14-Aug-2020
Catastrophic Angel Response Team (C.A.R.T.)
Guardian Angel: Zeek
Rank: Rookie-ish
Mission: 13
I stayed in the conference room as the two confused lawyers left. “Zedekiah?” I asked for the tenth time.
Once again, he didn’t reply.
Zedekiah was a stickler for the rules. It wasn’t like him to leave me without a controller. Or a way back.
I glanced down at my wristband. The light was off. My job here was done, although I still had no idea how I’d gotten through to the couple.
Since Zedekiah could find me wherever I went, I decided to wander out into the hall. The hustle and bustle of the law office surrounded me, but I ignored it as I walked through it. Information about each person came into my mind. The woman ahead of me was nervous about getting a promotion. The receptionist was on the phone with her boyfriend, who was cheating on her. Most of the people in the board meeting were thinking about something besides the slides from the projector.
A normal day in the mortal world.
Then I felt the tug. I glanced down at my wristband, expecting to see the green or yellow light, but it was still off.
The only times I’d felt the tug before this was when I’d been looking for the person I needed to be guarding.
The gentle pulling turned into a yank, and I allowed it to draw me through the ceiling to the next floor. And then the next.
I frowned as I exited the building and ended up on the roof. This had better not be about that idiot tightrope walker again.
Instead of him and his posse, I found a lone woman sitting on a camping chair, smoking a cigarette and staring out over the city.
My wristband was still dark, but her tug was like a giant magnet to me.
Not knowing what else to do, I walked to her and stopped. She wore a business suit with impressive heels. If not for the tremor in her hand holding the cigarette, I would have pegged her as a confident person who didn’t let anything get in her way.
All humans had a light around them. An aura. Mostly I ignored them, but hers flickered, like it a bulb about to lose power. A single tear ran down her cheek.
Her name came to my mind, then details about her life. Libby Jones. Lawyer. Married with three children.
No. Widowed.
Recently.
So recently that the scars of her pain lanced through her aura like infected blood vessels.
I’d lost a child in my life. I understood something about grief. I sat on the edge of the roof and said, “I’m sorry.”
She blinked. More tears fell. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
I froze. Had she heard me? Or was she just talking to herself?
“How could he let this happen?” Libby asked.
“Who?” I asked.
“God.” The word dripped in anger.
That could have been in reply to my question, or just an expression of frustration. Either way, there was no easy answer. “He still loves you,” I said.
She snorted.
I didn’t want to feed her all of the lines that people had fed me when my daughter had died. Instead I said, “Tell me about him.”
I honestly didn’t think she could hear me, but that I was mirroring the thoughts in her mind. That is until she sniffed and said, “He was the best man I’d ever met. The only man I’ve ever loved. The father of my children. My soulmate.”
I opened my mouth to tell her he wasn’t gone forever, but closed my lips before it came out. She knew. I could tell she was religious.
I blinked.
This wasn’t a guardian angel mission, this was a crisis of faith. I looked around, expecting to see one of the members of that guild coming, but there was no one in sight.
“I asked him not to go on the trip,” she said.
Suddenly the argument before he’d left filled my mind. She’d known something wasn’t right, but he wanted to spend time with his friends before her job kept them both at home for the rest of the year.
“Why didn’t he listen?” Libby let out a sob.
I reached out, but stopped before I touched her, remembering Zedekiah’s warnings. “It wasn’t because he didn’t love you,” I said.
“I know.” She nodded, and cried harder.
“It’s okay to be angry,” I said. No one had told me that, and I’d felt almost as guilty about the anger as I had about my daughter’s death. “Don’t let anyone tell you how to grieve.”
“People say I’ll get over it.” Her eyes stared past me, out onto the city.
“Maybe. Maybe not. It will get smaller,” I assured her. “Eventually it won’t consume you as it does now, but it won’t simply go away.”
“Even with God’s help?”
“He can make it easier, but not until you’re ready to let him.” It had taken me years to get to that point.
Libby nodded. “I know.”
“I know you do.”
Her aura stopped flickering, and she wiped her tears. “I can’t believe I’m up here talking to myself.”
I smiled. The grief would come for her again. Hopefully she would remember this small moment of relief.
“Zeek?”
I jumped at Zedekiah’s voice in my ear. “I’m here.” I stood and moved away from Libby.
“Okay, kid, I’m bringing you back, but not to the transport station. Don’t freak out. Got it?”
“I’m freaking out.” I was only half joking.
“Hold on.”
I held my breath—even though I didn’t have to breathe—and closed my eyes.
A moment later I opened them and found myself in an unfamiliar room that looked to be a relic from another time.
Zedekiah stood nearby, along with a tall, stern-looking angel I didn’t recognize.
“This is him?” the newcomer asked.
“Yup.”
I looked between them.
Zedekiah waved me toward them. “Come on, kid, we need to talk.”
***
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