by Betsy Draine
“Sure, I know that, but just think!”
Al was so thrilled at the news, you would think he’d just become a grandfather. He’d already received an e-mail from George with photos attached documenting the cleaning process. Al congratulated me on having the courage to go the distance. “What a crime it would have been to leave a work of genius undiscovered.”
“Thanks,” I said, but I was thinking what a crime it would have been to erase a seventeenth-century painting and find nothing underneath.
At home Toby and Angie gave me a hero’s welcome. No Russian caviar, but Russian River champagne and a spread prepared by Angie with fresh crab she’d bought right off the boat moored down the block from our house. The bubbly loosened my tongue. In reporting the various stages of the icon’s cleaning, I discovered just how anxious I had been, step by step. Fatigue and relief hit me at the same time. I was exhausted, and by early evening I was ready for bed.
On Sunday morning, Angie and I messed up the kitchen trying to make our Irish grandmother’s typical breakfast—crisp bacon, fried eggs, and puppy toes (quarter-size dabs of biscuit dough, cooked in bacon fat in a covered frying pan). When Toby didn’t wake up in time, we ate everything up, laughing greedily. As penance, when we heard Toby stirring, we started all over again, ostensibly to get his opinion of Irish American breakfasts, but actually to get another helping of puppy toes.
Since Charlie’s death, Toby had missed the freedom of being able to staff the shop with a partner. He’d gotten used to not showing up till noon and staying later than Charlie, till six or the last sign of patronage. Lately, he’d adopted new open hours for the shop, noon to sundown. He might lose some morning customers, but he’d gain others by being the last business in the complex to close down. Today he could hardly wait to get there to resume his search for the storyboards. Maybe they’d lead us to another missing panel. He was hoping to double our luck.
As our main activity for the day, Angie and I had planned an afternoon of hiking. I never tire of walking Bodega Head, but after nearly slipping off the cliff one windy, wet morning, I’ve decided not to do it alone. The day was sunny and warm, and I’m protective enough of Angie that I kept us both from that dangerous last foot of perimeter. Angie exclaimed over the ice plants that bordered our route. These low-lying succulents bear pink daisy-like flowers, and they cluster tightly together, forming a cheerful edging for the perilous pathway. At the height of the head, we stopped to take in fabulous views of the bay and the harbor. Coming back down to the car park, we joined a dozen whale-watchers for a half hour and were rewarded by a sighting of several pods pushing north toward their summer waters. Then, for real exercise, we walked away from the head, over the trails between sand dunes to Salmon Creek Beach.
Along the way there and back, Angie brought me up to speed on her angel therapy. She’d seen Sophie on Friday, and they had concluded I’d be essential to their Monday session. Angie reminded me of my promise. “I want you there tomorrow. There’s something important I want to discuss, but with Sophie there to help me.”
“This is starting to sound serious. Is everything all right? You’re not sick, are you?”
Angie laughed, but it was a short, scratchy laugh. “No, it’s nothing like that. But it is sort of serious.”
“And you can’t tell me now?”
“If you’ll come with me tomorrow, I’d rather wait till then. Will you do it?”
“Yes, of course. If it’s serious to you, I care about it.”
“Then let’s go home and make spaghetti. I’m seriously starved.”
I’d been curious about Sophie from the beginning, and I decided to look forward to meeting her.
The Graton Bakery was closed Mondays so that Sophie Redmond could have one lie-in a week. But she didn’t spend the whole day resting. Monday was her busiest day for angel readings.
The steep staircase to the second floor lay to the right of the bakery entrance. At the top landing, Angie rang the buzzer and opened the unlocked door, ushering us into a living room that doubled as a waiting room. Angie cued me to sit with her on the couch that faced the window, so that the client ahead of us wouldn’t have to meet us on the way out. Sure enough, within moments, we heard two women’s soft voices and the sound of one escorting the other to the door. In a moment, Sophie was standing before us, offering her hand in greeting. I rose to take it.
