“I know.” He shifted his weight. “I just wondered what eulogy meant.”
“Obituary.”
“Oh.”
She patted his arm again. “You’ll be fine.”
“Sure.”
“As long as he’s ready for what he’s dealing with,” John Hansen reflected, putting down the carving knife and wiping his fingers on a dish towel.
One hand still outstretched and hovering over Dean’s sleeve, Martha turned toward her husband. “Won’t it be what he’s been dealing with?”
“That’s not a certainty. Thing’s have changed between them. Probably for the better, but he’ll be in some unusual positions for a Bystander.”
Dean’s ears were suddenly so hot he was afraid they’d ignited. Unusual positions? How had Claire’s father found out about…then he realized he’d misunderstood.
“Well, they’re not going to run into anything he can’t handle,” Martha declared. “I can’t imagine anything worse than what he’s already faced in the Elysian Fields Guest House.”
“I can.”
“Austin, be quiet.” Claire bent, scooped up the cat, and handed him to Dean.
“Hey! Support the back legs!” Hooking his front claws into a flannel collar, Austin heaved himself into a more comfortable position as Dean adjusted his grip. “I’m old. I don’t dangle.”
“Sorry.”
“Dangling! Honestly.”
Claire smoothed the ridge of fur along his spine. “Let it go, Austin.”
“He was holding a roll. I have crumbs in my tail.”
“I’ll brush them out as soon as we’re on the road.” She hooked two fingers in behind the faded blue of Dean’s waistband and tugged him toward the door. “Say good-bye, Dean.”
“Good-bye, Dean.”
At least he made the cat laugh.
It isn’t fair. Diana ran the vacuum at the bits of broken glass and felt a sulky satisfaction as Laa Laa and Saint Matthew disappeared. I should be out changing the world like Claire—not going to stupid school. Stupid, useless waste of time. A swath of clean carpet appeared, bisecting Jesus and Po. I’m so tired of Claire getting to do everything first. Got to get her ears pierced first, got to graduate from high school first, got to travel to a tropical island and narrowly avoid having the entire place follow Atlantis to the bottom first. No, wait, that was me. And in the end, the whole thing had been nothing more than a damp misunderstanding.
The head of the vacuum cleaner was too broad to reach the last few pieces of glass. Realizing that she needed an attachment, Diana bounced it impotently against the hearth instead. My life sucks. Claire gets a Summons. Lena gets an angel. What do I get? A bunch of burst lights.
And let’s not forget Claire also gets Dean. And Floyd. Snickering to herself, she started on Dipsy and St. Peter. A memorable Christmas Eve for all three of them. Which may not be what I want from life, it’s just…
…just…
Something lingered at the edge of memory, almost but not quite dredged up by her train of thought. Absently running the vacuum over the same bit of carpet, she started working back.
Christmas Eve.
Claire gets Dean.
Burst lights.
Lena gets angel.
She stepped on the switch and shut the vacuum off and could just barely hear Dean’s truck starting up over the sudden pounding of her heart.
Her mother hurried into the front hall as she yanked open the door. “If you’re going out to the truck, take this with you.”
The smell of turkey rising from the box made questions about contents redundant. She snatched it up without breaking stride.
“Diana, your boots!”
“No time! I’ve got to catch Claire before she leaves.” As Claire would say, Keepers didn’t keep vital information from other Keepers. Which was not to say that Diana ever actually listened to what Claire said or had any intention of telling her what had actually happened to that Best of John Denver CD. Box tucked under one arm, she sprinted forward.
“Yes!” Austin jumped up onto the top of the seat where he had an unimpeded view through the back window. “Here comes the food!”
Claire twisted around until she could see Diana racing down the front path. “How can you tell what she’s carrying from here?”
“I’m a cat.”
A vein began throbbing on Claire’s forehead. “Why do I even ask?”
Wondering that himself, Dean rolled down the window as Diana hit an icy patch and slid to a sudden impact against his door.
“I know where the angel came from,” she announced before anyone in the truck could speak. “I was right, Lena’s obsessions didn’t open the possibilities, and I was also right about you being distracted.”
“What are you talking about?”
Diana grinned, passed the box to Dean, and poked the forefinger on her right hand through a circle made by the thumb and forefinger on her left. “You opened the hole and Lena’s desire to see an angel was strong enough to define what came through.”
“No.” Claire shook her head. “Even if we did open the possibilities…”
“You did.”
She looked down at the cat. “Excuse me?”
“Way open. Way, way open.” He scratched his shoulder. “It was pretty impressive actually.”
“So much for all those safe sex lectures, eh?”
“Get stuffed. And stop making that disgusting gesture. It wasn’t like that.”
“Was it like this?” Diana barely had time to change the position of her fingers before Dean reached out and enclosed both her hands in one of his.
“No,” he said quietly, ears scarlet. “It wasn’t like that either.”
Suddenly feeling both embarrassed and mean and not much liking the feeling, Diana pulled free. Teasing Dean was somehow not the same as teasing Claire. But I’m not apologizing. I mean, if he can’t take a joke…“Look, I saw it, too, what Austin saw, but I never connected it with Lena because that kind of thing always dissipates after, giving everyone in the immediate area a happy.”
“It should have dissipated,” Claire agreed. Her eyes narrowed as she read her sister’s body language. “Why didn’t it?”
“My bad. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Okay, jeez. Totally. I made this decoration for the school’s Christmas dance that would gather up all the good feelings and spit them back out intensified to make more good feelings, and I think I made the attraction too strong…”
“Quel surprise,”
