The Writer and The Word (02)

He seemed like an eagle.

+

She turned around to face him, and she watched his eyes as the arcing lights of rockets reflected there. He was absorbed in the display, and so she just looked up at him with wonder in her heart. There was a cognitive resonance in the moment, a feeling that she knew him much better thanmere timehad yet allowed . . . that she had known him . . . perhaps for all time. It was a foolish thought, she knew, but the feeling grew within her so strongly, and so quickly, that it became overwhelming, and disconcerting.

Sumner had the impression of light flashing below him, and looked down to see reflections of fireworks in Angela's eyes. She was looking up at him; even in the star-dappled light of the festive sky he could make out the blue pools of her eyes. Time seemed to stop as he looked at her, the world dissolved around them into timeless mists, and he felt as though his mortal existence had suddenly been thrust into the vastness of space . . . all around him it was black, there was no corporeal reference to the sight other than the misty blaze of Angela White's pure alabaster skin, and the seductive luminance of her eyes . . .

. . . Eyes that sought reference in times dissolute journey, the dawning radiance of becoming at one with the awareness of destiny's simple call, these two hearts drifted toward the music of this misty-light, fused in nightsong that blossomed with their union. Lips seeking release from mortal restraint joined in their soul's ease - as time never holds true love in abeyance.

Sumner Welles held Angela White in his arms as the sky around them danced in frenzied expansion, as the air shook in the crack and roar of creation, and they held that moment to their heartfire, felt it grow.

He took her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers. In the simple purity of that moment, with the noble truth of that kiss, Sumner Welles and Angela White fell - truly, madly, and deeply - in love.

+

Bennett Welles, with his truest love Suzanne by his side, looked at his son as he kissed Angela, and he sighed the burning song of a parent's heartfelt relief. He felt a hand slide in his and turned to see his sister's daughter Madeleine standing there as well, looking at Sumner and Angela.

"That's just about the most Goddamned beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life," Bennett Welles said.

"Life goes on, Uncle Ben."

"Perhaps," he said, "but I wasn't so sure a month ago."

It had been a troubled Spring for the father as he had watched his son's heart breaking.

+

Sumner and Bennett Welles stood by the stairway that led to the launch waiting below and said their goodbyes to friends and family after the fireworks display had ended, then they had repaired to the great aft salon and joined Suzanne, Madeleine, and Angela. They were sitting there in the dark, talking away at who knows what. The yacht was underway, steaming out the main ship channel and headed toward Massachusetts Bay and thence on to Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island, which was on the Maine Coast about 175 miles to the northeast. The seas were calm, and the almost full Moon was just beginning to show above the eastern horizon.

As the women were talking, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, Bennett took his son aside near the entrance to the salon, and put his arm around his shoulder.

"She seems one helluva young lady, Sum. I don't know what you feel about her, but she really impressed everyone here tonight. I thought you should know that."

"Thanks, Dad. There really is something very odd about her, you know?"

"Odd?"

"Not odd like bad, Dad. Odd like there's some really profound connection there. I'm not sure I can explain it. But she's becoming like the air that I breathe, I'm not sure I could survive without her."

"Well, Sum, take it slow," concern suddenly filling his heart. "If it's real, let it happen, but don't force it. On the other hand, I wouldn't let that girl get away from me for all the tea in China. I . . . well, she's one in a million, son."

Angela was walking their way, and doing so quite well despite the mild motion of the boat.

"Well, there you are," she said as she joined them.

"Miss White, you must be exhausted. I can never handle jet lag, myself, though Sum here does better than I do. Hell, you've only been back five days, right Sumner?"

But Sumner was lost now, looking down at Angela and oblivious to the world. Angela was holding back a monster sized yawn, and her eyes were looking a little red.

"Say, Sum, you'd better get her down to her stateroom. We'll be up for a while if you want to join us." He tried to keep the irony out of his voice.

+

Sumner led the way down to the lower deck and held Angela's hand all the way. He opened the door and turned on the light, then stood aside and let her enter the room. He remained in the narrow little corridor as she entered the room, then she turned around and looked at the room in surprise.

It was full of white roses.

