Heaven or Hell (8 page)

“It’s been a long, long time, Angela,” the man said.

Angel squinted and rubbed her eyes; maybe she was dreaming.

“No, I’m really here. And, I’m there, too.” The man pointed down. “By the way, this is a fantastic view.”

“Who are you?” Angel’s heart-memory pounded down to her toes. “Where are my pups?”

“I didn’t see any pups, although you’ve always had a thing for dogs. Do you remember? The neighbor’s dog … well, any dog. They all loved you.” Her strange visitor took a deep breath. “Your mother had some dogs before she met me … Wow, it feels good to feel good.” He held his arms up to the sky and closed his eyes.

“How’d you get here? Who are you?” Angel was amazingly calm about this invasion of her cloud. She sensed no danger from this man. And though he could be her father, yes, she had no memory of him.

“I’m not sure how I got here,” he said. He smiled and continued, “As I told you, I’m your father. I came to take you home, where you belong.”

“Who am I?” Angel asked.

“After today you know who you are, and I’m going to help you remember the rest.” He stood up and the white, pillowy formation shifted.

“Be careful with moving too fast,” Angel warned him. “We don’t weigh anything right now, but these vapors somehow sense our beings. We might fall out if you don’t relax.”

He laughed. “My Angel, always following the rules. You’re a good kid.”

His eyes sparkled as he looked at Angel. “I’m so happy to see you.”

She felt uncomfortable with his intense inspection, as if he were soaking up every detail of her being, from her face to her inner soul.

“What are you looking at?” Angel’s voice sounded strange, as if a bratty child had taken over her vocal cords.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I want to remember you forever. Something I forgot to do when we were down there. I love you, Angela. And I’ve missed you.” The man blinked his eyes.

“My name is Angel,” she whispered. “Tell me how you found me. How’d you get here?”

“Technically, I’m not dead. My body’s hooked up to a lot of machines. The term for my current state of being is ‘comatose.’”

“If I’m this person you say I am, then why don’t I remember me?” Angel asked.

“Spending time up here eats away at your memory. Many people lose themselves this way. You’ve been here a long time.”

“Who’s my mom?” Angel thought of the photo she’d seen earlier that day.

“Marion is your mom and my wife. You were right, you saw her in the picture.”

“How do you know that?” Angel folded her arms in disbelief. What type of trickery was this man up to?

“I communicate with your mom,” he answered.

“What? How?” Angel had been trying for years to break the barrier with Teresa.

“You’d be amazed at what obstacles a determined woman like your mother can overcome. Not to mention she’s pissed at me.” He smiled sadly.

Angel cringed at the sound of the “p” word. Perhaps this was a reaction from her time in a physical body. She didn’t like cursing, and certainly she hadn’t developed the habit in the flesh.

“How can you be in two places at once?” Angel asked.

“I don’t know. I think my body is in that hospital bed and my spirit is here.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It happened so fast.”

He turned into the cloud and moved closer to Angel as he spoke again. “I use to call you Angel, Angel. Because you’re my angel. I like that you kept that name.”

He placed his hands on Angel’s arms. “Your sister, Teresa, was driving since she’d promised you a trip to the mall. The two of you loved doing things together. I know the radio was playing because the ambulance driver told me the music was still on when he got there.”

He hesitated for a moment. “It was a hit and run, by a suspected drunk driver. You were thrown from the car—either your seatbelt wasn’t fastened, or it didn’t work. You didn’t make it to the hospital. Teresa survived, but she was hurt. I’m sure you’ve seen the scar on her left leg.”

Angel pulled away from his grasp and sat down. “How’d I end up like this? I want to remember!”

“You were supposed to wait here for your mother and go with her.” The man perched across from Angel. “I messed up. I tried to drink myself to death, with a complete disregard for my life and my family.”

“When am I going to remember what happened?” Angel pounded her fists down on her thighs and could almost feel the impact of the blows.

“I know it’ll take some time for the memories to come back. You’re experiencing a sort of amnesia.”

Angel sighed, deflated by the realization she wasn’t going to get what she wanted right now. “Tell me about the woman who sent you to me, the one you say is my mother. Or tell me what she said, or how you learned these things.”

