“As long as I can,” I tell her sharply. “I never ask you for anything. You know that. Not ever. But I’m asking you for this one thing. No. I’m not asking you. I’m begging you. Please.”
She looks dazed. “I have so many questions,” she says, but it’s more to herself than to me. “So many….” She looks back up at Cal as her eyes harden. He still looks miserable as she steps up to him and pokes him in the chest with her finger. “I don’t know who you are, or what you are,” she says as she trembles. “I don’t know why you’re here. But I do know this: if any harm comes to my son, there will be no place in Heaven or on Earth where you could hide that I wouldn’t find you. If you hurt him, I will break you. Do you understand me?”
He looks like he’s about to speak but thinks better of it, nodding instead.
My mother reaches up and cups his face much like he did to her earlier. She pulls him down and whispers harshly in his ear. I can’t make out her words, but his eyes go wide as he looks over to me. She pulls back to look him in the eye. “Do you promise me?”
There’s no hesitation. “I promise,” he says, and chills roll down my spine.
She watches him for a moment before she pulls his head down and kisses his forehead softly, and it makes my heart ache because I don’t know if he’s ever felt something like that from his Father. She sniffs as she lets him go. Cal looks bemused as she turns away from him. “I’ll send one of the Trio to the store tomorrow,” she tells me, “or I’ll go in. I don’t want you in town until I’ve had some time to think.”
“Mom, I don’t—”
“I brought you into this world,” she snaps at me. “It’s my job to make sure nothing takes you out of it. You’re right when you said you’ve never asked me for anything before. But the first time you do ask me for something it’s to keep a secret about an angel that fell from the sky. So, yes, you will do this one thing for me. Are we clear?”
I sigh. “Crystal.”
She grabs me in a rough hug, to my surprise. She smells of lilacs, a scent she’s had for as long as I can remember. “Do you care for him?” she whispers in my ear, and I can feel her tears against my neck.
I can feel his eyes on me when I answer. “Impossibly,” I tell her. “Improbably.”
She gasps and shudders against me because she knows those words. Then she’s gone, the front door to Little House opening and then closing.
When a person goes through something incredible (say, like a graveyard attack
by Strange Men only to be saved by a man with wings), it’s as if the body’s immediate reaction after the adrenaline fades should be to shut down, to sleep, to recharge. I feel my body doing just that, my knees buckling, my mouth going slack, even as I stand there in the kitchen. Cal takes a step toward me, his eyes hooded. I shake my head at him and turn and walk out of the kitchen and down the hall to my room, where I shut the door behind me. There’s guilt when I see him, and it hurts. I lie on my back on the bed and try to think of ways to fix this.
There’s a shuffle of feet down the hall. I hold my breath. Shadows cross under the door and pause. I watch to see if the doorknob turns in the dark, if the door will open and he’ll stand before me, staring at me with those dark eyes and that red hair. He’ll open his mouth and beg me, plead for me to let him in, and I will say—
The shadows shift, turning away. I think he’s about to leave and I rise from the bed to chase after him, but then I hear a low grunt and a weight pressed against the door. The shadows underneath move again. I realize he has slumped against the door and is sitting outside.
Waiting. Guarding. My thoughts are selfish, even if I don’t want them to be. What about me? What about us? Why did you leave? What did I do?
You. Me. I. Us.
The shadows move, then settle.
No, I tell myself. I can’t be thinking of him like that. Not anymore. I’ve barely started and already he has control over me. Already he has control over my heart. I don’t know how to reconcile the nine days I did have him versus the five days I didn’t. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t do this. I can’t.
Why not? a voice whispers back.
My feet are on the floor. I’m standing. I’m walking toward the door.
The floor flickers beneath me, and for a moment, it’s a raging river. Then it’s gone.
Wake up.
The river splashes water up to my chest.
It’s time to wake up.
I get caught in the current.
It’s time to wake up and be true, son. It’s time to open your eyes and see, maybe for the first time. I don’t know how much longer I can do this, how much longer I can hold on. But I promise not to let go until I am sure you are safe. Wake up, Benji. Wake up and be true.
I reach the door and gasp for breath, pressing my palms against the wood.
Something shifts outside the door. “Benji?” a worried voice says.