“I have a feeling you will,” Malik said, moving to stand. “If you will all excuse me, I will be back momentarily. I have a call I must make.”
As the rest of the men nodded and murmured their replies, Jason watched Malik as he slowly made his way to the door.
The man’s dark head bowed just enough to make Jason wonder if there was depression involved, or if he was simply tired from the introduction of a new baby into the household.
Either way, he had a feeling he should watch Malik for a while; make sure things were smoothed over before he and Edward left for Israel.
And why make a phone call all of a sudden right after Yared revealed he’d been part of the IDF? Sure, Malik was Muslim, and Yared, Israeli, but Yared hadn’t mentioned his religious affiliation at all.
Jason prayed quickly, fearing that if things didn’t smooth over, there could be consequences none of them had ever anticipated.
Those, he didn’t even want to think about. He knew himself well enough to know that if he did, he might be tempted to stay behind, and there was no way he’d do that; not after all the research, and the years of struggling to find an answer to the mystery that had brought them all together.
Not when they were this close, and they finally might have the last piece of the puzzle.
Not when his sister and brother-in-law’s lives, brought together by singular events, were finally, maybe, going to be explained, or at least better understood.
No.
He would pray about things, but he would not dwell on them; for to dwell on what he could not change, or what he could not prevent, was a useless endeavor. Something he could learn from, surely… but God had set something in motion that he wasn’t about to stop or change.
Malik and Yared and Earnest would surely survive a few weeks of working together. And who knows? Perhaps there was something for them to learn from all of this, as well.
Two
Vancouver, Washington… June 30, 2025
Paloma cast a hand through her long, greying red curls and sighed as she moved to answer the door.
After three nights of near-sleeplessness, she was in desperate need of a nap.
She had the largest, darkest circles under her eyes that she could recall, and still had so many tasks to finish that she felt it would never end. With all that went into caring for three teens, an ailing old man who used to hate her with a passion, her doting husband, a loving but rambunctious cat, and a trio of chickens, and helping to run a business, she knew she should take more time to herself. But when?
Moving toward the door, she glanced out the window adjacent to it a moment to see who was calling before opening it. A familiar face, but how long had it been since she’d seen the woman?
Vanessa Peacock, the wife of her former boss, had not been available when she’d taken Kristof Sage to the Peacocks at the Shoe Shoppe. A couple of weeks prior, when Paloma had taken Kristof to visit, Vanessa’s husband Ethan had been in, as well as Tawny and a few customers, but no Vanessa.
Opening the heavy wooden door, Paloma picked up Confetti, their multi-colored, curly-coated cat and then, finally opened the screen door with a welcome.
“I didn’t expect to see you today,” Paloma told Vanessa once she was inside and the cat was released. She moved to give the woman a hug, noting that she’d gotten new extensions, even though she was a woman in her fifties. Thin and petite, with her face surgically altered to appear younger, the multi-hued blonde, turquoise, and blue-green hair that reached past her waist was as stunning as it was shocking.
Since when had Vanessa had plastic surgery? If Paloma hadn’t known her so well earlier in life, she never would have recognized the woman.
It explained her absence every time Paloma tried to take Kristof to see her, that was for certain.
“Oh, I would have called, but what’s the fun in surprising someone if it isn’t a surprise,” the woman said, flashing a whitened smile Paloma’s way. “I wanted to come and talk with you and Kristof, if that’s alright. That is… there are some things that I feel must be said between us, and Ethan, well… I don’t know if he’d approve of what I have to say, but today, I don’t care about that. I care for the truth. Torah tells us of the importance of truth, and I want to embrace that.”
Paloma ushered her to a seat in the dining room behind them. “Alright; well, while I go and see if Kristof is up for a visit, would you like something to drink? Water, tea, milk, juice…?”
Vanessa lifted her hair and sat, and Confetti came running, mewling toward her. “Can you get that… thing out of here while I’m here? So very allergic, and besides that, new calfskin shoes, you know,” she said, pointing to the turquoise and grey striped heels she wore to match the peachskin blouse and thin cotton sarong she’d chosen for the day.
Paloma chuckled, trying not to get irritated as she picked a struggling Confetti up, away from where she could rub against Vanessa and strode with her to the twins’ room, depositing her there with a firm thud to the door.
“Oh, and iced peppermint would be nice, if it isn’t too much trouble,” Vanessa continued as Paloma washed her hands; going about her task of starting the kettle, getting out glasses, and pulling the tea basket out. She then pulled the ice trays out, and a pitcher, thankful now that the cat was put away for the time being.
“I’ll go see how Kristof is doing and be back in a few minutes to let you know if he’s up for company, alright? And, either way, it’d be good to just chat for a bit,” she said as she moved the glasses and pitcher on the counter between the sink and the refrigerator. She left the ice to thaw a few seconds while she made her way to the back room, where they’d set a bed up for their guest.
Taking care not to startle the man, she knocked gently before opening the door. “Hey,” she said when she saw him resting against the pillows, reading a book. “We have a visitor, if you’re open to talking with her.”
