Chapter 22
Calise cradled her coffee and stared at her mom—the same woman she’d known all her life but someone she didn’t know at all. Her mother, Donna, took a tentative sip from her coffee and smoothed out the cushion next to her. Her aura was faint, nothing close to the blinding glow that Ellen exuded, almost as if she was trying to forget what she was.
Calise scratched her head. This was a tough conversation to start and her mother was no help, so she tossed around some opening lines in her head.
So, you’ve always been an angel?
Duh.
Have you killed a lot of demons, Mom?
What if the answer was yes?
Does Dad know?
Calise was sure he didn’t, and that he was a regular human.
She just opened her mouth and blurted out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her mother first raised an eyebrow, then smirked, then busted out laughing.
“What, Mom? Seriously.” Calise couldn’t remember thinking of her as more than a judgmental regular mom or a guilty conscience in her life until now. But Calise’s new eyes were slowly opening to the idea that she was talking to a woman who was a mother, a wife, a child, a worker…a being…an angel!
Her mother placed her coffee cup carefully on a coaster on the pristine table and got up and moved to the loveseat next to her daughter. She looked Calise square in the eye and squeezed her knee. “Honey, would you have believed me? You never even listened to me when I told you that you should wear a hat in the winter so as not to catch a cold.” She was smiling with love in the twinkle of her eyes, chiding and teasing the daughter that had questioned her at every juncture.
She let the words settle in her mind and of course, her mom was right. The Calise she knew would have told her something snippy like, “If you think you’re an angel, why don’t you act like one?”
Case in point.
“Why don’t you act like one? Why is your aura so dim?” A fair question.
Her mother slid back on the couch, out of contact. “You can see that about me?”
“Yeah, Mom. Compared to Ellen—”
“You’ve seen Ellen? What did she say?”
“She said I’m in terrible danger or something.” She prayed her mom wouldn’t hear the panic in her voice. She wanted Mom to say everything would be all right, like moms are supposed to do.
She wrung her hands. “Oh, it’s worse than that. Seers are hunted. Demons will do anything to prevent exposure. If even one demon is on to you, they will never stop until you are medicated, ruined, or dead.”
Not very reassuring.
She moved closer to Calise, pulling a stray hair out of her eye. “When? Or who? How…How did you get the sight? I’ve always known you had some very dilute intuition, but I tried to discount it. To protect you.”
“To protect me? I thought I was crazy. Ellen just yanked me from a psych ward where I was involuntarily committed by a demon shrink!”
“What?” The front doorbell rang. “Don’t answer it!”
“Mom, it’s probably Ellen.” Calise shuffled across the freshly vacuumed shag rug and pulled open the front door.
She let Ellen in. After stiff pleasantries were exchanged and coffee was poured, the angels sat together, asking the questions.
“I met someone on vacation. We were…together. And he passed on the sight. He didn’t mean to, and I didn’t tell him he did, but…” She trailed off. “He gave me this necklace. The two times I’ve been in danger and held it, you two appeared out of nowhere.” She held up the necklace for them to examine.
After examining it, her mother held her head in her hands and began to rock back and forth on the couch. “You can’t ever use that again. Do you understand me? That demon is dead, but if I hadn’t come…No. No. No. I don’t want to be involved. I’ve been hiding so well. We’ve been safe so long.”
This was not going at all how Calise had hoped. She needed someone to tell her she wasn’t insane, everything would be fine, and the world she knew had merely changed to include the truth.
Her world would never be the same again, and Calise was fine with that. Learning her mother and best friend were angels meant that with this amazing knowledge came some serious Spiderman-level danger and responsibility. Her journey to Costa Rica gave her exactly what she wanted: truth and answers. No going back now.
She reminded herself that she was the one who sought this out—begged for it. She was the one determined not to back down. She was the one who left Lucas without telling him what she had become. Ellen and her mother would now count on Calise to hold it together when Satan’s minions were around.
Time to man up. My best friend and mother are angels. The man of my dreams knows I’m not crazy. And finally—for once and for all—I know that all along…
I’ve been right.
Her mother hyperventilated. Calise rushed to the kitchen, trying to recall where the small paper lunch bags were kept. Ellen’s warm hand landed on her shoulder, calming her.
