Falling Angel

by Tisdale, Clare

  As the elderly couple continued their slow walk home, a lump rose in Cara’s throat. Despite the woman’s age and her diminished physical ability, Cara wished, just for a moment, that they could trade places.

  As she climbed the stairs to her apartment, Cara stumbled and realized she was tipsier than she’d thought. In her room, she flung her bag onto her dresser with a sigh. There was a crash as a heavy object fell to the ground with a crash.

  Cara swore out loud and bent down to assess the damage. On the floor lay the statue of the flying girl Ben had created for her. The Falling Angel had fallen, all right. The girl’s foot where it connected with the base had broken at the ankle, and one of the wings had cracked off.

  Carefully she gathered up the broken pieces and placed them in an old shoe box, which she pushed under the bed. She felt sick to her stomach for breaking the beautiful sculpture. Why was she always so careless? Tomorrow I’ll go to the hardware store and find some super-adhesive to try and piece it back together, she promised herself. Hot tears came to her eyes and she dashed them angrily away. Even if she did manage to repair it, she knew it would never be the same.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was unbelievable, Ben reflected as he started his run along the green belt of Myrtle Edwards Park. A whole year of celibacy and total immersion in his work, and then bam! Out of the blue came a waifish, blonde-haired doll of a girl and knocked him sideways with one look from her innocent blue eyes. She wasn’t even his type.

  He jogged slowly to start, pacing himself, enjoying the breeze off the water and the cries of the gulls. The park felt far removed from the frenzy of the end-of-day commute that seized the rest of the city at this hour.

  In general, Ben tended to go out with women a little more worldly than Cara Walker. Women who, while they may ultimately have wanted marriage and children, would never be naïve enough to let him know as much.

  Picking up the pace, Ben passed the steel hulk of an obsolete grain silo. He hadn’t always been as committed to maintaining independence and self-sufficiency as he was now. With Francoise, he had seriously considered the idea of marriage, even discussed having children. But after the anger and sadness at the break-up of their relationship had dissipated, he had felt relief. Like a wild fish, he had nibbled the bait and been grazed by the hidden hook before swimming away to freedom.

  He had lived long enough to recognize his own patterns. Long enough to know that he wanted his life to retain its flavor of excitement and adventure. Remaining single, or at least emotionally unattached, seemed a necessary part of that.

  The feelings that Cara brought out in him – tenderness and desire, combined with a fierce protective impulse – made him question his resolve. And yet he found her exasperating. What was the deal with all the stupid rules she’d set for herself about who she could and couldn’t date? That wasn’t the Cara he knew. His Cara didn’t really care how big a person’s bank account was, or whether she had a sparkly rock on her finger. She preferred a ride in a kayak on the open sea to a fancy party at a posh downtown hotel. She preferred simple, pretty clothes and a good home-cooked meal to designer duds and nouvelle cuisine. So who, exactly, was she trying to kid?

  He reached the end of the path, where the park ended at a street with a few restaurants and a small pier. Turning, he headed back toward the downtown area. He would finish his run at the top of the platform on Pier 57, which, on a clear day, afforded incredible views of the city skyline, including the West Seattle Bridge, the ships in dry-dock and the massive container cranes out on Harbor Island.

  In spite of Cara’s harebrained views on love and marriage, Ben knew she was a kindred spirit. He had felt it when they were out on Bainbridge Island together. She had the ability to lose herself in the moment. Her deep appreciation of the natural world matched his own. And she responded to him physically with a passionate intensity that made him long to take her in his arms again.

  Their lunch together that afternoon, humble as it was, had only confirmed the strength of his growing feelings for her. She approached life with spontaneity and a sense of humor. If only she could trust and believe in herself, and in him.

  He was breathing heavily now, feeling the endorphins kick in and his heart rate increase.

  Time, Ben, he told himself. Give the girl some time. He knew he had a tendency to dive into new enterprises and relationships without worrying about the outcome. Others were more wary. Like taming a skittish animal, he would have to woo Cara carefully and slowly.

  After showering and grabbing a quick bite to eat, Ben played the message Cara had left for him again.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about how I’m in control of my future. And I wanted you to know that I definitely hope to see you in it.”

  Hearing her soft, clear voice gave him an idea.

  Half an hour later, he pulled up outside her apartment in Madison Park. It was a warm night, calm and clear, with a small breeze blowing off the lake. He could take her out for a walk. They could go down to the beach and kiss in the moonlight. Man, you’ve got it bad, he told himself as he walked up the steps to the front door and pressed the intercom button.

  The buzzer rang and he pushed through the front door, taking the stairs two at a time. He knocked on the door of the apartment, and it opened a crack with the chain still on. A girl with spiky black hair and a nose ring eyed him suspiciously through the opening. “I thought you were someone else,” she said.

  Ben recognized her voice. “You must be Ann. I’m Ben, Cara’s friend. We spoke on the phone last week.”

  Ann’s brown eyes widened, and a moment later the chain was unhooked and she pulled the door open. “Come in.”

  Ben took a few steps into the apartment. He looked around, taking in the small kitchen to his right and the TV area to the left, with its comfortably sagging couch. He craned his neck to peer down the hallway.

