The Gift of Angels

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  Strange that in my sickness I should become so powerful. Whatever I wanted, good or bad, Dean would not stand in my way. Normally we were a team of checks and balances, both of us able to suggest corrections when we perceived something was out of kilter. This new unbalance in our relationship unnerved me greatly.

  Marie stood by the table where she had set the comics. “Can’t we do scriptures later?” There was a book tucked under her arm, and I knew she was planning to hole up in her room and read the rest of the day. There had been a time when she’d always wanted to play board games or have me read to her.

  “Now’s better,” Dean said, pouring me a glass of milk. “We’re all here, and we all have time. I’d like to discuss what we’ve read this week, and since we’re going to the planetarium tomorrow for family night, it’ll be like doing the spiritual part today.”

  “Other families don’t have two family nights,” Marie retorted, plopping into her seat. “I don’t know why I have to go to the planetarium anyway. It’s not for my school class. Brody should go by himself, not drag us all along.”

  “Hey, it’ll be fun,” Brody protested. “You’re just mad ’cause they won’t let you take Becki.”

  Marie frowned. “Her parents would let her go. They’re not so rigid about Mondays like you guys.”

  “That’s beside the point.” Dean’s voice was tight, and I knew he found our daughter as challenging as I did. Marie had always been a good girl, but with her new attitudes and the friends she’d taken up with, we were both concerned about the direction she was headed.

  Brody went to Marie and put an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you get bored. And I promise not to let loose too many strange smells.” Mouth pursed, he made a long, disgusting sound.

  “Eew, gross!” But Marie was laughing. Brody had a way with her. For all the growing up she’d done over the past few years, part of her was still the little girl who had worshiped him and followed him around to the point of driving him crazy. I had no doubt the two would have a fantastic time tomorrow night at the planetarium.

  I wished I could stay home. Marveling at the miracle of the universe no longer appealed to me. The only miracle I wanted to hear about was the one I needed in my own life—and I wasn’t going to hold my breath for that one.

  Brody went to get scriptures for him and Marie, while Dean pulled his from the briefcase he always carried to church. They took turns reading aloud as I slowly ate the food Dean had retrieved from the microwave. The food smelled and tasted great, but my nausea made it difficult to chew. I had to force the fork with bits of meat into my mouth. At least eating slowly meant that I didn’t have to read.

  We had finished the Book of Mormon last week and were in 1 Nephi again, after having started with the introduction and the testimonies of the three witnesses and Joseph Smith. My bitterness had only increased in the reading. They’d all seen angels. Lehi had visions and saw angels, too. I’d never realized there were so many angels in our religion.

  Joseph and Lehi had angels while I had a biopsy confirming one of the most rapidly growing cancers that existed. I had surgery to put in a port four inches below my right collarbone where I would receive chemotherapy drugs. That was no comparison to angels.

  I stopped chewing at the thought, and Dean held his scriptures closer to me so I could see better.

  Brody began reading verse twenty-eight in the third chapter of 1 Nephi. “ ‘And it came to pass that Laman was angry with me, and also with my father; and also was Lemuel, for he hearkened unto the words of Laman. Wherefore Laman and Lemuel did speak many hard words unto us, their younger brothers, and they did smite us even with a rod.’ ” Brody shook his head. “Man, they’re jerks.”

  “It doesn’t say that,” Marie teased. They laughed.

  I knew what happened next. Another angel. An angel preoccupied with breaking up a sibling fight. Wouldn’t that be nice? Tears stung my eyes, and I shut them, struggling to keep the emotion from my face.

  I could shut my eyes, but I couldn’t shut out the vivid images that came as my family continued to read.

  The hills around me were rocky, filled with scrub brush and dotted with olive trees. Shouting came from a cave in front of me. I took a step and stumbled on a rock, falling to my knees. Rising, I brushed the dirt from my linen tunic and adjusted my mantel, my bracelets jingling. I stared at them in wonder.

