Angel, page 13
Now that he would have someone to celebrate with again, Christmas suddenly did seem fun. Paul found the box of ornaments buried under some old tax receipts. He went back into the house humming “White Christmas.” Paul pushed the pile of plastic bags aside and set the ornament box on the coffee table. When he opened it, he was surprised at the strong emotion the contents gave him. He had not seen the ornaments since he and Sara had packed them up their last Christmas together. The box had become a time capsule.
Each ornament in the box represented some part of their lives together. Paul could see Sara, her thin hair covered by a head scarf, taking the fragile ornaments down from the tree and wrapping them in paper towels. Right on top was an ornament Paul had forgotten entirely because it had hung on the tree only once. It was a crystal angel blowing a golden horn.
“She’ll watch over you,” Sara said when he opened it. They both understood the unspoken second half of the sentence: “After I’m gone.”
She put it on the tree that day, up at the top near the star. A few days later, Paul packed the decorations away, along with the angel ornament, and purposely put it out of his mind. It had remained in the box unseen and unremembered until now. Paul brushed a tear away from the corner of his eye.
“What is it?” Ian asked.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “I didn’t expect…. Sara gave this to me our last Christmas together. I forgot about it.”
“I’m sorry,” Ian said. He put his arms around Paul and let him sink into his shoulder. They held onto each other silently for a full minute. Paul finally let go.
Ian took the angel from Paul’s hand and held it up to the light. “It’s really beautiful.”
“It’s supposed to be Sara’s angel watching over me. We knew that Christmas that….” He brushed away another tear. “I didn’t mean to spoil the mood.”
“It’s okay,” Ian said. He handed the ornament back to Paul. “You should put it on the tree.”
“I don’t know,” Paul said. He wrapped the angel back up in her paper towel. “Why don’t we put up the other ones, and I’ll think about this one.”
Ian picked up an ornament shaped like a country church with a steeple. “Is this the church?” he asked.
“It’s supposed to be.” Sara had given that one to Paul their first Christmas together, when they were still dating.
Paul unwrapped an ornament in the shape of a house. He had gotten that one for Sara to commemorate buying their home. His first mortgage. Now that was a commitment!
Ian was hanging a God’s eye made of sticks and yarn. Sara had made that with the kids in her Sunday-school class. He placed it next to a glass hummingbird, a gift for Sara, who took childlike delight in the birds in their new yard. Every ornament in the box was constructed around a memory of Sara. Ian, unaware of their meanings, happily arranged and rearranged them on the tree until he was satisfied with the color and symmetry. He backed up and stood beside Paul gazing at his work.
“It looks good, doesn’t it?” he said. “You know what would make it better, though?”
“Tinsel?”
“Tinsel!”
“No.”
When all of the decorating was done, Paul, of course, scooped up all the packaging and deposited it in the kitchen trash. He made some hot chocolate, and he and Ian sat on the futon admiring the festiveness of the room. This entertained them for a good six minutes. So they unfolded the futon, pulled out the afghan, and curled up to watch whatever was on TV. Ian rested his head on Paul’s right shoulder with his arm draped across Paul’s chest. Paul lazily ran the fingers of his right hand through Ian’s hair. A commercial for engagement rings came on: “A diamond is forever.”
“Did you buy Sara a ring like that?” Ian asked.
“Yeah. Not quite that big, but… I have it. Do you want to see it?” Before Ian could answer, Paul rolled off the futon and headed into the bedroom. When he returned he was holding a small box, shiny cardboard. He sat back down beside Ian, removed the lid, and handed the box to him. The gesture called to mind a marriage proposal. Realizing this, Paul spoke quickly to break the spell. “That’s her ring.”
It was silver with a modest stone in a square setting. Sara’s fingers had been small—the ring looked as though it might fit on Ian’s pinky—but he didn’t try it on. He ran his finger slowly over it and then handed it back to Paul.
“They gave it back to me when she died,” he said. “I wanted to be there with her, holding her hand. That’s how I pictured it. But it took a long time. She really held on. There was a week where we were just waiting, thinking she would go at any time. So I went home to sleep one night, and almost as soon as I got home, they called and said I should come back. By the time I got there, she was gone. The nurse said ‘I’m sorry’ and gave me this.”
“That’s rough,” Ian said. Paul closed the box and set it on the end table under the Christmas tree.
“How did you know you wanted to marry her?” Ian asked.
“She knew before me. She kept dropping little hints.” Paul’s eyes gazed heavenward, and he smiled at the images in his own mind.
“So it was her idea?”
“I just needed a little nudge.”
“How did you propose? Was it romantic?”
“It was supposed to be,” Paul said, laughing. “I took her on a picnic, right by the lake. And I had wine and candles. But there was too much wind, and the paper plates kept flying away and the food got dumped on the ground, and the candles wouldn’t stay lit. But I asked her anyway. She said yes.”
