The Angel

“Is it the house or the memories you love and want to keep?”

Nora stared at the floor.

“Please don’t make me move.”

Søren had asked her over a year ago to move closer to him and the church. She’d said no then and she was saying no now. She knew he could order her to move closer, and she would if he made her. But so far it hadn’t come to that. Søren nodded and Nora pulled away from him.

“We’re scening after church again, right?” Nora asked from the bedroom doorway. Sunday afternoons belonged to them. Søren’s parishioners always left him alone on Sunday afternoons. They assumed he was busy praying. Not quite.

“Barring divine intervention.”

“Divine intervention, Father Stearns?” Nora tossed her hair with arrogant playfulness. “God oughta know better by now.”

Throwing a smile over her shoulder, Nora gave Søren one last long look. He had, without a doubt, the most handsome face of any man she’d ever known. The most handsome face, the keenest mind, the wickedest libido, the sexiest body and the most devoted heart…. For the five years she’d lived apart from him, four had been agony. And now they’d been back together for over a year and everything was perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

As usual, Michael woke up long before his alarm. He lay in bed with his hand down his boxer shorts and contemplated finding a tie to make this process more enjoyable. But he’d promised Father S that he wouldn’t hurt himself anymore. Father S had no objections to erotic asphyxiation but he forbade Michael from doing it alone. “We almost lost you once, Michael. I’d rather not repeat that experience,” Father S had told him, and Michael knew he would never forgive himself if he put his priest—the man who’d saved his life—through that nightmare again.

So instead, Michael merely closed his eyes and conjured the memory of Nora Sutherlin tying him down, guiding him inside her and clenching so tightly around him he’d flinched. That one sensory memory worked as usual, and Michael came hard on his hand.

Forgoing a tissue, Michael got up and headed straight to the shower. He spent a long time in the shower, longer than most guys his age probably did. Of course, most guys his age didn’t have hair that fell to their shoulders and a predilection for self-abuse in the literal sense. Scalding water wasn’t quite as much fun as scalding candle wax, but it was the best he had.

After his shower Michael toweled off and dressed. He dried his long hair and pulled it into a low ponytail. He ironed his white button-down and his black cargo pants and even put on a tie. But not for erotic reasons … unless he counted trying to impress Nora Sutherlin as an erotic reason.

As usual, before leaving his bedroom, Michael rolled up his sleeves and rubbed liquid vitamin E onto the white scars on both of his wrists. The vitamin E supposedly helped scars heal and fade, but so far the effect had been minimal. He strapped his wide leather watchband on his right wrist and pulled a black wristband on his left before heading to his mom’s room.

Michael tapped on her bedroom door.

“Go without me,” she called out, as he knew she would. Still, he always had to ask. “Leave the car. I have to run errands this morning.”

Leave the car … great. Good thing Sacred Heart was only a few blocks away.

He pushed on his sunglasses, grabbed his skateboard and his backpack on the way out the door, and hit the street. Skating straight up to the front steps of Sacred Heart, he flipped his board up and tucked it under his arm. Before entering the sanctuary, he went to the church secretary’s office, dug something out of his backpack and sent a quick fax.

Michael headed to the sanctuary and saw Nora hadn’t arrived yet. He sat in the tenth pew from the back, two rows behind Nora’s usual spot. Her little shadow, seven-year-old Owen Perry, already waited for his Miss Ellie to show up. Owen adored Nora—Miss Ellie—and did nothing to hide that fact. He sat next to her during Mass and sometimes even curled up on her lap. Once Michael walked past them and saw Owen lying half-asleep on her knee as Nora mindlessly ran her fingers over his tiny forehead. Both of them had wavy black hair. Anyone seeing them for the first time would think Nora was the kid’s mom.

It bugged him seeing Owen cuddling up to Nora. He envied that little kid for so fearlessly showering Nora with affection and attention. Michael would kiss her feet if she’d let him. But then again, he also envied Nora. She at least had someone who wasn’t afraid to touch her in public. Michael couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had touched him. Even his own mother had stopped hugging him after his father moved out.

Nora didn’t just have people who would touch her in public. She had Father S, who touched her in private. Michael secretly worried someone would find out about Father S and Nora. Everybody knew Nora wrote erotica, and the church secretly loved having a mini-celebrity in their midst. And everybody at church worshipped Father S. But Nora and Father S had fallen in love when she was only fifteen. If their past, and even worse, their present, came out … Michael didn’t even want to think how bad it would get.

