Touched By Angels

by Debbie Macomber

  After Emilio listed his name, three other male students added their promise.

  When they’d finished, Brynn took the chalk, stepped to the blackboard, and wrote i will practice safe sex. Then she drew a line beneath the words and waited.

  “Next we’re going to discuss protection,” she said.

  Later that afternoon, after her class had been dismissed for the day, Brynn felt good about the spontaneous way in which they’d discussed the subject of sex. It might have gone differently had she planned it. Instead the students themselves had contributed their feelings and insights, and because she’d listened to them, they had been willing to hear her out as well.

  She studied each name on the two lists and prayed that their talk would make a difference in how they chose to live their lives.

  “Miss Cassidy.”

  Brynn looked up to find Suzie standing in the doorway. “Am I disturbing you?”

  “No, of course not.” Brynn stood. “How did your session go with Mrs. Christian?”

  “All right, I guess. She made an appointment for me at the health clinic.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “My baby’s healthy,” Suzie said with a shy smile. “I feel him kick and move all the time now.” The teenager’s gaze moved to the blackboard. “I . . . I heard about what you did. It’s all over the school. You talked about birth control and responsible sex because of me, didn’t you?”

  Brynn couldn’t very well deny it. “I didn’t break your confidence, Suzie. No one knows what you told me.” She felt it was important to assure Suzie of that.

  “I knew you wouldn’t say anything.” Suzie studied the list. “Emilio signed his name.” Although it was a statement, the surprise in her voice made it a question.

  “Several of the young men in class did.”

  “Do you think I could add my name?” she asked, diverting her eyes from Brynn’s. “Or is it too late?”

  “I’d be proud if you did,” Brynn told her.

  Suzie walked up and added her name to the first list. “I’m going to talk to my mother this afternoon. She’ll be angry with me and she’ll want me to tell her who the father is, but I won’t.”

  “You can’t protect him forever,” Brynn said gently.

  “I know. Mom will be angry, but not nearly as much as my father.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Brynn asked.

  Suzie considered the offer, then shook her head. “No, but thank you for volunteering.”

  No sooner had Suzie left than Brynn was asked to come down to the office. It was the first time she’d received such a request. She wasn’t left to wonder at the reason.

  She knew.

  If what Suzie said was true, then Mr. Whalen, the principal, had heard what she’d done.

  Allen Whalen invited her into his office, and after she’d stepped inside, he closed the door firmly. The sound of it clicking alerted her to the fact that this wasn’t going to be a friendly chat.

  Brynn respected Allen Whalen. He was a big, no-nonsense man and a fair disciplinarian. He had zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol and didn’t shy away from confrontations, often suspending students for fighting or other disruptions. Emilio could testify to that.

  “Sit down, Brynn,” Allen said, and motioned for her to take a seat on the other side of his desk. More than likely this was the identical chair in which Emilio had sat the first day of the quarter following his fight with Grover.

  “First off,” Allen said, leaning forward, “I want you to know I’ve heard good things about you. The kids seem to feel kindly toward you, and that’s a plus. I understand you’ve made a point to visit the families of your students.”

  “Yes, I—”

  “While your efforts are commendable,” Allen interrupted, “I don’t feel it’s a good idea for you to become emotionally involved with your students.”

  Brynn opened her mouth to explain her purpose, but once again she wasn’t allowed to continue.

  “You’re young, and idealistic. Perhaps a little too young to deal with the reality of our situation here.”

  “Mr. Whalen, if you’d allow me to explain . . .”

  He gestured with his hand, indicating that he wasn’t finished. “I had my doubts about this government project. As far as I’m concerned, the less the federal government has to do with the school system, the better. I would never have agreed to this program had I realized . . .” He paused and leaned forward, pressing his elbows against the top of his cluttered desk. “I don’t want to get sidetracked here. The reason I asked you to my office has nothing to do with the government or why you’re at Manhattan High.”

  “Yes?” She sat straight, her back as stiff as a steel pipe.

  “I received a phone call from two mothers this afternoon,” he prefaced, his face growing tight with displeasure. “Don’t tell me, Miss Cassidy, that you actually discussed birth control methods with your history class.”

  Rather than hedge, Brynn answered him in a straightforward manner. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  Allen Whalen’s eyes drifted closed momentarily. “In your history class, Miss Cassidy?”

  “It needed to be said.”

  “And you felt you were the most qualified to advise a classroom full of young adults? I take it you’ve attended the course the district requires before teaching sex education?”

  “No. The discussion was spontaneous. I certainly didn’t plan to spend the afternoon discussing the benefits of condoms.”

  “In other words, you just decided this needed to be said and you were the one to do it?”

  “If you put it like that, then I have no option but to say yes.” She had no defense and didn’t think it would help her case if she had.

  Mr. Whalen mulled over her answers. “In case you weren’t aware of it, this community is largely Catholic.”

  Brynn folded her hands on her lap. “I’m Catholic myself.”

  “That is no excuse,” he said, then stopped abruptly. “You’re Catholic?”

  “My name is Cassidy and my hair is red.” She didn’t mean to be sarcastic, but it should have been obvious.

