Author's Note: This is the second and last Raphael-centric chapter. I promise Audrey will be back for the next installment, as bratty as ever. ^_^
I would like to take this opportunity to briefly thank my outstanding readers and reviewers, piper, saichick and x x IChangeMyNameAllTheTime456 x x. Also, if you've added this story to your favorites/author alerts list, thank you as well! I do hope you enjoy this chapter.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Legion.
Chapter Twenty-One The Gift
They stayed together in the hollow, lingering in the cool shadow of the waterfall and the trees that hid the sky under a canopy of summer green. It was a soft time, not unlike the first days of their marriage, although Raphael sensed that their love had changed. Age and sorrow had matured her and she found herself nursing a new wound, a quiet, persistent agony that only ached when she moved too quickly. Raphael had learned to accept the languid malaise that gripped her. She lived in a shrouded fog. She held onto the wispy fragments of dreams, but feared the memories that came with them, forgotten relics of night and a child's smile that pricked her healing wounds open to bleed again.
She knew that she was no longer the wife she once had been, her devotion to Gabriel stymied by a weakness that left her pale and useless. Her husband was patient, though, his amorous overtures restrained by a respect for her immovable sadness. In her own way, Raphael was grateful and she acknowledged his understanding as best she could. And yet there were times when she felt stifled by his company. There were instances when Gabriel served to remind her only of the past, of a night in the Mojave and angelic blood splashed hot on stone and a young girl, a small breath of life hidden in the twisted metal of a car wreck.
She was grateful for her husband's attention, but even more grateful when he left her alone. Solitude was a peculiar blessing, one that she readily indulged in during unashamed fits of self-pity. The hollow became her hermit's cell and Raphael wallowed in her sickness. She enjoyed the sloth of her sorrow and spent hours sitting by the pool, the smooth feathers of her wings dappled with water and dewy pearls that she thought mimicked tears. And when she was not feeling selfish, she allowed herself to worry after Audrey, that brash child who would certainly mock her weepiness and dismiss her depression with one barb from her calloused tongue. Occasionally, Raphael found herself smiling when she remembered the girl. Occasionally, she felt her spirits begin to lift.
It was a hazy morning, the sun dipping behind a bank of silver-blue fog, when Gabriel interrupted her solitary grief. He appeared with a sudden rustle of wings and an air of understated urgency. Raphael was perched on a flat rock near the pool's edge and she only looked up when Gabriel touched his lips to her cheek.
"What do you think about?" he asked, slightly winded, his hair scented with clouds and the upper reaches of the sun-tinted sky.
Raphael's mouth twitched in a thoughtful smile, her singular attempt to appease his curiosity. "Old days," she muttered, "old ways."
"You are always appropriately poetic," Gabriel commented. He ran his finger over the curve of her right ear.
Raphael, however, grimaced. "You almost sound like Michael."
His expression bordered on sheepish and it occurred to her that she would never again see her husband appear so deferent. He was treading lightly around her, walking on the tips of his toes so as not to jar the wild, howling hurt inside her. "I have a proposition for you," he offered.
Raphael turned, the hem of her robe trailing into the pool, a splash of ivory in the clear water. "Now you sound mercenary," she replied. "Now you are familiar to me."
Gabriel chuckled, the sound rusty and discordant, not the peal of the bell chorus that resonated from within his ribcage. "It is time," he said and he touched her hair. His fingers snagged in a tangle. Raphael winced when he carelessly pulled it free.
"Have you grown impatient with my sorrow?" she asked, removing his hand from her hair and letting it rest in her lap.
Gabriel raised a brow. He let the quiet of the hollow fill the space between them, the gentle noises of life, the rush of the waterfall, the fickle twitter of a bird, soothing the doubt that had risen up and poisoned their words. "I do not speak for myself," he admitted. His hand trailed across her abdomen.
Again, Raphael winced, despising her empty womb.
"I come on behalf of Michael," he finished.
