Into This River I Drown (67 page)

“You would think so,” she says with a smile. “Strange how these things work out.”

I stare at her.

“Coffee?” she asks me sweetly. “We’ve got an hour drive ahead of us.”

It’s
as we ride through the dark that I confess. “I saw him.”

“Oh?” Nina says. She waits.

“Big Eddie. I saw him again. At the river.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry, Nina.”

She seems startled. “For what?”

“You know. Christie.”

“Yes,” she says quietly, looking out the window into the night. “Those who live have always lost. What was three goes to two. But that’s okay. There’s
always
two.” Her voice gets a little funny at the end.

“Nina? Are you okay?”

“Felix,” she whispers. “Oh, Felix. Turn away. Turn away, please. It is not a god. It never was a god.” Then she shudders as she shakes her head.

I glance at her, concerned. “Who’s Felix?”

“Did he cross?” she asks, ignoring my question. Her voice sounds clear again. “Did you help Big Eddie cross?”

Oh, my heart. Oh, my soul.
“Yes,” I whisper. “He crossed.”

“I wonder,” she says, “if Christie will too. If God has enough forgiveness in his heart.”

I take her hand in mine.

For
the first time in a very long time, I pass mile marker seventy-seven and I do not slow.

I do not stop.

And
here, at the end of things, I show you this:

Five days have passed since the storm hit, but Poplar Street is still littered with debris. Large tree branches pile up on sidewalks. Broken windows are boarded up, waiting to be replaced. Puddles of water still remain in the shadows of buildings.

I drive slowly down the road that is my home.

Rosie’s Diner survived and is still standing, though it’s closed up tight.

Big Eddie’s Gas and Convenience looks none the worse for wear. There’s a pile of debris off to the side, and the whole front of the store has been swept clean. Someone has taken care of it for me. Maybe my mother. Maybe Mary or Nina. Maybe someone else entirely. I don’t know.

All the other businesses are still standing. They’re all dark, but they’re all still there. Roseland might have been struck by what is now being called the worst storm of this century, but it has survived. It has rolled with the punches. It has known sacrifice, but what is love without sacrifice? It has taken all of this on and it has survived. Its foundations might be shaky, and it might not be in the same shape it once was, but it has survived.

And it has also kept a great secret.

Our Lady of Sorrows blazes ahead, bright, like a beacon in the dark. It calls to me. It sings to me. Voices whisper to me out in the night, like I’m still trapped in the White Room, now gone black.
Here,
they say.
Here he is. Here he is, coming to change the shape of things. This is a pattern of impossible endings. This is a design of improbable beginnings. O, joy. O, wonder. O, behold, for it is miraculous.

I see people standing off in the shadows, almost hidden because the streetlights are all burned out. They watch as I drive by. I know they can’t see inside the vehicle, but I feel they know who it is just the same. As I pass them, they step out onto the road and begin to follow us on foot, step by step, until I see hundreds of people behind me, their heads bowed low, hands folded in front of them. I see people I’ve known all my life, people I’ve laughed with, people I’ve cried with. I see people who helped to pick up the pieces after I shattered away into the wind. It seems all of Roseland is here, watching, waiting.

“What is this?” I whisper, unable to process what I’m seeing.

“It’s been like this since he came,” Nina says softly. “They’ve all waited for you. They’ve all prayed for you. And for him. For Blue.”

“This is going to get out,” I say, sure of my words. “This won’t stay secret for long. Someone will talk, and they’ll descend on Roseland. They’ll come here with their questions and their cameras. Their scalpels and their knives. They won’t understand. They won’t understand who he is. It won’t matter what he is to me. They’ll try and take him away.”

She watches me curiously. “Not here,” she says. “Not this place. Roseland is… different. The people here are… different. We protect our own. Now that everything is out in the open, we protect our own.” She sighs and looks back out the window. “The eyes of everyone were here for a few days. The news people with their cameras and their reports of this poor little town. Such tragic things happened to them, they said. Drugs and deceit. Betrayal and heartbreak. They told the story, and then they left. There are always stories to be told, I think. Elsewhere. Every day. It was just our day, and now it’s over. He was protected.”

