“Good morning. Amethyst & Alabaster, Mariana Eliade speaking. How may I help you,” Tawny heard as she backed her car up and quickly moved into the flow of traffic.
“Mariana, girl, it’s Tawny. Haven’t been able to get ahold of Paloma and can’t call Edward at work right now, since they’re training those newbie replacements, but… you know if she’s doin’ any better,” she said as she turned onto Mill Plain heading toward the third art and craft store of the day.
She’d opted to keep the holoscreen off and put her fancy new Andromeda Greenstar hearing device to work.
Come a long way since Bluetooth, she mused to herself as she stopped at a light. Imagine being able to push a button at your ear and getting the same holographics as your full-on Andromeda phone.
“Well, there was a note from Edward here this morning to give the chickens water when they began squawking too much, and that Paloma was still keeping to the bedrest and relaxation her doctor had advised. You know she isn’t going to do anything to jeopardize the trip to Israel; not for her, and not for anyone else,” the woman on the other end of the phone replied.
Tawny could her the rustle of paper and tried to imagine the ever-sleek and sultry Ms. Eliade at her desk.
It wasn’t difficult. She’d seen her just the week before, the day she’d finally come into the beauty parlor and allowed Tawny to layer her hair and frame her beautiful, slightly angular face.
The red turning green, Tawny pulled forward and into the right turn lane. “Alright, thanks. Yeah,” she said. “I know she wouldn’t. She got more riding on this than about everyone else going, other than Edward,” she continued. “I always knew she was frailer than she let on – I mean, I’ve known her forever - but this thing surprised even me.”
She could almost hear Mariana nodding as more paper rustled. “I hear you.” There was a pause. “Hey, listen, I hate to answer and run, but we’ve got a meeting in about five minutes and I need to finish preparing,” the woman told her as she made her turn.
“Alright, Girl, well, I won’t keep you, then. Just figured…”
“Yeah, I get it. She’s really…”
“Exactly.”
Thirty One
St. Louis, Missouri… July 27, 2025
“I still can’t believe it! How could something as small as an elephant ear cause so much… damage and distress? How could it cause this much confusion and pain? And add in a fever from… wherever he got it? I just can’t….”
Those words from Prudence Song’s mouth, so shocked and hurt, had matched the dread and sadness in her eyes when Calico had looked up at her.
Their tear-filled eyes had met over Angus’s still little form.
Three days later, there was still no progress. He simply lay there in his hospital bed, small and pale and silent.
Calico looked up at the woman who had stayed with her for the last fifteen hours: she had the disheveled angel look about her, all in white, with her long black hair flowing behind her, held with a silver clip. Silver jewelry and a pair of silver and white Converse finished off her look, but the circles under her eyes and the stray strands that had fallen from the hairclip belied the calm the woman had tried hard to pull off.
Calico knew she probably didn’t look much better; probably much worse. Her hair hadn’t been brushed since before she and Prudence had arrived back at the hospital to relieve Romeo and Kaleo, and soon, it would be the men’s turn again.
Amos had found a part-time cashier position and so, much as he’d wanted to join them in their vigil at young Angus’s side, he’d only been able to stop in for a few minutes a day.
Dr. Milhaus – a kind, compassionate white-haired man who Calico guessed to be around sixty or sixty-five – wanted to reassure them all, but had to be realistic.
When Angus had lapsed into a coma without warning following his seizure the other day, the doctor had tried to give them hope. But as one day rolled into two, and two days into three without her precious son waking up, the doctor had gotten very real with them all as the men’s vigil shift ended and the women’s began.
For nearly twenty minutes, Dr. Milhaus had tried to explain the seriousness of the situation, but explained that, while it was rare for a child to die of juvenile diabetes at the hospital, that due to the unknown origin of the fever and his frail condition, Angus’s life was in God’s hands. With the variables of asthma, and poor weight gain, Angus had more to overcome. After he left, he sent the chaplain in to talk with them - a short greying blonde lady named Misty – who had spent more than two hours with them Romeo and Calico, as well as Prudence, as they had an emotional meltdown.
