The Angelic Occurrence

by Henry K. Ripplinger

  Henry fell silent. The knuckles of his hand clutching the angel through his shirt turned white as if trying to squeeze Jenny from the pewter ore itself.

  Henry turned inward, as Father looked at this hurting man whom he had adopted as his son some thirty or so years ago. When Henry hurt, so did he.

  Father was relieved that Henry shared what he was beginning to suspect. Henry was treading on dangerous ground. The fact that Henry was aware of it lessened his concern.

  Father could see and understand, though, how such a deep unresolved love between two young people without closure even after all those years might be transferred in this unusual way.

  Henry’s sorrow and guilt for desiring another man’s wife and seeking forgiveness caused Father to think that perhaps Henry was in essence going to confession. After he silently said an absolution and prayer for Henry, he began to think about how remarkably similar Henry’s confession was to Jenny’s confession he’d heard just the other day in the Santa Maria Home. Both she and now Henry desired the love of a married person. Both yearned to fill the emptiness, the loneliness in their hearts. Both desired to be kissed by their first love…the love of their youth.

  Once again Father broke the silence by offering another suggestion that was even more strongly rejected in Henry’s mind.

  “Perhaps, Henry, you should sell this house. I am concerned where this all might lead to—”

  “Oh, Father, I couldn’t. I understand the danger of losing touch, but there is something so strangely wonderful going on here, I just can’t explain it. It’s like I am surrounded by and being led by angels…it’s…it’s…an angelic occurrence!

  “No, no, Father, definitely not. I just couldn’t give up this home. I have found something so rare and special, almost a second chance at life.”

  “A second chance at what kind of a life? It’s all make believe,” Father blurted out.

  They locked gazes, each adamant in their position and their perception of the situation.

  “What if, Father…I mean just suppose I were to marry, again. After we all die, whose husband would I be? Would I go back to my first wife, Julean, or would I be Jenny’s…I mean the other lady’s husband in the hereafter?”

  Father studied Henry. He knew what was in his heart. Surely he wouldn’t go after Jenny, knowing that she was married. It wasn’t Father’s place to sit in judgment. Henry had asked him a question.

  “After we die, Henry, there is no need to concern ourselves with marriage. The Bible clearly tells us that things will be quite different when we go to heaven. We will see each other, our parents, relatives, wives, husbands, but in another way.”

  Father turned and reached for the Bible on the end table next to him. Within seconds, he found the passage. Clearing his throat and settling his spectacles more firmly on his nose, he read Matthew 22; 24-30.

  “Teacher,” they said, “Moses taught: ‘If a man who has no children dies, his brother must marry the widow so they can have children for the dead man.’ Now, there were seven brothers who used to live here. The oldest got married, and died without children, so he left his widow to his brother. The same thing happened to the second brother, to the third, and finally to all seven. Last of all, the woman died. Now, on the day when the dead are raised to life, whose wife will she be? All of them had married her!”

  “Jesus answered them: ‘How wrong you are! It is because you don’t know the scriptures of God’s power. For when the dead are raised to life they will be like the angels in heaven, and men and women will not marry….’”

  “So, that is your answer, Henry. Marriage will not exist as such in heaven.”

  Henry looked at Father, having heard the answer, and knowing what Father really was thinking about.

  “You needn’t worry, Father, I have no intention of pursuing a married women, be it Jenny or any other.”

  Father smiled.

  Later that evening after Justin and Lauren went to bed Henry always enjoyed the chance to have some time to himself and listen to his two favourite songs. Love Me Tender had just played as he walked out into the sun room. He decided not to turn on the lights but felt prompted to just gaze out into the cloudless sky.

  He heard the next record drop and begin to sing his favourite song…

  “Well I give to you and you give to me…true Love, true love, and on and …

  Unbidden tears came to Henry’s eyes as he stood in front of the large glass window in the darkness. Thoughts of his first love surfaced so powerfully his heart began to ache. The wonder and awe of purchasing the house and the spiritual connection he made to the previous owner was such a mystery to Henry, yet so palpable it was real. Had he gone too far in thinking that Marjorie was Jenny?

  Was the love in his heart so deep and strong that he would do anything to make it all real…?

  Henry looked outside to see if he could see their star but the sky had blossomed into millions of twinkling stars each seemingly begging Henry to make a wish…

  “and on and on it will always be, true love, true…,” Bing crooned. .

  Henry felt Julean’s presence and he recalled a verse she had taught him and the children.…

  Star light, star bright

  First star I see tonight

  I wish I may, I wish I might

  Have the wish I wish tonight.

  Oh star of east I know that you are out there, I wish with all my heart that it would be possible for my Jenny to come back to me…

  No sooner had the words tumbled from Henry’s lips then suddenly… a kaleidoscope of stars from everywhere burst into the sky! He had never seen such a dazzlingly display of colour. One shooting star after the other streaked across the sky. Just when one fizzled out another took its place. Each time the dust from the star filled Henry’s heart with wonder and joy! The tears sitting on the edge of his eyelids spilled over and flowed glistening in the moonlight…

  “…for you and I have a guardian angel on high with nothing to do, but to give to you and to give to me love forever true…”

  Oh dear guardian angel, please give me my true love…

  And there before him stood Julean. She softly smiled and passed through the window as if air and flew swiftly into the star studded sky…

  Henry was filled with burgeoning hope…

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Hi Matti, thanks for calling.”

