“Yes, that's my mother. That's up north, beyond Taos in Carson National Forest. We took a trip in the springtime, the year she came to live with me. Aunt Diane was here too. And my friend Maya. Some trip. She was a big-time hiker, did you know, my mother? Loved to be in the outdoors, while she could still get around. Said it renewed her sense of wonder. Up in the high country with nothing but evergreen and hills and sky stretching as far as the eye can see. Mom loved it there.” Mary handed a glass to him and they sat across from one another, a beatific grin pasted on her face.
“When we went out into the woods, it seemed like she just cast off the years and the troubles and was a child again. A day when we could be our perfect selves, just kind of vanish into the landscape.” She paused as if reliving the event and then set down the frame. “You know, I missed her for ten years, and we only had ten months together after she came out here. This was taken a couple months before we found out about the cancer. Still, I treasured the days. A blessing.”
“She passed away?”
“That next February, around Valentine's, 1986. But we had the chance to make up for lost time, and I think she forgave me in the end.”
“Of course she forgave you. You were all she thought about.”
The boy yelped in the other room, and she excused herself to investigate. Alone, Sean looked at the photo of Mrs. Quinn and her daughter, his heart filled with regret. Mary came back, shaking her head. “Kids will keep you young. Do you have any yourself?”
With a shrug of his shoulders, he indicated there were none.
“Don't wait too long. You know, I never fully understood what my mother went through until I became a mother myself. Like I was saying before, we had a second chance. Don't get many of those in this life.”
“You're right, and I was hoping against hope that Mrs. Quinn would still be here. Last thing I ever said to her was ‘I hate you.’”
“I'm sure she forgave you, too, whatever you might have said.”
“I was so angry. On account of Norah. After you left, all kinds of stories went around town about her. Some people said you took her back to an orphanage, and others said she jumped off the bridge—”
“People are crazy, make up all kinds of things.”
Jo squalled into the room, her brother behind in close chase and a blur of noise.
“I don't really know what happened to Norah. We were supposed to take her—”
From the opposite direction, the chase resumed, the little girl screaming with joy, her brother growling, and the two dogs, anxious to join the game, racing one after the other through the parlor.
“Those kids. Norah vanished in the middle of the night, left a note saying she was going back home. Of course, my mother was in a state. For a few days, she could not bear the thought of leaving without her, not knowing where she was. Coming out of nowhere and going back the same way. She never—” A curdled scream rang out from the other room. “She wanted us to look for her, but there wasn't time. And besides, what could we tell the authorities? ‘We're looking for a girl whose true name we do not know, and we don't know where she came from or where she might be going, and by the way, I'm Erica Quinn. I'm on your fugitives list.’” Calls for Mommy bounced off the walls. “Give me a minute.”
While peace talks were under way in the imaginary city, Sean drained his glass and set it on the table. Like a magic potion, the drink loosened his tongue, and when she returned, Josie in tow, he spilled out the story, a tale of miracles and visions, recounted the signs she had shown, the angel's ability to be outside of time, the night he found her transported and praying on the cold ground. In his telling, he searched for a logical response to each act, but could not account for the mystery of Norah. Mary took in every word, interrupting only to have him clarify his account. Absent Margaret Quinn, her daughter was the only person he could trust with his confession. “I always wondered if she might have somehow been telling the truth,” he said. “If that's possible. I don't believe in fairy tales, and the only angels around these days are on calendars and greeting cards. But I always wondered what she was and why she came into our lives.”
“Perdido en los sue?os.” Stiff from sitting, Mary stretched like a cat, and her daughter slid down her legs. “Lost in our dreams.” She spoke to her child. “Go get Cole, Jo-Jo, and come out to the studio with Mama. Follow me.”
The wolfhounds got their legs underneath them and, shaking off the dust, led the way. Sean trailed, caught in the sail of her white skirt, the weight of his secrets lifted and blown to the four winds. As she threw open the shutters, columns of light penetrated the darkness section by section until the whole room burst into being. Thrilled by each aspect, he questioned her about the studio, the tools and brushes, the rolled canvas and stretchers. Mary gave him the grand tour while her children played in a corner brightly colored. A current of assurance and contentment changed the tone of her voice as she described the steps in her processes, and he felt the joy her work had brought to her.
“And these are my old angels,” she said before the wall of dusty retablos. “My first try. I don't know how much of my story my mother may have told you.”