She was shaken, her limbs suddenly filled with painful adrenalin. Raphael leapt to her feet. The wet hem of her gown slapped against her ankles and she slipped on the rock, the weight of her wings pulling her back towards the pool. Gabriel steadied her, his strong arms gripping her waist in an embrace that was almost imprisoning.
"I hate to see the fear in your eyes when I speak of him," her husband said. His words were crafted from a lullaby, faint and nurturing.
His timidity made Raphael suspicious. It was not long before she remembered that night of depthless cold, a forest in winter, shattered icicles and Michael standing close to her, clinging to her as Gabriel did now. And he had laced her hope with a sinister insinuation, with his own private pain that he had nursed for decades and centuries and millennia.
Raphael, you were made for me.
"I have nothing to say to him," she said at once, deflecting her discomfort with acid in her tone.
For the first time, her husband seemed disappointed in her. "Then will you listen to him, at least?" he asked.
Raphael's fear was hardened by scorn, her only armor. She looked at Gabriel with betrayal in her eyes. "I find it strange that you would ask this of me," she said. "After all, it was Michael who wronged us first."
"Not entirely," Gabriel admitted.
Raphael was terrified by the defeat in his voice. The truth nagged at her. You stole me from him, Gabriel, didn't you?
She stepped off the rock, away from her husband, her bare feet cushioned by the springy grass perpetually wet from the spray of the falls. "I want none of this," she insisted. "Peace. Will neither of you grant me peace?"
"It is my most sincere wish," Gabriel said.
"I have no room in my heart for reconciliation," she said bitterly. His presuppositions bothered her. Raphael thought it was rather hypocritical of him to come to her, acting as a liaison for his seditious brother whom he had recently warred against himself. It was presumptuous and insincere and it left her feeling outnumbered.
"Raphael," Gabriel muttered her name. "I have never known you to be unjustly stubborn."
"You think my behavior is outrageous?"
"Uncharacteristic, perhaps."
"Because I am being selfish for once?"
"Do not do this." Gabriel turned, angled his right shoulder so that he was blocking her path, trapping her along with their argument. "How long have you stood between Michael and me?" he asked, daring to touch his fingers to her brow.
Raphael's stomach tightened. She was annoyed by his demeaning affection.
"How long have you kept us constant through our quarrels, our great consoler," he continued. "How long have you been our uniting bridge?"
But Raphael was not deceived. The veil had not fallen over her eyes and she saw clearly, past the false, soothing comforts into a reality she had always ignored. "That is not what Michael told me," she said steadily. "The divide between you and your brother, if it indeed exists, is my fault."
Gabriel drew his hand away from her, looking wounded and perhaps a little chastised. "That was a careless remark," he said. "A mistake."
"And truthful," Raphael supplied.
Gabriel lowered his gaze. It was a submission. It was, in essence, his own desperate surrender. "Allow us to make amends," he said, "for our faults, not yours."
Raphael shut her eyes. "I do not think I could stand the pain," she admitted, forcing herself to show him her weakness, to submit to Gabriel her own uncertainty for his judgment.
She expected his dismissal. She expected his derision. But Gabriel was patient yet. He healed her fragile hurt.
"Michael," he said simply, "has a gift for you."
Raphael opened her eyes, startled by the oddness of it all. It was strange, she thought, that Michael should come to her bearing gifts. It was also strange that Gabriel should support his brother's endeavors. They were rivals, after all.
And perhaps it was even stranger, she realized, that she had begun to think of them as rivals. Raphael knew that Gabriel was right. The time had come for the shedding of their stale sorrows, which were a poor succor for their wounded hearts. It sickened her to know that she had needed persuasion to right this wrong, that her own healer's art had been challenged by her desire to linger with disease. Raphael hated herself in that moment. It was terrible to be so obstinate and worse to acknowledge it.
Gabriel approached her with acceptance, with no hint of judgment or denial. She felt his palm on her shoulder. It was a memory of the old days, of the old ways, which she had long given up for dead.