Angela felt her heart soaring. She felt an almost mythical presence in the room - a fleeting glimpse of ancient music in the air, and she turned to see Sumner - what? - standing in the corridor?

"Please don't make me ask, Sum," she said. "I think we moved way beyond that tonight."

Sumner walked into the little room, and shut the door behind him.

He flipped off the light switch, casting the room into darkness. He walked over to the large portlight and pulled the curtain back, letting pure moonlight flood into the room. He turned to see her standing there, her blouse now off, and her breasts visible in the silver glow. He walked over to the bed, and he lay down there, never taking his eyes off of her. She reached around behind her waist and unzipped her skirt, letting it fall to the floor. She took up Sumner's jacket and draped it over her shoulders, then laid down beside him on the bed. He wrapped her in his arms and stroked her hair gently, rubbed the skin over her temples with his thumbs in gentle little circles. He kissed her forehead softly several times as he rubbed her head, and he listened to her breathing as it deepened. She was drifting off to sleep so very quickly.

He held her as she fell asleep, and then, as sleep came for him, he said very sweetly, in just the barest whisper of a sigh, "Oh, Angela, I think I love you . . ."

He thought he saw a smile come to her face, laying there in the moonlight, as sleep came for him.

+

Just a few minutes before midnight that Friday night, Nancy Greenbaum rode the elevator up to Diane Westhoven's place, which was, it turned out, the entire 21st floor of a luxury condominium building overlooking the River Charles. She was looking quite the Goth-chic tonight in her short black vinyl skirt and leather bra over a torn black fishnet body-stocking. She had decided to buy some black thigh high boots, the very high spiky heels adding a decidedly slutty look to her ensemble, after reading about several lesbian S & M encounters Diane's alter-ego had fashioned in many of her books.

As the elevator hissed to a stop, she checked the blood-red lipstick in her reflection on the inside of the elevator door, then walked out into the private foyer that was Diane's 'door'. She went over plots and scenes in Westhoven's sordidly predictable little stories, walking through in her mind the steps she had worked out for her seduction. And ultimate betrayal. 'Oh, sweet irony,' she thought.

She rang the bell and waited. And rang the bell again.

She tried the door, and it slid open as she pushed on it without having turned the doorknob. She walked into the entry hall and called out Diane's name; she thought she heard something and proceeded into the living room.

Diane Westhoven was lying face down on the pure white carpet in a flame red dress; two very red pools of blood were spreading from her wrists, and a little blade-like razor sat jack-knifed on it's side a few feet away from her.

Nancy ran to her side, checked for a carotid pulse, and found one - weak but still steady. She ran into the kitchen and dialed 9-1-1, and thankfully got the operator almost immediately. She told the operator what the situation was, and the operator told her to put pressure on the wounds. Help would be there in a few minutes, Nancy heard. She hung up the phone and found some dish towels, and ran back to Diane's side.

Then Nancy saw the pills.

Vicodin and Percocet. Two bottles laying on the table, a few pills still sitting on the tabletop inertly, a two-thirds empty bottle of some rank Mexican Tequila standing there like an insinuation. Nancy roughly turned Diane over onto her back and tied one towel around the right wrist - which wasn't cut too deeply - and then moved to Diane's left wrist. This cut had found it's mark; Diane had cut not across the wrist, but up the wrist, severing a small artery and a tendon, and the blood flow was more aggressive here. Nancy tied off this wound as best she could, and with another towel tied off the upper arm tightly, hoping that she could slow the blood loss. She heard an ambulance on the street far below, and caressed Diane's face, telling her that help was on it's way.

Diane's eyes fluttered a bit, then opened. Her eyes rolled back, and Nancy was horrified as Diane started to vomit. She knew the danger here, having been raised by two physicians, and swung Diane onto her side and let the vomitus flow out onto the carpet. Nancy stuck two fingers into Diane's mouth and swept the muck out, keeping her airway clear. She moved to keep pressure on the wound.

"God, hurry up you guys!" she invoked, wanting the paramedics to get here and help while they still could.

More vomit flowed out of Diane's mouth, not convulsively, but in a slow ooze. She swept the stuff clear, and heard the elevator door opening.