Ian was gazing to a spot on the wall just beside the television at a picture frame that displayed one of Paul’s favorite images of Sara from their wedding day. Beside the photo, in the same frame, was a poem in calligraphy, composed and hand-lettered by a church member. The topic was being reunited in heaven.
“Do you think Sara is waiting for you in Heaven?” Ian asked.
Paul followed Ian’s gaze to the photo. “I think she is,” he said.
“I wonder if I’ll go to Heaven.”
“Of course you will,” Paul said, kissing him on the forehead.
“So we’ll all be there together.”
“I guess so.”
“Do you think she’ll be jealous?”
“Hmm. I don’t think there’s jealousy in Heaven. Do you?”
“I don’t know. You’re the minister.”
“We talked about it, you know. Just before she died, when she was so sick. She said she wanted me to meet someone and fall in love again.”
“Have you… fallen in love again?”
“Head over heels.”
“I… I’m in love with you too.”
The next day, Paul visited Sara’s stone at the cemetery. He brushed off the snow, then rubbed his hands together for warmth.
“I’ve met someone,” he told her. “I know he’s probably not what you expected. He’s not what I expected. But I really think you’d like him. He’s had a hard life, and I have no idea how he managed to turn out the way he did. He could be bitter and angry, but he sees the best in people. He’s trusting. He has so much faith in me. Oh, but he’s messed up all my habits. It drives me crazy sometimes. He can’t make a bed. He leaves his underwear on the floor. But I think I needed to have my habits messed up. You know that. So if he messes up the house too, well….”
He stood, rubbing his red nose and wishing she could answer.
“He’s beautiful inside and out, but he doesn’t know it,” he said with a chuckle. “Well, actually, he knows about the outside. He definitely knows about that, but it’s like he’s always thought that was all he has. He doesn’t know how beautiful he is as a person. God blessed me that I can see it. I don’t know how it happened. But I love him. I don’t know what it means, or what’s going to happen. I thought I knew who I was…. I wish that I could talk to you about this. I think you’d understand.”
Then an idea came into his mind. It was so clear and sudden that he had to believe it had come from outside—directly from Sara. Somehow she had found a way to speak to him.
“Let me go.”
That evening, Paul packed away most of Sara’s photos, leaving only the wedding picture with its poem about heaven on the wall. Then he took all of the ornaments down from the tree, hanging only the crystal angel on a branch near the top.
“What are you doing?” Ian asked. “I put a lot of work into that. I had it just right.”
“I thought we could go out and pick out a few ornaments together. Something that represents us, not me and Sara.”
Ian put a hand on the side of Paul’s face. Using only his eyes, he said, “I love you.”
“You know what else I think this tree needs?” Paul asked.
“What?”
“Tinsel. Lots of tinsel.”
Happy New Year
To many, mountains are no more than an impediment to progress. They block our will, interfere with our movement and migration. Not far from Donegal, Pennsylvania, in a quiet region of dense spruce forest, lies a little-known three-mile tract of overgrown and cracking highway that has hardly seen a tire since 1968. The road heads toward the face of Laurel Hill and stops short at a stone arch with a rusted overhang, its opening blocked by a white corrugated metal door partially obscured by a massive pile of road salt. There is little sound but the distant rushing of the traffic from the Turnpike that has been routed away from it, stranding the portal in time.
This is the Laurel Hill Tunnel, a remarkable feature of the original Pennsylvania Turnpike, known in its day as the “Dream Highway.” The ambitious interstate, which cut its way through the Allegheny Mountains using a series of tunnels, was originally the vision of a railroad man. The tunnel through Laurel Hill was begun with picks and shovels in the 1800s, but the work stopped short when the railroad project fell through. It would be left to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to finish the task fifty-five years later. Eleven men gave their lives to complete the marvel of modern engineering, but it outlived its usefulness after only twenty-four years and was bypassed.
Cars were already lined up along the curb of the neat suburban cul-de-sac several houses down the road from Julie and Jim’s when Paul and Ian arrived. Ian picked up the paper sack from the back seat as they got out of the car and headed down the road. Carrying a paper sack with a bottle in it was a familiar gesture for Ian. This time, though, it contained sparkling grape juice.
“You know,” Ian said, “I think this will be the first new year I’ll start without a hangover.”
“It’s going to be a good year for both of us,” Paul said.
Paul had been starting his years since Sara had been gone with a long hangover of his own—a hangover of grief and loneliness. For the first five years, he kept attending Julie’s annual party. He painted on a smile, stood to one side, and excused himself at around 12:05. Finally, last year, he had decided not to bother with the act. He had watched the ball drop alone on TV. He didn’t want to be social and yet couldn’t quite bring himself to go to bed early. He probably should have. It was anticlimactic and depressing. He could hardly believe that one year ago he hadn’t even known Ian existed. There was actually a time, not long ago, that Ian had not been a fact of his life.
“Where were you a year ago?” Paul asked.
“You don’t really want to know,” Ian said.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.” They had arrived at Julie’s door. Ian quickly rang the bell, putting an end to the subject.
Julie was dressed in a long red gown with a dangling rhinestone necklace and matching earrings.