  “Cara’s not here,” Ann said.

  “Oh. I guess I should have called first.”

  “She has a busy social life, that girl.”

  “Would you tell her I dropped by?”

  “Sure. Although I don’t know what time she’ll be home.”

  “Working late, huh?”

  Ann raised an eyebrow. “Oh, she’s not at work. She’s out with David.”

  Ben stared at her. “Who’s David?”

  “Cara’s boyfriend,” Ann said. “He’s a nice guy. He works at the bank, drives a Beemer. He’s exactly what Cara’s been looking for, you know. I don’t know whether she mentioned to you her relationship rules?”

  “She did,” Ben snapped.

  “Well, this guy really fits the bill. They’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately. Things are getting pretty serious. I think they went to Dirk’s seafood downtown. From what I hear, they have a great clam chowder. Are you ok? You’ve gone all pale.”

  Ben cleared his throat. He had no intention of letting Ann see his confusion. “Their chowder’s pretty good, if you like the Boston kind,” he said. “Personally I prefer the Manhattan red.”

  Ann’s face fell. Clearly she’d been hoping for a stronger reaction.

  Ben turned to leave.

  “I’ll tell Cara you stopped by,” Ann called after him.

  “Don’t bother,” Ben said, closing the door. Behind it, he could swear he heard a low-throated laugh as Ann replaced the chain.

  For a moment, he stood at the top of the stairs, too stunned to move. Then anger set in. Who was this roommate, Ann, anyway? Cara had mentioned that they weren’t getting along. How did he know she was telling the truth? He lurched violently down the stairs to his truck. Rather than trusting hearsay, he would find out for himself.

  It was a short ride to downtown Seattle from Madison Park. Ben left his truck idling in a three-minute loading zone around the corner from the restaurant and marched down Fourth Avenue, past the large plate glass window of Dirk’s Seafood. He looked through the glass.

  Cara sat at a table in fr
ont of the window, displayed like some enticing confection behind the glass. A smarmy guy in khakis and a button-down shirt stared dreamily at her from across the table. Ben stopped and stared, but Cara took no notice of the passersby. She was completely engaged in her conversation with Banker Boy. It was only when the guy held up a ring with a flourish and slipped it onto Cara’s finger that the true import of the moment hit Ben.

  Either Cara was getting engaged, or she had just accepted some serious bling from a wealthy admirer.

  The wide-eyed, innocent ingénue he had been falling in love with over the past few weeks was nothing more than a manipulating, conniving heartbreaker. Even as he was crushed by the realization that all the deep feelings he had attributed to her were no more than projections of his own desires, he couldn’t help admiring the cold-blooded ease with which she had led him on. The woman had beaten him at his own game. It took a pretty cool customer to lie in his arms on the beach one afternoon, leave him an intimate voicemail and have lunch with him the next day, and accept a proposal from another guy that same evening.

  Ben fought the urge to throw a rock or bottle at the window, shattering the composure of the couple within, the way his own had been destroyed. Instead, he turned swiftly back to his car with an overwhelming urge to get away, anywhere but there.

  He wanted to crawl out of his own skin, obliterate consciousness. At one time, he would have dulled his violent emotions with a bottle of vodka. Even now he considered the idea, and then rejected it. A drinking binge would ruin him for work tomorrow, and his current deadline-filled schedule left no time to gratify such self-destructive impulses.

  Ben took a right on Pike Street and a few blocks later turned onto the I-5 freeway. He headed north, edging the speedometer up past 80.

  The air roared around his truck, a metal projectile tunneling through the night. His eyes were watering and his throat felt hoarse. Must be a cold coming on.

  Another half hour and he’d arrived Grey Lands, an open stretch of coastline that stretched for miles. At this time of night, the beach was deserted. Ben drove his truck onto the sand and parked. Stripping naked, he dropped his clothes on the sand and dove into the frigid Pacific Ocean. An hour later he emerged, head pounding and ears ringing. He was physically and mentally numb, worn as smooth as a piece of sea glass.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cara paced her room, keyed up from her night out with David and the accident with the statue. She had work tomorrow, and it was already getting late, but sleep was impossible in her current agitated state, and trying to force it would just make it worse. As she sat on her bed, debating whether to watch TV or read, she caught sight of a silver-wrapped package peeking out from under her dresser.

  It was the birthday gift Ingrid had given her at the Fineman’s party, still unopened. Ingrid must have wondered why she hadn’t thanked her yet. Cara pulled out the package and tore off the silver wrapping. Inside was a small leather-bound photo album.

  On the inside cover, in Ingrid’s large and flowing hand, was an inscription.

  “The past is never dead, it is not even past.”

  –William Faulkner

  This was followed by a personal note.

  I recently found these photos in an old box. They rightly should be yours.