“Why?” I ask, as we approach the front of the church, the crowd behind me bigger than I would have ever thought. “Why are they doing this?” I pull into a parking space in front of the church and turn off the SUV.

She puts her hand on top of mine. “Because they know love. They know sacrifice. They know miracles
do
exist, and they must be protected. They must be cherished.” She removes her hand. “We protect our own,” she repeats.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say, the doubt in my voice evident. “Why me? Out of all the people in the world, the
worlds
, why me? Why this moment? Why now? I’m no one. I’m nothing.”

“You’re the one Calliel chose to love,” my aunt says, her sweet face breaking into a sad smile. “If that’s not enough for you, I don’t know what else could be.”

“I love you,” I tell her. “I love you so very, very much.”

Her eyes fill with tears and her lip quivers. “Oh, I know,” she says. “And I love you more than the moon and the stars. Secret?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Cross your heart?”

“Hope to die.”

“Stick a thousand needles in your eye.” She looks away and takes a deep breath. “I think everything was leading to this,” she says quietly. “I think this is the real test. For you. For Blue.”

“I’m scared.”

“But loved.”

“Yes.”

She opens the door.

I stare after her for a moment, trying to catch my breath. I hear people shuffling outside the SUV, waiting for me to exit. The church is so bright.

I open the door.

The crowd sighs. All of their eyes are on me. No one speaks. They watch. I’m unsure of what to do. I don’t know what’s expected of me. I don’t know what they want me to say.

Then, a familiar face pushes her way through the crowd.

“Welcome home, Benji,” Rosie says, pulling me gently into her arms. “Oh, honey. I am so happy to see your face.”

“Rosie,” I breathe, trying not to wince at the pain in my chest.

“Your mother called,” she says in my ear softly, so no one else can hear. “She called in a fright, said you’d gone missing from the hospital along with Nina. I told her there’s no other place you’d be going. She asked me to stop you from entering the church before she got here. Can I do that? Can I stop you?”

“No. You can’t. I can’t wait. Not now. Not when I’m this close.”

She nods, pulling away, brushing at the tears in her eyes. “The doc’s in there,” she says. “With him. Pastor Landeros is in there too.”

“How is he?” I ask, searching her face. “Cal. Is he? Is he….”

She shakes her head, crumbling as she’s pulled away by Suzie Goodman. I hear her gentle sobs as she falls back into the crowd.

Dad, I need you. I need you so bad right now. Please, hear my prayer.

“I am going to ask something,” I say, my voice stronger than I think it would be. “I am going to ask something of you. Of all of you. Please. Let me have this moment. If this is supposed to be… good-bye, then I ask that you let me have this moment. Please.”

The mob sighs again, and my words are carried in hushed whispers throughout the crowd. No one says anything against me. I knew they wouldn’t.

I turn and face the church and take the first step toward the light. I do not become lost in thought. Memories do not rise like ghosts, stabbing me like knives. All that matters, and all I focus on, is the angel who awaits me in the church. All my thoughts are with him.

I reach the steps, and they creak under me as I mount them. I count them. There are seven, though I am not surprised. It seems fitting.

The whispers from inside the church grow louder, until they sound like a rushing river. I press my hands against the massive doors, and they vibrate against my fingers. The vibration rolls up my arms until my whole body shakes, and I hang my head. In these vibrations and whispers are songs of grief and loss, of heartache and people forgotten. In these songs are words of sorrow and pain, of regrets never gone, of aches that hurt as if they are new.

But
.

There is hope. There is faith. There is belief that maybe, just
maybe
, everything will be as it was and as it should be. It’s a thread that wraps itself around my heart and soul and tugs on them gently. It calls for one who can be strong. And brave. It calls for one who can stand true.

And there is no one it wants more than me.

I push open the doors. They groan mightily as they part. A warm light washes over me, and the whispers cease. The songs fade. Silence falls.