"Will you come?" Gabriel asked her. He seemed on the verge of begging.
Raphael touched his fingers with hers. She was hesitant still, but she could accept her trepidation as natural. This was a new journey and it was daunting. And there were places, of course, where even angels feared to tread. She was reminded of her bravery, though, which was not arrogant like Michael's, nor overt like Gabriel's. Her courage came as a steady stream, as the will to endure and then endure again. She withstood. She fell down and then rose. She weathered all the yearning and the disappointment and still knew joy. And it was joy she was searching for, in Gabriel's love, in Michael's trust. There was a chance, she knew, that it could all be restored.
Rewarding her husband's diligence, she pressed his rough fingers between her soft palms, her skin lined with tales of healing, of Tobit and a fish's gallbladder, of the pool at Bethesda, of Audrey and her first shaky steps…
But there was another tale to be written, one that she had started on that cold desert night, when brother turned against brother and the world had come to a crashing, devastating end.
Now, Raphael told herself. It ends now.
She smiled once for Gabriel, her fear evident, but no longer persuasive. "Show me," she said.
"I do not understand," Raphael muttered. She pressed her fingers to the space directly between her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose.
Gabriel was close by her shoulder, one hand resting on the latch of the wrought iron gate before him. They were both of them standing in the shadow of a high fence, outside a small garden that boasted a pool of inlaid tile and a cluster of orange trees. A set of elegant lounge chairs, separated by a squat table, sat on the far side of the pool and human woman reclined in one. She had her eyes tilted towards a book. A tall glass of lemonade rested on the table beside her and when she lifted her hand to take a sip, a silver bracelet jangled on her wrist.
Raphael was thoroughly confused.
"Is this Michael's gift?" she asked, unable to shield her skepticism. She had no knowledge of this particular human soul, this woman who had come to peace and salvation in Paradise.
As an archangel, Raphael was familiar with the human souls which dwelled in Heaven and she moved freely alongside them, a physical manifestation of the blessings their Creator had bestowed upon mankind. It was amongst men that she herself became only a vessel of God's love. She was a messenger. She was deliverance promised. She was the healer who extended God's hand and brought to Him all those who were weary and sick and broken.
Although she was occasionally uncomfortable around humans who dwelled on Earth, she was welcomed by those who had already been restored to Paradise. In their midst, there existed no barrier separating the celestial and mankind and Raphael rejoiced in the familiarity between her soul and the souls of men who had entered their Father's kingdom. She could not imagine, however, what gift Michael could have seen in this woman and her curiosity was piqued.
Gabriel's smile was crooked and he seemed almost amused as he observed his wife's well-placed confusion. "Michael found her for you," he explained. "I helped...where I could."
Raphael crossed her hands over her middle, her hips tilted beneath the skirt of her robe. She did not want to appear ungrateful, but….
"I am perplexed," she admitted. "And I do not recognize this woman."
Gabriel's smile faded ever so slightly, becoming pinched at the corners of his mouth. He moved his head closer to hers. "She is Audrey's mother," he said.
Raphael's hands fell limp by her sides, her palms brushing her robe with a silken whisper. She said nothing for a moment, worried that her words would be colored by anger or shock. Instead, she stepped closer to the fence and looked through the iron bars, trying to take the woman's measure from afar…and trying to decide if she had indeed come face to face with her rival.
Now that she observed the woman, Raphael realized that there was something vaguely familiar about her bone structure and facial features. She was tall and thin, wearing a long cotton sundress that came to her ankles. Her brown hair had been piled at the nape of her neck, secured in a messy bun with a chunky wooden clip. She kept the book in her lap and turned the pages almost absentmindedly, displaying a comfortable familiarity with a text she obviously held dear.
Raphael cocked her head to the side. For some reason, she felt woefully inadequate.
Gabriel shifted beside her, his arm brushing against her shoulder. "You are silent," he commented. "Have we upset you again?"