  -Ingrid

  The first page contained a black and white photo of Cara’s parents on their wedding day. They stood facing each other with hands clasped against a stylized backdrop of a formal garden. Louise looked younger than Cara ever remembered her, and her father too was no more than a boy, younger than Cara was now. Her mother wore a long-sleeved, high-necked wedding dress and veil, and her father appeared in a tux that was too small for his tall and gangly frame. His thin wrists stuck out from the sleeves and the stiffly starched collar held his neck like a steel ring. Despite the artificial nature of the pose, Louise gazed at Daniel with complete adoration and he appeared equally besotted.

  Slowly, Cara turned the pages, lingering over every picture. Her parents sat side by side on a pair of swings, legs splayed, laughing with abandonment. Her mother wore a long skirt that was flipped up over her knees, revealing her petticoat.

  Louise Walker, visibly pregnant, stood before an old-fashioned range in a large country kitchen that Cara recognized from other photos as belonging to the old farmhouse that her parents had lived in during the first years of their marriage. She was cooking something in a frying pan. Her hair was lank across her face and her expression drawn and distant as though she were unaware of the photographer’s presence.

  There was a photograph of her father, dressed in blue jeans, a plaid shirt and his signature Cubs baseball cap. He sat on top of a brown horse in a flat dirt field, a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. Brandy. Unbidden, the word came to Cara. Brandy was his favorite mare, whom he used to take out into the wild bush around the farm as a teenager. The one who stopped to crop the grass when they were out for a lazy amble one afternoon and got bit on the nose by a snake. Her nasal passages had swollen up immediately, and despite his best efforts to get her back to the stable, she had suffocated and died right in front of his eyes. He’d never forgiven himself for not carrying bits of cut-up hose in his pack that could have been inserted into her nostrils, thus keeping the air passageway open and saving her life. ‘Some people had dogs as their best buddies growing up,’ he’d told Cara, absently stroking her blonde hair. ‘But mine was always Brandy.’

  In the picture, which must have been taken soon before Brandy died, he was smiling broadly at the photographer, so happy and so in his element that Cara felt a wave of sadness, for she had never seen him that way. The father she remembered was sad and distracted, and always seemed to be ill-at-ease, wherever he was.

  There were more photos of her parents, and of her mother and Ingrid, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, looking like best girlfriends, which she supposed they were at the time.

  Toward the end, Cara entered the picture, red-faced and bawling in a frilly white bassinet, her tiny fists clenched in impotent rage. Her father looked down at her tenderly. A portrait of the three of them, Cara clutching a limp stuffed bunny rabbit, one of those childhood loveys she had held on to way past the age when one is supposed to outgrow them. It was painful to see them all together, looking so complete and united.

  Cara felt jealous of Ingrid for sharing the part of her parent’s past when they were happy together. Cara’s only memories of her parent’s relationship were of anger, distance and acrimony.

  Until now. It was clear from the pictures that her parents had loved each other once. Cara smiled. Ingrid had given her a truly special gift; a new perspective on her own past.

  At Great Expectations, Cara worked non-stop until early afternoon, managing to resolve most of the glitches of the day before. The new band was en route from California, and she had discovered a vendor in New York City who stocked the exact same lace that had been embargoed at the port. He promised to Fed-Ex it to Seattle overnight.

  Ingrid was pleased with the morning’s accomplishments, and suggested the two of them take a rare break for lunch in downtown Mercer Island. They went to one of their favorite hole-in-the-wall eateries; a small Vietnamese restaurant tucked in between a women’s clothing boutique and a chocolate shop. Both women ordered steaming bowls of pho. The fragrant broth packed with noodles, meat, and vegetables was brought to the table, served with a cornucopia of fresh sprouts, basil stalks, sliced jalapeno peppers and wedges of lime.

  Ingrid fanned herself with a beringed hand. “It’s easy to get stressed out in this line work. But you have a talent for handling multiple tasks while staying calm. You remind me of your mother in that way. Louise never allowed anything to bother her too much, or if she did, she didn’t show it. She was a very cool customer.”

  “That reminds me,” Cara said. “Thank you so much for the photo album of my parents.”

  “I was cleaning out one of our attics a couple of weeks before your birthday and
I found this old box of pictures I had taken. When I saw them I realized I had to give them to you. It’s almost as if it was meant to be.”

  Cara tasted her broth, inhaling the rich aroma with pleasure. “What were my parents like back then?”

  “Very much in love. But with such vastly different needs and desires. In the end, it wasn’t enough.”

  “My mother always said they split because my father couldn’t hold down a job and provide for us.”

  Ingrid sighed. “I think your father could have given you a good life. You never would have been wealthy. But it wasn’t the life your mother wanted.”

  “You mean she wanted to be rich?”

  “Not necessarily. I think their differences had more to do with their backgrounds and general philosophies of life than with money per se. The farm Dan grew up on was very dear to him. It was a small, family farm, and his father and grandfather had farmed it before him. As the only child, it was assumed he would take it over from his father. And, in fact, that’s exactly what he wanted to do. He and Louise moved there soon after they got married, and I visited them a few times. I thought it was lovely, but I could tell your mother was miserable there. It was too isolated for her, and such hard work, especially after you were born. She wanted to be in the city, in a house with modern appliances and a small yard that she could plant a few vegetables in. She didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife.”

  “So that’s why he sold the farm?”