  “Then you must be aware of the church’s standing on the subject of birth control.”

  “I am indeed.” She didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate. Didn’t doubt for an instant that he was furious with her.

  “I’m afraid, Miss Cassidy, that in light of this admission, I have no choice but to place a letter of reprimand in your file.”

  Brynn swallowed tightly. “I’ve always known you to be a fair man. If you feel I deserve to be formally reprimanded for my actions, then I can only assume that you’re right.”

  “You’re a history and English teacher. In the future please remember that.” He reached for a piece of paper and started writing.

  Brynn sat where she was for several awkward moments.

  After a while, he glanced up. “You may leave.”

  When Brynn walked out of the office, she found three secretaries staring at her. Their looks were sympathetic as she whisked past. The whispers started the moment she was around the corner.

  “Hello, Hannah.”

  Hannah looked up from the novel she was reading. “Carl,” she said, unable to hide her surprise and her guilt. No one had told her he planned to stop by that evening. “How are you feeling?” She hadn’t spoken to him since his bout with the flu.

  Her fiancé claimed the recliner across from her. “Much better, thank you.”

  Hannah noted that her heart didn’t leap with excitement the way it did whenever she saw Joshua. Nor did she experience a twinge of pleasure just because they were together. Carl was Carl. Dedicated, devout, determined. But soon, if everything went as their mothers had planned, he would be more than an unexpected guest. He would be her husband.

  “My mother stopped by to talk to your mother,” he explained with a wry grin. “They’re discussing the details of the wedding.”

  Hannah’s gaze fe
ll back to the pages of the novel. “My mother wants to hire a wedding coordinator,” she told him. “I heard her discussing the matter over the phone.”

  “She must have been talking to my mother, because I heard her say something about it as well.”

  Hannah smiled and looked away. She noticed with regret that they didn’t seem to have a whole lot to say to each other.

  “I thought we should set a time to shop for the engagement ring,” Carl suggested, almost as if he were grateful for something to discuss.

  “That would be nice.”

  “How about after the first of the year?” he proposed.

  “Great.” The further into the future, the better.

  A disjointed silence followed, as though there were nothing left to say.

  “Carl.” Her father’s face lit up with delight as he walked into the living room. “Ruth didn’t mention that you were coming.”

  Carl stood, and the two men exchanged hearty handshakes. David Morganstern slapped Hannah’s fiancé across the back. “By heaven, it’s good to see you. You’ve been making yourself scarce around here these last few days.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Ruth said you’d come down with a twenty-four-hour bug the other night.”

  “I’m fine now.”

  Hannah watched as the transformation took place in the man who was to be her husband. It seemed his face brightened as soon as her father walked into the room.

  Soon the two entered into a lively debate over some political matter that didn’t interest Hannah. While they chatted, Hannah went into the kitchen, brewed tea, and served that along with freshly baked sugar cookies.

  Helen Rabinsky and Hannah’s mother were engrossed in their own conversation and seemed unaware of her. As she expected, the women were debating the pros and cons of hiring a wedding coordinator.

  After a time, Hannah escaped to her bedroom and closed the door. She doubted anyone would miss her.

  Sitting on top of her bed, her knees bent, Hannah closed her eyes and remembered her time with Joshua at the skating rink. It wasn’t right that she should be thinking of another man. Not with Carl on the other side of the door.

  Joshua’s business card remained inside her coat pocket, but she didn’t need to retrieve it to find the number. In the last two days, she’d stared at that card so often, she’d committed the phone number to memory.

  When she feared she might be missed, Hannah returned to the living room. Carl glanced her way and smiled affectionately.

  “Carl,” she said, “would you like to go for a walk, or something?”

  “A walk?” he repeated with a decided lack of enthusiasm. “It’s below freezing.”

  “How about if we went ice skating?” she suggested next.

  “Tonight?”

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into that daughter of mine,” her father commented, and chuckled. “Two nights ago she walks over to Rockefeller Center and goes ice skating.”

  “I don’t skate,” Carl said with a touch of sadness.

  “I could teach you,” she offered expectantly. “It isn’t difficult, and we could have a lot of fun.”

  Carl looked from Hannah to her father and then back again. “Would you mind if we stayed here?”

  “Remember your young man’s just getting over the flu, Hannah,” her father reminded her gently. “Carl will take you ice skating another time.”

  She tried to hide her disappointment and must have succeeded. An hour later, Helen Rabinsky announced it was time to leave. Carl stood, and for no reason Hannah could fathom the two of them were left alone. It didn’t take her long to realize her family was giving her and Carl a private moment together.

  “Thanks for stopping by, Carl,” she said.

  “It was good to see you again, Hannah.” He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. It was a gentle kiss, but passionless. It was unfair to compare the kisses she’d shared with Joshua to the quick exchanges between her and Carl. But Hannah couldn’t help it.

  Joshua’s kisses made her feel as though she’d been hit by a freight train. The emotional impact left her reeling long afterward. She knew that her kisses affected him in the same magical, exciting way. Joshua made her feel like a sensual, alluring woman.

  “I’ll be calling you soon,” Carl promised.

