Angels of Destruction

by Keith Donohue

  Flipping through his Bible, Sean discovered stories which featured cameo appearances by an angel. Jacob wrestles one and breaks his hip. In a vision, angels proclaim the holiness of the Lord, and one places a burning coal to the lips of Isaiah. An angel talks Mary into having a baby, and a heavenly host announces to the shepherds tending their flock that the babe is born and lying in a manger in Bethlehem. They are always proclaiming to people news from above. God's messengers. He wondered what message Norah had in store and why she was so long in delivering it. And then he remembered: she was no angel, but a child like him.

  He wished there was someone to ask. Most mornings when home, he would think to ask his mother, but she had changed so much in the year since his father left. Always working, and when not at the job, she took care of a thousand household chores. Some nights when he was restless and could not sleep, he found her conked out on the couch, curled under a throw, the glow of the television flickering across the shadows of her face, and seeing her so, he longed to reach out and tuck her in, smooth her hair, wipe away the lines etched in her skin. Even in her dreams, she looked so unhappy that he dared not ask her about angels or say much about his new friend from school. He knew she would not solve his puzzles, only offer comfort or worry over his questions, try to fit together what would not be joined.

  Still, it would have been nice to talk with someone about Norah.

  Sean could ask his father, if he ever came back, although he was sure that some things, most things, would never again be as they once were. He felt that he would at least talk to him man to man; that much a father owes a son.

  His teacher was out of the question. For five months, Mrs. Patterson had managed to ignore him because he was not the type of kid who would ever volunteer, and his answers, when he was called upon, emerged from his thoughts in such a soft voice that she had to ask every time for him to repeat, but loud and clear. Eventually, she tired of the routine. It was more expedient to call on someone else, and since he earned Satisfactory in every subject, there was no cause, good or ill, for her notice.

  His friends—the kids at the outsiders’ lunch table—were friends with Norah as well, and he couldn't ask about angels without arousing their suspicion or her retribution. On consideration, he realized that they weren't actually friends, simply the ones left over and out of place. Misfits. Until Norah came along, even they had rarely included him in conversations. On the playing fields at recess, the captains often chose him last or nearly so, an afterthought. Given the option, he ended up alone, tossing a ball against a wall, riding a swing into the bright and beautiful sky, or reading a book, his back against the yellow brick of the school building. He had only one true friend. The only person he could talk with about Norah was Norah herself. And he could not talk with Norah.

  After brushing his teeth and wrestling into his pajamas, he went downstairs to say goodnight. His mother sat at the kitchen table, sorting through bills, the checkbook open in supplication. With her free hand propping her head, she bore a look he associated with taking a test—a mixture of concentration and frustration—but as soon as she caught his eyes, she managed a smile and put down her pen.

  “Sweet dreams, sweetheart. Come and give us a kiss.”

  He shuffled over to her, his slippers whiffing on the carpet. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled his body close, kissing him gently on the cheek. His bitten shoulder ached under her touch, but he did not cry out or flinch.

  “I saw a bobcat today,” he said.

  “Is that right? I've never heard of bobcats in these parts.”

  “Me and Norah tracked it down, followed its footprints through the snow and even got close enough—but not too close—to see its yellow eyes.”

  “You may be the luckiest kids in the county.” She stroked his hair and pushed loose strands behind his ears. “You and Norah are good pals, aren't you?” He hung on to her, desperate for another moment.

  “Mum, do you know anything about angels?”

  “Angels, for heaven's sake.” She traced a circle on his back. “When I was a child in first grade, there was a girl named Dorothy—”

  “Like in The Wizard of Oz?”

  “That's right, but everyone called her Dot, and she claimed she had a guardian angel that went everywhere with her. Said she could see this angel—although nobody else could—about the size of a grown-up with wings as bright as the sun, and this angel kept her out of trouble and so on. She went away for a while, and when she came back Dot told us that she had leukemia. She said the angel helped her through the treatments. Watched over her while she was a long time in the hospital, and we kids would go down there to visit and bring her books and juice, like that, and never once was Dot scared on account of the angel.”