“Hi! Thanks for coming.” She took the bottle from Ian and led them to the kitchen to set it down.
“It’s grape juice,” he said.
“Good for you,” she said, looking around behind him. “Where’s your date?”
“Paul is my date tonight,” he said.
Paul hoped Julie didn’t notice his cringe. Would it really be so difficult for Ian to be just a little more careful?
Julie thought nothing of it. “Well, maybe you’ll meet someone here tonight,” she said. “There are some nice single women. Oh, and here’s one now!”
A young girl, about ten or eleven years old, ran up to Julie and hugged her around the legs.
“Megan, do you remember Paul and Ian?”
The girl looked up at Ian. “My mom says I can have some champagne at midnight!”
“That’s cool,” Ian said. “I’m not allowed, though.”
“How come?”
He opened his eyes wide and, with a comical expression, said, “The minister won’t let me.”
“Megan! Megan!” Megan’s little brother, Aiden ran up to her.
“Go away!” she said.
“Be nice,” said Julie.
Aiden looked up at Ian. “You want to see my toys?”
“Yeah, cool!” Ian said.
He went off with the children and sat down on the floor. Paul watched him from across the room as he played with Aiden’s toy trucks. Soon there were four other children on the floor with them. Ian made funny faces, and the children laughed.
“Ian! Ian!” Aiden called out to him as he threw a plastic airplane into the air. The kids loved him, and he was great with them.
Before his intellect had a chance to reflect on it, Paul was filled with a powerful longing. He wanted Ian to be the mother of his children. When his brain caught up with his emotions and reminded him of the biological impossibility, he felt a nagging sense of loss.
That Ian would not have children—that the genetic code for his beauty would die with him—seemed like another of God’s cruel jokes. It occurred to Paul that beauty calls out to our creative instincts. In a desperate fight against life’s inevitable decay, beauty demands that we make a copy. Lovers long for children with their beloved. The beautiful inspire artists to write poetry, to compose music, or to paint. Yet even the most moving symphony, the most inspired sculpture, the most elevating theatrical performance does not keep its original alive.
Within each encounter with beauty is the inevitability of loss. The beautiful bouquet of flowers turns brown in a day, the beautiful lover grows old and dies, even the sublime landscape of a mountain is constantly eroded. It will one day return to the flat earth and be nothing.
Paul thought about all of the new years that began with such hope and promise, the beauty of infinite possibility, that were now distant, set in stone, ancient history. Each year’s end was a beginning and each beginning was an end.
“That’s a nice necklace,” Julie said.
Paul’s focus came back to his part of the room. He picked up the gold cross and held it away from this chest to look at it.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “It was a Christmas gift.”
“I know,” Julie said. “I was with Ian when he bought it. Do you like it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good. It seemed like kind of an odd gift.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just didn’t think men usually bought jewelry for each other.”
Paul was trying to decide how to answer when he was saved by the ringing door bell.
“Excuse me,” Julie said.
Paul stood near the hors d’oeuvre table, masking his social awkwardness with snacks. He would have liked to have had a glass of wine, but as long as Ian wasn’t drinking, Paul wasn’t going to either. Ian played with the kids for another hour. Then he got up off the floor and joined Paul near the food.
“You all right?” Ian asked.
“Good,” Paul said. “Are you having fun?”
“Yeah,” he said. “The kids are great.”
“You’re good with them.”
“They’re easy to please. You just pay attention to them and they like you.”
“It’s almost time!” someone shouted, and everyone headed into the living room to stare at the TV. Paul picked up two glasses and the bottle of sparking grape juice.
The urgency of the move to the living room amused Paul. New Year’s was a one-second holiday. If you weren’t glued to the TV at the precise moment, you missed it. It seemed like a complete misunderstanding of the true nature of time.
The countdown had begun: “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!”
The room was filled with the sound of noisemakers and popping corks. Paul opened the sparkling grape juice. Ian held out his glass, and Paul filled it.
“Auld Lang Syne” played through the TV speakers, and all around couples began to embrace. Julie was kissing her husband Jim. On the other side of the room, Emily kissed her boyfriend, Bob. Marlee was sitting on the couch kissing… who was that guy?
Paul looked at Ian. They shared a knowing smile. Paul raised his glass. “Happy New Year,” he said softly.
“Happy New Year.”
Tattoo
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.”
—Isaiah 27:13
One afternoon in March, Paul walked into the church commons and found Ian there eating a candy bar and reading the Bible.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just taking a break.”
“It’s fine with me,” Paul said. “Just don’t let Julie catch you.”
He glanced over his shoulder. No one was behind him, so he stole a quick chocolate-flavored kiss. Then he tapped a finger on the open Bible in front of Ian. He whispered, “Try First Samuel.”
He saw Ian in his peripheral vision flipping through the pages as he turned to walk out of the room. He waited just outside the door with his ear tilted in Ian’s direction.
“Wow,” he heard Ian say. He smiled and went back to his office.
“And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.”