  “Just wanted to know how you be feeling, Jenny. I‘ve been thinking and praying for you all day. I even told the Boss upstairs he better get to healing my best friend or He’s going to hear from me, big time!”

  Oh, Matti, you are my best medicine, that be for sure,” Jenny said trying to lovingly imitate her good friend.

  “I’m doing as fine as can be expected. I have decided to go off all support and treatments in a few days. I don’t think they are helping and it just makes me feel so drugged and fatigued. If I’m going to see my Maker I’d like to go out with my eyes open.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s down right frustrating that after all these years of research and study you’d think smart fellows like them scientists and doctors would have figured this sickness all out by now. I hopes they not be sleeping on the job.”

  “I don’t think so, Matti, it’s just that there are so many different forms of cancer and depending where it strikes…I guess it’s all more complicated than we think. Anyway, I am very grateful for my doctor. I have to admit, I love him to bits and if he wasn’t married I’d be flirting with him until my dying breath!”

  “Now don’t you let Henry hear you say that, your heart tells me over and over that he be the one and only man in your life. I’m feeling he still keeps a secret corner of his heart for you, too, Jen. But that only be the natural thing, I can‘t see how any man that knows you couldn’t be smitten for life!”

  “So have you seen J.J. lately?” Jenny
asked, subtly changing the topic.

  “Yes, J.J. was at the estate a couple of weeks ago. He brought some papers for Mr. Hamilton to sign. He be thinking of freezing himself the moment his heart stops beating and before his brain stops thinking. He figures they can suspend him somehow until them scientists come up with a cure. Then when the doctors know how to fix him up they will thaw him out and bring him back to the land of the living. Good Lord, at the rate them scientists are working on this cancer thing, Mr. Hamilton be sleeping a long time.”

  “Oh, my…I can’t imagine a person being frozen and placed in some drawer and then coming back. It gives me the chills, Matti, just thinking about it.”

  “Me, too. I just wonder what the good Lord has to say about all this. You know, Mr. Hamilton trying to delay his final judgement like that. Why with all the money that man has he can stay frozen until all hell freezes over.”

  “Oh, Matti…” Jenny chuckled… “that James, what will he think of next?”

  “But I must say, Jenny, like I said to you before, he be changing some. Since coming back to the estate last summer I noticed a huge difference in his disposition. Kinder and more accepting somehow. Why, the day J.J. brought them papers Mr. Hamilton invited Thomas in for a cup of coffee. The two sat in the kitchen and had a discussion like they was two old friends.”

  “That’s wonderful, Matti. Perhaps getting away from the business and enjoying what he has is beginning to rub off.”

  “That be for sure, Jen. He told Thomas he wanted to restore the garden just like you had it. He even wants to get another angel statue just like you had, too.”

  “Oh, Matti, that makes my heart sing. That’s wonderful news.”

  “What took the cake, Jen, was when Mr. Hamilton asked Thomas to call him James from now on. I thought I be having a heart attack right then and there. I be so shocked I dropped a glass bowl filled with peeled potatoes.

  “Scared the dickens out of the two men. I’m still not over it. I just don’t know where this be leading…but he shore seems to be heading down the right path.”

  Jenny was so overwhelmed with what Matti said, tears surfaced in her eyes. “I don’t know what to say, Matti…it all sounds so wonderful.”

  “Things improving around the household. We all be relaxing more, know what I’m saying?”

  There was a silence over the phone line. Jenny was momentarily too choked up to speak.

  “What I started to tell you was about J.J. and then I be sidetracked with this freezing business. Before J.J. left that day, I hear Mr. Hamilton tell his boy that he better call you. They then had some words about that and it ended by Mr. Hamilton saying he was wrong the way he be treating you and then J.J. left. So that’s all I can be telling you. Sounds to me like the boy still hasn’t called you…?”

  “No, unfortunately he hasn’t, I pray everyday that he does. But that is so wonderful for James to support me on this…I am just so happy to hear that. Oh. Matti, do you think J.J. might still come…?”

  “Can’t say. After Mr. Hamilton say that, there was a lot of exchange between them behind closed doors. Some of the words that Mr. Hamilton say, I can’t repeat. But the meaning of it all was, that J. J. better learn to appreciate his mama. To be honest, Jen, it’s the first time that the estate sounded like a home.”

  “I find that almost unbelievable, Matti, it’s like music to my ears.”

  “Now, I can’t promise that boy of yours will come to see you. He filled with a lot of pride, just like his daddy. Sometimes they’d have to hit some kind of bottom in order to bring sense to their steel hard heads, you know what I’m saying?”

  Jenny chuckled for the first time in days, “Yes, Matti I know what you’re saying all too well.”