Raphael hesitated. She considered Audrey's mother for a minute longer. "No," she said. It was a half-lie, her pale attempt to soothe the insecurity that lingered. "I am still," she paused, giving herself time to choose the right words, "confounded," she said at last, unable to trust in her eloquence, which might very well turn hostile.
"Her name is Sandra," Gabriel explained, that same urgency in his voice again. "Michael knew her…or so he has told me. He said that she was a sad woman. Deluded."
"Oh," Raphael muttered. She was not comforted.
"Perhaps you would like to speak with her?" Gabriel asked.
Raphael turned to look at him. She was inexplicably disheartened by the hope in his eyes. Obstinacy, along with an undefined anxiety, kept her in place, held her tongue until she was forced back into a sulky silence. Raphael thought she understood Michael and Gabriel's motives. They were clumsy, trying their best to heal her wounds with inexpert hands. Their skill fell short, though, as did their offering for peace. Raphael shook her head. But she was being selfish again, wasn't she? She demanded perfection when the flaws themselves were beautiful in their own right. She should be grateful. She should drive away her vain agony and embrace Michael and Gabriel's good intentions. Wounds hurt twice, Raphael knew, once when they were inflicted and a second time as the scar formed, pulling tight the new skin and sealing in the pain.
This was the final torment, she told herself. The last obstacle. The remaining hurdle she would have to climb over to reach the end.
I am not doing this for myself, Raphael thought. This is for them.
She found a small smile for Gabriel, her cheekbones aching as she tried to hold it in place. "Leave me alone with the woman," she said.
Her husband seemed pleased. He ran the edge of his finger along her jaw. "You will feel better," he promised.
Raphael, of course, was doubtful, but she kept her reservations to herself. Gabriel left, the iron chime of his wings signaling his departure as he took to the sky, where the sun had already burned off the morning haze. She stood outside the fence for a few minutes longer and watched Sandra read and sip her lemonade with a daintiness that was perfectly ladylike.
Inadequate, she reminded herself.
The latch of the gate clanged as Raphael let it drop back into place. Her bare feet padded across the warm stone as she followed the path around the inlaid pool. The air was heavy with the spiced scent of citrus, the oranges showing their tawny hides amidst the low-hanging branches. Doves were cooing in the deeper recesses of the trees and the angel enjoyed the uneven melody, which was low and constant in her keen ears. The woman looked up from her book, tucking a finger between the pages to save her place. She had brown eyes, like Audrey's, the gaze of a doe, tamed with age and a careful maturity that Raphael appreciated at once.
She ignored the warning thud of her heart. Her fingertips trembled ever so slightly when she touched them to the front of her robe.
"Sandra," she said the name, her voice rendered unassuming, no higher than the wordless songs of the nesting doves.
The woman laid her book on her lap, the gilt lettering on the covering flashing in the sun. It read W.B. Yeats.
Sandra leaned forward in her lounge chair, strands of loose hair falling over her shoulders, the same dusty hue as her daughter's. Like tree bark, Raphael thought, savoring the comparison, which was indeed fitting.
Sandra echoed her smile with a restrained, almost matronly grin of her own. "Hello," she said. "You must be Raphael."
The angel's shock was appropriate and she even took a cautious step back, the hem of her robe skimming the hot stone pathway. "I am," she admitted.
Sandra's nose twitched, as if she were trying to suppress a laugh. "Michael told me that I could expect a visit from you."
"Michael," Raphael replied, "has an inherent tendency to ruin surprises." She should have expected such from Michael. He was notoriously practical and he relied more on functionality than ceremony. Of course, he would have forewarned Sandra. Of course he would make things more difficult for her.
There was a certain irreverence in Sandra's eyes when she looked at the angel. The woman touched her chin, her expression thoughtful. "You are Michael's friend, am I right?" she asked.
"Friend is a paradoxical word," Raphael answered. "It is at once simple…and complex."
"But you aren't his enemy?"
