“You think? Or you know?”
He looks away and I can’t stop myself from leaning down and brushing my lips against his rough cheek. “I’ve been trying,” he mutters, leaning into my lips.
“Trying what?” I say against his face.
“There’s this… knot… in my head. I’m trying to untangle it, but the more I pull, the tighter it gets. I can remember certain things. I can remember many things. I remember Roseland becoming mine, only seven people here. I remember watching it grow. The buildings. The houses. The people. Many were good. Some were not. But it didn’t matter, because they were mine. I wasn’t made to judge. That is not my job. I was made to assist them, because sometimes, people need a little help. Just a nudge.” He shakes his head. “You think that God is some all-powerful being, and maybe he is. But I don’t understand. If he’s supposed to be, then why is there a need for someone such as me? Why is there need for other guardians? Or why is there need for any angels at all?
“If he really wanted it, nothing bad would ever have to happen. There would be no need for someone such as me. The threads are knotted in my head and chest and I want them to separate, but I don’t know what that would make me. What is God doing? Why do I exist, Benji? Why must I follow these threads? Why do I have control over certain things, but can’t stop others?”
He’s getting worked up, his chest rising rapidly, his heart thumping wildly under my fingers. I try to quiet him down, to tell him it’s all okay, but he shakes his head angrily. “You want to know, don’t you? What happened to Big Eddie? You want to know so bad, don’t you?”
Yes. Yes, I want to know more than anything. I shake my head. “No, Cal, I don’t need to—”
“It’s there, Benji,” he says angrily, knocking his hand against his head sharply. “It’s all in there somewhere. The threads. The pieces. I just can’t find them. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know where to begin. I am not Death. I cannot control it, but I am aware of it. There’s a difference between what I do and the inevitable.”
“Like the Wallaces? The fire?”
A short bark of harsh laughter. “You knew?”
“You smelled like smoke.”
“You were smelling me?” he asks, surprised and pleased.
“Uh… sure. The fire?”
He nods. “Sometimes, Death can be avoided. The thread isn’t completely black, though it’s getting there. It still pulses with life, but time is short. Only when I find a thread of complete black do I know there’s nothing I can do. The Wallace family still had color. Greens and reds and little Emily was this bright pink, so alive. It wasn’t their time.”
“But… my father?”
“I can’t remember,” he says hoarsely. “Benji, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t keep this from you. I promise you I wouldn’t.”
A dark part of me wonders at this, wanting to berate him, poke him further until he cracks. It seems awfully convenient, this dark part says, that of course he wouldn’t remember. An angel fell from the sky and couldn’t remember the people he was supposed to protect? What are the chances of that?
I try to push the doubt away, but it’s latched on and wants to burrow. “What do you remember?”
He closes his eyes with a heavy sigh. “I remember… On High. It’s beautiful, Benji. Beautiful like you wouldn’t believe. It’s warm and bright. It was supposed to have been made by God himself during the seven days of Creation. It’s a lovely place. But it’s also a lonely place. We rarely interact with each other, the guardians. The other angels. Decades could go by without seeing another one. Whenever one of my people traveled away, they would be watched by whoever’s jurisdiction they fell into, and vice versa. If an outsider comes here, I must protect him or her as if they are my own. There was never a need for me to speak with another guardian, so time would pass. I remember being busy. All the time. There was always something to do, some thread to be followed. But since I’ve been down here, it hasn’t been like that. There’ve been times I’ve been called, but not as much as I was used to.
“Your father is in here,” Cal says, pointing to his head and chest. “Tangled in this knot. I don’t know how to pull him out. I can’t remember that day. I can’t remember many of the days that followed. It’s there, somewhere, but I can’t find out how to fix it. I want to fix it so bad, but I’m scared to see it too. I’m scared of what it will show me.”
“Why, Cal?” I ask, not knowing if I want the answer or not.
He reaches up and cups my face, lifting his head to kiss me sweetly. I feel blind against him. “Because,” he says as he pulls away. “Because if I untangle it, I’ll see what really happened. I’ll see why I couldn’t save Big Eddie. I’ll see what I did wrong and why I didn’t do more to try and stop it. I’ll see the truth, and you’ll hate me for it. Out of everything I can remember, it is you I see the most, Benji. The day Big Eddie left is gone. It’s in the black. But after? Oh, the day after and every day that follows, there are pieces I can touch, things I remember and it’s all you. I hurt because you hurt. All I wanted to do was make it all better, to make it all go away, to wrap you up so you wouldn’t hurt anymore. You carried the weight of the world on your shoulde
rs, and I just wanted the burden to be easier for you, to help you carry it so you would realize that you weren’t alone.”
“Stop,” I croak, my eyes burning. “Just… don’t.” I don’t want to hear this. I can’t hear this.
He ignores me, kissing me again. “I broke the rules, I think. I would come partway down, just so I could touch you, just so I could take some of your pain away. But it wasn’t enough. You were sinking further and further into the river, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you drown. So I….”
Like you let my father drown? I think before I can stop myself.
I press my head against his chest. “So you what?” I say, my voice muffled. I’m trying to regain some of my composure, but it’s a losing battle.
“I don’t know,” he whispers. “It’s there, in the knot. I remember you calling for me, and not just the night I fell. Even before that, I could hear your aching, because it was too much like my own. I was lonely up there. I was lonely without you and I had to come down. You finally called for me. You screamed for me. I had to come. I… I just don’t remember how.”
“You bastard,” I mutter weakly. “You bastard.”
“I’m sorry, Benji. I don’t know… I don’t know what else there is.”