Margaret's Ark

As Michael waited for the doors to open, he muttered, “You've got a problem with something?”

They stepped in. When the doors closed and the elevator dropped, Jack said, “How... how come we're taking the elevator? Why not just blink us to safety?”

Michael looked at him with a long-familiar expression of sympathy and restrained impatience. Jack got that look a lot. It hurt more, coming from this man. The angel finally said, “Because sometimes it just doesn’t work that way, Jack.”

“You don't like me, do you?”

Michael closed his eyes. “I'm an angel of God. I love everyone.”

Jack scuffed his feet on the shiny elevator floor. “You don't act like you love everyone.”

The angel began to say something in reply, caught himself and fell silent. A trace of a smile worked itself onto his dark face. He only shook his head. The elevator doors opened. Across the abandoned entrance foyer, the world outside was dark. The guard at the night desk hung up the phone and sat straight in his chair, staring intently at the elevator.

Looking for me , Jack thought. He remembered what the policeman had said about taking him to jail, and Jack felt a growing terror. He couldn't be taken away. God needed him.

“That's why I'm here, my friend,” Michael said, then ushered him past the guard and through the revolving doors. They disappeared into the cool, dark Boston morning.

*     *     *

Margaret Carboneau stood on the Lavish town common, watching the second of the two delivery trucks drive away, and tried to forget the looks of derision the men had given her. Word traveled fast. Beside her lay piles of lumber - forty-eight sheets of three-quarter inch plywood in one pile, forty-eight more in another. Stacks of two-by- fours, two-by-twos and one-by-ones. Boxes of nails. More boxes of nails. Twenty-three three-gallon jugs of boaters’ glue, twelve rolls of seam tape and two more piles of miscellaneous items including the tools she would need like the hand-held jigsaw and circular saw she'd bought yesterday. Vince had a lot of tools in the cellar but they didn’t include those.

The man from the delivery truck had explained the shipment of cinderblocks would be arriving separately, that they subcontracted that item and delivery came from a masonry plant in San Maria.

Plywood and glue. With this Margaret was supposed to build an ark to carry thirty people above a flood. She watched Katie and Robin running around the wood, whispering excitedly. Plywood and glue, to carry her daughters to safety.

She sat on the grass and dropped her face into her hands. Images from the angel David, every square inch of the ship's construction running through her mind like an eternal movie. She felt like Richard Dreyfus's character in that old movie. This means something, he'd said then. She began sobbing, trying to wash away the images with her tears.

God, help me, please. Where do I start? What do I do?

No thunderclap of divine instruction came to her. No angel David to run through his routine again. Just a breeze blowing across the common, lightly caressing the hands covering her face, cooling the tears.

“Mommy?” Robin's voice, a small touch on her shoulder. “I'm sorry, Mommy. We won't touch anything.”

The innocence of the statement sent Margaret into a renewed fit of sobs, until a man's voice broke in.

“Margaret?”

She sniffled once and wiped her face as she pulled her hands away. Marty Santos stood over her but stared at the piles of lumber. The fire chief looked as if he'd like to say more. His mouth opened, then closed.

Margaret cleared her throat and stood up. “Marty, I'm sorry. It's just so overwhelming.” She waved a hand at the wood. “Everything. I'm sorry for lying.” Robin looked between her mother and Marty, then slowly walked back to join her sister waiting a short distance away.

“Don't....” He faltered again. “It wasn't a dream, was it? I really did see you out here the other night?”

Margaret nodded. “I guess… yes.”

“Who.... Margaret, what's going on?”

She couldn't tell if he looked nervous or irritated. She told him a condensed version – she didn't have the energy to get into details – but one that she hoped let him understand why she'd deceived him.

When she was finished, Marty remained quiet. Then he turned and walked away, stopped, looked back at the piles of lumber, and returned to stand beside her again.

“Margaret, do you know the least bit about building a ship?”

“No. I mean, not before the dream. God showed me how. I knew what to get, didn't I?”

“Well... plywood? You can't build a boat out of plywood. It'll fall apart.”

Details of the ship's construction hadn't waned in their circuitous journey through her brain. She saw everything, the finished product. The feeling was stronger now, building to some cerebral climax threatening to send her into madness if she didn't act soon. God's way of screaming, Get your ass in gear, woman! It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“It will float. If we build it right, it will float. God said it will.” She stood straighter, trying to sound convinced. “So it will.”

Marty tried not to smile. Or was it a grimace? He thought she was nuts. “What do you mean, we?”

Margaret shrugged. “I could use the help. At least for a while, until I can find others to join me. I mean, unless there's something else you have to be doing. I assume you're on duty, but - “

Marty raised his hand and said quietly, “Okay; okay. You're scaring me, Maggie. I've never heard you ramble like this before. I'm not saying I believe you. But I guess I can help. For a while, at least. Edgecomb is a jerk and will probably chew me out for doing this, but you know the old saying. Don't ask and they might not say 'no'.”

Adrian Edgecomb was one of Lavish’s three selectmen. The other two usually cow-towed to his belligerence so in effect he ran the town. Until this moment, it never occurred to her that someone might actually take some action against a person building a boat in the center of town.

Two other firemen approached casually from the station. Unlike the police who could cruise around town between calls, firefighters tended to hang at the station during any down time. They were always ready for a distraction.

The younger man, Ben, crouched down to listen to the girls as they gave him the basic run-down of events. Seeing them talk to him like that made Margaret realize she'd neglected one of their old pleasures from the time before Vince died. They loved visiting the station, being spoiled rotten by those on duty. As if on cue, Ben produced a tootsie roll, probably left over from their recent “Traffic Light” fund-raiser.

The second man was shorter, with a stereotypical bushy moustache. Margaret nodded to him, trying to recall his name. He nodded back almost imperceptibly. His eyes studied her for a long moment. It was the same look the men from the delivery truck had worn.

“Building an ark?” he finally asked. The eyes burned into her.

The chief tried to sound conciliatory. “We listen to the news, Margaret. This shit is the talk of the country. Oh, sorry, girls.”

Robin looked up. “Is 'shit' a bad word, Mommy?”

“Yes.”

Marty faced the other men. “Listen, guys. Like it or not, Margaret's planning on building this thing. She's alone,” he lowered his voice but not so much as to keep Margaret from hearing, “and she's Vince's widow.” Then, louder, “What say we help get her started at least?”

The man with the moustache glowered at her, then nodded his head and walked towards the lumber. Ben rose and said, “They're not going to like this too much.”

“Well, for the moment, I don’t really care,” Marty said. Ben hesitated and looked over his shoulder towards the town offices, then joined in undoing the metal braces around the woodpiles. The chief turned back to Margaret. “Well, you've got me, Ben and Al for a while at least.” His name is Al; thank you, Marty. “So? Where do we start?”

Margaret wanted to cry again. As much of an insane nightmare as this seemed, God was providing. He