Unlikely Angel

by Ashley Smith

  This guy wants to rob a bank. He’s still thinking about running. I’m really not going to make it out of here, am I? I’m going to die and I’m never, ever going to see Paige again. What is she going to feel like? She’s not going to have a mom or a dad. She’s just going to be sad forever.

  I knew my little girl. Even being away from her, I knew her heart. Whenever I saw her, she just ran up to me and jumped into my arms yelling, “Mommy! Mommy!” She grasped on to me and wouldn’t let me go. It was as if there was a hole in her heart because I had been gone for so long—for two years she had been with Aunt Kim, and even before that, when she lived with me, I had checked out on her emotionally. I tried to see her as many weekends as I could now, but it didn’t always work out between school and my jobs. And she just hurt over it. I knew she did.

  I reached across the counter now, over the two lines of ice, and picked up the picture in its gold frame. Then I turned it toward Brian Nichols so he could see it. “This is Paige, my five-year-old little girl,” I said. “She doesn’t have a daddy.”

  I put my cigarette out in the ashtray and pulled the picture back, looking at Paige in that beautiful white dress and running my hand over the glass.

  “I’m supposed to see her in the morning at ten o’clock,” I said. “Am I going to be able to do that?” I kept my eyes on Paige as I talked—the white dress, her little pug nose. I needed to leave at 9:30 if I was going to get there on time.

  “No,” he said.

  Then the tears came, and I couldn’t hold them in. “I haven’t seen her in two weeks,” I said, sobbing freely now and looking him in the face, “and she’s expecting me to be there. She doesn’t have a father, and for her not to have her mommy there too—she’s going to be devastated.”

  He sat there watching me. Then he said, “Well, maybe I’ll let you call them.”

  I shook my head and laid the picture frame in my lap. “You don’t understand. My family’s going to be worried if I just call them and don’t show up. That’s not going to be enough—for me to just call. They’ll be worried. And Paige will be really upset without me there. She hasn’t seen me in so long.”

  I had to keep pressing. For years I had tried to put myself in Paige’s shoes, to feel her feelings about not having a daddy. I knew what it was like not having my daddy around growing up—it hurt me. I was afraid of my daddy. Every time he called, which wasn’t much, he slurred his words; and I was scared even to come to the phone when my mom told me he was asking for me.

  But at least my daddy was alive. At least I could believe that maybe one day things would get better. Paige just had this end—her daddy was never coming back. She couldn’t even have hope. And now for me to not be there tomorrow? I wanted Brian Nichols to feel that. I wanted him to put himself in her position—to think about Paige first not having a daddy and then really expecting to see her mommy after not having seen her for two weeks. I just had to make him feel that.

  I was looking right at him with tears running out of my eyes. “I can’t not be there,” I said, talking low, barely able to get the words out. “I can’t not show up. She’s five years old. Imagine how long two weeks is when you’re that little. I can’t do that to her.”

  Then I said, “And I’m supposed to work tomorrow too. And they’re going to wonder why I’m not there if I don’t come in.” I’m really reaching here, God. Help me out. Help me!

  He was quiet for a second, looking down at the linoleum floor. “Maybe,” he said, now raising his head. “Maybe I’ll let you go. Just—I don’t know. Let’s just see how things go.”

  “Okay,” I answered, wiping my cheeks with my hands. God, thank you. Thank you for a foot in the door. Just keep helping me. I’ve got to make more progress. Please.

  13 the one who paid

  So what happened to your husband?”

  He lit a cigarette and sat up straight on the edge of the toilet seat. His voice was still flat and low. He seemed melancholy to me. Not at all like I was when I did those drugs, with my brain going a hundred miles an hour just zinging all over the place. Maybe God was overriding the drugs and really calming him down to show me, “Look, even though this is bad and I don’t want you doing this, I’m going to use it to your advantage right now.” I hoped so. I really hoped so.