"In here!" she yelled. Two paramedics and three firemen ran into the room and went to work. She moved out of their way, and did the only thing she knew to do. She went back into the kitchen and got on the phone. She called her father.

+

Sumner Welles woke in the middle of the night.

He felt as though he'd had a nightmare, but couldn't remember having had one. He sat up in bed, then remembered where he was.

She was lying there peacefully, her face still awash in moonglow, and as he took in the form of her beauty he felt that tremor in his chest again, felt that light-headed swoon take command of his awareness for a moment. He was still in his shirt and slacks, indeed, his shoes were still on!

Suddenly she turned over, and was instantly awake.

"Are you alright, Sumner?"

He moved around to her side and took her hand in his and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her hand. Softly. Then he looked up into her eyes again, and felt his hold on reality slipping away as her beauty hammered away at his soul.

"Sum, what is it, darling?"

His voice failed him at first, then came back to him in form somewhere between a whisper and a pubescent tremor. "I can't help thinking that you're going to find this foolish, but Angela, I think I love you. I don't know what to say, I, what's happening to me."

"Sumner, do you have to know what's happening? Can't we just accept your feelings?" She held his eyes in hers, loving what she saw. "Can you trust your feelings?" She asked; even in the dim glow she could see his face reflecting the soft light of her love, could make out the form of her feelings plainly on his face. She moved her hand to his face, to his cheek, and she stroked his face softly. "You don't have to worry, Sumner. I'm not going to hurt you, not tonight, not ever. And do you know why?"

His face was lost in her caress, though he was aware of her voice, her question. "Please, Angela, please . . ." he said.

"Because I know, Sumner, I know how I feel. I feel like nothing I've ever experienced before, and I know what it is. I am completely in love with you."

"You are?" 'How - why . . .'

"I think I'm probably as shocked about this as you are, Sum, but, yes, there it is. I've known you less than a day, yet I feel like I've known you forever. And I know I want to be with you, forever."

"Are you . . . sure?" He seemed to be drifting on currents of moonbeams, lost in the chance dancing of pure light.

"Oh, yes."

"Would you . . ."

"Sum, lets take things one step at a time, O.K.?"

"Would you marry me, Angela?"

She paused a moment, looked him directly in the eye. "If that's what you want, Sum, what you really want, then yes, I will. But Sum, we can wait a day or so, at least, before we talk about this again. Please? Can we just talk and listen to each other for a day or so?"

"I know I must seem a childish dolt, Angela, but . . ."

"But maybe you're tired . . . confused . . . and your life has been a little disjointed of late."

"Angela, what did you and Madeleine talk about?"

"Oh, Sumner, don't be upset with her. We talked about you, what else? We talked about what you're plans are after school, about interning in Washington, and about Rebecca. You know, Madeleine loves you very much. If she wasn't your cousin, I'd be very jealous."

Sumner looked off in unfocused lethargy the instant Angela mentioned Rebecca's name; he seemed to drift out of context into that immaterial state that had claimed him after Rebecca's death, and to Angela his pain was palpable. 'He'll be lucky to ever love anyone again,' she thought. Then something struck her like a thunderclap . . .

"When did she pass away, Sumner?"

"Huh, what?"

"When did Rebecca pass away?"

"Why do you . . ."

"Sum, what was the date she passed?"

"The thirtieth, the thirtieth of March. Why do . . ." he started to ask, but stopped when he saw her expression. Even in the latent moonlight he could see a marked change in her state of mind.

"Sum, what time of day, what time did she pass away?"

He didn't understand the question, but after watching Angela's face he knew enough to follow her lead, go with her line of questioning. "Seven past eleven in the morning."

Angela placed her head in Sumner's lap and started crying softly. 'Oh my God.' she said softly, almost to herself, 'they died at almost exactly the same time, the very same day . . ." She tensed and held her knees to her chest and took a deep breath, but the forces colliding in the little stateroom felt apocalyptic - she felt as though the air in her chest was being pushed out by a crushing weight.

"Oh, Sumner . . ." she exhaled his name between little racking streams of awareness. "My father died that afternoon, a little after four that day . . ."

Sumner felt as though some other force had entered the room as her words penetrated his gloom. "Your father?" He did the math. The two had died almost simultaneously.

