soaring into the sky. Cal. She wasn’t seeing what she was actually seeing, was she? It wasn’t possible. The world didn’t work in mysterious ways. It was only black. It was only white.
“It’s not possible,” she says now as I hand her a cup of coffee in Little House. She
shakes, worried (of all things to worry about) that she’ll scald herself if she keeps shuddering. “Things like this don’t happen. Not here. Not anywhere.”
“They do,” Cal reassures her from his place near the kitchen doorway. His wings had faded again even before we left the cemetery. “People just don’t know how to look close enough. Amazing things happen all the time. Little threads connect you all. It’s really quite beautiful.”
I groan inwardly as my mother’s eyes bulge. It’s probably not the best time for one of his esoteric meanderings, and I tell him so. His eyes are warm as he smiles at me. I don’t know how much of that is for me and how much of it’s because I let him drive the Ford back as I drove my mother home, unsure if she was going into shock. I was relieved when we pulled past Big House that Nina wasn’t waiting on the porch, nor did the lights seem to be on inside. I didn’t think I was ready for Christie and Mary to be in on this. Not yet.
“How long have you known?” my mother suddenly asks.
“About Cal?”
“Yes.”
I glance at him. He’s watching me with such awe that my heart skips a few beats.
I don’t know where we stand and I’m trying my best to keep from flushing, but I don’t know how long I can last. It’s only now that I truly realize I didn’t think he’d come back. “Since I found him,” I admit.
“And where was this?” She sounds like she’s on the verge of hysterics.
I think about lying, but that would just make things worse. “Mile marker seventy-seven.”
Her face goes white, and she grips the cup so tightly I’m afraid it will shatter. “Benji,” she whispers. “The meteor? That light?”
I nod.
“You know this isn’t….”
“Isn’t what?”
She looks unsure as she glances between the two of us. “You said he was an angel. You said he was the guardian angel of Roseland. Of us. Of you.”
I nod again, waiting.
“Things like this don’t happen, Benji. Not here. Not in the real world.” She almost looks like she doesn’t believe her own words.
“You saw the same thing I did,” I tell her quietly. “You saw his wings. You saw the Strange Men. You saw it with your own eyes.”
“I know what I saw!” she snaps at me, slamming down the mug on the counter. “I’m looking for a goddamn explanation! Why here? Why now? Who were those men? Where did they go? What does he want with us! With you!” By the time she finishes, she’s shouting.
I flinch, not knowing how to handle the anger in her eyes. I open my mouth to say something, anything, to make her calm down, to make her see what I see. Her anger is only giving fire to my own, and I can’t lose it here. Not now. Not yet. Fighting will solve nothing—there’s too much more to learn.
But before a word can fall from my lips, Cal takes three big, quick strides over to my mother. She gasps and tries to shrink away, but he’s too fast for her. I am alarmed (please don’t send my mother into the black! my mind shrieks) and I’m about to step forward when he reaches his hands up and frames her face. She struggles to move away, but he’s holding her tight. Her movements weaken until she stares up at him, tears streaming down her face. She gasps into his touch.
“Lola Green,” he says, his voice rough but kind. “I have watched you for many, many years. A little girl who liked to cause mischief with her sisters. A young woman who cared more for her family than almost anyone I’ve seen. A woman who grew and loved with such ferocity that it was like watching a whirlwind. I watched your heart shatter, though it was done in secret because you wanted to protect your son. I watched you attempt to fix yourself, away from anyone who could see inside because you believed that it was the only way your son would survive. You don’t know if you’ve done right by Benji because he’s not the same person he was when his father was