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I nod.
“But you. It’s different with you. Your father did not have anyone else. He had no one else to share his love with, at least as a father does with a son. Benji, I might not know your father personally, but I have seen the design. I have seen the pattern, the shapes. Your father loved your mother. He loved his friends and this tiny little town from which you both came. But his love for you made all the rest pale in comparison.”
I hang my head.
He leans forward and puts a hand on my leg. “It’s not meant to make you sad, nor is it meant to be a slight against your father. His love for you is a powerful thing, like the brightest beacon in the dark.” He leans back. “There was a man who died shortly before your time. His name was James Baldwin, and he was a beautiful man. An old soul. A poet. I admired him for what he did and what he tried to do to help change the world. He wrote something once that I will remember for eternity. ‘If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole world would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.’ It’s lovely, isn’t it?”
I am unable to speak. I think Michael knows this. I turn my head and look at the charred outline of the child against the wall. I wonder what this child’s father thinks about who he is.
“We are tested,” Michael says. “Every day we are tested so that we might know faith and love. It might not always seem fair, but it is the way of things. You are going to be given a choice soon, Benji, and it will be more difficult than anything you’ve ever faced. For some reason, my Father has decided to see what you are capable of.”
“I thought you hadn’t spoken to him. To your Father.”
He smiles. “Not directly. But I hear his whispers, and I recognize his design. I’ve known him a very long time, Benji. I know who he is, and I know the choices he makes. I may not always agree with them, but I know my Father. He’s not always as mysterious as he sometimes likes to think he is.”
“What do you want from me?”
He looks startled. “This is not something I am asking of you. This is….” He struggles to find the right words. “This is not an attempt to influence your free will, because that is something you will always have. The right of choice. That can never be taken from you, nor should it be. It helps define who you are and who you’ll become. I merely mean to level the playing field, so everything is out in the open and you can make an objective decision.”
“About what?”
“You’ll soon see. I told you I’ve seen Calliel’s memories.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Would you like to know what I saw?”
Do I? I don’t know. I’ve received answers to questions, more than I ever hoped to find. I know what happened to my father. I know who killed him. I know the name of the betrayer from my family. I know my father died attempting to do the right thing. I know he loved me. I know that on the brink of death, he met with the angel Calliel and pulled from him a promise to watch over me specifically, to protect me when the time came. And whether or not he felt it before he fell, Cal loves me, I know. Completely and fully. I would do anything for him. If this would help Cal, then I need to listen. He needs me as much as I need him.
“Yes,” I say, my voice clear.
He watches me for a moment, as if gauging my sincerity. As much as I want to quake under his gaze, I don’t move until he nods. “I’ve told you that we’re all tested. Has Calliel told you this as well?”
“Yes. He said that all angels are tested to prove their faith. He said that since he’s newer at what he does, your Father might test him more.”
“Our Father is nothing if not consistent. What Calliel told you is true. We are tested regularly. I wish to make sure that you understand that our Father is not questioning our faith in him. He’s an old thing, set in his ways. He knows we have faith, but he wants us to prove it whenever he asks it of us. Often he’ll give us two different paths, and we must make a choice about which path to follow. Think of it like contained free will. While we have the option to choose the path, whatever way we choose already has a set course, a predetermined construction in the design.”
“So no matter what you choose, the outcome of that choice is already decided?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound like much of a choice at all.”
“And it’s not,” Michael says. “Not really. But it’s presented as such. Most of us are much smarter than that and can see it for what it is. While the path beyond the choice may be veiled, the outcome is usually easy to discern. The design is a grand thing to behold, to see the way the paths reverberate out through the whole of it.”
“What was Cal’s test?” I ask, suddenly not wanting to know. “How did he fall?”
Something flashes behind Michael’s dark eyes, but I don’t know what it is. “Calliel is the guardian angel to Roseland, Oregon,” he says. “He is the youngest angel in all of On High. Normally, when new townships are incorporated, they are enfolded into an existing angel’s territory to protect. One day, our Father let us know that a new angel would be created, and that his name would be Calliel. This was cause for celebration, and, I admit, consternation, as no new angels had been created for millennia. He was given Roseland and its people, and while he may have fumbled at times, he was good at what he did.” Michael shakes his head. “To be honest, he reminded me of me when I was his age. Overprotective of his charges. Desperate to please. Incapable of corruption.
“He existed quietly in this part of the world, on this plane of existence. He loved the people he watched over as he was supposed to. And that love was as it was supposed to be: a distant thing, a faraway thing that could never become more than that. But that changed.”
“Who did it change for?”
“You’re not that blind to the way of things, are you?” Michael asks with a smirk. “Me?” I say incredulously. “You’re talking about me?”
He cocks his head at me, an action so like his Strange Men I get goose bumps on my arms. “Of course I am. Who else would it be?”
“I… just… I don’t know.”
“From the moment you were born, Calliel watched you. It was a simple thing, at first. You were one of his charges, and he cared for you. He loved as he should. But then you began to grow, and those feelings changed. You have to understand, in terms of angels, Cal is still considered a teenager, if you will. He doesn’t have the tight rein on his emotions that one in his position should have. There have been a few small instances in the past that have come to this, but they’ve always been corrected on their own as such things are unrequited. We are not meant to love.”
“That’s… so sad,” I finish lamely. “You can love your Father and the people you watch over, but you can’t ever get close to someone?”
