Angel Song (7 page)
The first was a drawing of Sarah—Tammy could identify Sarah’s stick figure by the large hoop earrings—throwing a ball to the Keith stick figure in his wire-rimmed glasses. Tammy couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or cry at the sight of it. At least she supposed it was a healthy way for Keith to work through his grief.
The next drawing was the dark-haired Ann hugging Sarah, big blue tears falling from both of their faces, and the yellow glow that could only be an angel looking down on them. The last showed Sarah, a huge smile on her face, in the clouds with angels all around her. The sun had a smiley face in this particular picture, and even the clouds had happy faces. Keith had written, “Brokken made butiful.”
This time the tears flowed unabated as Tammy closed her eyes. “Thank You, Lord, for giving him to me.”
“Mama, Mama!” Keith’s panicked voice came from his room. “Mama!”
Tammy ran down the hallway and into her son’s room. “I’m here, honey, what do you need?”
“Sarah. Will the angels bring her back?”
“No, darlin’. No, they won’t.”
“Please, please. Make them bring her back.” A new wave of tears, a new wave of grief, another day in the life that was Tammy’s.
She hugged her son close and once again whispered, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”
Ann looked out the side window toward Tammy’s house. She didn’t know how she would have made it through the day without her help, yet something about Tammy made her uneasy. And Keith . . . well, he made her downright uncomfortable.
His talk about angels and his pictures of angels, they fed into her hallucinations—her paracusias—until the song played over and over and over in her mind, making it all seem so real. Not something she wanted to reinforce.
She walked over to the computer, typed in her account information, and found an e-mail from Margaret. She opened the photos of the last designs for Stinson, and her skin seemed to tighten around her body, squeezing against her face, her neck, her chest. It cranked tighter and tighter with each successive picture. The first room had two gray leather sofas—one twoarmed, the other one-armed—and a black rug against a black tile floor. A blue handblown glass vase added a touch of color and contrasted perfectly against the room’s structured geometry. Serene and sophisticated. These designs were amazing. How was she supposed to go two steps better than this?
Ann enjoyed creating new ways to show off spaces, to spotlight the positive features of an area, but she never seemed to reach perfection. She remembered the James’s living room. How many times had she adjusted the side tables, rearranged the art, moved the chairs just an inch or two? She knew that, even now, if she walked back into that room, she’d find something to move. She looked at the photo on her screen and guessed that the designer who’d done this room never had to move anything a second time.
Well, Ann needed to get busy, be prepared to do her very best work. She pulled out her sketch pad, prepared to rework the room. Her pencil remained poised, ready . . . and unmoving. The problem was, for Ann, creativity required heart. At this moment, she couldn’t even feel hers.
At just after midnight, with her cursor hovering over the power button, the thought that had been nagging at the back of her mind turned into an insistent demand. Maybe it was because she was tired, or more likely the grief just caused her to slip from reality for a moment. Whatever the reason, she pulled up the Google screen and typed in “angels.”
The first two links had to do with the baseball team in California. Ann laughed aloud. Only then did she realize how tense she’d been while waiting for the answer, as if she expected “People who lose their minds and hear angels singing” to be first and foremost on the list. Time to get a grip.
She looked farther down and clicked on another link. The site offered a “personalized angel print.” After you filled out a form to indicate the physical traits you’d like your angel to have, an artist would paint it for you and send it to you, “all for the low price of $29.99.”
Changing tactics, she googled “angels’ songs,” which netted a link to a YouTube video of a group of five-year-olds wearing gold tinsel halos and singing “Joy to the World.” Ann smiled. This search was obviously a ridiculous waste of time.
In a last effort to close this chapter for good, she typed in “angel water sound.” This search provided a list of sites selling angel snow globes or angel statues for outdoor gardens, but one link intrigued her enough that she clicked on it. It opened with a picture of an angel and these words:
When the creatures moved, I heard the sound of their wings, like the roar
of rushing waters, like the voice of the Almighty, like the tumult of an army.