  More shouting came from the cave. I stepped inside, my heart pounding.

  Two bearded men in light brown tunics and scarlet mantels were hitting two younger men with sticks. Whack! Whack! The sound made me shudder with the obvious force of the blows.

  On the ground near their feet was an open chest that was empty save a single vase that glittered gold in the dim light.

  I heard the younger men cry out a name that sounded like “Brother!”

  Brother. Nephi and Sam. The light was dim, but I could feel the older brothers’ frustration and fury. What might have begun as a simple proof of power, was quickly escalating into something much more vicious, something the younger men might not survive.

  Whack! Whack!

  A shimmering column of light fell over the group. I squinted my eyes, but all I could see was brightness. “Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod?” came a voice. “Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you?”

  The voice wasn’t loud, but it pierced to the center of my heart.

  “Behold,” the angel continued, “ye shall go up to Jerusalem again, and the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands.” Power filled every word, and I had to brace myself against the wall of the cave, close my eyes to the brightness.

  “Are you okay, Mom?” Brody was looking at me with an expression similar to the one Dean had been wearing lately. His brow was wrinkled, his blue eyes intense. I noticed he’d shaved, though the few hairs he had hardly justified shaving at all.

  “Fine,” I managed. “Just thinking we could put that angel to good work here with you and Marie.” The experience had felt so real, but my mind had to be playing tricks on me. I wondered if it was somehow connected to my illness.

  “We don’t fight,” Marie said. “Not for real. We just tease.” To make her point, she stuck her tongue out at her brother. He rolled his eyes, and she giggled. Dean looked on them with amusement.

  I have to tell them soon, I thought. They deserved time to prepare themselves.

  I felt as if I were seeing my family for the first time. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, boisterous Marie, a woman physically, but still immature in her actions and choices. She had become truly beautiful, a fact I’d missed despite the steady increase of boys calling the house.

  Brody, taller than his dad now, his shock of sand-colored hair sitting on his head in disarray as though uncertain in what direction to lie. He was poised in that short, precious time before real manhood. Already he’d taken control of his life, and his choices proved he was worthy of the task.

  Dean. Here my heart constricted. He couldn’t really be called a handsome man, but he was definitely pleasant-looking, and the kindness in his eyes was unmistakable. I knew every curve, valley, and hill in that face, a face that telegraphed his thoughts long before he voiced them. I had caressed each unruly cowlick in his dark-blond hair. To me he was the most handsome man in the world, the most dependable, and the most loving. If he had been a bad husband, maybe that would make things easier. Maybe I wouldn’t be so loath to leave.

  “Angela?” Dean asked.

  I jerked slightly at the sound of my name. Angela. So much like angel. It figures, I thought. Even my name betrays me. Lately, I had become a philosopher of sorts. I guess dying does that to a person. Perhaps that explained the strange experiences I was having with the scriptures.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “Go ahead.” The last thing I wanted was to hear more about the angel, but anything was better than telling the news to my children. Once I did there was no going back. Our whole future would change. For now I
could almost pretend the only challenge I was facing was sending my son off on a mission at the end of the year.

  I didn’t hear what else they read, though I thought a lot about Nephi and his angel—his own personal angel. It simply wasn’t fair.

  Or was it? If the angel hadn’t saved Nephi that day, there might not have been a Book of Mormon, and many souls would have been lost. If Sarah hadn’t given birth to Issac, there would have been no Jacob or children of Israel. But the Lord had sent both a miracle.

  What was my life compared to theirs? I wasn’t going to be the mother of a great nation, lead my people to a promised land, or even find the cure to a previously incurable disease. It was a little too late for all of that.

  Chapter Three

  When my family had finished reading, Marie jumped up and came around the table, sitting down in the chair next to me, vacated by Dean who had gone to put away his briefcase. “Uh, Mom,” she said, using the wheedling voice that instantly told me she wanted something.

