“You need not worry. It will be an easy pregnancy for her and an easy childbirth. We will take good care of them. The seraphs—who, as you know, love ‘offspring’—will dote on them. It is not essential that you return to be a father to them.”
“If I’m not needed, then I don’t want to go back.”
“No one does. I said you were not essential. I did not say that it would not be a much more preferred scenario if you saw them to adulthood.”
“That takes a long time these days.”
“Oh, yes, Ray, it does. I would be with you all the time of course. Like I always have been. They will be extremely important young women. It would be most preferable for them to have a father present, especially one like you.”
“I see,” he said, not liking the idea at all. Sure he would love them. But couldn’t he love them just as well from here? Would he not be even a better advocate here—wherever here is?
“It also would be preferable,” the voice went on inexorably, “for you to be present to support your wife’s growth and development as a person, a woman, and a writer, and your daughter’s growth as an actress and as a wife, and your son’s growth as a executive and as a husband and father.”
“That’s playing dirty.”
Another delighted laugh. “I never promised I wouldn’t do that in search of the best possible scenarios.”
“I don’t get this at all. If you’d asked me before I was shot whether I wanted to stay with them, I would have said yes. Now you have to talk me into it. What’s happening?”
“You’ve found out, just like the woman in the screenplay, what comes after death. You remember that she never feared death again. Neither will you.”
“Yeah, but …”
“All the other delights will have to wait several decades. And worse yet, you will have to struggle with two strong-minded and contentious young women, you will have to be a parent again. It doesn’t look like much fun, does it?”
“From the point of view I’m in now, it certainly doesn’t, especially since you say they’ll be all right without me.”
“And better with you,” she said softly.
“Not much better.”
“We would know that only at the end of the story, as the various scenarios unfold. And, by the way, if you return, your recovery will be rapid and complete. My little friends will see to that.”
“Yeah,” he said meekly.
“I have made the case for return, Ray, mostly because I will so enjoy the story if you go back. From your point of view that may seem selfish on my part.”
“I’d have to know you a lot better than I do to make that judgment.”
He was swept up in another amused divine hug. He didn’t want to give those up.
“Now, I will be very serious, Ray: it is your free choice. I mean that. You are not by any means absolutely essential to the continuation of the story. I will love you no less. If you do not freely choose to go back, you will be no help to Gabrielle and Michelle. However, I will abide by your decision. Whatever you decide will please me.”
“Bullshit!” he exclaimed.
The Voice thought that was very, very funny. Then she added more seriously, “If you go back, my beloved, I will miss you even more than you miss me. Nevertheless, you are completely free.”
“You know better than that,” he replied.
“What do you mean?” she asked, apparently greatly pleased by his disrespect.
“With love there is never complete freedom, my lover,” he replied, as though he were talking to Anna Maria or Gabrielle or Michelle. “I know that as well as you do. The way we exercise our freedom is shaped by wishes of the ones we love. You’d like me to go back to take care of that mercurial Sicilian and those two little brats, all of whom we both adore. Since you are my lover and I yours, I will do it. Naturally. Of course.”
He paused and then added the word that she was waiting to hear, just as he would have for Anna Maria.
“Joyously.”
God hugged him again.
“Are you sure I will be back?”
“Do you think I could do without you?”
“I guess not.”
“And whenever you wonder whether I am with you and waiting for you, you need merely contemplate the wonderful metaphor of myself I created with you in mind and gave you as your wife.”
“Metaphors everywhere,” he sighed.
“Perhaps there will also be on occasion little shipments of raisin cookies.”
Then he was whirling through space—or through somewhere. God did not waste time on long goodbyes, did she?
Two pretty girl kids? They’d wear an old man out. Or maybe keep him young. He looked forward to meeting them. For the first time he was glad that he was going back. God did know best after all.
He felt another divine hug. Will those continue? I hope so.
Then Michael and Gaby were with him, carrying him, happy smiles on their faces. The angel brats were singing a hymn of joy.
“You’d better not try to change their names,” the boss seraph warned him.
He spun downward toward Chicago, a city bright in anticipation of Christmas.
Then he was at the ceiling of the intensive care room.
Anna Maria and the woman doctor were sobbing in each other’s arms. Everyone was weeping, except the twins, who had been returned to their mother’s womb.
“I’m so sorry we lost him,” the doctor said through her tears. “It was so terribly close.”
Have I got a surprise for you.
He twisted back into his body. The various beepers in the room began to sound again, vigorous and reassuring.
“We’ve got him back,” the doctor shouted triumphantly.
Better not take too much credit.
He opened his eyes and tried to manage a grin.
His wife’s smiling, tearstained face filled his vision. He reached out and touched it gently. He thanked the Voice in the radiant cloud for her.
As a metaphor, she’d do just fine.
Doctor Faustus signed a contract with the devil. The consequences were disastrous. This story is about a man who, without much choice in the matter, signed a contract with an angel. It is a risky business to get involved with angels.
Transform yourself: the Kingdom of God is near.
—John the Baptist
(This story is an exercise in speculative religious imagination, not in formal theology. Its premise, like that of my other angel books, is that the works on earth we attribute to angels are in fact the result of the intervention of a much more highly evolved bodily creature from “elsewhere.”)
ALSO BY ANDREW M. GREELEY FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
All About Women
Angel Fire
Angel Light
Faithful Attraction
The Final Planet
Furthermore!: Memories of a Parish Priest*
God Game
Irish Gold
Irish Lace
Irish Mist
Irish Whiskey
A Midwinter’s Tale
Star Bright!
Summer at the Lake
Younger Than Springtime*
White Smoke
Sacred Visions
(edited with Michael Cassutt)
*forthcoming
PRAISE FOR ANDREW M. GREELEY
“’Tis a charmin’ tale that Andrew Greeley tells in his latest mystery, Irish Whiskey. It’s a lively novel filled with Irish wit, interesting situations, and likable people.”
—The Chattanooga Times on Irish Whiskey
“A riveting story of love, crime, and scandal laced with the Roman Catholic orientation that is Greeley’s forte.”
—The Chattanooga Times on Summer at the Lake
“Not your average Christmas tale … big-hearted … Greeley is a kindly matchmaker and a forgiving Catholic; fans … [will] gobble down his latest confection like so much Christmas rom-baba.”
—Publishers Weekly on S
tar Bright!
“Greeley tells his story with charm and wit, and with more than a dollop of steamy sex.”
—San Jose Mercury News on White Smoke
“If you liked Irish Gold, Greeley’s first tale of this detective duo, you’ll be delighted to have the sequel, Irish Lace.”
—Charlotte Observer
“Like the delicate handwork that its title evokes, Greeley’s Irish Lace is finely crafted, laced with compelling characters, and crisscrossed with strong story lines.”
—Savannah Morning News
“Greeley is at his top page-turning form, throwing in a few words about racism and xenophobia and delivering a rousing defense of the Bill of Rights. When he’s good, as he is here, Greeley is very, very good.”
—Publishers Weekly on Irish Lace
“May be Greeley’s best effort yet. It has more of everything—more plot, denser character development, fresh dialogue, and a more solid now story line than his previous work … A first-rate adventure story.”
—Baltimore Sun on Irish Gold
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CONTRACT WITH AN ANGEL
Copyright © 1998 by Andrew M. Greeley Enterprises, Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781429997027
First eBook Edition : April 2011
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-3036
First edition: June 1998
First mass market edition: July 1999
Contract with an Angel Page 33