Angel Gifts

by Mia Rodriguez

  “Listen here, I’ve worked very hard to get where I am!” he declared.

  “No one’s disputing that,” Alma Aurora said. “We’re just saying that spending more time with your family and less on making more billions would be a good idea.”

  “My family can take care of itself! Everyone in it can! They’re Worthingtons for goodness sakes!” he asserted. “I’ve got too much on my shoulders to babysit them!”

  Snowy eyed him with upset disbelief. How could he say such things? Didn’t he love his family more than his business?

  Alma Aurora sighed. “Let’s take a look at your wife.”

  Chapter 23

  When Alma Aurora pressed a button on the remote, the scene changed to Elvinia Worthington in her huge closet getting dressed in formalwear.

  Eben Worthington beamed with pride. “Isn’t she gorgeous? All the plastic surgery and the intense weight loss were so worth it!”

  Alma Aurora threw him a pitying glance as Elvinia Worthington slipped on a satiny, full length black dress. “That’s the dress that was specially designed for her and shipped from Paris, right?” asked Alma Aurora.

  “It cost a bundle, but look at how sophisticated and elegant Elvinia looks,” he announced, still beaming with pride.

  After having seen her slumped over her desk with a bottle of spirits in her hand, Snowy would never be able to see her as the woman her husband was describing. Mr. Worthington is so wrong about his wife, reasoned Snowy.

  Elvinia Worthington’s hands went to a drawer. They went below the expensive underwear until they got to what they were looking for. She pulled out a bottle of Vodka. After quickly opening it, she started drinking from it.

  Eben Worthington cleared his throat. “She takes her little sips here and there. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Snowy groaned.

  Alma Aurora shook her head. “Another fiction story?”

  “Listen here—“

  “Just look,” Alma Aurora said as she pressed a button on the remote. Scenes came whizzing by of Elvinia Worthington with glasses of alcohol often in her hands, of her passed out in her study, and of many empty liquor bottles lying in the trash.

  “That seems than more than just a few sips, right?” asked Alma Aurora.

  Snowy nodded sadly.

  After Eben Worthington’s face abruptly crumbled, he scurried under a table close by. The table cloth covered him. “This is just a nightmare! I’ll soon wake up!”

  Alma Aurora stepped over to the table and waved her hand. Golden flecks floated in the air. Suddenly, the table disappeared and all that was left was Eben Worthington crouched on the floor with his eyes tightly shut.

  “You can’t wake up from reality, Eben,” Alma Aurora murmured. “You can make up fiction stories and convince yourself of them, but they will never be reality.”

  “I looove my family!” he shouted.

  “No one’s disputing that,” Alma Aurora said. “But that doesn’t mean you do right by them.”

  “I’m a good family man!—a good man period!” he asserted, opening his eyes and glaring at Alma Aurora.

  Alma Aurora calmly stared back. “You really think so?”

  “I’m a pillar of the community and a dedicated church member! Why, I even teach bible study!”

  “Do you really understand what you’re teaching—do you really get it?” asked Alma Aurora.

  “What do you mean?” roared Eben Worthington.

  “Do you study Jesus?” Alma Aurora asked.

  “Of course,” he asserted. “I’m a Christian.”

  “So why don’t you act like Christ?” Alma Aurora questioned bluntly. “Why don’t you follow his lead?”

  Eben Worthington stood up with fury. “Don’t you dare question my faith! I have a personal relationship with Jesus! I mold my life after him! Just ask anyone at my church!”

  “I personally know Jesus and let me tell you that you are not anything like Jesus,” Alma Aurora murmured.

  “I certainly do his work on earth!” he asserted.

  “If that’s true then where’s your empathy?” questioned Alma Aurora. “Your compassion?”

  “What are you talking about?!” he snapped. “I create jobs, I—“

  “Why do so many of your employees lack health insurance?” Alma Aurora asked. “In fact, you make sure they’re underemployed so you don’t have to provide them with it.”

  “Listen here, I pay them a fair wage,” he declared defensively.