The rest of the women taking turns at Angus’s side were gracious enough to wait to speak with the chaplain afterward so he wasn’t left alone.
When Calico had told Jessica Davis-Murphree, who had stopped by after her shift on another wing, the light had gone from the woman’s eyes. She agreed that, from what she could tell, the doctors were right.
That had not given Calico reassurance.
Hadn’t that Othello person said his son had gone through something similar?
She thought back to the first time she’d met the dark hulk of a man. With his tattoos and gold-blonde hair, the little gap between his front bottom teeth, and his sweet demeanor, he was far from what she’d expected.
Othello had visited every day, though he’d been about to begin his weekend when the Fergusons had brought their son in. And yesterday, the man had brought his eleven year old son, Tyson, to see Angus, and the boy had wept. He told them that when he was nine, he went into a coma from a seizure and that he could hear people talking. He’d said that he kept trying to open his eyes, but they “just wouldn’t work,” no matter how much he’d tried.
Tears had sprung to Calico’s eyes at the boy’s revelation, and she prayed that Angus could hear them speaking to him. But she also feared he’d hear prognoses and negative things that could affect him in the future in ways that were still unforeseen.
Tyson’s coma had lasted two days. Angus was beyond that now, with no signs of waking up, and neither doctor was very optimistic of a full recovery.
No hand movement, and little eye movement showing REM sleep. No kicking, which Calico was used to from him, and no licking of his lips.
This was much more than being asleep, and it shook her to the core.
“When do you think he’ll wake up,” Prudence whispered next to her, shaking her from her reverie and worry.
“I really don’t know.”
Calico looked down at the still red-haired form before them. He was covered in a sheet, and his hair was matted with sweat, though a nurse had washed his hair the previous morning.
Glancing at the clock, she sighed: 5:27 in the morning.
She could hear the rolling carts outside in the hallway; the breathing machines in Angus’s room, and the room next door. She could hear a bluebird in a tree near their window helping wake the world up from its hot, dank night.
But the bird hadn’t woken her son.
The bird hadn’t woken the seven year old little girl in the room next door who had come in late the night before, either, or they’d have heard a commotion.
“Lord, You know what You’re doing, even though we don’t. And we don’t like it, but You know best,” Calico said in a near-whisper. “Of all the dark nights my soul has faced, God, this has been the worst; the scariest; the most difficult. And I feel bad saying that; I was there with Andrea and her child, and yet, I see this as worse. How can this be worse, and yet it is? And I just don’t know what to do,” she continued.
With her eyes cast toward the floor, she carefully got up from her chair and knelt on the hard tile. Moments later, she sensed Prudence’s hand on her shoulder. The beeping, buzzing, and wheezing of monitors was loud in her ears, but she tuned them out.
“I’m so scared, Lord. I don’t want to lose my child. I would die; I really think I would die if he could no longer be part of my life, and yet,” she paused, thin
king of Prudence and all she’d gone through with her little Matteo, “I see the strength and beauty of the woman at my side,” she continued, “and how You’ve… You’ve given her a ministry that, in her pain, You have used her for. And… and if that’s what You need from me, unless I have Your strength and leading and grace, I can’t. I just… I want my son back; I want him to come home, and to be a happy, healthy little boy.”
Leaning forward and favoring her right side, tears flowed across her face and tickled as they ran down onto her neck. She sensed someone else had come into the room as she’d been praying, but didn’t look up; didn’t care who it was.
“You do what You want, God, even if it isn’t what I would choose,” she said, her voice a little louder than before. “You are God, and I am not. And as much as I want things to go my way… as much as I want my son to be whole,” she said, wiping at her tears as a second, and then third hand rested on her shoulders, “I know I should want what You want. I don’t want to be selfish; I know Angus was my gift from You. I have no right to tell You what to do with the gift of his life, though it breaks my heart… it breaks my heart… breaks my heart to even consider what life… what life would be like if You decided to take him to be with You.”