  “Well,” I said, “my husband Mack died on a Friday night when we were out.” I thought I would really start sharing with Brian Nichols now. I wanted to open up my life to him so he could learn more about who I was and feel what I felt. I thought maybe if he could get to know me and understand my life a little, he would want to let me go see Paige in the morning. So I started.

  “You know, what happened to Mack that night—it just wasn’t supposed to end that way. All week leading up to the night he died, I was having these anxiety attacks. And I’d never had those before. I mean, I just felt shaky, not in control—like something bad was going to happen. I would tell Mack, and he’d just say, ‘Well, honey, you look horrible—go lie down.’ But I still had them.

  “And that night when we were getting ready to go out, I didn’t feel good, either. But Mack wanted to go out, so we did. Because that’s just how I was—I was going to do whatever he did. And we actually got home early. But then Mack heard that this guy he knew had called him a narc, so he wanted to go slap him around some. I just fought it and fought it. I didn’t want him to go out again, but he was going, so I went with him. And we never made it back. He died there in the apartment complex after that fight. He was just gone. They wouldn’t even let me identify his body.”

  I could see that parking lot again—the lights spinning on the police cars, the paramedics and that machine, and Mack lying there not responding. And I remembered the sense of evil I felt standing there when the police wouldn’t let me get in the ambulance and identify Mack’s body. “But I’m his wife!” I shouted. “We’re sorry, ma’am,” they said. And that was it. Daniel McFarland Smith Jr. was gone. They took him away. I could feel evil all around me. And a horrible sense of darkness. Like nothing that had happened there was of God.

  “I felt so alone after that,” I told Brian Nichols, pulling my cigarettes off the counter and taking another one out. “Just so alone. I was never mad at God. I asked him why, but I wasn’t mad at him. I was just numb, I think. I made myself numb. Instead of being a real woman about the situation and facing my feelings, I took drugs so I didn’t have to feel. I took pain pills for an entire year—tons of them. And then I would get them from pharmacies and sell them to people. That made me popular, I guess. My phone was ringing all the time, and I didn’t feel so alone.

  “And then later I got into that other stuff—I got weak and tried ice and went completely off the deep end. And you know what? Paige is the one who paid. She lost her daddy, and then her mommy was selfish and started destroying herself. And she’s the one who paid.”

  I had laid the gold picture frame down on the counter, and now I picked it up and looked at Paige again. Tears just started coming. “I mean, imagine how she feels,” I said, holding up the frame to him again, tears running down my face now. “She doesn’t have a daddy —didn’t even get to say goodbye to him. And now I’m not around, either. I’m miles and miles away, not even fit to be her mother right now.”

  I set the frame down and lit my cigarette. It felt good to smoke, good to inhale, good to really cry. Brian Nichols was just sitting there on top of the toilet, listening, watching me.

  “After Mack,” I said, wiping my face, “I felt like I would never be able to take care of Paige and provide for her. I was scared to do it by myself. Didn’t think I could do it without a man—without my husband. And, well, my husband wasn’t around. And if I wasn’t going to be able to succeed, or even survive really, then why try? So I basically gave up right there at the beginning. Once we had the funeral, it was just a constant party at my house. Literally, right after the funeral people were over smoking pot, drinking, and taking pills; and someone said, ‘This is the way Mack would
want it.’ And I was like, ‘No—it’s not the way he would want it.’ But I didn’t stop it. The party went on, and people kept bringing me drugs.

  “Sometimes we smoked pot in front of Paige. I took pills in front of her. ‘Mommy’s just taking medicine’ is how I looked at it. Once I started ice, I never did that in front of her—I mean, people smoked it in the next room, but I didn’t actually do it where she could see me. But I would take care of her when I was messed up on it—messed up and really paranoid that people were after me. And I drove her around in the car like that.”