The cloud adjusted to each movement as Angel stood up and put her hands on her hips.

The man pursed his lips. “Your mother told me you stayed behind because you didn’t want to leave Teresa alone. You have free will. She couldn’t force you to go along with her.” His eyes smiled at Angel as he whispered, “You’re a brave young lady, my Angela.”

He reached out to her but she turned aside to avoid his touch—a touch she wouldn’t have felt anyway. “I should’ve been the one to take care of Teresa,” he said. “If I’d handled it better perhaps you’d have felt good about going with your mother and leaving Teresa with me.”

Her jaw dropped as the whole thing began to make sense. She’d been with Teresa all these years. Why else would she have felt a connection with no reciprocation from Teresa?

The man who claimed to be her father leaned in and continued, “I’m sorry. I’ve learned a lot in this life, and most of it the hard way. I’ve hurt many people, but until recently I didn’t recognize how far this ripple of pain had run.”

Angel had to acknowledge he might be her father. So she sat quietly and listened to what possibly explained this existence of hers.

“And if you think about it, here I am sitting with you, my baby girl. Had I known this day would come, I might not have stepped off the wagon all those years ago,” he said.

Angel nodded.

“Life is a big circle. It does come back around.” He gazed at her with an emotion she couldn’t fathom.

“Were you religious—or if it’s true, were we a religious family?” Angel asked.

“No, we never did the church thing together. Your Aunt Jessie and I had to go to Catholic school, and that was enough for both of us.”

“Tell me about the woman you say is my mom.” Angel relaxed and propped herself up on her side.

The man smiled at her. “You use to lie like that in front of the TV. I’ve missed my girls … Your mother is, and has always been, the strength behind this man.” He tapped his chest. “She saved my life twice, and now she’s helping to resurrect my soul.”

“Resurrect?”

“Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. She’s reluctantly helping me so that I can help you.”

“Oh,” Angel responded. The thought of her mother wanting to help her in some way gave her a warm feeling, though she didn’t really know who her mother was.

“Quite some time ago, I’d wake up and have a vague recollection of your mother yelling at me. I realized it was part of a dream, but then over time the images fully invaded my dreams. Your mother had worked hard and learned how to communicate with me from, I guess, the other side. After all, she is deceased.”

The man—her father?—took a deep breath. “She was so angry. She’d waited for you to follow her. She spoke to you and tried to get you to go with her when she passed, but though you promised to be there soon, you’re still not with her. Your mom has been trying to get your attention ever since.

“For a long time after, she sent me visions of you here in the clouds. As these dreams occurred and grew steadily stronger, I only drank more. I thought I was being haunted, and so I tried to escape.”

The man touched his stomach and his arms, and then he looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers. “I feel as if I need a drink of water. Or, no, I think my time with you here is running out …”

“Don’t leave me hanging, please keep talking,” Angel begged him. She believed she was very close to learning what had happened to her.

“According to Marion, your mom, it was all my fault and she’d had every intention of making my life a living hell until I fixed it. Who could blame her?” He glanced around as if unsure that he was still with Angel.

“How’d she tell you that?”

“Oh, I’m jumping ahead …”

Angel turned away from the man for a second to look at the sunset and see if she could locate the girls. Belle and Kail were usually back by now, but maybe the sight of a stranger in their cloud had kept them away.

As soon as she took her eyes off of him, she knew it was a mistake; the cloud tipped up and she felt the space behind her go empty. The man she’d been speaking to was gone.

CHAPTER 7
 

TERESA RESISTED THE TEMPTATION TO TAKE the journal she’d found in her father’s house and burn it later. Instead, when she’d dropped off her aunt, Teresa gave her the book and told her to throw it away if she didn’t want it. Teresa’s shoulders were tight and her brain had gone numb.

She’d headed toward JJ’s school and let her mind go empty. A few minutes later, she looked up to see the familiar flag in front of the building, but didn’t remember a single image from the drive.

She sent JJ a text to let him know she was waiting out front. Teresa smiled as she reread her message to JJ, every word spelled out. He’d teased her about her texting skills because she always spelled each of the words.

