Kissed by an Angel

'Mom will always be our mother, and right now she needs us.'

'Okay,' Philip said agreeably. 'You and Ella go. I'm going to ask Tristan to move in with me.'

'Tristan!'

He nodded, then said softly to himself, 'Walked the batter. Tying run coming up to the plate.'

Apparently he had made up his eight-year-old mind and didn't figure that the matter needed to be discussed further. He played contentedly. It was the strangest thing, how he had begun to play again after his fun with Tristan.

What had Tristan said to Philip that helped him so? Perhaps nothing, Ivy thought. Perhaps instead of trying to explain their mother's marriage for the last three weeks, she should have just stuck some shrimp in her nose.

'Philip,' she said sharply.

The tying run had to come home before he was willing to talk to her again. 'Huh?'

'Did Tristan say anything to you about me?'

'About you?' He thought for a moment. 'No.'

'Oh.' Not that I care, she told herself.

'Do you know him?' Philip asked.

'No. No, I just thought that maybe, after I found you in the storeroom, he'd say something about me.'

Philip's brow knitted. 'Oh, yeah. He asked me if you like to wear pink dresses like that, and if you really believe in angels. I told him about your collection of statues.'

'What did you tell him about my dress?'

'Yes.'

'Yes?' she exclaimed.

'You told Mommy you thought it was pretty.'

And her mother had believed her. Why shouldn't Philip?

'Did Tristan say why he was working there tonight?'

'Yup.'

The inning was over. Philip was setting up a new defense.

'Well, why?' Ivy asked, exasperated.

'He has to make some money for a swim meet. He's a swimmer, Ivy. He goes to other states and swims. He needs to fly, I can't remember where.'

Ivy nodded. Of course. Tristan was just hard up, earning his way. She should stop listening to Suzanne.

Philip stood up suddenly. 'Ivy, don't make me go to that big house. Don't make me go. I don't want to eat dinner with him!'

Ivy reached out for her brother. 'New things always seem scary,' she reassured him. 'But Andrew has been nice to you, right from the start. Remember who bought you Don Mattingly's rookie card?'

'I don't want to eat dinner with Gregory.'

She didn't know what to say to that.

Philip stood next to her, his fingers moving silently over the old piano's keys. When he'd been younger he used to do that and sing the tunes he was supposed to be playing.

'I need a hug,' she said. 'How about it?'

He gave her an unenthusiastic one.

'Let's do our new duet, okay?'

He shrugged. He'd play along with her, but the happiness that she had glimpsed in him earlier had disappeared.

They were five measures through when he slammed his hands down on the piano. He banged and banged and banged.

'I won't go! I won't go! I won't!'

Philip burst into tears, and Ivy pulled him toward her, letting him sob in her arms. When he had settled into exhausted hiccups, she said, 'You're tired, Philip. You're just tired,' but she knew it was more than that.

While he rested against her she played for him his favorite songs, then softened the medley into lullabies. Soon he was almost asleep and much too big for her to carry into bed.

'Come on,' she said, helping him up from the bench. Ella followed them into her room.

'Ivy.'

'Hmmm?'

'Can I have one of your angels tonight?'

'Sure. Which one?'

'Tony.'

Tony was the dark brown one, carved out of wood, Ivy's father angel. She stood Tony next to the sleeping bag and Don Mattingly. Then Philip crawled into the bag, and she zipped him in.

'Do you want to say an angel prayer?' she asked.

Together they said, 'Angel of light, angel above, take care of me tonight. Take care of everyone I love.'

'That's you, Ivy,' Philip added, and closed his eyes.

Chapter 4

Ivy felt as if she floated through most of the week that followed the wedding, with one day slipping into the next, marked only by frustrating discussions with Philip. Suzanne and Beth teased her about her absent- mindedness, but more gently than usual. Gregory passed her in the hall once or twice and made little jokes about straightening up his room before Friday. Tristan didn't cross her path that week-at least she didn't see him.

Everyone in school knew by then about her mother and Andrew's marriage. The wedding had made all the local papers as well as the New York Times. Ivy shouldn't have been surprised, for Andrew was often in the paper, but it was odd to see photos of her mother as well.

Friday morning finally arrived, and Ivy nosed her rusty little Dodge out of the apartment driveway, feeling suddenly homesick for every crowded, noisy, dilapidated rental place her family had ever lived in. When she returned from school that afternoon, she'd enter a different driveway, one that climbed a ridge high above the train station and river. The road to the house hugged a low stone wall and ran between patches of woods, daffodils, and laurel. Andrew's woods, daffodils, and laurel.

That afternoon Ivy picked up Philip from school. He had given up the fight and rode next to her in silence. Halfway up the ridge, Ivy heard a motorcycle on the bend above them, roaring downhill. Suddenly the cyclist and she were face-to-face. She was already as far to the right as she could get. Still he came head-on. Ivy slammed on her brakes. The cycle swerved dangerously close to them, then sped past.

Philip's head spun around, but he didn't say anything. Ivy glanced in the rearview mirror. It was probably Eric Ghent. She hoped Gregory was with him.

But Gregory was waiting for them at the house, along with Andrew and her mother, who were just back from their honeymoon. Her mother greeted them with big hugs and lipstick kisses and a cloud of some new kind of perfume. Andrew took both of Ivy's hands in his. He was wise enough to smile at but not touch Philip. Then Ivy and Philip were turned over to Gregory.

'I'm the tour guide,' he said. Leaning toward Philip, he warned, 'Stay close. Some of these rooms are haunted.'

Philip looked around quickly, then glanced up at Ivy.

'He's just kidding.'

'I'm not,' said Gregory. 'Some very unhappy people have lived here.'

Philip glanced up at Ivy again. She shook her head.

On the outside the house was a stately white clapboard home with heavy black shutters. Wings had been added to each side of the main structure. Ivy would have liked to live in one of the smaller wings with their deep sloping roofs and dormer windows.

In the main part of the house, some of the high-ceilinged rooms seemed as large as apartments that they had once lived in. The house's wide center hall and sweeping stair separated the living room, library, and solarium from the dining room, kitchen, and family room. Beyond the family room was a gallery leading to the west wing with Andrew's office.

Since her mother and Andrew were talking in the office, the downstairs tour stopped at the gallery, in front of