“Visitor,” he asked her, bristling at the word. “Who invited her, and who is it?”
“She apparently invited herself,” Paloma said, laughing, hoping that he’d at least say hello to the woman. “And it’s Vanessa Peacock. I have no idea why she’s here; just said there was something she wanted to talk to us both about, and that Ethan wouldn’t like it.”
Kristof looked up at her then, an odd smile on his face. He set his book down. “If that’s the case, well…” He paused. “I guess we just listen then, right?”
“I guess so. No need to say what you don’t want to say,” Paloma told him, nodding. “And if you have something to say, then you just… say it. Don’t hold back unless you think it would ruin the relationship you have with one or both of them,” she said, smiling back finally.
“Well, then….”
Kristof readjusted his sitting position, placed the strip of leather he used for a bookmark inside the well-worn copy of Gulliver’s Travels he’d been reading, and nodded before continuing.
“Well, then,” he began again, “I guess, when you’re both ready, show her in. I have a feeling you’ll need chairs,” he continued, pointing around the room; there was one chair, but another would be needed, even though the space would be cramped.
“Indeed,” she agreed. “I’ll bring one when her tea is ready,” Paloma informed him even as she heard the kettle begin to whistle. “And speaking of….”
“Go on, then,” Kristof Sage told her. “Makes me no never mind if it’s five minutes from now or twenty when she comes in to talk, but get that blasted thing to stop whistling, pronto, you hear,” he said, plugging his ears. “You know I hate whistling; especially when its non-human.”
Laughing, Paloma went to do the man’s bidding, then informed Vanessa he’d be willing to speak with her. “Or at least to listen,” she corrected.
“That’s all I ask,” Vanessa said as Paloma began to dump the ice cubes into the pitcher. In the near-silence, she then ran some cold water over the ice, and added the tea bags and poured the hot water over the top.
Three
Paloma carefully moved an extra chair into the back room where Kristof Sage sat waiting for their guest in his pajamas and blanket, sitting up against the pillows of his bed. The edge of one of the turned wooden legs knocked into her bare calf as she set it down, and she winced, pausing a moment to rub the tender spot.
Part of her wished she’d worn pants today now; at least she wouldn’t have banged herself up so badly. She sighed as Kristof watched her in silent amusement.
“You think it’s funny I hurt myself,” she asked finally as she sat down with a huff in the chair that had done the damage.
“Funny,” Kristof asked. “No; I find it amusing how much you remind me of my late wife, even now. We were…” He paused. “We were only married for three years, and were able to keep it from the eyes of the media, somehow; from their knowledge, marrying in Belgium to avoid the press. She and our son, they….”
A tear silently trickled down his weathered and sunken cheek, and he stopped talking.
Over the time he’d stayed with them, Kristof Sage had given them little bits of detail at a time about his wife; about their son. About the marriage that had nearly ruined, in his eyes, his whole life and family. For when she had died – he still had not said her name to them – Kristof had been so beside himself that he’d nearly committed suicide. More than once, he had considered it, and more than once, his mother had come and given her “I told you sos” and from then on, he refused to say much to her at all.
“Her name was Constance,” he said in a rush. “And you are so much like her, in so many ways I have no words to describe the similarities; I know you’re not the same person; I knew that even from when we first met, but I couldn’t bear to be around you, or to be nice to you, because I felt that if I was… if I behaved civilly toward you, or spent time around you, that the old feelings would come back. And I couldn’t do that; not to myself, and not to Constance. I just wanted to bury my memory of her as much as I’d had to bury her body,” he continued, the tears running down his cheeks in a stream now.
Paloma nodded, trying her best to keep shock from reaching her features. He had made similar comments in the past, but never had he disclosed the woman’s name; her origins; the things that he found similar between herself and the woman she now knew was named Constance.
Not sure what to say, she hesitated a moment, then stood again. “Are you sure you’re up to a visit,” she finally asked.
Kristof slowly wiped at the tears he had released and nodded more solidly than she’d seen in the weeks since his arrival. He sniffed and reached for one of the Kleenex on the bedside table on his left. Paloma excused herself to go retrieve Vanessa, allowing him some privacy to finish getting himself ready.
Finding Vanessa sipping her tea and wandering the hallway, looking at photographs, Paloma escorted her back out of the hall and over to the back room where Kristof’s bed was set up. Knocking gently once more, she waited for him to bid them enter and let Vanessa walk in ahead of her.
“Have a seat,” Kristof told them once they’d entered. Paloma left the door open wide for air circulation and waited for their guest to choose a seat before claiming the other for herself.
“So, what brings you over to Vancouver, Vanessa,” he continued when the woman still said nothing. She sipped at her tea a few more times in the near-silence as Paloma and Kristof waited.
“I came to talk about Constance, and I don’t want any arguments from you on this,” Vanessa began. “It was hard enough to get into the car to come here, let alone for me to actually talk to you,” she continued, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
Paloma looked back and forth between the two and waited, confused.
So, Ethan and Vanessa had known Kristof’s wife in some fashion?