"No," Raphael conceded. "Certainly not."
What followed was an awkward silence. Raphael dared to glance at Sandra, saw too much of the daughter in the mother…or was it the other way around? She hated what she observed in Sandra, the vague hints of Audrey that manifested themselves in the way the woman moved and spoke, the way she flicked her hands every time she reached for her lemonade, the way she moved her head just so to listen to the doves singing in the orange trees.
It hurts, she thought, touching her breastbone with cold fingertips. Why have I let it hurt me?
She knew she had to take command of the situation…and herself.
But to her bemusement, Sandra took the imitative. She leaned forward, one hand thrown carelessly over her knee. Beads of condensation trailed down from the rim of her lemonade glass. "Michael told me a little bit about you," she said. She paused, and then added. "You are so beautiful."
Raphael ignored the sentiment, which was inconsequential to her. She knew she wasn't beautiful, but human eyes were often obscured by wonderment. They saw wings and were awe-struck. They found pretty fantasies in simplicity. Raphael nodded once, her chin grazing the very top of her collar. "Thank you," she said tactfully.
"Michael also told me that you've been taking care of my daughter Audrey." The woman shifted her book onto the table. Her glass rattled with the movement.
That stung. Raphael stayed perfectly still, her knees locking. She was lost for words, trapped by her own wretched indecision and her desire to save face. The pain was acute, as new and fresh as when she had first left Audrey alone to fend for herself, a little rabbit lost in the big dark woods. Standing before the girl's mother now, her own deficiencies were impossible to overlook. Raphael realized that her maternal instinct was an illusion. She was nothing like Sandra Anderson. She was, at her best, a crude imposter.
Raphael bit down on her tongue, the physical hurt shocking her body. "Yes," she said as she slowly regained herself. "I did look after your daughter…for a time."
"Huh," Sandra laughed as she took a sip of her lemonade, "she's a brat, isn't she?"
Raphael's neck arched, her head thrown back. A shock of anger rushed through her body. She shifted uneasily, trying to keep the glare from her face. How could a mother…
"It's all right," Sandra continued, raising her hand in acknowledgment. "I take the blame. It's all my fault. I was an indulgent mother. I spoiled her. It took me a while to realize it, probably not until she was thirteen, when the back-talk got really bad. Sometimes I just wanted to slap her. The trouble is, she's so smart. She always knows how to get under your skin, how to deliver that one barb that just drives you crazy. Is that why you gave up on her? I guess angels are no more patient than humans."
"I never gave up on your daughter," Raphael replied. She was frightened by her rage. She had never been one for wild emotion and it was difficult now to remain indifferent. Sandra hadn't insulted her, but she had committed a greater crime, had taken for granted what Raphael had yearned to have, what she would have sacrificed for.
"You have no liking for motherhood," she observed coldly.
The woman put down her glass, her fingertips moist. "It doesn't matter whether I like being a mother or not," she said. "I don't have a choice."
"That's an awful way to think of your daughter…as an entrapment."
"Well she is!" Sandra looked indignant. She had the mien of a queen and yet Raphael saw through her, recognized that weakness that was inherent in all human souls, the taint of original sin and subsequent trespasses.
"That was one of Audrey's favorite arguments," she continued. "She liked to say that she never chose to be born, that I was to blame for her life and I used to think, how could she take that for granted? Of course, that's the greatest gift a parent can give to a child…life. And she didn't even want that from me."
"Children need more than life," Raphael commented, frustrated by the woman's utter intractability.
Sandra's grin was provoking. "I suppose you're going to tell me now that kids need to be loved?"
Raphael ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth. Somehow, she had been routed.
"Well, I gave her that too." And then Sandra looked sad, her grief impenetrable, a scar worn not with pride, but with an understanding that Raphael knew superseded her own.
