If Angels Fall

FIFTY-EIGHT

Sitting on Grandma’s front porch steps, Zach Reed could hear his mom on the phone to hisgrandmother. She was pissed, big time.

“I refuse to accept him treating us like this-Mom-no.”Grandma was working at the university. “I am not taking any more of this!”

Hearing his mom talk this way hurt. Everything wasbreaking, spoiling his dream of living together again in their home.

“Mom, I’ve given him a lifetime of chances-No! He wassupposed to pick us up this morning at the airport. He wasn’t there. No sign ofhim. Not a word. I know it’s a little thing but it always starts with thelittle things!”

His mother listened, then said: “I checked with theairline message center, our hotel in Chicago, and his place. Absolutely no wordfrom him. This is how he treats us! This is how committed he is!”

Zach hated this. Just chill, Mom, he pleaded silentlyfrom the steps, driving his chin into his forearm which rested on his knees. Hestared at his sneakers, new Vans, Tempers. He had tried to calm Mom down at theairport, where she sat steaming for an hour. Maybe Dad was on a story becauseof the missing kids?

“I don’t care, Zach,” she hissed as they waited on anairport bench. “That’s not the point. The point is he is supposed to be here! Apromise is a promise! That was how you measured a person’s worth, by the numberof promises they broke,” she said, blowing her nose into a tissue.

A few hours earlier on the plane, everything wasgreat. Mom was happy, telling him the surprise: Dad was picking them up at theairport. Maybe they would have lunch, talk about being together again, maybedrive by their house. Man, it was heaven. Soon he would be back with Jeff andGordie, catch up on things.

But it all fell apart when they came down at SanFrancisco International. No trace of Dad. Mom had him paged. Three times.

Now, sitting on Grandma’s porch, with everythingbreaking into a million pieces, he didn’t know what to do. He fished for hisfather’s business card from his rear pocket. It read: TOM REED, STAFF WRITER,THE SAN FRANCISCO STAR, and bore an address, fax number, and his directextension. It was a cherished possession. One Zach carried everywhere. Hestudied the blue lettering, stroking the embossed characters, as if the cardwere a talisman that could summon his dad.

Zach hated this separation cooling off crap. He hopedhis friends were wrong about your folks never getting back together once theysplit. Please be wrong. He looked hopefully up and down the street. Traffic waslight. All he saw was some doof by a white van a few doors down. Was he staringat him? Zach wasn’t sure. The guy was checking the air pressure on the tires.

The rumbling of a broken muffler cued him to hisfather’s old green monster stopping in front of the house.

“Mom! It’s Dad!”

Zach catapulted to the driver’s door, and gripped thehandle.

“Hey, son!”

“Dad, Chicago was a blast! We went up in the Sears Towerand I got to go in the cockpit on the flight home! Are we gonna drive by ourhouse? Are we gonna have lunch? And look, Mom got me new Vans, Tempers!” Zachopened the door for his dad.

“Hold on there, sport.” Reed climbed out of the car.

Zach threw his arms around his father, his smilemelting when he smelled a familiar evil odor. Zach stepped back, noticing hisdad’s reddened eyes, his whiskers, and the lines carved into his face.

“Guess you been working pretty hard on the bigkidnapper story, that’s why you missed us at the airport, huh?”

Reed looked into his son’s eyes for a long moment.

“Something like that, Zach.”

“Well, Mom’s pretty pissed at you.”

“She has every right to be.”

Reed saw Ann’s silhouette in the doorway, put his handon his son’s shoulder. As they went inside, Zach saw the white van drive off.

In the house, Zach did as his mother told him and wentupstairs to his room and closed the door. Loud enough for his parents to hear.Then he quietly opened it, lay on the floor and listened.

“Where the hell were you, Tom?”

“Ann, I don’t blame you for-“

“You promised us you would be there.”

“I know, but something came up on the kidnappings, I-“

How many times had he hurt her by starting with “butsomething came up.” Her face reddened under her tousled hair, her brown eyesnarrowed. She had removed her shoes, her silk blouse had come slightly untuckedfrom her skirt. Jesus, she was going to explode on him.

“You look like shit and you reek,” she said.

“It’s complicated. I can expla-“

“Were you with Molly Wilson, a last fling?”

“What? I don’t believe this!”

“You’ve been drinking again.”

“I never told you I quit. I never lied.”

“That’s right. You were always honest about yourpriorities.” Her eyes burned with contempt. She thrust her face into her hands,collapsing on the sofa. “Tom, I can’t take this anymore. I won’t take thisanymore.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “You told me you had changed, but youlied. Nothing’s changed.”

That wasn’t true. He wanted to tell her, but all hecould manage was: “Ann, I love you and Zach with all my heart.”

“Stop it!” She spat, pounding her fists on her knees.“Your words are cheap. They’re for sale any day of the week to anyone withfifty cents! But one thing you can’t do with them is hold a family together!”

Ann stood, grabbing a copy of the morning’s Starfrom the coffee table, the one with Virgil Shook’s shooting splashed on thefront. “It can’t be done see!” She ripped up the paper tearing Shook on thestretcher in half, tossing the pieces aside. “You can’t hold anything togetherwith paper.”

Ann sat again, her face in her hands.

He was stunned.

She had reduced him to nothing.

A zero.

Everything he had struggled to be, the thing by whichhe defined himself was demolished. His eyes went around the room, noticingtheir unpacked bags as he ingested the truth. Ann despised him not so much forhis trespasses, but truly for what he was. He searched in vain for an answer.He wanted to tell her he had been fired, tell her everything. How he washaunted by the accusing eyes of a dead man’s little girl. How he was fallingand needed to hang on to something. Someone. But he didn’t know what to say,how to begin.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. I understand.”

He turned and left.

Watching from his bedroom window, Zach saw his father’scar disappear down the street, the Comet’s grumbling muffler underscoring thatpromises had been broken. Tears rolled down Zach’s face.