I step into the church, and the doors close behind me.

o lord, hear our prayer

I stand
in the narthex of the church, the entryway lit by hundreds of candles stretched along the wall. This is the light, I realize, the light I’d seen upon approach. The power must still be out all over the town, and the brightness, the beacon, was the candles that had been lit. Hundreds of them. Thousands.

I cross the narthex and enter the nave. The pews have been removed. It looks like there were halfhearted attempts to set up booths for the festival inside the nave, but the project was abandoned, possibly when the storm became too great. Candles line these walls as well, giving off heat but not overwhelmingly so. They reflect the stained glass lining the nave, the colors flickering so much it appears the saints are alive. As if they’re walking with me, blinking their eyes, opening their mouths. No sound comes out. But still they walk with me, or so it seems.

I take another step.

Past the end of the nave is the aptly named crossing, the middle of the north and south transepts. Past the crossing is the chancel, elevated from the crossing. The chancel leads to the altar. High above the altar, St. Jude Novena stares down at me from his stained-glass window. He looks as if he’s holding me in judgment with his frank gaze. Shadows dance along his face from the candles below. I swear I see him move.

There are three people on the altar. Doc Heward stands facing me, his hands at his sides, his face pale and drawn. He looks older than I’ve ever seen him. His thinning hair sticks out every which way. His clothes are wrinkled. He has dark circles under his eyes. His hands tremble at his sides.

Pastor Thomas Landeros stands on the other side of the altar, head bowed, wearing a black Roman cassock. Thirty-three buttons fall down the center of the cassock. I asked him once, after the Christmas service when I was young, why there were thirty-three buttons. It seemed like such an odd number to me. He told me it symbolized the thirty-three earthly years of Christ. I asked him how anyone could know this. He said it was what was written. I asked him how he could trust something passed down. He said it was a matter of faith.

He moves his lips as if in prayer, his hands folded near his chin. I can’t hear what he’s saying aloud, if anything, but for some reason it chills me. I wonder how long he’s been at this, wonder what this has done to his belief, his faith. Does he think this is a reward for his service? Does he see this as proof of his faith? Or has this shattered every notion he’s ever had about the way the world works? To say you have faith is one thing; to see evidence of it with your own eyes is something else entirely.

But it’s the third figure that captures my attention. It’s him I see the most.

Lying on a white cot with a blanket pulled up to his chest is the guardian angel Calliel. Blue lights flicker around him weakly. His wings disappear then reappear, the long feathers draping across the floor. The smell of earth is heavy and sweet. His skin has a sickly pallor to it, almost yellow in the candlelight, in his own lights. His eyes are closed, and his breathing seems labored. One breath in, held, then released. It takes a second, two seconds, three seconds before he breathes in again.

I’m moving even before I know I am. I run across the nave. I reach the crossing, the name not lost on me. For a moment, I think it will turn into a raging river that I will be forced to cross. It doesn’t matter. I would. I will do anything to get to him.

But it doesn’t. The stone crossing remains as it always has. My footsteps echo through the church, my bare feet slapping against the cold ground. I reach the steps that lead to the chancel. The red carpet feels rough against my soles. I’m at the altar before the doc can speak, though I feel his eyes on me, a subtle intake of breath that heralds the beginning of speech. The breath releases without any words as I fall to my knees beside Cal. Closer now, I can hear Pastor Landeros mumbling under his breath. His words sound Latin.

But above his prayer, I hear the slight rattle in Calliel’s chest with every breath he takes. It’s a subtle clicking that seems to sound like a shotgun blast in my ears. I take his hand in mine and lift it, brushing my lips against the cool, dry skin. It might just be my imagination, but I swear the blue lights become brighter, just for a moment. I choose to believe they do. I choose to believe he knows it’s me, even with how far under he seems to be.

His eyes are moving rapidly under his eyelids, as if he’s searching for something there, in the dark. I place my hand against his brow, and he takes in a deep breath, his chest rising, pressing against the blanket, against the white bandage on his shoulder. He lets it out with a sigh and his eyes become still. I brush my thumb over the groove in the side of his head. Feathers flutter around me. My heart hurts.