She was daunted. She did not know what she had expected from this woman, perhaps a bit of doubt, a mention of regret, but Sandra remained impassive. Raphael was frustrated by her indifference but she did not react. Her thigh muscles were beginning to ache, her spine overly rigid and she finally surrendered to her discomfort. The remaining lounge chair was too narrow to accommodate the girth of her wings and she was forced to settle herself on the ground in front of the table. The stone was rough against her ankles and the air was thick with the scent of stifled heat, overwhelming the perfume of the oranges until the citrus smelled almost burnt.
"You look like her," Raphael admitted. She caught Sandra's gaze, her wine-dark eyes, and held them. "You are very much like your daughter."
To her credit, Sandra seemed only vaguely bewildered. She ran her hand over her hair. "You are nothing like them," the woman said. "If I had seen you first, maybe I would have believed."
It was Raphael's turn to be confused. But she disguised her bemusement, hid it behind an ugly scowl that took away her beguiling youth and made her look old. "Perhaps," she ventured, "you are comparing me to Michael."
"Yes." Sandra nodded, her elegant fingers nestled under her chin. "And the others…the ones that took my husband Howard from me. You don't seem like an angel…and yet you are."
That made Raphael scoff, for she didn't think her angelic nature could be more obvious. For effect, she moved her wings, stirred the air a little, which was close and thick around them, heavy with incensed summer.
"You are gentle," Sandra said with a small jerk of her head. Her carefully coiffed bangs quivered against her brow.
Raphael exhaled through her nose. She wasn't certain she wanted to be described as gentle and she thought back to several memorable incidents, battles with the demon Asmodeus in Egypt. Hmm, gentle indeed.
"Anthropomorphism," Raphael said. "You project your own characteristics, your human nature, onto beings that are not necessarily human. You are too irreverent to see the divide, the very real gap between you and I."
"Is that what you told Audrey?" Sandra asked.
Raphael wasn't hotheaded enough to be insulted. Poor manners, she thought. A lesson Audrey learned from her mother. She felt the weight of the conversation upon her. It was times like these when she usually faltered, groping for some common connection with a strange human soul. Now, however, she had an unlikely advantage, a shared interest with the woman sitting before her, who looked so demure with her feet tucked underneath her, a picture of understated grace.
Turning from the pool, she glanced at Sandra, saw the corner of book resting on the edge of the table next to the glass of lemonade.
"What do you read?" Raphael asked.
Sandra's laugh was low and delicate, like the gossamer flutter of a butterfly's wing. She looked over at her book and held it up so that Raphael could see the cover. "Its poetry," she explained, "by Yeats."
Raphael blinked. She knew little of poetry outside the psalms and prayers and hymns she sang to glorify her beloved Father. Human artistry was a foreign concept and she was tempted to change to topics when Sandra surprised her by plowing ahead.
"I studied literature when I went to college," the woman said, thumbing through the book, the scent of citrus permeating the creamy pages. "But then I got older, I stopped reading poetry…stopped dreaming."
"I understand," Raphael replied, even though she didn't. She was trying to be sympathetic, trying to extend herself in a way that would reach Sandra. But what would she find if she did connect with the woman? Pain, most likely. Remembrances that were best left forgotten, buried beneath layers of old scars.
"It is necessary to dream," Raphael found herself saying.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that Sandra had come to the edge of the chair, thrown her long legs over the side so that she was closer. "Do you dream?" she asked with genuine curiosity.
"Yes."
"About what?"
Raphael did not answer. Instead, she asked, "Did you read poetry to Audrey?"
"Every night, when she didn't whine for her Winnie the Pooh books."
Raphael frowned, acknowledging to herself that there was a good deal she didn't know about Audrey, so much of the experience of motherhood she had missed. The same was not true for Sandra, though, who had been blessed only as human women were. Raphael was jealous, envious of Eve and all her daughters. She felt incomplete, her very femininity challenged. Perhaps, she considered, Sandra wasn't the only one guilty of projecting. Raphael had dreamed herself into womanhood, had filled her womb with an unrealistic desire which was only now beginning to seem hopeless to her.