Checking his watch, Michael saw he had just enough time to run for a drink of water. He stood up quickly and headed to the door. As he exited the sanctuary Nora breezed in through the front doors wearing a tight white skirt and a tailored black blouse. Her long hair was swept up in a loose knot and she wore a little smile at the corner of her full pale red lips. He could only imagine what Father S had been doing to her that morning to put that grin on her face—could imagine and often did imagine.

Nora came toward him and Michael froze. They never talked to each other—not in words anyway, not since that one night together. But as usual he gave her a little wave. Instead of waving back, Nora reached out and took his hand in hers for the whisper of a second. She squeezed his fingers and let him go, walking off as if nothing at all had passed between them.

Michael gazed down at his hand. She’d touched him.

When Michael looked up, one of the married men in the congregation who had a bad habit of flirting with Nora sat staring at him. Staring at him with a look Michael recognized as envy. Michael stood a little straighter and walked back to his pew. He paused a moment before changing his mind, taking two steps forward and dropping down right next to Nora. She didn’t look at him, just chatted with Owen about a drawing he’d done for her. But Nora snuck her hand out again and pinched Michael hard enough on the thigh he knew he’d have a bruise tomorrow.

Michael smiled. God, he loved Sundays.

Suzanne woke up to find Patrick’s arm across her bare stomach and his mouth on the back of her neck.

“Patrick, seriously. I’m sleeping.” She pushed his arm off her. “I still have jet lag.”

Laughing, Patrick nipped at her shoulder. She responded by turning onto her side, her back away from him.

“Sex is a homeopathic cure for jet lag. I read that somewhere.”

Suzanne closed her eyes, pulled the sheets up to her chin and tried to remember exactly when last night she decided sleeping with an ex-boyfriend was a good idea—probably somewhere between the fourth and sixth rum and Coke.

“Last night wasn’t enough for you?” Suzanne vaguely recalled at least two but possibly three encounters—once in the living room and twice in her bed. The third one may not have counted.

“I don’t remember much of last night. Impressive ‘welcome home’ party.” Patrick nuzzled into her neck.

“Patrick, seriously,” Suzanne said when she felt his erection pressing into her lower back. Patrick could be insatiable sometimes—one of his better qualities in her estimation. Not that she ever told him that.

“It’s Sunday morning. Let’s fuck while all the Goody Two-shoes are at church.”

“Mentioning church is not going to get you on my good side, Patrick. Or on whatever side you’re interested in.”

Suzanne felt the bed shift as Patrick rolled up. Turning over onto her back, she made herself meet his eyes. An IED had exploded not far from a convoy she’d been riding in right outside of Kabul two weeks ago. It wasn’t her life but Patrick’s face—his shaggy brown hair, soulful eyes and playful smile—that had flashed before her eyes. He was an ex-boyfriend for a reason, she told herself. Sometimes, though, she had trouble remembering what that reason was. This morning, she remembered.

“Shit, Suz. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean … God, I was so glad you were coming back, and I’ve fucked it up already.”

“Shut up,” she said, but not unkindly. “I think I heard my fax machine.”

She grabbed Patrick’s shirt off the floor and pulled it on as she left the bedroom. In the corner of her living room sat her small home office. She dumped books and notepads onto the floor. Readers lauded her newspaper and magazine articles for their clarity and organization. Those same readers might be amused to see how much chaos it took to create such organized, erudite stories.

Behind the second pile of books and notes she found her dust-covered fax machine. A single piece of paper lay on the Out tray. Her eyes widened as she took in the logo and the letterhead at the top.

“Patrick?”

“What’s up?” he asked, buttoning his jeans as he entered the living room.

“Read this.” She thrust the paper into Patrick’s hands.

“Anonymous tip?”

“I think so. No cover sheet. No fax number imprint at the bottom. Bizarre.”

Suzanne watched Patrick’s eyes scan the page. He shook his head in either shock or confusion.

“Is this what I think it is?”

Suzanne took the sheet of paper back from him and read it again. “Wakefield Diocese—what do you know about it?” she asked.

Patrick ran his hands through his hair and looked straight up. She knew he always did that when thinking deeply, as if God or the ceiling would tell him all the answers. “Wakefield … Wakefield … small diocese in Connecticut. Safe, clean, suburban. Fairly liberal, pretty boring.”