  I looked at her, my hand reaching out to smooth back her hair. She arched away from me impatiently, and I hardened my heart against the rejection.

  “Becki and some of the others are going to the mall tomorrow. Can I go with her?”

  “What are you going to do at the mall?”

  She shrugged. “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Look at stuff.”

  Brody smirked. “You mean look at guys.”

  “No, I don’t!” Marie glared at him. “We’re just hanging out.”

  “Will there be adult supervision?”

  Marie hesitated. “Becki says her mom is coming.”

  We both knew what that meant. No supervision. History showed that Becki had a way of stretching the truth so Marie could be included. I’d lost track of all the times I’d ended up staying with the girls when another parent was supposed to be responsible. The last time had been at Nickelcade where Marie was meeting her friends and one of their mothers, who would later give them all a ride home. When we arrived, no other parent was there. The place was filled with a variety of people, and enough older boys that I couldn’t leave Marie unattended. So I’d sat watching my daughter and another girl play games while Becki whispered intimately with an older boy behind a row of arcade games where she thought I couldn’t see. I’d dragged Marie out two hours later, leaving the other girls, whose mothers apparently didn’t see any problem in leaving them there long after the appointed pick up hour.

  “You could come to the mall with us,” Marie said now.

  “You mean I can come if I walk ten paces behind you.” With the memory of the drama field trip so fresh in my mind, I couldn’t help the bitterness in my voice. “Thanks but no thanks.”

  Brody snorted. “Yeah, Marie. You won’t even sit with us at the movies.”

  I’d never minded that. I’d even encouraged her to sit up a row or two with her friends, but the mall, with Becki’s older boyfriend sure to be there, was a different story.

  Marie folded her arm atop her fantasy book. “I wouldn’t make you walk behind us. But I don’t see why I can’t go alone.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her so much as I felt she lacked judgment where Becki was concerned. “When you’re a little older,” I said, “you’ll be able to go out more with your friends. Until then you’ll need to hang out here. That’s what we finished the basement for, remember?”

  “You don’t trust me,” Marie wailed. “It’s not fair! All the other kids get to go places.”

  “That’s their parents’ choice. We have our own family rules.” Rules that had worked well enough for all the others. Rules that had kept them out of danger before it was too late.

  “Yeah, Marie, what’s the big deal? You know Becki’s only going to meet boys anyway.” Brody lurched to his feet, suddenly all gangly arms and legs, as though he’d forgotten exactly how to control his growing body. “Well, I gotta get going. Have to do some stuff before I go to John’s.” He disappeared in the direction of the stairs leading up to the second floor where our bedrooms were located.

  “Please, Mom. It’s only for a few hours,” Marie pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “But why can’t you go?”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to. I haven’t been feeling well lately.” It was as close as I had come to telling her about my sickness.

  She didn’t connect the dots. “Mom! You’re so . . .”

  Whatever I was she didn’t say. I knew from experience that she would continue to plead and whine until she wore me down or I left the room. Something else she’d learned from Becki, whose mother always gave in. I decided to go on the attack. “Besides, there’s also the matter of your chores.”

  “What? I did ’em! I always do them.”

  Five minutes in the family room and the downstairs bathroom—total—wasn’t exactly doing her chores, but I wouldn’t argue the point. “I’m talking about your room.”

  “My room?” Her brows gathered in an angry line above her eyes.

  “You haven’t cleaned it in a week. Which means you haven’t done your chores. I let you go over to your friend’s house on Friday, thinking you’d cleaned it, and you had everyone over here last night, but you lied about it being done.”

  “It only takes me five minutes. What’s the big deal?” She jumped to her feet. “You’re always making a big deal out of everything. I don’t care if my room’s clean. I like it the way it is.”

  “You haven’t dusted in months!”

  “That’s because it takes me an hour to do the shelves.”

  “So? It takes me an hour to clean the kitchen and more hours to do the laundry. That’s life. Cleaning takes time.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Too much time.”

