Miles to Go (8 page)

Angel was gone by the time I woke the next morning. She left a note for me on the kitchen table.

Breakfast in oven to warm. OJ in fridge. Please turn off oven. I’ll be home around five
.

Have a good day, Angel

I walked over to the oven and, with some effort, leaned over and opened the door. Inside was a square pan with what looked like a baked omelet—a frittata, I guess it would be called. She didn’t need to go to so much trouble, since I’d be just as happy with a bowl of Wheaties.

I turned off the oven, grabbed the pot holder she’d left on the counter, and brought out the pan. She had already set the table for me, and I dished the frittata onto my plate and placed the pan on top of the oven. I got my pain meds and orange juice (which she’d poured into a glass) and then sat down to eat. The egg-thing was delicious.

After breakfast I went into the bathroom to shower. A box of Saran Wrap sat next to the sink. I took off my clothes, wrapped the cellophane around my torso twice, then turned on the water.

I felt the water for temperature, then stepped into the tub and let the water wash over me. It was the first shower I’d had in days, and I closed my eyes, and let the warm water cover my body. I stood there for minutes.

Drying myself off wasn’t easy, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes to get my clothes on. I had already discovered that tying my shoes was nearly impossible, so I loosened the laces, then dropped them on the floor and slipped my feet into them. When I was finally dressed, I walked to the front door. I didn’t have a key to the apartment, so I checked to make sure that the apartment door
wasn’t locked, then slowly walked to the building’s front door and opened it to the world outside. The street was quiet, garnished with a few smashed pumpkins.

I had planned my rehabilitation as I lay in bed the night before. My first
major
goal was to make it around the block before the snow fell, which sounds ridiculously simple, but at that time seemed as daunting to me as scaling Mt. Everest.

My first
minor
goal was making it up and down the front stair by myself, and my second was to make it all the way down the walk. If I hadn’t been in such pain, I would have laughed at the absurdity of my new expectations. Just weeks ago I made a goal to walk across the country. Today I would be thrilled to make it to the sidewalk.

I grabbed onto the landing’s cold wrought-iron railing and took my first step down with my right foot, then moved my left foot to the same stair. Step. Repeat. Step. Repeat. Six steps. Unless they’re OCD, most people don’t count steps; they just bound up and down them as quickly as they can, but to me they’d become milestones.

I was slow, but I made it to the bottom step with a minimal amount of pain. I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to press on, hobbling down the front walk toward the street. When I reached the sidewalk, I surveyed the neighborhood. Angel’s building was in the middle of the block, and the sidewalk went about four homes either way before a corner.

I felt pleased with my accomplishment. I had already achieved my first goal. I also liked being outside again. The trees had lost most of their leaves, and the air was brisk and portending the changing weather.

The next week I would walk to the end of the street, and by the 14th, I would attempt to walk around the
block—unless it snowed. Then it would be too dangerous. I couldn’t afford to fall.

I turned around in a gradual process of steps, and for about five minutes I stood there looking at the house I now lived in. It was a far cry from the $2 million behemoth I’d been thrown out of, but I was grateful for it and Angel’s generosity. I wondered how long I would be here. I took a deep breath and then slowly walked back.

Climbing the stairs was much more difficult than my descent, and when I reached the landing, I stopped and let the pain wash over me.

As I stood there, one of the other apartment’s tenants, a young woman with long brown hair and a backpack flung over one shoulder, walked past me without a word but smiling as she went. I walked into the house and then the apartment and went back to my bed to rest.

Angel arrived home a little before five. Something was different about her. She seemed distressed.

“How was your day?” I asked.

She shook her head. “A family of four was hit by a drunk driver. Everyone was killed except the father, who’s in intensive care battling for his life, and the drunk driver, who, of course, walked away unscathed. Actually, he
ran
away unscathed. He fled the scene on foot.” She looked at me with gray eyes. “Why is it that the guilty survive while the innocent die?”

Sometimes it did seem that way. “I don’t know.”

“
If
there is a God,” she said, “He has a foul sense of irony.”

I had had nearly the same thought as I looked in the mirror the day of my wife’s funeral, but I was surprised to
hear it coming from her. I guess I didn’t expect someone named Angel to diss God.

“I’m making meatloaf for dinner,” she said, turning from me. “I just need to put it in the oven.”

“Are we on for a movie tonight?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

She clearly didn’t want to talk, so while she made dinner, I went to my room and read. A half hour later she called and we sat together at the table. We ate a while without conversation. Suddenly, she asked, “How long do you think you’ll be here?”

I looked up from my food. “Are you tired of me already?”