Angela was drifting along in her own currents of confused awareness, trying to piece together the disconcerting bits of information that had come crashing together during the past several hours. Desperately seeking the flash of insight that would bring some order to the confused landscape, she now found herself in limbo - unable to intuit the barest shred of meaning within the inner sanctum of these events.

"Your father, and Rebecca, passed away at the same time?"

"Sum, this can't be random, you and I, coming together. Not with, not with these deaths, oh, no, oh, no, this can't be. I don't really believe in these things, not like this . . ."

"Not like what, Angela? What are you getting at?"

"That they passed away, and in their passing it was ordained that you and I would meet."

Sumner was silent for a while, but he held Angela to his breast, ran his fingers through her hair with his eyes closed to the world of external reality. He felt himself reaching out to Angela and Rebecca at the same time - in the same plane of being. He was in the room with Angela in a very real sense, but something else was there in this space, as well.

"Tell me about your father?"

Angela drifted back into the awareness of his question. She took her time with it - wanted to come to terms with her memory of life and death so specifically intertwined.

"He was a pilot, for BA, for all of his adult life. He first flew 707s, the 747s, and he retired a Captain about three years ago. Mum left him - oh - almost fifteen years ago. She lives in Auckland now. Any rate, he retired from active flight duties, but remained a staff instructor at BA training pilots for many of the Asian carriers, you know, like Singapore and Japan Airlines. He got very ill a little over a year ago, undiagnosed prostrate cancer that had spread into his spine, and the disease spread painfully and quickly until it had raped him of his joy of living life in such, well, extreme ways."

"So, I know this is a stupid question, but you two were close?"

"Oh good lord yes! Never any two fathers and daughters closer. After Mum took off - I wasn't quite ten yet - well, Mum didn't want to take me to New Zealand. And Dad was always off flying and on lay-overs. So he put in for the Heathrow to North America runs, the shorter runs, so he could have more time at home with me. His sister stayed at the house with me most times - she was the best friend I could have had given the circumstances. But Dad, we became fantastically close - I dare say more friends as time went on - but he was always my Dad. Always the one I went to when I had a problem. And then he was sick, and he had the problem, and he relied on me, and we became even closer still."

"What about his sister, are you still close?"

"She passed away about five years ago, right before I started flying . . . oh, that's right, you probably don't know I was a flight attendant myself for a few years, until Dad took ill. Dad found a new lady friend after I started flying, but she left as soon as he retired, though I suspect he was happy at the way that turned out."

"So, what do you think about this. Coincidence? Do things always happen for a reason?"

"I don't suspect I'll ever be bright enough to figure that out, Sum, but I don't think it's something I feel I can ignore. But, you know, I really don't have a problem saying that things happen for a reason. I know that implies a huge role for divine providence, but I'm still pretty comfortable with the possibility. Sum? What about you?"

"I only know that I loved Rebecca in a very pure way. She was a beautiful woman in her way, and very intelligent, but most of all she was a brave soul. She made her way in a man's world, and ended up doing a better job on the Hill than just about anyone there ever did. She was one in a million. And . . . She knew how hard her passing was going to be for me; which I guess was why she told me she would look after me after she had moved on. But, like, that's all nonsense, right?" 'Or is it?' he thought. "I'm really not religious at all, it makes me uncomfortable. Even now."

"I still talk to Dad, Sum. Sometimes I think he's with me everywhere I go, watching over me. Is that any different than Rebecca telling you she'd look after you?"

"Angela, all of this is - in a way - overshadowing something very basic, very elemental. Whatever I felt for Rebecca, it was important, I could never forget her, and don't want to forget her. But I know I love you, I knew it the very second you looked up at me at Heathrow. Whatever it is - coincidence, destiny, karma - whatever drove these events to the fore of our consciousness, I don't want them to detract from what I feel for you . . .

". . . And I know that we can't ignore these events, these two people having moved on together . . . I think I can accept that their passing might mean something beyond the mere fact of the matter. Maybe these eventsaretied to us. But I doubt we'll ever know the truth of that, not without descending into pure mysticism. But Angela, if you want to search for greater meanings to these people's passing, I'd just like to be with you while you're looking, O.K.?"