Her expression soured and she had a hard time disguising her dismay from Sandra. Mindlessly, she picked at the blades of grass underneath her hand. One of the doves took flight from its nest, wingtips bleached by the afternoon light. Raphael's shoulders were warmed by the buttery sunshine.
She looked at the book on Sandra's lap. "Did she have a favorite?" she asked, fueled by her own forbidden curiosity.
The woman raised a narrow brow. "She did."
"Which…which one?"
"I'll show you." Sandra rifled through the pages, the paper slapping against her manicured fingers. It took her a few minutes to find the passage and when she did, she handed the book over to Raphael. "That one there," she said, pointing to the title. "I don't think Audrey knew what it really meant," Sandra added, "but she liked the fairies."
Raphael traced her fingers over the title, fine script in a silken ink that read The Stolen Child. The poem was a thing of fancy and it thrilled her to know that she had discovered something that Audrey found dear. She mouthed a few of the lines to herself.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Raphael flattened her palms against the pages, trying to feel the words. She realized then that her yearning had somehow been defined. The vague, obscure desire of hers that had demanded fulfillment was focused. She had wanted a child, but now she only wanted Audrey. Raphael stirred, disturbed by her epiphany. She shut the book and handed it back to Sandra.
"I have seen enough," the angel said. "I shall take my leave." And she was about to rise when the woman touched her elbow.
"What are you afraid of?" Sandra asked.
Raphael's eyes widened. "Anthropomorphism," she repeated, "you assign human characteristics to-"
"But that's the trouble," Sandra interrupted. "I think that's what I've seen in you all along. You're not like the others because you're too human. I suppose that's what Audrey saw in you. Or maybe that's what you saw in her."
Her astuteness was frightening, her gaze too piercing, soul-searching. Raphael was repulsed by what she found in Sandra, the mirror that reflected with an ugly clarity. She blinked, her gaze sharpened by the glare of the light. She decided that she didn't like Sandra and she liked Michael's gift even less. The woman was a distinct reminder of loss, a graven image of sorrow and all that Raphael knew was missing inside her. She was feeling distinctly uncharitable at the moment, eager to shake the mouthy woman off and return to her safe malaise which was useless, but her own nonetheless.
But Audrey's mother continued to tug at her hand with the same persistence of her orphaned child. She possessed that singular determination, that unquenched brightness that had drawn Raphael to Audrey and now drew her to Sandra.
"It doesn't matter," the woman said, "because I know whatever Audrey saw in you, she didn't see in me."
Dear Father. Raphael wasn't certain if she had misheard. She stood very still then, that howling hurt settled within her, the great noise of her sorrow silenced for one, breathless instant. She stood very still…and she listened.
"It starts with fairy tales," Sandra continued, her voice low and shaken with a noticeable vibrato, the tone of a cello. "It starts with reading bedtime stories and sharing secrets." She paused, her pain evident. "But then there comes a time when the door to her room is locked and she doesn't want to be tucked in anymore. You fight, because there is nothing else to do. You look at your child and see a vicious little enemy. You second-guess her more than you do yourself. And then one day its all over and your alone with those same poems and she's been broken…I remember the look on her face…that last look…she was so disappointed in me."
Raphael thought Sandra would begin to weep, but she didn't. Her inner strength won out and she held herself upright with a firmness that was admirable. Nevertheless, the angel touched the very top of her head, feeling as though the woman had lost some private battle.
"Peace," she said, wondering if this was what Michael had wanted her to see, how wretched motherhood could be, how damning.
Sandra took a deep breath and her body did shake a little. In the distance, the solitary dove was wheeling amidst the taller trees. "What are we doing here?" she asked.
Raphael did not hesitate. "I am certain," she said, "that this was a mistake."
Sandra glanced down at the cover of her book. Her lemonade glass had spread of pool of water near its base. "You are different from them," she said. "You have no faith."
