Home Again

“I’m going to look over your paperwork and initiate some more testing.” She got to her feet suddenly. “Please don’t humiliate me by killing yourself before we can save your life.”

And then she was gone.

Chapter Seven

Angel tried not to think about Madelaine. God knew, there were plenty of other things to think about, but she wouldn’t leave his mind.

He squeezed his eyes shut, battling memories with everything inside him. The problem was, there was so damned little inside him. That had always been his problem. Deep, deep inside, in the place where poets and metaphysicians and priests thought there should be a soul, Angel had nothing. Ever since he was a kid, he’d known there was something vital missing in him, a true sense of honor, of right and wrong, of goodness. He was selfish in a cold, ruthless way. For years he’d tried to refashion that insight, telling himself he was simply a product of crappy parents, or the sleazy little house he’d grown up in, or the food that wasn’t on the table.

But Francis had grown up in that trailer, too, hadn’t he? Gone to the same schools, listened to the same drunken lectures from parents who didn’t really care, and everyone knew that Francis had no puncture in his soul. Hell, Francis had more soul than the saint he was named for.

There had only been one time in Angel’s life when he thought maybe he was wrong about himself. Thought maybe he had a chance.

That summer. The memories of that time were set apart in his mind, a brief and shining Camelot amidst the seedy taverns and dark holes he’d lived in since. And like Camelot, it was probably wrought more of myth than fact.

Still, he remembered what it had felt like to have hope, however transitory. When he’d looked into Madelaine’s eyes, felt the warm comfort of her small hand tucked into his, clung to her body in the wet sand beneath the piers, he’d told himself he’d found a sliver of goodness at last, something worth fighting for, worth living for.

But then he’d gone into that silent, sparkling house on the hill, and faced the dark night of his own soul. He’d looked into Alexander Hillyard’s fathomless eyes, and seen the debilitating truth. They were the same, he and Alex. Ruthless, selfish, ugly to the bone.

Francis had known it, of course. Don’t do it, man. Don’t just run away. Whatever it is, we can talk about it. Figure out what to do.

Ah, Angel thought, rubbing his temples, exhaling tiredly. Francis was right. Francis was always right. That was one of the things that stuck in Angel’s craw, one of the things that kept him always running, harder, faster, going nowhere like a gerbil stuck in Habitrail hell. He was constantly trying to outrun the ghost of good old Francis.

He’d thought success would do it, that finally he would come out the winner, but no. He couldn’t even do that right. He was a world-famous actor and richer than God. He was also a boozing, drugging, lying slut of a human being. And he liked being that way. He wasn’t even a good enough person to feel regret at the way he’d wasted his life, and he knew that given the chance, he’d screw it up again.

And Francis loved him—had loved him anyway; he probably didn’t anymore—through it all. Through all Angel’s drunken harangues, the belligerent tauntings, the cruel jokes Angel made at his brother’s expense. Francis had always known that he was the favored child in the family, their mother’s sole ticket to Heaven, and he’d always been ashamed of her unequal affection, apologizing so often. But Angel had never wanted to listen. It hurt too much to be the screw-up, the one brought home by the police, the loser. He’d put up a brave, obnoxious front, hoping no one would notice his inner torment and pain, his sense of worthlessness, but Francis had noticed, of course, noticed and understood and forgiven. Angel had seen the forgiveness time and again, felt its soothing warmth. Still he couldn’t cross the bridge back to brotherhood, could never reach out his hand and smile and say my brother, the way he wanted to. Could never control his temper long enough to apologize.

And so he was alone.

Someone knocked on his door, and before he could answer, it opened.

Madelaine strode into the room, wearing a taut, false smile that made her eyes crinkle in the corners. He realized for the first time that she had no laugh lines around her mouth or eyes, and he wondered why that was.

She stared down at h

im. “I lied and reported that you were a good psychological risk for the transplant.”

“Great. I’ll just lie here and hope someone gets hit by a bus. Hey, try and get me an athlete’s ticker, will you? I like my sex rough-and-tumble.”

He said it to see if he could get even a second’s worth of human emotion from those eyes, the eyes that once had stared at him as if he’d hung the stars.

She looked at him with disappointment. God, he’d seen that look a thousand times in his life. It was not the emotion he’d wanted, and it pissed him off. “Don’t look at me that way.”

“You’re going to be here awhile, Angel. Francis is going to want to visit you.” She handed him a scrap of paper. “Here’s the phone number.”

“No.” The word shot out, surprising him with its ferocity. He knew instantly that he’d erred. He’d thrown his vulnerability on the floor between them. “I mean, I don’t want any visitors. I’m a celebrity,” he said, realizing too late that he was yelling. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.”

“He’s your brother, Angel. Not a reporter.” She moved closer. “Don’t do this to him, Angel. He’s not like you. He hurts easily.”

Not like you, Angel. Christ, she didn’t know him at all. Otherwise, she’d know Angel DeMarco’s dirty little truth that he was the most easily hurt human being alive. “No shit. What are you, married to him or something?”

She sighed. “Get some sleep, Angel.”

It rattled him, that unexpected avoidance. She hadn’t answered his question, and the silence sent doubt flooding into him. What if she had married Francis? Or lived with him, or was his great and true love?

Angel had never even considered it. All these years he’d imagined Francis as the perfect parish priest, and Madelaine pining away for her lost first love. But Mad wasn’t pining—didn’t look as if she’d ever pined. Maybe he was as wrong about Francis as he’d been about her. Maybe his brother had quit the seminary and moved to suburbia, maybe he sold Cadillacs at the corner dealership….

Not once in all these years had it occurred to Angel that he’d left a door wide open, and that Francis—Francis the good and perfect—might have walked right through it.