  “Some of your employees have serious illnesses,” informed Alma Aurora. “They really need to be treated medically.”

  “Their illnesses are not my fault,” he stated.

  “Where’s your compassion?” Alma Aurora challenged.

  “I give them a job—that’s where my compassion is!” he blurted defensively.

  “That’s not compassion at all,” Alma Aurora declared.

  “It doesn’t sound like compassion to me either,” Snowy chimed in, groaning.

  Alma Aurora eyed Eben Worthington. “I mean, you employ them to make a profit and not necessarily to give them jobs, right?”

  “If my employees want to enjoy what I have then they can kill themselves building it like I did!” he retorted defensively. “They should be grateful I provide them with jobs!”

  Alma Aurora eyed him carefully. “How much do you need employees?”

  “What?”

  “If you didn’t have employees then you wouldn’t have a business, right” asked Alma Aurora.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Workers and employers have a mutual deal and are connected to one another,” Alma Aurora said. “Imagine what the world would be like if there were only employers, or if there were only employees. Employers and employees need each other.”

  “What’s your point?!” he snapped.

  “Employers and employees need to play fair with one another and you’re not paying fair,” commented Alma Aurora.

  Eben Worthington’s face twisted in fury. “That’s a blatant lie!!!”

  Chapter 24

  “Don’t you pay most of your employees minimum wage?—and didn’t you take advantage of the bad economy to make all your employees work twice as hard for the same salary?” challenged Alma Aurora.

  “Well … I … Well, that’s business. Listen here, that’s the way it’s done!” he blurted.

  “Business is about being a jerk? !” Snowy burst, upset.

  “That’s what Jesus would do?” asked Alma Aurora.

  “Jesus wasn’t a businessman!” Eben Worthington burst defensively.

  “Jesus was everything,” asserted Alma Aurora. “He had the full human experience of emotions.”

  “Yeah!” Snowy snapped.

  “And so what?” he questioned. “What does that mean?”

  Alma Aurora sighed. “Let me just say that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to reach heaven. You’ve ever studied that one in your bible studies?”

  “It doesn’t say a rich man can’t get into heaven. It’s talking about those wealthy people who are ungodly!” he insisted.

  Alma Aurora shook her head. “Another fiction story.”

  “Listen here, I’m a Godly man—I don’t care what you say! I know who I am!”

  “You can’t know who you are when you live in all kinds of lies,” informed Alma Aurora.”

  “Listen here—“

  “You can’t be a Godly man without compassion,” blurted Snowy, upset. “That much I know.”

  “I am a Godly man—a firm Christian!” he insisted.

  “But you don’t take care of your employees, right?” asked Snowy. “You twist things so you don’t have to pay them more and provide healthcare.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’m I business man and not Mother Teresa!” he announced angrily.

  “But if you say you’re a Christian then y
ou should follow Jesus’s example, don’t you think?” asked Alma Aurora.

  Snowy nodded. “Yeah, don’t you think?”

  “I can’t heal people like he did!” Eben Worthington retorted.

  “But you can make sure they can get medical care,” explained Alma Aurora.

  “You know something,” Snowy chimed in. “I think that because Jesus isn’t walking the earth anymore, he expects us to take care of one another like he took care of us when he was here in the flesh.”

  Alma Aurora grinned at Snowy. “Good deduction.”

  “Well, I do plenty for others,” Eben Worthington insisted, “but I can’t mismanage my business or how can I keep the doors open and provide jobs?”

  “Don’t pivot your brain to a safer territory because you don’t want to face issues,” Alma Aurora said.

  “What?!” he burst. “First you say I create fiction stories in my head and then you tell me I pivot my brain! You don’t make sense—you need to go back to angel training or something!”

  “Don’t insult Alma Aurora!” snapped Snowy furiously.

  “All I’m saying is that she’s not making any sense,” he declared.

  Alma Aurora smiled. “Is it that I’m not making sense, or is it that you want to change the subject, so you don’t have to think about your life being a lie?”

  “My life isn’t a lie!!!” he growled.