  “And what happened to her? Dot, I mean?”

  Mrs. Fallon twisted a curl around her index finger and stared straight ahead. “She died, I'm afraid. But the school had a painting done, a good likeness of her anyway, with Dot and her angel walking through a field, and they hung a sign beneath it with her name and the dates of her life, and it said something from the Bible. ‘Blessed are they who believe,’ or something like that.”

  “Do you?” His voice cracked and tears welled in his eyes.

  “Oh, honey, I shouldn't have told you that story. Why don't you just forget all about it? Dream about what you have seen, not the unseen. What about that bobcat in the woods?” She held him until he settled, then sent him off to bed.

  Blankets drawn to his chin, Sean fidgeted to find a warm and comfortable spot. In the dim light, he could make out the familiar shapes of objects in the room, and he spent a long time staring at the toy teacup Norah had given him and the books and games on the shelves his father had built. He wondered where his father was that night, worried that something bad would happen, and they would not ever get the chance to see each other again, though perhaps, he thought, one day in heaven after they both had died. Reunions were possible, he decided, in the afterlife when everyone gone and forsaken would have the chance to go over every harsh word and every word left unsaid, and such a possibility made sense of heaven, gave the idea some meaning and reason. Hanging on a hook in the open closet, his winter coat looked just like a pair of folded wings, ready to wear. Anxious, he rolled away toward the dim light at the window and felt a stab in his shoulder. Sean could not sleep and wondered if Norah was his guardian or had some dire message for him. Has she come to warn me? he wondered. Is now the hour of my death?

  26

  The sisters taught the girl to play gin, and she was winning every hand. Sometimes Norah would even lay down after picking up two or three cards, and the winners were astonishing: four queens and three eights; a straight flush to the jack of hearts. Margaret and Diane laughed with surprise each time, sipped their Irish coffees, and had another bite of the brownies Norah had baked with Auntie earlier that Saturday. The cards snapped as they were shuffled. Every so often, the furnace roared and bellowed for a few minutes, then the ducts pinged as the metal expanded and contracted. Like clockwork, Norah coughed abruptly just as the blowers stopped. Diane's turn to deal came round again, and as she passed out the seven cards, she asked what time they would be going to Mass in the morning.

  “I'm not.” Margaret began arranging her hand. “This weather is killing me. I'll kneel down and never come up.”

  Play began. Norah picked blind from the deck, discarded a two of clubs.

  “Have you been to see a doctor, Maggie?”

  Margaret drew a four of hearts, laid down a nine of diamonds. “No lectures, please. I had a doctor in the house for almost thirty years. It's nothing—arthritis, gingivitis, age-itis. An ordinary illness, life.”

  Diane took her sister's nine and left a five of clubs for Norah, who folded it into her hand and put down a second nine. Diane sneered at her. Margaret passed on the discard and drew from the deck, throwing down a jack of diamonds atop the pile. Diane scooped it up before her sister had second thoughts, and lef
t the ace of spades for Norah. “I think I'll go anyhow, you don't mind?”

  “Gin.” Norah laid down three fives and four aces. “I'll go with you, Auntie Di.”

  • • •

  AT THE PROPER TIMES in the Mass, Norah knew when to kneel and when to stand; she said her prayers in concert with the people in their pew; she sang every hymn without looking at the words in the songbook, though she stayed behind when Diane rose to join the lines for Communion. Head bowed to her folded hands, she knelt and waited for her aunt's return, sighing when the whole congregation sat as the rite concluded. The priest and altar boys processed to a choir of voices, and it was over. Had they been the first to leave, they might have noticed the figure in the camel hair coat at the back of the nave, guarding the door as if a sentry to another world, but he left before the final blessing. They bundled into their coats and headed through the massive double doors, the frigid Sunday air bone-chilling after the closeness and warmth of so many people.