She waited for one of them to speak, the silent tension palpable in the room. In the background, Confetti had finally quieted her mewling, but the chickens were still squawking, and she could hear a squirrel chattering away on the other side of the glass behind Kristof’s bed.
“You know how close-,” Vanessa began before her phone began to belt out Stuck With You … was that Huey Lewis and the News? Paloma was trying to recall for sure. She watched the other woman pull out her phone and press the mute button. It went silent.
“You know how close Ethan and I were to-”
The phone went off again, and she sighed.
“Guess there’s no way around this,” she said and told the phone to answer. “Hello, Ethan,” she said when her husband’s image came up in the holobeam.
Paloma could see sweat beginning to form on Vanessa’s brow as Ethan Peacock asked where she was.
“Well, I…,” she began. “I know you didn’t want me to do this, but I came to talk with Kristof; it’s been too many years, and long enough. And Paloma, well… she deserves to know the truth, as well, don’t you think?”
Ethan sighed, and his holographic shoulders, odd-looking from Paloma’s angle, shrugged. “We’ve gone over this so many times,” he said. “I just don’t see the reason for bringing up such a painful topic when the man’s dying,” he said, his voice tight.
“I’m in the room,” Kristof informed him, a frown forming between his eyebrows and on his lips. “And I think she’s right, Ethan… in all these years, I wasn’t ill, and now I am, but maybe I wouldn’t be in such bad shape had we let this conversation happen long ago; had I not been stubborn, and you two, either. We were all in the wrong, on some level, and Constance deserves to be remembered now,” he continued.
“But-”
Paloma watched in amazement as the holographic figure of her former boss hunched over a moment, and then straightened to full height in his chair.
“But, nothing,” Kristof reiterated. “Vanessa’s here, and you could be, too. If you want in on this conversation you can be, but we’re having it, like it or not. And there’s no fault to anyone; not anymore; let go of what happened. None of us can change it, and it was wrong of me to…”
He paused, and Paloma continued to let it all sink in.
What had happened between them all that had brought about such a conversation? What had transpired to get them to this point?
“It was wrong of me to treat Paloma the way I did for so long, and it was worse of me to act like your sister hadn’t been such a large part of my life,” Kristof continued, tears streaming once again down his cheeks.
Ethan’s sister?
Constance… the woman Kristof had loved so dearly and then… that was Ethan’s sister?!
But how…?! It didn’t even seem to make any sense!
Paloma took a few deep breaths to try to calm herself from the shock of the realization as she continued listening to the conversation.
“Constance deserved better from all of us,” Ethan bellowed, his voice hoarse, as Vanessa gingerly placed the phone on the side table next to her, near the box of Kleenex.
She removed a few of the tissues as she returned it to her personal space and, uncharacteristic of anything Paloma had seen, blew her nose as the men continued talking. Their words of sorrow, of pain, of anger and bitterness and defeat flooded through her, and she could do nothing but listen.
“I want you to meet me at the graveyard,” Kristof finally said, his voice a bit calmer; more frail-sounding.
“Come and talk to my son, and come, discuss things with Constance, too. It will do you good; I rarely go because of how painful it is, but if you’ll meet me there, I can…” He paused, rubbing tears away for a fourth time.
“I will not set one foot in that-”
“Yes, you will,” Vanessa said, finally interrupting the pair of men who had been speaking. “You need to clear t
he air, and it’s been too many years. You both need to learn to let go; how can you think you’ve moved into a good future if you can’t even let go of or discuss the past? How is it that you think you can hold onto her and still have room in your hearts for other people?”
Paloma sat in stunned silence, forcing herself to breathe slowly as her heart sped up once more.
“What do you mean, we haven’t let go? And what does Constance’s death have to do with our futures at all,” Ethan retorted angrily. “How dare you even suggest…”
His words trailed off.
Taking a deep breath, Paloma said a silent prayer and then joined the conversation. “I think what she means is that we can only love when we give love away; if we’re holding so tightly to the things in our past, be they people or events, then how can we reach for what God has in store for us in the future?”
Vanessa smiled at her, raising over-plucked eyebrows as she did.
“Well, am I right, or did I miss the mark,” Paloma asked her.
“No, that sounds about-”
“Since when did someone have to let go in order to go forward,” Ethan asked, his voice rising again. “I guess that means that you and I shouldn’t have married, then, Vanessa, is that what you’re saying? Because we married after Constance died, and we’re still moving forward. And you,” he said, his holographic finger pointing to Kristof. “You seem to have made quite a mark on the fashion world without her, wouldn’t you say?”
Paloma sighed, folded her hands and clamped her lips tightly together.
If he couldn’t see that there was a difference between going through the motions and embracing new experiences and love that came one’s way, then how could she possibly help him understand other things?
How could she – or Vanessa or anyone else – help him to see that his anger, his bitterness, his pain regarding what happened with Constance was still holding him back in ways that he needn’t be held back? It was a death, but even if it hadn’t been… even if it had been a divorce where she ran off away from her family, or if she had ruined one or both of their reputations and squandered the family money… all of those things would be a loss; each of them would need grieving, for each of them were a death of some kind.
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 92