  “Mr. Worthington,” Snowy chimed in, exasperated, “your daughter is anorexic, your son is very depressed, and your wife is an alcoholic. None of them are what you tell yourself they are.”

  “But—“

  “Face it,” Alma Aurora said. “Stop telling yourself fiction stories and pivoting from facts.”

  “It’s all so clear, Mr. Worthington,” remarked Snowy. “Even to me. Believe me, I didn’t want to face it either but I had to when I saw that your family is in a lot of trouble.”

  “The problems with your family are also connected to your business philosophy,” Alma Aurora murmured.

  “How?!” questioned Eben Worthington. “I don’t understand.”

  “Everything in life is connected,” explained Alma Aurora. “You can’t do something bad in one part of your life and not have it spill over to other parts.”

  “I’m not doing anything bad!” he retorted.

  Snowy frowned.

  “You keep saying you’re a businessman and can’t afford compassion, right?” asked Alma Aurora.

  “What I’m saying that I can’t go soft,” he stated. “That’s not the business way.”

  Alma Aurora frowned. “Your lack of compassion and empathy bleeds over to your family.”

  “Listen here—”

  “Tell me, Eben,” said Alma Aurora, “how much money is enough?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a billionaire,” murmured Alma Aurora. “How many mansions are enough? How many Rolls Royces? How many closets full of designer clothes? How many jewels? How many priceless paintings? How many—“

  “Hey, I’ve earned all that stuff!”

  “You’ll never spend the money you already have, Eben,” murmured Alma Aurora. “but you keep insisting on accumulating more no matter the high price—your family, your very soul.”

  “My soul?”

  Alma Aurora nodded vehemently. “Hey, it’s hard for a rich person to get to heaven. We’ve already covered that. Believe me, God isn’t going to give you a pass just because of your excuse of being a businessman. Greed is greed, no matter where it’s coming from.”

  “Greed?” he questioned. “Being successful shouldn’t be termed as greed.”

  “It seems like greed to me,” commented Snowy, grumbling.

  “I repeat, you have so much money that you’ll never spend all of it,” asserted Alma Aurora. “So why the blind obsession to make more and more money at all costs? Are you accumulating so much currency for power? Is that it?”

  Chapter 25

  “Listen here, it’s important to be a powerful businessman!” he snapped.

  “Why?” asked Snowy, thinking about the crown and scepter in his mind closet.

  “Well, power is what makes the world go round,” he stated.

  “But you’ll never be as powerful as God. I don’t care how many billions you make,” asserted Alma Aurora.

  “I’m not trying to be God!”

  “You’ll never be able to come close to God’s type of power no matter how much money you accumulate because a human being’s power is fake power,” explained Alma Aurora.

  “Fake power?” he questioned.

  “It’s a fake and flimsy power at best,” Alma Aurora asserted.

  “How is that?” he asked with curiosity.

  “You’re not an island onto yourself, right?” questioned Alma Aurora. “I mean your wealth largely depends on people buying from your stores, right? Your accumulation of money depends on other people, right?”

  Eben Worthington cleared his throat. “Well, right.”

  “The world is full of wars, of toppling down of regimes. One minute one group has the power and the next another one has it. Your human history is filled with angry mobs, furious of being treated unfairly. Your money buys people’s work. That’s really all that money is. It’s not valuable onto itself. So people decide how valuable it keeps on being. Just think about how much confederate money is worth today.”

  “I think people should play fair with one another,” announced Snowy.

  “You’re just a child!” snorted Eben Worthington. “What do you know about the complications of being an adult?”

  Snowy eyed Alma Aurora and smiled. “It just so happens that we human beings complicate things too much.”

  “Good, Snowy. It’s really simple, Eben. Decide what kind of person you want to be. Do you want to act important or be important? Do you want to play at being important so that people you don’t particularly like admire you for the wrong reasons, or do you want to do things that are truly important and have your family back and the love of good, actual Christ-like Christian people? Do you want God on your side? Do you want to be a true follower of Jesus?”