  “What say we go see your grandfather?”

  “My grandfather?”

  “Pay a visit to his grave. Awful lonesome in wintertime with so few visitors.”

  The others hurried to their cars, revved engines, sent thin clouds of exhaust into the air, and sped away. Diane and Norah waited till the last had left, then crossed the parking lot to the cemetery tucked behind a stand of sheltering firs. As they reached the gate, a crow lit out for parts unknown, a black smudge against the pale sky. A hundred souls or so lay buried by St. Anne's, and their stones and memorials rose like bergs on a rolling sea of snow. A caretaker had shoveled the main pathways, and here and there, a set of prints trailed off with dedication to a particular stone. Flowers and wreaths, some recalling the most recent Christmas, lay encased in ice, perfect until the first thaw. They meandered through the gardens, uncertain where Paul Quinn resided.

  “You know, I've been meaning to steal you away from the moment I arrived. Just us girls. A chance to talk without you-know-who.”

  “But you've been here a whole week.”

  “Never alone with you, my dear. Just the two of us. Woman to woman.”

  Coughing into her mittens, Norah remained where she stood until the moment passed, stalling for time. “You could have asked me anything in front of Grandma. I would have—”

  “You don't understand, you …” She collected her thoughts, strewn across the graveyard. “There are certain subjects I don't feel comfortable bringing up around my sister. For her sake, I bite my tongue.”

  “Once I bit a boy on the shoulder because he didn't believe what I said.”

  The red flash of a cardinal landing in a buckeye startled Diane, and the matter went missing. “So, child, are you Catholic? Your mother takes you to church?”

  “I'm not anything, but there are lots of churches in New Mexico.”

  “Right, yes, New Mexico. I've been meaning to ask you about that—”

  “And the Masses are the same, only Spanish.” Norah held out her index finger spaced above her thumb. “I only know that much.”

  “You must have picked up something, since you're a native. Give us a bit of the old español.”

  “Ojalá escuchen hoy la voz del Señor—”

  “Oh, excelente”

  “Wait, I'm not finished. No endurezcan el corazón. Do you speak Spanish, Auntie Di?”

  “ Un poco. Where did you say you were from?”

  “I didn't. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but my mother lives in a small town called Madrid.”

  “Like in Spain? The same name, how interesting. What is it like in Madrid?”

  “Oh, you know, roadrunners and coyotes, mesas and cliffs and mountains.”

  “I thought New Mexico was a desert. Prickly pear and dunes—”

  “No. New Mexico is three places in one. In the north, forests of juniper and huge snowy mountains, and in the central, the high lonesome hills. You're thinking of the south, Tía. Trinity site where they set off the bomb.” Her voice changed, quickened, and the words seemed transparent. “Do you know what the man said about the atomic bomb? ‘I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.’ Robert Oppenheimer.”

  “How do you know such things, child?”

  “I read about it in a book,” she stammered. “I saw it on a plaque when my mother took me to White Sands. Angel of destruction.”

  At the mention of the cult, Diane felt faint, leaned over, and grabbed onto a headstone for support. With great effort, she bent her stiff knees and stared at the child. “Tell me about your mother.”

  “She is an artist. Paints bleak houses, the changing sky, the falling apart of lives in the middle of nowhere. She creates her art out of her sorrows.”

  “What is she like? Why is she there?”

  “She is afraid to come home.” With great excitement, she pointed to a spot just behind Diane. “There it is…”

  They stepped through the snow to Paul's grave. Six feet beneath the clay, Paul Quinn rested under a simple marker—an engraved name, the dates of his coming and going, a crucifix, and a caduceus. Diane remembered those last years with Erica, how he watched over her every move. By trying to protect her, he had driven her away. When her sister first called with the news, Diane had told Margaret not to worry, that the girl was acting out, typical teenage rebellion, and that she would be back soon. The last time Diane had talked with Erica, her niece confessed how much she hated her father, how much she wished both parents would just trust her to make decisions. How she would never be like them, keeping the truth from each other. And now both father and daughter were gone. To Paul's right a blank space on the stone for Margaret Quinn, end unknown. For a moment, they stared at the stone, not knowing what else to do or say.

