looked up at them. “I don't know what to do, Sam.” He took a breath, deep and ragged. “Can you tell me what to do?”

He did not miss the glare from Janet, or the way that the words hung in the air, or the way that Doug's hands shook around his teacup like those of an old man. “I think Janet's right, Doug. I think you should get some sleep. We can worry about everything else later.”

Doug nodded. He stood and padded out of the room without saying anything else.

Janet looked from the door to Sam and back. “I'd like to stay,” she said. “For as long as he needs me.”

He wanted to be back in his own house, or walking the streets of the city, or back in Tofino, throwing mud at trees. “It doesn't matter to me,” he said. “Stay as long as you like.”

“Are you going to go home, Father?” she asked. “Today?”

He looked at Father Jim, who shrugged. “Sure. If that's what you want.”

“I think it isn't good for Doug to be around anyone else right now,” she said. “He needs to be around family.”

“Sure.” He did not point out that his own
family was gone now, that his house held empty rooms and a cat. That it was his mother they'd just scattered over the ground. Instead he stood, took his coat from the peg by the dining room door, and whistled low between his teeth. A moment later Chickenhead trotted into the room.

“Make sure you call if you need anything,” Sam said.

Janet nodded. “We'll be fine. But thank you.”

They walked outside and got into the car. Sam settled the wings around the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition — and then there came a whisper, a sudden shake of the world. His hands convulsed around the steering wheel and for a moment, he was and was not
there.
The angel takes a breath
,
and struggles in the car.
He leaned against the horn and let it blare, let the sound pull him back.

“Are you all right?” Father Jim grabbed his shoulder. “Sam.
Sam
.”

“I think you should drive,” he said, drawing the words up from who knows where.

“We don't have to go now,” said the priest. “We have time. Why don't you go back in and rest?”

“I want to get home.” He unbuckled the belt as he spoke, pushed the door open, and almost fell out of the car. He stood and rested his hands above the doorframe. He looked up to the house — Janet stood at the window, watching them both.

Father Jim got out, crossed to the other side of the car, and clasped Sam's arm. “Are you sure you're all right?”

“I'm sure,” he mumbled. He stumbled over to the passenger side, keeping one hand on the car. When he was inside again, buckled and somewhat calmer, he turned to the priest and tried a grin. “How long has it been since you drove stick?”

“Years,” said the priest. His hands were hard and nervous around the wheel. “But God will get us home. Eventually.”

—

When they walked back into the house, Chickenhead murmured in joy and stretched herself onto the hardwood. Sam stepped across the threshold and let his jacket fall to the floor.

“So,” he said. “That's that.” He shot a glance at Father Jim, who had closed the door and was unlacing his hiking boots. “Why did you ask me up there, at the church?”

The priest looked up at him and then out the window. “Sometimes people want a chance to say things.”

“I didn't,” he said. “Surely you knew that. Surely you knew how that would make me feel.”