Francisco as soon as Wally's recovered. He retired young, right? And a painter can paint anywhere. Sell the properties here, start over somewhere else, and make the move in such a way that you can't be easily traced. I can help you work that out.'
'Is it as bad as that?' Celestina wondered plaintively, though she knew the answer. 'I love San Francisco. The city inspires my work. I've built a life here. Is it really as bad as that?'
'It's that bad and worse,' Grace said firmly. 'Even if they catch him, you're going to live with the quiet fear that he might escape one day. As long as you know he can find you, then you're never going to be completely at peace. And if you love this city so much that you'll put Angel in jeopardy? then who have you been listening to all these years, girl? Because it hasn't been me.'
The decision had already been made that Grace would move in with Celestina and then-following the wedding-with Celestina and Wally. In Spruce Hills, she had dear friends whom she would miss, but there was nothing else in Oregon to draw her back, other than the narrow plot beside Harrison, where she expected eventually to be buried. The parsonage fire had destroyed all her personal effects and every family treasure from Celestina's grade-school spelling-bee medals to the last precious photograph. She wanted only to be close to her one remaining daughter and her granddaughter, to be part of the new life that they would build with Wally Lipscomb.
Taking her mother's advice to heart, Celestina sighed. 'All right. Let's just pray they catch him. But if they don't? two weeks, and then the rest of the plan, the way you said, Tom. Except that I can't tolerate two weeks-in a hotel, cooped up, afraid to go into the streets, no sun, no fresh air.'
'Come with me,' Paul Damascus said at once. 'To Bright Beach. It is far away from San Francisco, and he'd never think of looking for you there. Why would he? You've no connection to the place. I've got a house with enough room. You're welcome. And you wouldn't be among strangers.'
Celestina hardly knew Paul, and although he'd saved her mother's life, his offer raised a look of doubt from her.
No hesitation preceded Grace's response. 'That's very generous of you, Paul. And I, for one, accept. Is this the house where you lived with your Perri?'
'It is,' he confirmed.
Tom had no idea who Perri might be, but something in the way Grace asked the question and the way she regarded Paul suggested that she knew something about Perri that had won her deep respect and admiration.
'All right,' Celestina conceded, and looked relieved. 'Thank you, Paul. You're not only an exceptionally brave man but a gracious one, as well.'
Paul's Mediterranean complexion didn't make a blush easy to detect, but Tom thought his face brightened until it was a shade or two closer to the color of his rust-red hair. His eyes, usually so direct, evaded Celestina.
'I'm no hero,' Paul insisted. 'I just got your mom out of there in the process of saving myself.'
'Some process,' Grace said, gently scornful of his modesty.
Angel, busy with a cookie through most of this, licked crumbs from her lips and asked Paul, 'Do you have a puppy?'
'No puppy, I'm afraid.'
'Do you have a goat?'
'Would your decision to visit me be affected if I did?'
'Depends,' said Angel.
'On what?'
'Does the goat live in the house or outside?'
'Actually, I don't have a goat.'
'Good. Do you have cheese?'
By gesture, Celestina indicated that she wanted to see Tom alone.
While Angel continued her relentless interrogation of Paul Damascus, Tom joined her mother in front of the large window at the end of the room farthest from the dinner table.
The ship of night floated over the city and cast down nets of darkness, gathering millions of lights like luminous fishes in its black toils.
Celestina stared out for a moment, and then turned her head to look at Tom, with both the shade of the night and the sparkle of the metropolis still captured in her eyes. 'What was that all about?'
He briefly considered playing dumb, but he knew she was too smart for that. 'Gunsmoke, you mean. Listen, I know you'll do whatever's necessary to keep Angel safe, because you love her so much. Love will give you greater strength and determination than any other motive. But you should know this much? You need to keep her safe for another reason. She's special. I don't want to explain why she's special or how I know that she is, because this isn't the time or place, not with your dad's death and Wally in the hospital and you still shaky from the attack.'
'But I need to know.'
He nodded. 'You do. Yes. But you don't need to know right now. Later, when you're calmer, when you're clearer. It's too important to rush you through it now.'
'Wally gave her tests. She's got an exceptional understanding of color, spatial relationships, and geometric forms for a child her age. She may be a visual prodigy.'
'Oh, I know she is,' he said. 'I know how clearly she sees.'
Eye to eye with Tom, Celestina herself did some clear-seeing. 'You're special, too, in lots of obvious ways. But like Angel, you're special in some secret way? aren't you?'
'I'm gifted to a small extent, and it's an unusual gift,' he admitted. 'Nothing world-shaking. More than anything, really, it's a special perception I've been given. Angel's gift seems to be different from mine but related. In fifty years, she's the first I've ever met who's somewhat like me. I'm still shaking inside from the shock of finding her. But please, let's save this for Bright Beach and a better evening. You go down there tomorrow with Paul, okay? I'll stay here to look after Wally. When he's able to travel, I'll bring him with me. I know you'll want him to hear what I have to say, too. Is it a deal?'
Tom between curiosity and emotional exhaustion, Celestina held his gaze, thinking, and finally she said, 'Deal.'
Tom stared down into the oceanic depths of the city, through the reefs of buildings, to the lamp-fish cars schooling through the great trenches.
'I'm going to tell you something about your father that might comfort you,' he said, 'but you can't ask me for more than I'm ready to say right now. It's all a part of what I'll discuss with you in Bright Beach.'
She said nothing.
Taking her silence for assent, Tom continued: 'Your father is gone from here, gone forever, but he still lives in other worlds. This isn't a statement of faith alone. If Albert Einstein were still alive and standing here, he'd tell you that it's true. Your father is with you in many places, and so is Phimie. In many places, she didn't die in childbirth. In some worlds, she was never raped, her life never blighted. But there's an irony in that, isn't there? Because in those worlds, Angel doesn't exist-yet Angel is a miracle and a blessing.' He looked up from the city to the woman. 'So when you're lying in bed tonight, kept awake by grief, don't think just about what you've lost with your father and Phimie. Think about what you have in this world that you've never known in some others-Angel. Whether God's a Catholic, a Baptist, a Jew, a Muslim, or a quantum mechanic, He gives us compensation for our pain, compensation right here in this world, not just in those parallel to it and not just in some afterlife. Always compensation for the pain? if we recognize it when we see it.'
Her eyes, lustrous pools, brimmed with the need to know, but she respected the deal. 'I only half understood all that, and I don't even know which half, but in some strange way, it feels true. Thank you. I will think about it tonight, when I can't sleep.' She stepped close and kissed him on the cheek. 'Who are you, Tom Vanadium?'
He smiled and shrugged. 'I used to be a fisher of men. Now I hunt them. One in particular.'
Chapter 78
Late Tuesday afternoon in Bright Beach, as a darker blue and iridescent tide rolled across the sky, seagulls rowed toward their safe harbors, and on the land below, shadows that had been upright at work all day now stretched out, recumbent, preparing for the night.