  “Anyway, here’s even more good news and the purpose of my call. I told Mr. Hamilton that you weren’t doing too good and that I would like to visit you for a few days. Now, I fully expected a blast, but instead Mr. Hamilton said, he was going to suggest that very thing. That I could do a lot more for you than all them doctors put together. He told me to get a ticket straight away and stay as long as I needed to…”

  Jenny let out a yelp that almost collapsed Matti’s ear drum.

  “That’s wonderful Matti, Oh I can’t wait for you to be here. And guess who else is here…Chloe! She came a few days ago. Oh my heart is starting to sing again, Matti. My two favourite people at my side…Oh thank you, Matti, I love you so much!”

  “I love you too, Jen, and I can’t wait to see you and Chloe, it be like one big family re-union. I should be there by the weekend.”

  “And Matti, would you please tell James, thanks, that it is so kind of him…and give him a big hug for me.”

  “Now, I carry out your first request Jen, but there is no way I am going to wrap my arms around that man…no sir. Even I have limits!”

  The two girls laughed and then hung up.

  Chapter Seventy

  The gallery buzzed with activity all morning then turned even crazier after lunch. The café was packed; meaning people had to wait to be seated. Many of those waiting browsed the gallery until a table came available.

  By one o’clock, Henry was exhausted. Talking to customers, autographing his books and prints, and helping out in the café, had drained him. He longed to get back to Marjorie’s house where he always found a quiet respite from the business.

  Finally, Henry was able to make a quick exit out the rear of the café. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, almost too nice for the second week in April. March had come in like a lion and out like a lamb. Only two weeks ago everything had been covered with snow and freezing cold. But a Chinook from Alberta had melted the snow in no time. It seemed more like July than early April.

  In any case it was a perfect day to play hooky, something he should do more often. He knew he was working too hard, but without Julean and the kids at home, he found the interaction and satisfaction of working at the shop more enticing than retiring from it all.

  But the anticipation of further exploring Marjorie’s house easily pulled him away. He was anxious to go through the cedar chest which he’d opened yesterday in the basement. It was filled with numerous outfits for a growing child. Henry guessed the outfits were meant for an infant to at least a seven or eight year old. The older outfits clearly were all meant for a little girl. The infant ones could have been for either sex but probably for the same child.

  Henry liked one outfit especially; a bright yellow sun dress with white daisies all over. Maybe it was the little tag that Marjorie had written on it that appealed to Henry the most: To my beautiful wildflower! There were quite a few toys as well and some boxes that he hoped he would get at today.

  After all these months, he was still discovering things. And no matter what he found, it all appealed to him. It was almost like opening boxes of things which he had purchased a long time ago, and was just now getting around to opening what he had stored away.

  Henry could hardly wait to get to Jenny’s house…that is Marjorie’s. Over the last week or so he had such a strong compelling desire to go there, a pull that seemed stronger by the minute, almost like a gripping urgency in his gut, drawing him back day after day.

  Along with his daily visits was the increasing fascination to go through all the drawers, boxes and closets in the house. He surmised that this feeling had to do with his desire to know everything about Marjorie. Lately however, it seemed more like a compulsion to look for something or…was it something that wanted to be found?

  The warm breeze coming in from the sunroof felt good after a long cold winter. His thinning hair fluttered in the wind as he drank in the dry prairie air. He was enjoying the spring day so much he hadn’t realized that he had travelled all the way down Albert Street to Hill Avenue. He turned right on a green light at that intersection and sped to Marjorie’s house.

  All the way as he walked up
the winding sidewalk to the front door, he wished Jen-Marjorie were there waiting for him. He was tired and lonely and ached to be loved and held.

  As he stood at the front door, the emptiness inside subsided and began to be replaced by a feeling of anticipation, that something unforeseen was waiting for him inside. It was growing so rapidly that it overwhelmed him. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  Henry surveyed the foyer and parts of other rooms that he could see through the open doorways. As usual however, nothing had changed. Everything seemed the same, there was just a stillness filled with peace and silence. The lilac fragrance in the air seemed stronger than usual. Or was it due to his heightened senses?

  It was exactly as Marjorie had left it; he hadn’t changed a thing over the months he had been coming, except for the odd book or half-empty glass or coffee cup here and there.

  He closed the front door and was going to go to the basement and look through some more boxes down there. As he walked past the entrance to the living room a shadow streaked across the room. His eyes followed it to an easy chair where he felt Marjorie had always sat…Julean…is that you? Henry looked again…he could have sworn Julean was sitting in the chair. He went over and carefully touched the seat of the chair and then sat down. He shook his head and looked at the antique round end table just beside the chair. It was a beautiful table with a drawer in front. Henry always admired the table whenever he sat in the sofa across the room. It was supported by four curved legs fanned out to the floor with their tips covered with brass claws.

  There was something familiar about the table; he felt that he had seen it somewhere before. He ran his hand over its shiny surface and thought about the fine workmanship that no longer marked modern furniture. Henry opened the drawer and was surprised to find the Sunday Sun magazine inside with his interview. He smiled at the thought that Marjorie had read it. Perhaps she knew him better than he did her. At least she could see a picture of him on the front cover. Henry turned to the article of his interview on the third page and scanned it.