started to race only when something tickled his lips. Michael couldn’t stop himself from opening his eyes and he was glad he did. Jean-Paul’s face was an inch away, his hair falling forward, and each time Jean-Paul breathed, his hair danced across Michael’s lips. After Michael closed his eyes, he felt more breath than hair linger over his mouth and then he heard Jean-Paul whisper, “You have the face of an angel.”
That’s because I’m a young king, Ronan. This time when he opened his eyes, Michael was horrified. What the hell was he doing? Why was he about to let someone else, someone other than Ronan, kiss him? Recoiling, Michael felt the door handle jab him in the side. He hit the door a few times in a feeble attempt to unlock it.
“What are you doing?” Jean-Paul asked. “We’re supposed to be relaxing.”
“I’m sorry . . . I can’t do this.”
Finally, Michael unlocked the door, pushed it open, and stumbled onto the pavement. The chilly breeze acted like a tonic, washing away the spell Jean-Paul had cast, and allowing him to run, to get farther and farther away from doing something stupid, something that would stain everything that he and Ronan shared. Yes, Michael was angry with Ronan, furious, but he didn’t want to hurt him out of spite. He just knew it wasn’t something a real man would do.
Standing in the back of Archangel Academy, Michael had newfound respect for the angels, the immortal men, who adorned the stained-glass windows that decorated the walls of the church. Michael used to think that angels had it easy, an immortal life must be nothing but fun and adventure. He had no idea that immortality, like a more temporary life, didn’t automatically give you good judgment or the ability to resist temptation. You still had to make choices. Today, Michael was lucky; he had ultimately made the right choice. But what about tomorrow? What about when he came face-to-face with the next temptation? What about the next time he had to look into Ronan’s eyes? When he genuflected by the side of the last pew, he was relieved. Maybe what he really needed to do was stop asking so many questions and sit next to a friend.
Ciaran saw Michael and smiled. By the time Michael sat next to him, he had stopped writing in his journal, relocked it, and tucked it back into his bag. For a few minutes, the boys sat next to each other quietly, looking at the cross that hung over the tabernacle, empty except for blots of blood on each of the four points of the cross, until Ciaran, sensing that Michael couldn’t find the right words to open a conversation, spoke. “After the lab, this is my favorite place on campus.”
Michael didn’t know that, probably because he never asked. “I guess they’re both kind of peaceful,” Michael stated. “You know, in completely different ways.”
Not so different actually, Ciaran thought. Science and religion were a lot more intertwined and reliant upon each other than most people imagined. But noticing Michael’s sullen expression, Ciaran didn’t think he’d come here for intellectual discussion. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”
That’s because I don’t really know who I am. “Sometimes I wonder if I should ever have come to Double A,” Michael said. “Maybe it was all a big mistake.”
Ciaran knew he wasn’t talking about school because two other things that were intertwined and reliant upon each other were Michael and Ronan. “Do you have any idea how much my brother loves you?”
Michael wasn’t surprised by this comment. Ciaran was quite perceptive. He nodded his head several times but still found himself saying, “That doesn’t stop him from lying to me.”
Love doesn’t stop people from lying to each other, Michael. “That veneer of invulnerability my brother likes to wear is all an act,” Ciaran said, then chose his words carefully. “He’s been, um, terribly hurt by guys that he’s loved.”
I know, he’s alluded to that a few times, but I’m not just another guy, Michael thought, I’m supposed to be his soul mate, I’m supposed to spend eternity with him. What if those other guys were supposed to do the same thing, though? Maybe lying and keeping secrets is Ronan’s way of protecting himself more than it is to protect me? Michael sighed. Coming to church was supposed to instill a sense of peace, not conjure up more questions than answers.
“Look, I know my brother can be stubborn and pompous, but I have never known him to love another person as much as he loves you,” Ciaran said. “That should be reason enough to convince you that you’re right where you belong, Michael.”
Finally, an answer. “Sounds like something my mother would say.”
“I don’t know about that, but, dude, I’m starving,” Ciaran said. “I know you don’t eat, but want to come to St. Martha’s with me?”
His head cocked to the side. Michael asked, “Did you just call me dude?”
“Too American?”
“Just not your style,” Michael replied, smiling.
“Ah, well,” Ciaran said, grabbing his coat and bag then pausing in the aisle. “You coming?”
Michael remained seated. “Thanks, but I can’t. I need to go home.”
An hour later, Michael felt he was on the verge of finding some peace because despite his time away, Weeping Water looked exactly the same.
chapter 18
The graveyard appeared to be alive. Michael looked around and saw tall, lush elm trees, their leaves large, deep green, the cool breeze that floated in between the drooping, twisted branches causing the leaves to flap up and down, making them look as if they were greeting Michael, welcoming him home.
Short spider bushes populated the sides of several dirt paths, some of their spindly leaves so long and overgrown they scraped against Michael’s leg as he walked by. He leaned over to breathe in the scent of dogwood, tugged on the branches of larkspur, disrupting a few butterflies from their perch, and smiled as they encircled him several times before fluttering away. He heard a rustling and saw that the butterflies were off to follow some friends. A stream of six or seven birds emerged from within the belly of a particularly leafy tree, a ray of orange and black flying up and into the blue morning sky until birds and butterflies united into one cluster and disappeared out of view. Ironically, much of Weeping Water was barren and dry, but here in the place where death reigned, the landscape was alive and fertile.
It’s even more beautiful than I remembered, Michael thought. That’s because he chose to forget how desolate it really looked and was glorifying the past, remembering it not for what it was, but for what he had hoped it would be. When he turned the corner of the path, however, he was reminded of what he really did leave behind.
GRACE ANN HOWARD, AT PEACE. Michael knew that the words carved into the gray speckled stone told the truth. After years of anxiety, worry, fear that his father would return to reclaim his son, his mother was resting peacefully. At least the harrowing vision Imogene showed him brought him that knowledge. He knew that his mother’s body, her bones, still lay under the ground here on earth, but her spirit and her soul were definitely in heaven.
Next to her grave was her parents’ tombstone. On the bottom, the name CONSTANCE JENNINGS HOWARD was etched into the stone, followed by the dates of her birth and death. On top was carved THOMAS MICHAEL HOWARD, with only the date of his birth under his name. Nothing else. No epitaph, no confirmation that his grandmother was at peace or had been beloved or was remembered. Sadly, Michael thought it was fitting because his grandmother really had no identity other than being connected to her husband.
It seemed so long ago that he saw his grandparents, heard his grandfather’s grumpy voice, sat within his grandmother’s silence. He didn’t always miss them; their company wasn’t always comforting. But they did share their home with him and his mother, that was something, wasn’t it? Maybe they acted aloof and distant because they always knew Michael wanted to get as far away from them as possible. Like Ronan, maybe they were just protecting themselves.
So tell me, do you guys miss me too? Come on, Constance, Thomas, fess up. Michael laughed. It was weird thinking of his grandparents as real people with real names. It was weirder still watching his grandfather walk toward him, head down, carrying a bouquet of daisies.
Before he was seen, Michael ran behind a marble sepulcher that stood opposite the graves and was almost