With all the talk about angels, I’d assumed that Sophie would look ethereal—tall, blond, and willowy. Instead, she was a tiny woman, no more than five foot one, and squat. Her short, curly hair was mostly gray. But her handshake was warm and firm, and she did have a beatific gaze—head tilted up, blue eyes inquiring amiably, a generous smile offering welcome. It was difficult to guess her age. I understood why Angie had spoken of her protectively. This woman radiated innocence. You’d never want to see that aura broken.
“Thank you so much for coming, Nora,” Sophie huskily whispered. “It means so much to your sister.” She turned her benevolent smile on Angie. And she placed her right hand on Angie’s cheek and held it there, like a mother appreciating her child’s perfect face. Angie accepted the gesture without embarrassment.
We followed Sophie into her consulting room, which was obviously a repurposed bedroom. Aside from bookshelves, the only furniture was a small round table surrounded by four dining chairs. The focus of the room was a yard-square poster of Botticelli’s Annunciation, with its resplendent Angel Gabriel and its sweetly receptive Mary.
“It’s about good news,” Sophie said happily, in response to my glance. “And that’s what we’re here to discuss with you, today, Nora.” She straightened the folds of her loose blue dress as she sat down. “By the way, have you been using the crystal Angie gave you?”
“Um, yes, I have,” I said. But I didn’t say what for.
“Good. People say it prepares them to be receptive.”
What was coming? I ventured a smile.
“And I only mean by that, receptive to significant conversation, not just superficial talk.”
As I used to do in Catholic school, I folded my hands on the tabletop and adopted a pleasant mien with eyebrows raised expectantly. That word actually came to mind, and then it morphed to “expecting,” and my heart clutched. I might have gasped. The women looked at me, puzzled.
“Angie, you’re not pregnant?” I asked, with a choke in my voice, in spite of myself.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Angie assured me.
“Sorry.”
Sophie cut in. “You need a little background first. Angela has been struggling with her life’s purpose.”
Angela? Nobody had called Angie that since the day she was baptized in my arms.
“Yes, she told me.” I could hear myself sounding defensive, as if Sophie had accused me of not really knowing my own sister.
“But, Nora,” Angie half-pleaded, “you don’t really get it.”
That stung a little. I waited for her to continue.
“You’ve always known what you wanted to do. You were teaching art to me when I was still in diapers. You don’t know what it feels like to be working at something that just feels wrong.”
“You mean cutting hair?”
“It’s not the cutting hair. I like cutting hair and coloring it and everything. Barb is the best boss in the world, and Carol cracks me up. But I feel unsatisfied. I feel there are other things I could be doing that would make me feel better about myself at the end of the day.”
“So you want to go to school for something else?”
“No, and I know what you’re thinking. I just spent Grandpa’s trust money on a season’s training at a top salon in London. Big waste.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Sophie.
Angie looked determined. “Actually, no. It showed me I didn’t fit in there, not because it was the best in the business and I’m not, but because it’s not the business I belong in. However good at it I may be.”
“And you are good,”
I said. “So what’s next?”
“That’s the part I want your blessing for,” Angie admitted softly. Then she murmured, shaking her head, “Mom and Dad are going to have a cow.”
“They will if you don’t tell them more quickly than you’re telling me! What is it you want to do?”
“Go into the convent.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” That was the first time I’d actually said that in twenty years.
“Yeah, that’s what Grammy Molly’s going to say, for sure.” Angie sighed.
I was flabbergasted. “But nobody does that anymore.”
“Not many. But some. Anyhow, this would be a trial. I would join as what they call a ‘sojourner,’ for a year. Then we’d consider whether I want to take vows.”
“Wow, Angie,” I said. “Wow. That’s a lot to take in.”
“Of course it is. That’s why now would be a good time to listen to your angels,” Sophie prompted, with calm assurance. “Nora, would you be willing to help your sister go through an exercise for that purpose?”
Do with me what you will. For the moment I was speechless.