When they stood still, they lowered their wings. Ezekiel 1:24
Ann knew it was a Bible verse, but it had nothing to do with music at all—and was it really about angels? It simply referred to them as “creatures.” Yet somehow, it
was
connected.
Long after she went to bed that night, the music continued to ebb and flow through her mind. She’d fallen asleep remembering the words from the verse . . .
“the sound of their wings
” . . .
“like
the roar of rushing waters
” . . . while the memory of the song flowed through her mind, the notes playing in her brain like water crashing onto the beach.
The music had lost none of its power, showed no sign of letting up. Ann hoped she could keep her sanity through the long days ahead.
The smell of damp soil and freshly cut grass lingered, perhaps anchored in place by the humidity that saturated the early afternoon air. Everything about this day felt . . . heavy. Even the clouds seemed less like fluff and more like mush. With May’s heat beating off hundreds of headstones, Ann watched the last of the well-wishers return to their cars—back to their families and their lives. Now, for one last time, she could be alone with her sister.
“I’ll stay with you.” Tammy put her arm around Ann’s shoulder.
“Me too,” Keith said and squeezed himself between the two women, one arm around each. “I’m staying too.”
Ann took a deep breath, doing her best to keep her voice gentle, although it took great effort. She didn’t want to upset Keith, who had cried openly and loudly throughout the funeral and the graveside service. Half of her had wanted to tell Tammy to take him away; the other half envied the lack of restraint. As for her, she willed herself to hold it together—at least until tonight when she was alone. “I’d really like a few minutes alone with her.”
“Oh, of course you would, honey. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of that. I’ll just go back to the house and help get the meal set up. I’ll see you there.”
“You want me to stay with you, Annie?” Keith looked up at Ann, his eyes red and puffy. “I’ll be real quiet if you want me to.”
“Keith, honey, we’ll see Annie at the house. Right now she needs some time to herself.”
“But what if she needs me?” Keith’s voice gained volume as his agitation grew. “She might need me. I can’t leave her.”
Ann saw that another wave of hysterics was coming on, and she wanted Keith away from her before it hit full force. She leaned forward so that she was almost eye to eye with him. “It’s okay, Keith. I’ll be right there. I just want to talk to Sarah one last time. You go and help your mother now, okay?” She hoped her voice sounded reassuring rather than agitated.
Keith nodded his head and wiped his hand beneath his glasses. “Okay. Promise you’ll call if you need me.”
“Count on it.” Ann turned away from them and took a step toward Sarah’s grave. “I’ll be just a few minutes behind you.”
“Okay. Come on, Keith.”
“Bye, Annie. Bye-bye. Bye.”
“Good-bye.” In spite of herself, Ann turned. Tammy was holding Keith’s hand and all but pulling him toward the car. Thank goodness!
Keith walked with his head turned toward Ann, and he continued to watch her even as he climbed into the car. Just as Tammy was closing the door, Keith sprang up and began waving wildly at Ann. Even from a distance, Ann could see the excitement in his huge smile. “The angels are here, they’re with you now. You’ll be okay. Bye, Annie. You okay.” He sat back into his seat, readjusted his glasses, and continued waving as the car pulled from the drive.
“Angels. Right.” As the sound of the tires crunching against the gravel faded, Ann focused on reality. She turned her attention back to the casket, hanging by dark blue straps over the open grave. The funeral director stood several yards away. He looked at her, his face solemn. “You can have a few minutes if you’d like. I’ll just go make a quick call.”
“Thanks.”
Ann was wearing the same sleeveless black dress that she’d planned to wear to Sarah’s graduation. It felt so wrong to be wearing it now, for this. “Oh, Say-say.” Ann spoke the nickname she’d not used in fifteen years. Just the sound of it brought on a fresh wave of grief. She trailed her fingers across the steel of Sarah’s casket, surprised by the coolness on such a hot and humid day. “This was supposed to be such a happy time. Your master’s degree, what a great accomplishment. How many families would you have helped? How many children might you have saved from a lifetime of abuse? All that study, all that compassion. Wasted.