  I thought back to that hill on Hereford Farm Road and how I had begged Aunt Kim at Paige’s doctor’s appointment: “Please, just let me take her for a couple of hours—just to the park or something. I want to be with her. Please! Can’t I take her?” But Aunt Kim said no. She said no. And I thanked God for that—for saving Paige’s life. Because that was what happened when Aunt Kim said no. I remembered that voice in my head again as I was driving. Let go and let God. I just knew it was God talking to me. I just knew he wanted me to let go of that steering wheel. “I’m going to test you,” I had said. And then there was the way my hands felt in the air and my head going back. And then nothing.

  I paused and smoked for a few seconds, remembering what it was like waking up in the hospital trauma unit. “Baby, what happened in that car?” John had asked me. “What happened to you?”

  “And so,” I told Brian Nichols, “I gave Paige to my aunt. I gave my aunt temporary custody of her. I got released from the mental hospital and a couple days later went to sign some papers at the lawyer’s office. Really, I just had to do it. I loved Paige so much, and I knew I wasn’t going to stop using the drugs. She couldn’t be with me in all of that. I was starting to feel like something bad was about to happen, and I knew she couldn’t be around for it. I thought she’d be better off with my aunt until I could get my life together. Actually, that’s what I’m doing in Atlanta right now. Trying to get my life together for Paige.”

  He sat quietly, listening, not really shifting around much. He wasn’t smoking or sipping his beer anymore. Just listening.

  I looked over at the three black guns. They just made me nervous sitting there. I mean, what if one went off? I had a friend whose gun had gone off and blown a hole right through his car. The gun just fired. I could picture that happening here. Girl dies in hostage crisis from a gun accident. Nuts! The thought just creeped me out. I looked up at my linen cabinet by the door. I knew the top shelf had nothing on it. Maybe I could get him to agree to put those guns up there. He was listening to me. I knew he was hearing my story and paying attention. Maybe he would trust me enough to feel that he could do it. He seemed calm. Oh well, can’t hurt to ask.

  “Look,” I said to him, putting out my cigarette and reaching my hand back to point at the guns. “Don’t you want to put those things up? Just—what if one goes off? There’s a cabinet right there.” I looked over at the linen cabinet. “Top shelf’s empty.” Is this a totally stupid move, or what?

  I turned back to him to see what he would do. His eyes kind of glazed over. He sat up a little straighter. Then he looked me in the eye and shook his head. “No,” he said. And that was all. Man, I’m an idiot. I should never have asked. Did I just undo everything I was working for? Stupid!

  “I’m here in Atlanta,” I said now, “because I needed a fresh start—I had to get away from my past in Augusta and the old crowd and all the drugs and everything.” I wanted to get this conversation back on track. I had to keep pushing—bringing him into my life. And just make him feel like a normal person who I was sharing my life story with. See, I’m trusting you with my whole life. Don’t you think you can trust me too? That’s what I wanted him to see.

  “My Aunt Kim is still in Augusta, which is why Paige doesn’t live near me. Pretty much my whole family lived in Augusta until last year. Now it’s just my grandparents and Aunt Kim’s family. My Uncle David and his family are near Atlanta. My mom and brother and sister are here now—they’re really my half-brother and half-sister, but I don’t think of them that way. Christian and Leah. They’re nine months and three weeks apart. Their dad—I still call him my step-dad—lives in Augusta. He and my mom got divorced a while back, and my mom got remarried.

  “I lived with my mom for a while last year, sleeping on the couch, before I moved into these apartments. See, I went to recovery for three months. It was a place out in the country—my mom took me there after my boyfriend got busted in Augusta. And then after recovery, I came back to Atlanta and lived at her place so I didn’t have to go back to the whole Augusta scene again. I just had to start my whole life over from scratch.”

  I remembered what Miss Kate told me before I left recovery. We were sitting in the office in that white clapboard house where all the women slept, and she looked at me and said, “We’ve taught you all we can here. I think you’ll make it out there, but you need to stick to your meetings, and you’re going to have to learn some humility.”

  I thought: “Humility? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve already been humiliated. I’ve humiliated myself for the past two years!” But she meant going out into the world and living clean and starting over with nothing. As for my meetings, I didn’t stick to those. I basically thought I could make it on my own.