  “Not if you do one shelf a week. Look, it’s not healthy to leave all that dust and garbage around. You have to learn to keep your room clean, or what will you do someday with an entire house?”

  Only a month ago Dean discovered that she’d been using one of her dresser drawers as a garbage can, and it had been crammed full of everything from used hygiene pads to candy wrappers. The display was unpleasant enough for him to ground her for an entire week. I always remembered because it was the same day I’d gotten the first bad news from the doctor.

  “I’ll hire a maid for my cleaning.” Marie jutted out her chin.

  I tried hard not to roll my eyes. “And pay her with what? No one has that much money starting out.”

  “I will.”

  “You’re not going to the mall.”

  Her voice rose. “It’s not fair!”

  She was right about that. Life wasn’t fair. Soon, she’d know that only too well.

  “I just want to be with my friends. I can’t believe you won’t let me go. You don’t even remember what it’s like to be my age!”

  But I did. I felt it now, as I had on the bus last week. Her words cut and pierced me as surely as any knife. “Marie,” I said, “please try to understand. I care about you more than anything and that’s why—”

  “I don’t care! You hate Becki. You don’t trust me. You never treated Brody this way!”

  Brody had never pushed at the rules. Brody had chosen honest friends. Even if I said it aloud, she wouldn’t understand.

  Marie wasn’t finished. She raised her book and shook it at me, her face flushed. I flinched at the anger in the lines of her face and body.

  “You’re so mean. All the other mothers—”

  “Enough!” The loud voice echoed through the kitchen and adjoining family room, bringing Marie’s rant up short. Dean stood in the kitchen doorway, fists clenched at his sides, his face livid. “That’s enough,” he repeated. “You’re grounded for a week for talking to your mother that way. No Internet, no e-mail, no phone, no friends. Nothing. And don’t even think about letting your grades drop or you’ll be grounded the rest of the month.”

  “But—”

  “Enough!�
�� Dean looked almost glowing in his defense of me. The clenched fists weren’t a concern; he would never hit any of us. He rarely even became angry. “Now you will apologize to your mother and go to your room to think about this. And tomorrow your room had better be clean.”

  Marie’s jaw worked as she glowered at us, but she didn’t protest. “I’m sorry,” she said, pushing the words between gritted teeth. Whirling, she headed to her room, her feet barely short of stomping up the stairs.

  Dean watched her go. When he turned back to me, he was smiling, all traces of anger wiped from his face.

  “You’re not mad,” I said.

  He shrugged. “We need to keep her on her toes. She takes it more seriously when I look upset.” He sat beside me and took my hand.

  “She’s going to have to take more responsibility,” I heard myself saying.

  His eyes met mine. “She can begin by treating her parents with respect.”

  I nodded, hating my life and everything in it. Everything, of course, except Dean and the children.

  Much later when I finally slept, I dreamed of Nephi’s angel. I still couldn’t see his face, but as he rebuked Nephi’s brothers, somehow his voice reminded me of Dean’s.

  Chapter Four

  On Tuesday morning my chemotherapy treatment at the Cottonwood hospital went smoothly, and though it was all new and I’d been worried, I didn’t feel too much fear or pain. I simply sat in an easy chair reading while first one chemo drug and then another dripped into the new port on the right side of my chest between my collarbone and my breast. I was a little tired at first because they included an anti-nausea medicine to help my body accept the chemo drugs, and that made me want to sleep. Even so, I read nearly an entire novel in the three hours it took to get the drugs inside me. I didn’t feel any different. Even my customary nausea hadn’t worsened.

  Other people were also receiving treatment, some alone and some accompanied by loved ones. As Dean chatted with the other patients, I learned I was the only one who had come for the first time that day. Contrary to the possibilities that I’d been forewarned about, there were no crying fits or dramatic reactions to the drugs, but an air of quiet and calm reigned. My internal storm was completely at odds with the atmosphere.