  Hannah nodded, afraid to speak for fear of what she’d say. Intuitively she realized she couldn’t marry Carl. He didn’t love her any more than she loved him. He was as miserable about this arrangement as she was, but they were both caught in the trap. One of them had to break it.

  As soon as Hannah and her parents were alone, her mother turned and clapped her hands gleefully. “Helen agrees that we should hire a wedding coordinator. I couldn’t be more pleased. She suggested we talk to Wanda Thorndike.” She hugged Hannah briefly. “I’ll make an appointment with Wanda first thing in the morning.”

  Hannah wanted to object, to explain that she felt they were rushing matters, but she wasn’t given the opportunity.

  “I overheard Carl suggest that he and Hannah pick out engagement rings right after the first of the year.”

  “David,” her mother said, sighing, “you can’t imagine everything we need to consider for a large wedding.”

  “We haven’t picked a date yet,” Hannah reminded her family, dread weighing down her words.

  “My dear, you’re as naive as Helen and I were about all this. The wedding coordinator will be the one to choose that. She’ll know what’s available and when. Personally I’d prefer a June wedding. You should be a traditional June bride, but that’s barely six months away, and I don’t know if we could manage it in that time. One thing I’m going to have to insist we do right away, and that’s shop for your dress.”

  “Mom—”

  “Helen was telling me it sometimes takes as long as six months to have a dress made and delivered.”

  “But—”

  “I know, darling, we’re throwing a lot at you. Just be patient.” Humming happily to herself, Ruth Morganstern returned to the kitchen and the wedding brochures she’d pored over only moments earlier.

  Hannah’s father chuckled. “I don’t know when I’ve last seen your mother so pleased. This wedding has given her a renewed lease on life.”

  Hannah couldn’t find it in her heart to disappoint them. Not then. Later, she promised herself. She’d sit down with them both and explain that she didn’t love Carl.

  By noon the following day the deli was filled with the usual lunch crowd. Her father hand-sliced pastrami into thick wedges while Hannah and her mother assembled the sandwiches.

  Runners delivered orders as fast as they could be packed.

  The routine was one in which Hannah had worked most of her life. She never questioned that she would help in the deli; it was assumed.

  Around two, the heavy lunch crowd had begun to thin out. Her mother returned to the kitchen to make up a fresh batch of potato salad. Her father was preoccupied with ordering supplies when Hannah looked up to discover Joshua standing on the other side of the counter.

  “Joshua,” she whispered in a low rush of air. Just seeing him again had knocked the breath out of her. She couldn’t disguise her delight. Her heart went into second gear as she glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one was paying them any mind. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a whisper.

  “I came for lunch.”

  Of course. She reached for a pencil, prepared to take his order.

  He read the printed menu that hung on the wall behind her. “I’ll have a pastrami on rye and a cup of coffee.”

  She wrote down his order with trembling hands.

  “Are you going to make it for me yourself?”

  She nodded, avoiding eye contact. She wouldn’t be able to hide how pleased she was to see him again if she looked up.

  “You didn’t phone,” he whispered just loudly enough for her to hear.

  “Potato is the soup of the day,” she said.
>
  “Hannah, look at me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  She closed her eyes and braced herself “You shouldn’t have come here.”

  “You don’t want my business?”

  He was making this difficult.

  “You’ve thought about contacting me, haven’t you?”

  Again she didn’t answer. “Would you care for a bowl of soup with your sandwich?”

  He didn’t respond for a number of seconds, and then, “The only thing I want is you, Hannah.”

  “If you’ll take a number, I’ll have your lunch delivered.”

  “Will you bring it?” he asked.

  Her nod was nearly imperceptible. She saw the tension leave him and couldn’t keep from glancing up and offering him a quick smile. It took only a moment or more to finish compiling his sandwich. She carried that and a cup of coffee to his table and was pleased to note he sat as far away from the counter as possible.

  “Thank you, Hannah,” he said when she placed the plate on the table. “Would you care to join me?”

  “I can’t.” Her hands folded over the back of the chair across from him. She glanced over her shoulder, fearing her father would notice the two of them together.

  “Is that your father?” Joshua asked, looking around her.

  “Yes. Mom’s in the kitchen.”

  “He doesn’t look like the kind of man who would force his daughter into a loveless marriage.”

  “Joshua, please.”

  He picked up the sandwich, and once again, Hannah looked back to make sure no one was watching her. “I sometimes walk by the pond in Central Park,” she whispered.

  Joshua went still. “When?”

  “I was thinking of taking a stroll there this afternoon.”

  “In an hour?”

  “Yes.”

  Joshua’s handsome face broke into a wide grin. “I’ve always favored walking as an excellent form of exercise.”

  Eleven

  “Are you sure you’re up to this?” Trey asked Jenny for the third time since they’d boarded the ferry headed for Ellis Island.

  “I wouldn’t have suggested sight-seeing if I wasn’t feeling better,” Jenny insisted. They stood and watched as the New York skyline began to fade into the distance. “I want you to visit Ellis Island,” she continued. “It’s an emotional experience, at least it was for me the first time I made the trip. I found my great-grandfather’s name there.”