  “He was a good man,” Diane said. “Basically. Did your mother ever talk about her parents?”

  “My mother is like my grandmother. Most of her life below the surface. Her feelings buried deep in her heart. But the quietest ones often pray the loudest and bring their answers into being.”

  “Your grandmother nearly lost her faith when your mother ran away from home, and I can't say that I fault her. What kind of God allows the good to suffer, the innocent to be punished? I have my own doubts, but hers were greater, and from a greater cause. But she had moved on. She fashioned her own peace, until you came along.” From the top edge of the stone, Diane brushed off loose snow, which stuck to her gloves. She clapped her hands, the muffled noise echoing from stone to stone. The scattered flakes glittered in the bright sunshine. “Why did your mother send you here? What happened to your father?”

  “My father? One of the great mysteries of life. Maybe she thought it was time I met my grandmother? I don't ask, just do as I'm told. Oh, I thought of another one, just right for you.”

  “Another what?”

  “A Spanish prayer. Que los ángeles te lleven al paraíso.“

  “That sounds lovely, child. Los angeles—the angels, right? Not the angels of destruction?”

  For the first time that day, Norah laughed deeply and fully. “It means ‘May the angels lead you to paradise.’” Caught off guard, she grabbed Diane's hand and led her back to their car, giggling softly to herself, enjoying some private cosmic joke.

  27

  Dozens of hearts lay strewn across the dining room table. Sharp scissors. Tiny arrows. A pot of paste. The three of them judged and giggled when each new design was finished and presented. A light snow blew against the darkened windows. Beef stew simmered on the stove. Diane would be leaving in the morning, and they were already missing one another. The homemade valentines had been her idea, agreed to with alacrity, and they passed a pleasant few hours over doilies and red cardboard hearts.

  “This one is for Sharon Hopper,” Norah said. “Who believes but does not see. And this one is for Sean Fallon, who sees but does not believe.”

  “Believe in what, Norah?” Diane asked. “True love?”

  Bent over her work, Norah continued sketching a cupid on the fro
nt of another card. “Most people say they want it and can't live without love. But they just don't know how to take or give it.” She drew a pair of wings on the cherub and sat back to consider her efforts. “I heard that in a song on the radio.” She stopped to glue the cupid to a cloud of cotton. “This one is for Dori, who sees and believes. Have you ever been in love?”

  Margaret leaned over the paste pot, indicating to her sister that she need not answer.

  “I don't mind,” said Diane. “No, not the way I wanted to be. Never the passion I always thought I would feel.”

  “How about you, Grandma?”

  Margaret stood and looked over their heads toward the stew. “Maybe we should be getting ready for dinner and stop all this talk of love for right now.” She pushed back the chair and hurried to the stove.

  As she gathered in pieces of cardboard, Diane spoke in a low confidential tone. “I wanted to forgive him. Before he passed. But Joe never said … he never gave me the chance.”

  “Forgiveness is the easy part,” said Norah, three pairs of scissors in her hands. “Loving beyond the hurt is what will be hard.”

  Diane reached out and stopped the girl from moving. Tired of the chase, she challenged her in a rough whisper. “Who hurt you, child? Your mother?”

  Laying down her tools, Norah flattened her palms upon the table, and when she spoke, her voice was colored by a strange monotone, as if reciting what had been learned by rote. “Never run with scissors, that's one of the rules. Always carry them points down. Look both ways for cars when crossing the street. Wait one hour after meals before swimming. I have been taught all of the rules for children. Danger. Peligrosa”

  Alarmed by the girl, Diane followed her to the den and the chest of drawers where the art supplies were stored. “You're hiding something about your mother.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “What has she done? Is she still a part of that cult? Did you run away from those people? The Angels?”