A cramp ran down her thigh and she tried to ignore it.
“So, whatever it takes for You to help me accept whatever You need to do… whatever You think and know is best, O God, do that. Do what it takes, and help all of us accept Your will. I know what I want it to be, but something inside of me is telling me that… something tells me You have a bigger plan, and I don’t see all the puzzle pieces. I just wish…”
She couldn’t even finish her sentence. Instead, her body dropped farther toward the floor until she was face down.
“Calico,” she heard, as through a fog.
Ignoring it, she continued praying, this time in her heart, for words no longer formed on her lips.
“Mrs. Ferguson,” she heard again a few minutes later.
This time, a hand gently shook her, and she opened her eyes.
She recognized Prudence’s shoes, and those of Romeo and Kaleo, but there was a fourth pair. A pair belonging to the woman who was calling to her.
Strong arms helped to gently lift her and set her into one of the chairs again, and she closed her eyes against the world once more. “Mrs. Ferguson, we need to discuss something with you,” she heard again. “With you and your husband, both.”
Opening her eyes, she saw Dr. Wilkinson standing there. Dr. Wilkinson, who had been filling in at the Emergency Room the night Angus had come in, despite being an attending most of the time.
Dr. Wilkinson, who had been assigned to be Angus’ attending when Dr. Milhaus was off the clock.
“He isn’t going to come out of the coma, is he, doctor,” she told more than asked the woman, fully aware of the words Tyson had said the day before: “Angus likely hears you”.
Having the decency to hem and haw a moment, Dr. Theodora Wilkinson removed her glasses as though to clean them, rubbing them against the white of her lab coat.
“After speaking with Dr. Milhaus,” she finally said, resettling her glasses and looking to her notes, “No. We don’t believe that Angus will get better. He might waken, but-”
Calico raised a hand to stop the flow of the woman’s words. “Can we do this in the hallway, please, or somewhere that he cannot hear this?”
She looked from the doctor to her husband, and then to Prudence and Kaleo, each nodding.
“Sure,” the doctor said, her voice clipped. “Right this way.”
As a group, everyone but Kaleo, who offered to stay with Angus, went into the hall and down towards a table and chairs that were set up in the alcove at the furthest-most right end of the hall.
Nobody was occupying the space, and they took seats to continue their conversation, Romeo’s hand firmly entwined Calico’s. Prudence pulled her chair closer, and the doctor sat across from the three.
“You were saying,” Romeo asked.
Calico could feel his hand shaking ever so slightly.
“Your son very well may wake up still, Mr. Ferguson, Mrs. Ferguson,” Dr. Wilkinson replied. “We have absolutely no reason to believe he won’t, but we do have reason to believe that the shock and seizure in conjunction with the coma may well render him mentally…”
She paused, seemingly searching for an appropriate word. “Challenged, I guess you could say” she finished, frowning.
“So you’re saying he’ll probably wake up but have a miserable life,” Prudence asked the woman, looking back and forth between the Fergusons and the doctor. “Is that what you’re telling us?”
Dr. Wilkinson sighed.
“Not miserable, just… he may have great difficulty communicating with others. He might have to relearn how to speak, how to dress… all of it.”
Calico shook her head in disbelief; tried to pull her hand away from Romeo’s, but he held it fast.
“When will we know,” her husband asked quietly.
“We’ll know if and when Angus wakes up. Until then, we’re doing all we can for him.”
“But… is he suffering? He’s got to be suffering,” Calico asked, her throat feeling constricted, like there was an apple core stuck in it.
“His scans only show signs of distress thirty percent of the time,” the doctor said with a small smile. “I don’t think he’s in a lot of pain. How much can he be feeling? We don’t know, but-”
Suddenly, Calico heard someone running down the hall. “Come quick,” she heard Kaleo ‘Aukai shouting to nobody in particular.