  “I thought I already was,” he declared, upset.

  “Jesus took care of people no matter their station or illness,” murmured Alma Aurora. “Do you?”

  “But—”

  “Have you heard that ‘he who is given much, much is expected’?” murmured Alma Aurora.

  “Precisely because I’m given so much,” declared Eben Worthington, “I am responsible to keep growing it in appreciation of what was given to me. That’s in the bible!—about growing God’s blessings.”

  Snowy groaned. Alma Aurora frowned and shook her head. “Bad reasoning. Your mind is pivoting to your comfort zone.”

  “But—”

  “What do you pick?” Alma Aurora asked. “Greed or Jesus? Human power or the most powerful power of all—the love of God?”

  “Pick God, Mr. Worthington!” Snowy blurted. “You won’t be sorry.”

  “Do the right thing, Eben,” Alma Aurora murmured.

  “The right thing?” he questioned.

  “Let me show you what’ll happen if you stay on the path you’re on. This is my gift to you.” She pressed a remote button. When three eerie graves popped up, Eben Worthington and Snowy stared at them with terror and mouths wide open.

  “Your daughter will literally starve herself to death,” murmured Alma Aurora. “Your depressed son will commit suicide. Your wife will die of alcohol poisoning.”

  “No!!!” he yelled, covering his eyes with his hands.

  “You can’t hide from reality, Eben. It will always catch up eventually.”

  “It will?” he murmured, his mouth chalky dry with fear.

  Alma Aurora nodded. “Yes. Snowy and I are through here.” She grabbed Snowy’s hand. “The rest is up to you. God gives you free will to either fix your life or keep messing it up. It’s up to you.”
She waved her hand. As the golden flecks floated, she and Snowy suddenly found themselves in Eben Worthington’s bedroom.

  Snowy rubbed her eyes. She had to get used to not being in Eben Worthington’s blurry dream. Everything was so sharply focused now, including a still asleep but nonetheless upset Eben Worthington in bed. His face was perspiring profusely and twisted in consternation. Alma Aurora indicated for Snowy and she to leave the bedroom.

  When they stepped outside of it, Snowy’s face became pensive and downcast.

  “What’s wrong, Snowy?” asked Alma Aurora.

  “I’m really disappointed, Alma Aurora. This family sure isn’t what I thought it was.”

  “It’s okay, Snowy,” murmured Alma Aurora. “As long as you know who you are and are true to yourself and God then it’ll all be fine.”

  “Okay,” Snowy said, smiling. Then her face grew somber. “But will it be fine for the Worthingtons?”

  “It’s up to them and not you,” Alma Aurora asserted. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll help. I’ve got a few spiritual gifts up my sleeve.”

  “Great!”

  Alma Aurora waved her hand and dozens of golden flecks filled the house. When Alma Aurora raised her hand, the flecks became even more prominent. “They’re throughout the compound and will reach London Blair too.”

  “Really great!”

  “I’ve got all the family covered.”

  “What’ll the flecks do, Alma Aurora?” The inside of Snowy was twisting with curiosity.

  “Tonight, the Worthingtons will dream of their healthy selves. Tomorrow, the most brilliant light will fill the compound so everyone can see themselves clearly. Also, Eben Worthington will have flashing memories of his dream tonight. He won’t be able to forget it or write a fiction story about it in his brain. It’ll be popping up all day tomorrow. That way it’ll be very hard for his mind to pivot to his comfort zone.”

  Snowy grinned. “Wow, Alma Aurora. You really know what you’re doing.”

  “Let’s hope it works.”

  “I think you’re awesome, Alma Aurora!” Snowy burst, hugging her.

  “Thank you, Snowy. I think you’re awesome too.”

  Chapter 26

  At the North Pole, Snowy was overjoyed to be back. The visit with the Worthingtons had really taken it out of her like she could’ve never imagined.

  Even when the reindeer were at their worst and complaining about silly things like the size of snow drifts on their coats or the generic, instead of brand name, shine applied on their antlers, they didn’t upset her as much as the Worthingtons had.