“Leeni, Mr. Mason is one of Phil’s friends. He and his wife, Cara, were at the party last night.” Her big brown eyes connected with mine for half a second before she focused on Adam.
“What’s wrong with Cara?”
“Mrs. Mason is expecting, sweetie. She’s just having a rough pregnancy.”
Eileen wasn’t fazed by my reminder of how to address her elders. In fact, she didn’t even look at me.
“Has my mom told you how she knows Phil?”
Oh, God.
“No. She hasn’t.” Adam seemed amused, but I definitely wasn’t. If she’d heard the last part of our conversation, then I knew where this was headed.
“Sweetie, I’m sorry we woke you. Why don’t you go splash some water on your face and get something to drink?” My attempt at distraction earned me nothing but frustrated looks from both of them. My only option was to pull rank and send her away, but that would obviously make her story out to be a bigger deal than it was.
“She was a teller at Coastal First . . . ”
I relaxed a bit. Maybe she was going to do the edited version.
“You worked at a bank?”
“Yeah, counting other people’s money all day. Fun times!”
“And Phil . . . Mr. Stowe . . . ” she stressed for my benefit, “ . . . was a client. He came in with a—”
“Honey,” I interrupted gently this time, “Mr. Stowe’s banking habits aren’t for conversation.” Although Eileen knew the whole story—Maureen and Phil had both joked about it often enough in front of her—it wasn’t right for us to tell Adam. She flushed, and I gave her knee a quick squeeze.
“Let’s just say I was new and overzealous. There were so many rules and regulations, and I’d been told that if I screwed up, I could get in trouble—maybe even fired. Eileen was only five, and I needed the job . . . so . . . short version is, I hassled Phil on a technicality without realizing that—”
“That he was one of the bank’s best clients,” Adam finished.
“Something like that.” Even after all this time, I cringed remembering how I’d put a Reg CC hold on one of his deposits because it was so large—without thinking to check if he had other accounts to offset a possible loss. Of course he had, and the branch manager had chewed me out, but Phil had seemed to find the whole thing funny. Thank God.
“And then she saved him from being robbed.”
“Eileen!” She’d submarined me!
“Mom. Chill. You can tell him.”
I blinked. If I hadn’t overreacted, I could’ve blown off her little surprise—but it was too late now. He wasn’t even looking at me; he was grinning at Eileen like she was the coolest kid he’d ever met. Which she was. When she wasn’t being a complete and total pain in—
“So are you going to tell the story, or do you want me to?”
I shot her a look, but couldn’t be angry. Well, maybe a little. But not enough to work at keeping it up. “Phil helped me get a job away from the teller line, opening accounts and stuff. One day he was walking through the lobby, and when he waved at me . . . I just knew he had to come into my office.
“I called out, and he came in, but I didn’t know what to say—or even why I had to keep him in there—I just knew he shouldn’t be in the lobby. I babbled about getting an equity line, I think, and he was looking at me like I was nuts, but then we heard screams, and a man yelling. It was over so fast. The teller gave the guy everything she had, and he ran out the door. No one was hurt or anything, but the guy had waved his gun around and the poor people in the lobby were terrified.”
I lifted my shoulders in a “that’s all”, but I was sure it was far from all. I braced myself for the incredulity and questions, the typical reactions that normal people had whenever they were presented with something they couldn’t comprehend with their own senses. What I didn’t expect was Adam’s exaggerated side-wink at my daughter.
“Phil has told me that story. I just wanted to hear it from you.”
Eileen giggled.
“He tells it like you were his guardian angel. A good luck charm or something. But . . . given other things . . . ”
“What things?” Eileen leaned back on elbows as if we were chatting about nothing more important than books. “Has Mom been seeing angels around Cara?”
And there it was. Just thrown out there and out of my control, thanks to my own flesh and blood and her I’m-an-adult-too impulses. After giving her a look that made her blush again, I steeled myself for Adam’s reaction—but he didn’t even look at me.
We All Make Choices
Instead, Adam shifted, resting his arm on the top step and focusing completely on Eileen. His expression was composed, but earnest; and although she kept a casual pose, too, I didn’t need angels to see the connection between them.
“You don’t have any brothers or sisters, do you?”
“No. I always wanted a little brother though.”
“You’d be a good big sister, I bet. I was a big brother, but I’m not sure I was a good one.”
She pushed herself forward and cupped her chin in her hands. “What was your sister’s name?”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Aislyn. How did you . . . ?”
“What does that mean, Mom?”
I answered slowly, as a delicate purple haze of light formed between them. “Aislyn means . . . vision, sweetie.” It fit a willowy girl with soulful brown eyes. “Dreams and vision.” The haze coalesced into a luminescent speck with a gentle glow. Not one of the sparks I was used to seeing.
“How do you know that? It’s not common . .