Raphael bit back her argument, devoured her pride and stuffed it away inside her. This is your gift, she told herself. This is what Michael tried to give you. The truth…
She didn't know if she hated him for it. It was a subtle cruelty, his act of revenge…or mercy. Raphael felt that the choice was hers. She alone could decide what to make of it…and what to make of Sandra.
This was either a nightmare or a blessing. This was her final chance to heal the wound or to rip it open again. Raphael dropped her hand onto Sandra's shoulder, leaned on her for support.
Why do I hate this woman?
Sandra looked up at the angel. She was still gracious, even in her sorrow. Raphael envied her poise. And she envied the one thing she had, the one thing she would always have.
"Thank you for coming to see me," Sandra said. She patted Raphael's hand with her fingers.
Raphael felt wretched. She could only scowl. "You should know," she said, "I was misled."
Sandra flinched, the movement a manifestation of her own self-doubt. "You expected to find a better mother?" she asked.
"No," Raphael replied truthfully. "I expected to find something in myself." She paused and touched her abdomen, that barren space inside her that was the source of her shame.
"And you were disappointed?" Sandra tilted her head, a strand of her hair brushing across Raphael's knuckles.
The angel nodded. "Always."
They let the quiet fall over them, that creeping silence that stole away the languid moments of summer. Raphael longed for snow and the sharp chill of winter. But most of all, she longed for the girl that she had left behind, the child who would never be hers, because she already belonged to another.
"Do you still wish to know what I dream of?" she asked Sandra suddenly.
The woman squeezed her hand and for an instant, unity existed between them, an understanding that was ageless and born more from what they shared rather than what set them apart. "Don't tell me," she said. "If you keep it a secret, it might still come true."
"Thank you for your hope," Raphael said, feeling suitably charmed, if not soothed. The moment, she felt, had already exhausted itself and she turned to go, letting her hand fall off Sandra's shoulder. She was halfway to the gate when the woman called out to her.
"I wanted to thank you too," she said, standing, her skirt fanning out around her legs, "for looking after Audrey."
Raphael glanced over the crook of her wing. The dove was returning to its nest with a thin twig clutched in its beak. The leaves of the tree fluttered, showing flashes of orange, bulbs of yellow and gold. The truth, she thought and at last, accepted Michael's gift.
"I was selfish," she said.
Sandra blinked, untroubled. "Then can I ask you to be selfish again?" She paused. "Will you take care of her for me? Can you take care of her for me?"
Raphael froze, clutching her abdomen. The emptiness inside didn't seem quite so daunting anymore, the harrowing coldness gone, the despair…
"Maybe," she said and left the garden, left Sandra to her book of dreams and all the memories that were still hers, not Raphael's. When she had shut and latched the gate, she caught sight of a long shadow stretched over the grass, a patch of darkness that reached across the green to the hem of her robe.
Raphael smiled wryly. "Gabriel," she muttered, welcoming her husband's customary diligence.
"I am sorry," a rough voice muttered.
Raphael's head shot up.
Michael was leaning against the bole of a poplar tree, struggling to appear indifferent. But he stirred every time the wind ran through the leaves and he moved with the rhythm of his own particular trepidation, showing an insecurity that was not natural, but awoke what remained of the nurturer in her.
And Raphael knew that she would have to forgive him. Someday. Maybe today. Or maybe not.
When she passed him, she paused and touched his wrist. "Thank you," she said.
Author's Note: The passage featured in this chapter does indeed come from The Stolen Child, by Yeats, which details the old myth of fairies (who supposedly had difficulty bearing children of their own) stealing away hapless human children. Although Raphael is neither a fairy nor a thief, I thought the parallels were interesting.
Thanks so much for reading! If you have some free time, please leave me a review. In the next chapter, Audrey begins to adjust to life in the refugee camp…only to receive an unwelcome visit from an angel she'd rather not see. I'm currently swamped with coursework (being a college senior is not as fun as one would think) so my next update may be a little bit late. I apologize in advance for any delay. Take care and be well, everyone!