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He studied the feathered headdress atop the bronze figure on the Capitol dome as Helen launched into the story of how she and Jonathan Miller had met. She said she’d been “raised an only child in Lebanon, New Hampshire” and recounted how she received her undergraduate degree in education from Georgetown where she’d met and married Jonathan. “He wasn’t so corrupt when I first met him. He even planned to become a minister before we started dating.”
“Why does he want you dead?”
She applied a fresh coat of lipstick and started whispering. “He doesn’t want me to divorce him. Till death do us part, like he always says.”
“But, has he ever threatened your life?”
“Oh, more than that.” Helen pulled her shirtsleeve back, revealing a cigarette burn on the back of her left shoulder. He believed Helen might have burned herself, but he wondered if his situation would be more dangerous if he failed to take his new friend at her word.
“Why not tell the police?”
She whispered again. “You don’t understand Jonathan’s power.”
Ed remembered seeing the surveillance cameras in the subway terminal and suspected the authorities had a recording of her fall. “Go to the cops. They might be able to find the person who pushed you and pressure him to name your husband in a confession.”
She shrugged and chuckled. “There’s a better way. Trust me. I’m a big girl. Besides, I don’t need the cops to make things worse.”
As the cab reached the hotel, Helen paid the driver and led Ed into the lobby. “How would you like to go on a cruise with me? It’ll get us out of this noisy city and help us to relax, pray and get to know each other.”
A chance to pray sounded odd, but he agreed anyway, wanting a break from the crowds. “I’d like that.”
His imagination triggered images of underworld hit men, rolling poisoned food into his hotel room on a room-service cart. The thrill of adventure almost made him dizzy.
His backpack and guitar case felt heavier as they passed empty hotel bars and restaurants and reached the rows of elevators. As they rode an elevator up to Helen’s room, she stretched her arms around him. For an instant, this hug almost filled the emptiness inside him. Part of him wanted to believe Helen’s insistence that a divine force had brought them together. He needed a good friend right now. This particular friend might be a little crazy, but he hoped to help her.
She kissed him as she opened the door to her suite. Inside, he sat on the sofa while Helen poured each of them a Maker’s Mark bourbon on the rocks. He downed it and asked her to make another double. She poured more in each of their glasses and sat down beside him. “Now it’s your turn to tell me about yourself.”
Glancing at the smiley-face sticker on his guitar case, he struggled to understand his inclination to tell this crazy stranger everything, regardless of whether it soured his chances of getting laid. In any case, how could someone who might have thrown herself in front of a train presume to judge him? He spoke fast, feeling a huge weight lift off his mind as he released each word: “I’m going to hope you’re the answer to the prayer I said minutes before I first saw you.”
“I am. Trust God.” As she spoke, Ed felt the scrape of her fingernails against his arm.
Right, he thought, for one last time I’ll trust the all-knowing, powerful and loving Creator. Let Him pass my test. If he doesn’t prove He cares, He’s evil, and I’ll hate Him, too.
“I’m hopeless.” Ed looked at the dirt caked beneath his fingernails. “I bet you didn’t know you were inviting a homeless person back to your hotel room.”
Helen kissed his hand again. “You enjoy being cruel to yourself. You’re not homeless or hopeless. You’ll live with me.”
Ed decided to tell her about April’s murder, believing only someone sent by heaven would remain with him after hearing this pathetic tale.
“Late one Saturday night, during what was supposed to be my final semester before graduation, I drove my fiancée home from a party in New Orleans. As she slept in the passenger seat, I pulled over to buy some cigarettes in a questionable neighborhood and left the engine and the heater running with the doors unlocked. I walked into an armed robbery, got shot in the head and almost died.”
Helen leaned forward and ran her fingers through his hair.
“I woke up in the hospital to learn some psycho torched my truck and raped April before slitting her throat and dumping her body at the levee.”
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry.” Her voice sounded mocking, but Ed tried to ignore the strange change, guessing he misheard it.
“I’m sorry, too. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It feels worse than a head injury or a nervous breakdown.”
“Things will get better. Be thankful you survived. You’re still here for a reason.”
He bit his lip after Helen’s answer and looked up at the white ceiling. “Please don’t be glib like my brother, Stephen. I refused to die, so God stole April from me and left me insane.”
“That’s not true. God has a better plan for each of us.”
“No. My first plan was fine. Now, my life’s crap.” Ed felt short of breath. He closed his eyes, thinking of beautiful spring days he spent with April, studying on a blanket in the park.
“Tell me about her.”