“Of course not. I was just wondering.”

“Assuming I’m in walking condition, I can’t leave Spokane until the roads through Montana and Wyoming are clear. That could be as late as April. But I could always stay somewhere else.”

“No, I’d like you to stay.” She went back to eating. All of a sudden she asked, “Do you believe in an afterlife?”

I thought the question a peculiar change of conversation. “Yes.”

“Why?” she asked. “There’s no evidence of one.”

“You don’t believe in life after life?”

“I think that death’s just death. The grand finale. There’s no afterlife, no memory. Nothing.”

“That’s a depressing thought,” I said.

“For some it would be heaven.”

“Heaven? To never see our loved ones again?”

“It sounds tragic, but it’s not. We’d never know what’s gone. A person born blind doesn’t miss eyesight.”

I just looked at her, wondering why we were having this conversation.

When I didn’t respond, she said, “That’s what I hope for at least. Sweet oblivion.”

After taking another couple of bites, I said, “I met a woman in Davenport who claims to have had a near death experience.”

“Those people are crazy.”

“She didn’t strike me as such.”

“So you believe the Bible’s version of an afterlife with pearly gates and a hell with a lake of fire?”

“Pearly gates and lakes of fire, no. But I believe the spirit and intellect live on, as do relationships.” I was a little surprised by the strength of my conviction.

She seemed bothered that I didn’t echo her belief and her voice turned antagonistic. “What evidence could you or anyone possibly have that something exists past this life?”

I set down my fork. “I’m not arguing with you. Truthfully, for most of my life I wasn’t sure what I believed, until …” I stopped, not sure of how much I wanted to share.

She was looking at me intensely. “Until what?”

“The day after McKale’s funeral I was considering taking my life. Just before I swallowed a handful of pills I heard a voice.”

“What kind of voice?”

“I don’t know how to explain it. I actually thought someone had spoken to me and I looked around the room. The voice seemed both to have come from inside me and outside me. All I know is that it didn’t feel like my own thoughts.

“Then, after the mugging, just before the paramedics revived me, I had another experience. It was something
like a dream, except I don’t think it was. It was much more lucid. I think I saw McKale.”

“Your wife?”

I nodded. “I talked to her. And she told me things.”

“What kind of things?”

“She told me that there was a reason we’re here on this earth and that there are people I am meant to meet. People whose lives were supposed to intersect with mine.” I looked into her eyes. “She told me that I would meet you.”

“Me?”

“She told me I would meet ‘Angel.’ When I woke up in the hospital you were sitting there.”

Angel went back to her food, as if she needed time to process what I told her. Finally, she said, “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Neither do I.”

We finished eating in silence. I got up to do the dishes but she again stopped me. “Please,” she said. “Let me do them.”

I went to my room and read. When I came out to say goodnight, the kitchen and hall lights were out. She had already gone to bed.

As I lay in bed, I thought over our conversation. What struck me as peculiar was not so much her opinion, but her anger and disapproval of mine. I have found that the people who shout their opinion the loudest are usually the ones most insecure in their position. I had never seen the dark side of her personality until that night.

Again, Angel was gone when I woke. I ate a breakfast of oatmeal with brown sugar and walnuts, then, focusing on my convalescence, walked out of the house with a new level of confidence knowing that I had already conquered the stairs.

I walked to the sidewalk, then to the end of the property line. I thought that I could have walked further, but being alone, I decided to err on the side of caution and not overdo it. Still, I was pleased. I had made definite progress. If it wasn’t for the weather, I figured I could be on my way as early as January.

I shuffled back to the house and climbed the stairs, this time not feeling like I would pass out.

I had just finished getting dressed and was wondering what to do for the day when the doorbell rang. I walked out of my room to answer it.

In the doorway was a woman. She was nicely dressed and had dark red hair that fell to her shoulders. She looked a little older than me, though not by much, and she held a piece of paper in her hand.

“May I help you?” I asked.

She looked surprised. She glanced furtively down at her paper, then back at me. “I’m sorry, does Nicole Mitchell live here?”

“Nicole?” I shook my head. “There’s no one here by that name.”

She glanced back down the hall at the other doors. “I’m
sorry, I must have the wrong apartment. Would you know if she lives in this building?”

I shrugged. “Sorry, I’m new here. I don’t know the other tenants.”

For a moment she just stood there looking confused about what to do.

“You could knock on the other doors,” I suggested.

“Thanks. I’ll do that. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No worries.” I shut the door.

Angel arrived home shortly after five. “How was work?” I asked, hoping for better than the day before.