His response came through with a rattle and a beep. It appeared he’d be out in about fifteen minutes; at least she wasn’t completely clueless about reading his text code.

Teresa leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Memories she’d spent a lifetime repressing were beginning to come to the surface. She recalled her father and mother whispering late at night—or what a little girl might have thought was late. Her entire being wanted to believe they loved each other, but in the hushed tones after she and Angela went to bed she’d sensed something was amiss. This had been years ago, and now she suspected it was around the period Aunt Jessie had said her father and mother’d split for a short time. Try as Teresa might, other details didn’t come to her.

Although, she did remember clearly that she was her mama’s girl and Angela was her daddy’s child. The fact wasn’t a secret, and it was also evident daily.

As far as the affairs of the family were concerned, her mother was in charge. Her dad did everything and anything her mother asked—not begrudgingly either, since he was madly in love with her.

A rap on the driver’s side window startled her. JJ stood beside the car, his hair a mess and his backpack slung on one side.

“Mom, can we take Seth home? Dude needs a ride.”

“Dude?”

“Yeah, open up.” JJ bent over, his lanky frame having shot up so high this year he appeared about six feet tall. Her son grabbed at the door handle, and it flicked out of his hand. He grabbed again at the handle making the car shake.

“Slow down! Watch smudges.” Teresa unlocked the car, exhaling as she let the outside world in.

“Hi, Seth. How are you?” Teresa turned toward the back seat where Seth had entered the car.

“Excellent, and you?” JJ’s long-time pal responded.

The atmosphere Teresa had created seemed to leave the car as the boys entered with a teenage testosterone energy that only a refrigerator full of food could fuel—a force Teresa didn’t want to deal with today. But Seth had always been a good friend to JJ.

“I’m good. How’s your mother?” A wrench seemed to tighten around her skull as she strained to smile at the boys.

“Great.” JJ reached over and slapped Seth hard on the head. Seth immediately returned the blow.

“All right, okay … Stop it, please. It’s library time.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Reynolds.” Seth folded his arms and subtly gestured to JJ. Both boys laughed.

“Okay, come on now, or it’s going to be nappy time for both of you.” Teresa placed her fingers on her temple and rubbed.

“Nappy time?” JJ held back his laughter with a snort. He then proceeded to discuss a lunchroom incident with Seth jumping in during the milliseconds when JJ stopped to breathe.

The drive to Seth’s house felt to Teresa like a month of Sundays, but after they all had said their good-byes, JJ dropped the facade of his cool ‘dude lingo’ and became serious.

“Okay, Mom, what’s going on?”

“Wow, what’s going on with you? Who are you? And what did you do with my son?” Teresa was finally able to let out a small laugh.

“Come on, you rarely pick me up and you seem … preoccupied.”

“Yeah, well, I want to talk to you.” They drove in silence for a few moments as she maneuvered through side streets. “Did I ever talk to you about my dad?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“What do you know?”

“Well, he drank too much, and he disappeared when you were eighteen. Right?”

“Close to being right, yes,” Teresa answered. “Are you ready for this? He’s back and he wants to see me. He’s dying.”

JJ exhaled a slight whistle.

“I know, it’s heavy.”

“You should see him. We should see him.”

“Why?”

“Because, once he’s gone this time, he’ll be gone for good.”

Teresa let the quiet fill her veins. It was nice to just focus on the road and not think about anything else for a second.

JJ was so sensible sometimes. A solution such as this, put in such simple terms, made sense. Teresa had been arguing with Aunt Jessie all day. Fighting in her mind with the ‘do-gooders’ at the church. Her time spent with the priest had been uncomfortable and truly unnecessary. Teresa snickered, and slowly the snickers became a roaring laughter.

“What’s so funny?” JJ asked.

And without either of them really knowing why, she supposed, the contagious laughter simply caught on. Both mother and son laughed themselves silly, all the way home.

CHAPTER 8
 

SITTING DOWN AT HER KITCHEN TABLE, Jessie examined the black and white essay notebook Teresa had left with her, the same kind that both she and Joe had carried back and forth to Catholic school so many years before. The sheets contained large spaces between the lines, perhaps to allow room for juvenile ranting, or for the nun’s criticisms.