“Thank you. Forgive me, Angelo, for my part in the misunderstandings between us. You see, you were right. I did love Murphy enough to activate the curse when I was too young to know what love was. But the curse has been broken. I now control my own destiny. I can love my husband with my whole heart, and I do. Please understand that.”
“Mia, give me time,” Angelo said. “Go now. Because I still want to rip that robe from you, take you high into the heavens, and mate with you as we plunge to our deaths.”
Mia’s eyes widened. She dropped the robe, extended her wings, wrapped them around her and disappeared.
Angelo stared at the empty space for a while before smiling.
Ted was still asleep when Mia arrived on the deck. Brian was singing his good morning song. Mia picked him up and walked him over to the changing table. “Good morning to you too. We have another day with Daddy,” she said excitedly. “Your mommy is a very lucky lady, and you’re a lucky boy. Your Daddy can build castles out of Legos and robots out of wires. He can make me laugh with his jokes.”
“Da De,” Brian said.
“Oh my god, you said…”
“Da De,” Brian said, looking over at the door.
Mia turned around, and there stood a very sleepy Ted. “He just called you…”
“Da De,” Brian said again and reached his hands out.
Ted’s eyes lit up. “He did, didn’t he?” Ted walked over and lifted his son in the air. “Well, Da De and Brian are going to dance. Tango music please,” he said to Mia.
She sang out, “La de la dah…”
Ted realized as she sang, it was the tango they’d danced at Ralph’s wedding. This was the strange little song she had been singing yesterday.
Mia continued to sing as she took care of the soiled diaper and cleaned up the nursery. Ted moved out into the cottage with Brian, dipping him when appropriate.
“Honey, we have a visitor,” Ted said.
Mia, who was still just clothed in the Chiefs jersey, shrieked, “Oh no, I’m not dressed.”
“Come here,” he said.
Mia stuck her head out and followed Ted to the lakeside windows. There, out on the railing, was a gray squirrel.
“Brian, that’s a squirrel. Can you say squirrel?”
Try as he might, the child couldn’t put the right sounds together. “Pblsst!”
“I think, Ted, you’re going to have to be happy with Da De for today,” Mia commented. She walked into the kitchen and fixed Brian his morning bottle. Matt, Brian’s pediatrician, said that soon she should try a sippy cup, although Brian may still want a bottle before bedtime. He was growing so fast. Mia knew he was going to take after his tall father, and this pleased her. It was difficult being short, especially if you were a guy. Although, it didn’t seem to bother her grandfather Orion any.
“I’m going to make some cookies today,” she said, handing Ted the bottle.
“Good. Why the sudden industry?”
“We have to return the pie plate. Ralph says you never return a dish without something in it.”
“Well, live and learn. I thought that I might stick my nose in the boathouse and see if there’s anything I can tinker with.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already. I’m sorry, I didn’t think when I packed to bring your toys.”
Ted stuck his tongue out. “You have your wings; I have my things.”
“Oh, I like that,” Mia said and sang, “You have your wings, and I have my things…” to a waltz tempo.
It made Brian turn from watching the squirrel to watching his mother as she danced around the kitchen while starting breakfast.
“They are going to take you away soon,” Ted teased.
“I’m sure I’m not going alone,” Mia countered.
~
Mark walked back through the woods and quickly past the old house on his way home. He didn’t want to be waylaid by the ghosts today. He had six large perch to get home. He did stop before he hit the street and look back at the building. The sun reflected off of something shiny inside. He was tempted to investigate, but the fish and his gran were waiting.
“He’s still interested,” the wife said to her husband. “We haven’t lost him yet.”
“I do hope you’re right. I have a feeling that he’s our last hope.”
The boys started bouncing a ball upstairs.
“It has to be hard being stuck in the house on such a nice day,” the woman commented, looking upward.
“They have borne worse,” the man said, putting his arm around his wife’s waist.
“Let’s not think of that,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder. “Let’s forget that ever happened.”
“I’m not sure we can,” he said sadly.
~
“Gran, look. Doesn’t this look like Mrs. Martin?” Mark said, handing her the bible, open to the picture.
“My goodness, so it does. Mark, you do know that this is just an artist’s representation of what he or she thinks an angel looks like?”
“Yes, but I’d like to show it to her if it’s alright with you?”
“Of course it is. I’m pleased that you’ve been reading the bible, Mark,” she said.
“I kinda started on my namesake’s chapter.”
“They call it a book. You see…” Edie went on to explain to her grandson how the books were gathered and the bible was put together to the best of her knowledge. “A grand undertaking but a good one.”
“There are some good stories in there if you can get by the begets.”
Edie smiled. “There are quite a lot of begets, aren’t there?”
There was a light tapping on the street-side door. Mark walked to the door and opened it. “Hi, we were just talking about begets.”
Mia walked in the open door carrying Brian with one arm and Edie’s basket with the other. “Begets? Oh, the bible. Well, you could say the pie your grandmother baked us in a way begetted these cookies.”
“Oh, thank you,