Sophie reached across the table toward my clasped hands. She gently opened them into a cup-like receptacle. Then she reached over to Angie, who offered her right hand, from which Sophie removed a silver ring. Angie knew the routine, from here. She turned to me and said, “Nora, please accept my ring as a sign that as we call on my angels, we are one. You may speak for me, and I may speak for you. Will you accept my ring as a sign of our unity?”
When I said yes, Sophie dropped the ring into my hands, and I instinctively closed one hand over the other, as if to warm it.
“Angela doesn’t need protection, Nora. She needs openness. So please open your hands, and let Angela’s ring rest in your left hand.” Sophie’s firm but gentle voice induced me to comply.
With her eyes closed, Angie began her invocation. “Archangel Michael, please use your powers to help me and my sister, Nora, discover my life’s purpose.”
That seemed to me a tall order, so I tried to be more practical when it was my turn to contact the beyond. “Um, Angel Michael, please help us to discover the kind of work that will bring happiness to my sister, Angie.”
“We will wait with open minds and hearts,” Sophie intoned.
We were supposed to keep our eyes shut during the meditation. I have to admit, I cheated and looked at my watch after what seemed a long time. My mind had been dancing about between visions of Angie cutting hair in a nun’s habit, Angie teaching a modeling class, and Angie inventorying a rack of expensive-looking wool suits. I also tried calling to mind the faces of Angie’s old boyfriends, but that inventory was way too extensive.
Trying to get back on task, I focused my mind on the image of Michael from Charlie’s icon, an image that was now erased. I was hoping that Michael, if he was tuning in, wouldn’t take offense. Gradually, the image in my mind changed into a picture of Angie seated, her blond hair shimmering around her head like a halo, with the angel Michael standing behind her, one hand on her shoulder, the other on his sword. Whoa! Was that my imagination playing tricks?
I was so startled that my eyes popped open. There was Angie, just as in my “vision,” sitting up straight in her chair, but of course with no angel behind her. I turned to Sophie, who shook her head slightly as if to say not to disturb Angie. We waited a while, and then Angie’s eyes opened.
“I heard him,” she said, looking at Sophie. Then, turning to me, she asked, “Did you?”
“Hear him? No,” I said, with some uncertainty. I may have seen something, but I didn’t hear anything. “What did you hear?”
“I felt something, too,” Angie said. “I felt as if I was being supported by someone standing right at my back. I heard him saying, ‘The first step takes courage.’”
I gulped. “What do you think that means?” I asked.
“It means I need to tell the mother superior that I want to be a sojourner. Then we’ll work out the details—whether I need to quit my job, or if she has work I can do for the convent, and what sort of spiritual program I should follow.”
Sophie turned to me with a question. “Did your meditation help you to prepare a response for your sister?”
In a strange way it had. I didn’t mention what I’d visualized, but I said, “I think my instinct is telling me to accept my sister’s judgment. I know we’ll talk more about this decision, but it’s Angie’s life. It’s going to be up to her.” It came as a natural gesture to take Angie’s ring out of my palm and give it back to her. Angie slipped the ring on her finger and smiled back at me.
“You two work well together,” Sophie said.
I returned the compliment. “It seems you’ve helped Angie clarify what she wants to do.” I added to myself: that’s a sign of good counseling, whatever its underpinnings. “Tell me, how did you get started with this angel work?”
“At a very painful time, a painting of an angel was a comfort to me. My fiancé died after I discovered I was expecting his baby. The last time I saw him, he gave me a lovely little icon of the angel Gabriel. After I heard the awful news, every night I prayed to Gabriel, asking that our child would fill the hole in the world I felt after Peter died. I named my son Gabriel after the angel in the painting.”
Angie and I both started. The name Peter rang loudly in our ears. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. “Do you still have the painting?” I asked, trying to contain my shock.
“Of course. It hangs in my son’s bedroom. It’s all he’s ever had of his father.”
I asked if we could possibly see it, fearing she would think it a rude request, but she seemed pleased.