“I know you believe in God, and I hope for your sake that He’s real and you’re in heaven right now. But how could He be? If He were real, wouldn’t He have let you do all your good works? Everyone who’s ever met you talked about how perfect you were. Surely an all-powerful Being wouldn’t have failed to notice that. Why would He have taken
you
and left someone like me here?”
Ann remembered Keith’s insistence that the angels were here now. With her. Watching at this very minute. She shuddered as she looked at her grandmother’s headstone beside the hole in the ground that would soon be Sarah’s home. “Nana believed too, and look what it got her: a worthless daughter, a painful death, and her only decent grandchild killed in a car wreck the day before she graduated. There’s no power in that kind of belief. The only person I can count on is me, and I’m going to achieve my dreams my own way.”
Her dreams. Her own way. Everything inside her consolidated in this moment, and with absolute clarity, she saw what needed to be done.
“Sarah, Nana, you were the only ones who ever believed in me, and I want to thank you for that. I know I haven’t always earned that faith, but that’s about to change. I promise you both right now that I will do my utmost to live up to all that you thought I could be, to succeed in every possible way.” She looked toward Nana’s headstone. “Something you never got the chance to do because you were taking care of us.” Then at Sarah’s casket. “You were so close, so close. I promise the both of you that I will make the most of my life. Starting right now.”
The funeral director walked toward her. “Ma’am, we really need to get started now, if you don’t mind.”
She kissed her fingertips, then pressed them against the casket. “Good-bye, Say-say. I love you.” Ann backed away and watched them lower her sister slowly into the ground. The heavenly doves adorning the corners of the casket had seemed so garish just days ago but now felt comforting as the last earthly view of Sarah she would ever have. She was glad then that she’d let Tammy talk her into them. Tammy had been right. They were what Sarah would have wanted.
Ann walked back to her rental car, dreading what lay ahead. She was quite certain that if she had to hear one more “She’s with the Lord,” “She’s in heaven,” or “She’s so happy now,” she would lose her mind completely. She knew people meant well, and she didn’t want to dishonor Sarah by being rude. So she had begun reciting the lyrics of every Beatles song she could remember, trying to keep her mind occupied. She could say, “Thank you so much for coming,” while thinking about “Yellow Submarine” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” In attendance, yet not present. This was a talent she’d perfected over the years.
She sat in the car and locked the door, not yet bothering to put the key in the ignition. With the taste of the promise she’d made to her grandmother and sister still fresh on her lips, she opened her purse and pulled out the business card she’d placed there just a few days ago. She dialed the number. “This is Ann Fletcher. Is Mr. Stinson available, please?”
Ethan’s past few nights had been plagued with nightmares. Annie was screaming for help, drowning in choppy surf, and no one else seemed to hear her at all. It was up to him to reach her, but his arms and legs felt so heavy. Too heavy. He just couldn’t make it. The expression on her face before she went under was always the same. Hollow. Empty. Alone.
Now, as he looked at all the cars lining the street, listened to the quiet murmurs of the dozens of people inside the house, he realized he had seen the same expression on her face during the funeral today. As far as he could tell, no other family members had been at the funeral, no one from New York had come down, and no other friends had come to be with her. Did she have no one? Why did he feel like he was the only one who could help her?
He made an excuse to wander outside, and more or less loitered there until he saw her car pull up in the driveway. He wanted to do something to help. But what?
He walked over to the garage and waited for her to gather her things and climb out of the car. What could he possibly say that would mean anything to her?
“Hey,” he said.
She looked surprised to see him, even though she’d driven right past him. “Hey.” She folded her arms across her chest. “What are you doing out here?”
“Well, I’m not going to ask how you’re doing, because that’s a stupid question, but I just wanted to see if I could do anything, anything at all, to help you. Is there anything you need? I know that’s sort of a stupid question too, but I’d just really like to do something. Anything.”
Ann shook her head at first, but then she looked toward the cars lining the street and nodded. “Get everyone out of here so I can collapse in peace.” She sort of smiled at him, perhaps attempting to make it seem as if it had been a lighthearted joke. Ethan was pretty certain he knew better.