Within moments, she was in her son’s room again. He was surrounded by medical staff, and they pushed her, Romeo, and their friends away from the room.
“What’s happening,” she heard Romeo ask.
“I don’t know,” Kaleo told them quietly. “All I know is that all of a sudden, one of his monitors went berserk. The one for his heart,” he said, frowning. “But I don’t understand why. It isn’t time for…”
The man cut himself off.
“What isn’t it time for,” Calico asked him, taking hold of his wrist with both hands when he wouldn’t look her in the eye. “What isn’t it time for,” she repeated. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Sighing, Kaleo looked up into her eyes. His, soft and brown, were filling with tears. Something akin to a glow seemed to emanate from him all of a sudden as words began to form in his mouth.
“He has another two days. The timing isn’t right. It isn’t time…”
A shudder ran down Calico’s spine at the same moment she felt her knees buckle. Kaleo and Romeo caught her, and her husband lifted her into his arms and cradled her head against his shoulder.
Was Kaleo saying what she thought he was saying? And had she really seen him glow?
A sudden peace overcame her; a peace she couldn’t explain, but had sensed before. A peace that surpassed all understanding that she knew could only come from her Heavenly Father.
Romeo carried her back to the waiting area, and the others followed. He set her down, and the four of them held hands across the table.
For the next forty minutes, they waited.
Waited and prayed.
And when Dr. Wilkinson came out of Angus’s room shaking her head, tears in her eyes, Calico knew.
Across from her, Prudence’s eyes met hers and held them as they waited for the doctor to approach. Romeo’s hand tightened on hers, as did Kaleo ‘Aukai’s.
“He’s gone,” Calico said once the doctor had approached, her pale hair damp with sweat. “Isn’t he?”
Dr. Wilkinson nodded in silence and pulled up a chair. “I’m sorry. I know you were all hoping for a different result, and we didn’t think that….”
She looked at Calico.
“How did you know?”
Kaleo squeezed her hand and spoke in her stead. “Sometimes, you just know,” he said. “Even if it isn’t in the timeframe you think it might be.”
Glowing more, not less, than he had nearly an hour before.
Did anyone else see it?
The doctor nodded, sighing, a frown forming between her brows, making the pale pink glasses off-kilter. “But I don’t understand how you’re all… I’ve had a few parents and families accept death with grace,” she said softly, tears coming down her cheeks in dark purple rivulets, marring her mascara. “I don’t understand it, and it blows my mind every time.”
“Angus had a relationship with Jesus Christ,” Romeo said, tears coursing down his face, “so we know he’s in better hands than ours. Even if we want our Angus here, we knew we might not have him forever. He was a gift.”
“A gift,” the doctor asked, looking from face to face. “Yes, I suppose he was. I suppose all of us are, to somebody, aren’t we?”
There was confusion on her face, but no animosity. “Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, Dr. Wilkinson,” Calico asked quietly, not sure how the woman would respond.
“I’d like to, but…”
The woman hesitated.
“Life is precious, Doctor,” Kaleo told her gently. “And eternal life can be either wonderful or awful, depending on the decisions someone makes here on earth regarding Jesus. For those who believe, there is Paradise and Heaven, but for those who don’t…”
He let his words trail off, and Calico saw his glow intensify. Her eyes widened.
“The choice is up to each person; nobody else can choose life or death for you, doctor. Someone either believes God, or they don’t. They believe He sent His Son to save them from their sins, or they don’t,” he continued. “That’s the black and white of it; the truth of it… and the truth is meant to set people free.”
“But I-”
“I know your uncle hurt you; I know you didn’t have a great relationship with your mother, and that you’ve had three difficult marriages, but God can transform that pain and turn it around for good,” Kaleo whispered, stunning everyone at the table.
The Angels' Mirror Pack 2: Books Four through Seven Page 104