“Oh, yes. I thought you might want to look at it. Angela told me you’re a professor of art history. And you’ve had a similar experience, haven’t you—finding an icon of Archangel Michael around the time of a friend’s death? That’s why I was sure you could help Angie in her process of discovery. It was a sign from above, wasn’t it?”
Sophie had turned away from Angie and was facing me. Angie brought a finger to her lips in warning. I nodded in acknowledgment, a gesture that Sophie took as confirmation of her spiritual insight. My mind was racing. A glance at Sophie’s painting would tell whether we were talking about the same Peter and another panel of the triptych. But I already knew the answer.
“It’s quite small,” Sophie almost apologized as she led us down the hall to the room her son occupied as a boy. It was now a more generic guest room. Over the dresser, where most people have a mirror, hung the twin to our icon. It was obviously the left side of a triptych, just the same size and shape as our panel, but in reverse. The figure in the icon was an angel the same size as our Michael, but with feminine hair and figure. She held a long-stemmed lily. The halo was copper, not gold, and the palette of the rest of the painting was in harmony—a pale orange robe and ocher background. There was no doubt in my mind.
“Did your fiancé tell you anything else about the painting?” I asked.
“No. He just asked me to keep it always near me. I think he must have had a premonition of his death. This was what he could leave me of himself.”
“It’s a Russian icon, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Peter’s name was Russian, and he told me it had been in his family a long time. I’ve always believed it to be a sign that the archangel Gabriel was watching over us, my son and me, even though Peter was gone.”
“And that’s what started your interest in angels?”
“Yes, I’ve been grateful to Gabriel and the angels ever since.”
Angie was bursting to say something but it was clear that she didn’t want Sophie to hear it. We thanked Sophie and hastily got ready to go. While Angie arranged another meeting, I pondered Sophie’s faith in the goodness of her life and how devastating it would be for her to learn the truth.
As soon as we were at the bottom of Sophie’s long white stairwell, Angie grabbed my arm, and insisted, “We’ve got to talk.”<
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“I know we do. On the way home, or here?” I pointed toward the café next door.
“Let’s eat, right now.” When Angie has a problem, her metabolism races, and she gets awfully hungry.
The Willow Wood Café’s turkey club took care of the hunger, but Angie couldn’t constrain her emotion. Between bites, she implored: “Promise me you won’t tell Sophie about the icon her boyfriend gave to that other woman. What a rat. He was two-timing her while she was pregnant! How is Sophie going to feel if she finds out about that?”
“I know. But we can’t pretend it didn’t happen, can we?”
“Have a heart, Nora. Sophie’s spent her whole life being a single mother, going through everything a mother and child go through together, hanging on because of her faith in her fiancé who lovingly left her in the protection of the angel Gabriel. It would be cruel to take that away from her.”
We were in a pickle. It would be no small thing for Sophie to be faced with Peter’s infidelity. I was torn between two choices. Revealing what I knew to Sophie would destroy her innocence. But stifling that knowledge would destroy the prospect of ever restoring a lost masterpiece. Even if Sophie learned the truth, would she ever agree to let her icon be cleaned if it meant losing the image of Gabriel? Of course, we still didn’t have the third panel. But discovering the second panel so close at hand now raised my hopes of finding the remaining one. Maybe there was a third girlfriend still keeping it safe for her lost darling Peter.
“We can’t keep this quiet forever, Angie. It doesn’t work that way.”
“What doesn’t work that way?”
“The truth. Sooner or later it will come out.”
“But you don’t have to say anything about the other woman, do you? Couldn’t you just say you found your icon in the table but you don’t know how it got there?”
“What good would that do? Once the discovery of the second panel gets out, Rose Cassini will hear about it. There’s no way of preventing that.”
“Couldn’t you talk to Rose and ask her to keep quiet for Sophie’s sake?”
“I don’t know how Rose would feel about that,” I said. I remembered she told me that Peter had been the love of her life. The truth would be a blow for her, as well. “I need time to think this through. I need to talk to Toby.”