After all these years, it was finally her turn to comfort her mother. Paper bag in hand, Calise returned to the living room. She and Ellen sandwiched her mother and she placed her arms around her. “Mom, please slow down. Talk to me. I can handle it.”
Her mom heaved a heavy sigh and her eyes glazed over with fear and shame. “I’m a terrible angel—Ellen knew it. We’re under no circumstances allowed to fall in love with a human and mate. I did that. I knew the consequences. I did it anyway. I fell in love with your dad, knowing he could never return the kind of love I could offer him, I just…” Her eyes began to brim with tears. “I chose to love him on a human level. I wanted to keep him and not overwhelm him. Angel love can make humans act foolish. I—I didn’t want him to worship me. I wanted—regular love.” She smiled.
Calise shifted uncomfortably. “So, let me get this straight. You just dumbed down your angel-ness? You loved him less than what you were capable of so that you could have some kind of ho-hum existence and marriage? Holy hell, Mom, I can’t believe you dragged me to church every week with this crazy half-shuffled moral card deck you’ve been playing!”
Great. I’m still pissed at my mom even though she’s an angel of the Lord. Lovely.
Mom was shaking her head. “Cali, dear, you don’t understand. I thought if I could hide, live quietly, like a human, I wouldn’t be punished. But it hasn’t worked. Worrying has consumed my life for so long, and then when you and Dean came along—and you began to ask questions…”
She wasn’t making sense. “Mom, hide from whom? What consequences? What have you been so worried about all these years?”
Ellen sat back quietly with her hands folded in her lap as though she already knew all of this.
“Angels are sent here for one earthly life to restore balance, spread goodness to mankind. My love for my immediate family makes me neglect my real duties here. God didn’t send us here for one human or our own children, but for all people. I have disobeyed and have been cowering in a corner of shame and fear waiting for my punishment. Now, my time has come.”
Calise furrowed her eyebrows, and her mom slowed down for her human, only-using-one-percent-of-the-brain limitations. “Okay, Cali, for example, how far and to what ends should an angel go every day to improve humanity? In every situation we encounter we have the capability to go above and beyond and inspire. I stopped inspiring humans after your father fell in love with me. I decided to stop living as an angel and hide under the radar. I ignored my aura and willed it to go away. If I did nothing, maybe no one would see me. I ignored who I really was to live like a human with a human.
“Angels, in love, love too deeply and can’t recover from loss of any kind. Why do you think a forty-two-year-old man just falls over dead while running, even though he’s extremely healthy? The wife is generally an angel. I’ve heard it too many times. I’ve seen it. The angel sometimes never recovers. God sent us to walk among you to love all of you. We aren’t here to be loved and certainly not worshiped. How did you feel the first time you really saw Ellen?”
Calise fondly recalled, “I couldn’t stop looking at her. She’s so beautiful. I hung on her every word.” She stunned herself with these frank words.
Mom collected their coffee cups and headed for the kitchen.
Following her, Calise realized that this most menial of tasks was being performed by an angel of the Lord. It appeared so…ordinary.
Calise and Ellen followed her to the kitchen. Mom rinsed their cups. “Human love for angels can often turn to worship, a cardinal no-no. That’s why angels should only mate with angels.” She flashed a quick glance at Ellen. “Some angels mate with demons and play tug-of-war.”
“And demons mate with humans?” Calise asked.
“Tell her.” Ellen’s voice was commanding.
“Dean’s wife, Liza.”
“I knew it! I knew I couldn’t stand her.” Then the fact slammed her like a brick in the chest. “Why didn’t you stop that?”
The water ran in the sink and her mother rinsed another cup. She placed the cup upside down on a towel. “I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
Calise’s cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the area code. She was in overload and needed a breather. “Sorry, Mom, I have to take this.” She held a finger to her mother in the most significant conversation she’d had with her in all her life.
“Hello?”
“Cali, it’s Lucas.”
“Are you here?” Her voice carried the joy that was in her heart at the sound of his voice.
“I’m in Kansas with my dad. He’s sick, but when I take care of everything down here, I’ll come see you. Are you ok?”
“I’m perfect,” she lied. “But I’ll be better when you’re here.”
“I miss you—you have no idea how much.”
The pay phone receiver clicked on the other end. She snapped her cell phone shut.
If the weight on my shoulders is heavy now, what if I’m pregnant?