  “I’m working really hard to get Paige back,” I said to Brian Nichols now, sitting up straight on the vanity stool and putting my hands on my knees. “Completing recovery was one of the things the custody papers said I had to do. The other thing is to provide a stable home. And that’s what I’m working toward now. I’m in school to be a medical assistant. I have two jobs. And now I’ve got this apartment.” Can’t he see he has to let me keep going with this and get my daughter back? He can’t just kill me and cut the whole thing off.

  “But, you know,” I told him, “even though I’m closer to getting her back, I’m not ready for Paige yet. Financially I’m not ready. I mean, just this week my grandparents loaned me the money to move in here. I used to have a roommate, but living alone I needed help getting caught up with the bills.”

  I remembered my grandpa’s voice on the phone when I called him—just days ago—and asked about the loan so I could move into this smaller, more affordable apartment on the other side of the complex. “Papa, I have something to ask you, and you can say no if you want to. I’ll completely understand.” My grandparents hadn’t agreed to help me like this in years. They saw how my life had gone down after Mack. “Papa, I know there’s no reason for you to trust me after all the lies, so you can say no.” But he was listening to what I asked. He listened as I spoke, and then he asked about my grades. “I’m making A’s,” I told him. Then he said those words that totally shocked me: “Okay,” he said, “we’ll do it.”

  I took the picture frame off the counter again and held it in my lap. “And it’s more than finances,” I said to Brian Nichols. “I’m just not ready for Paige. If my aunt called me today and said, ‘You can have her back,’ I wouldn’t take her.”

  He looked at me now, tilting his head to the side as if he didn’t understand or thought I was nuts. Okay. I’ve got him listening again.

  I tried to explain. I wanted him to feel where I was now as a mom—how painful it was, how much I still had left to do with Paige. “It’s just that I’ve got to learn my child all over again. She’s a new person. For two years I haven’t been there—waking up with my child, giving her a bath, putting her to bed, taking her places. I only see her maybe once every few weeks, and I need to learn her again. I need to know her. There’s so much I just don’t know.”

  I sat back and looked at that picture frame. There I was, bending forward with my arm around a beautiful little girl, pulling her close. She was leaning against me and smiling. I was her mommy. She had her mommy with her. We were all together at my cousin’s wedding —a family.

  But who was that little girl? Who was she? I wanted to know so badly—everything about her. That’s why I was wo
rking so hard. That’s why I was hanging onto God for dear life. Fighting those drugs. Reading that book and trying to find my purpose. For her. To be with her. To deserve to be with her. And yet here I was, sitting in the bathroom of my apartment with this guy from the courthouse and all the guns and the lines of ice up on the counter. Was it all for nothing, Lord? Is this where it ends? After all that’s happened, am I going to miss out on knowing her? Won’t I ever get to know who she’s become?

  14 angel sent from god

  Do you want to see what drugs can do to you?” I asked him.

  I was smoking another cigarette, and suddenly, I thought I would show him my scar. I wanted him to really see what I had been through—to understand some of the consequences of my choices, so he could connect with me in my life a little more.

  I also wanted him, when he looked at the scar, to say, “Wow, she’s still here.” If he could see that I had done bad things and survived—I mean, yes, I was paying the price, but I was still alive—then maybe he would start to believe he could have hope for himself. Some kind of hope. I figured his price was going to be heavy; at the very least he would be locked up for the rest of his life. But that was better than running and hurting more people. If he could just see that turning himself in was a good thing.

  “Sure,” he said. He was smoking now too.

  “Well, here’s what the drugs did to me.” I put my cigarette down on the counter and lifted up the front of my tank top several inches above my belly button. I didn’t think doing this was provocative; I just wanted to make a point. “See this scar?” It was a thick fiveinch line running down the center of my torso from the lower part of my sternum to my belly button. At the bottom of the line and five inches out to each side was a round dot where an incision had been made.