An Angel for Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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      The midnight view out this second-story window was appreciated by his young sons, but Matthew Curtis didn’t get past the glass. All he saw was a window without curtains and his own guilt. If Susie were still alive, she’d have curtains on all the windows. If only Susie were alive, the Bible verses the twins memorized for Sunday school would have some meaning in his life. If only Susie were still alive, everything would be different. If only…Matthew stopped himself. He couldn’t keep living in the past.

      “Is so angels,” Josh was saying as Matthew helped him put his arm into the correct pajama opening. Tucking his five-year-old twin sons into bed was the best part of the day for Matthew. “Miz Hargrove said so. An’ they got a big light all round ’em.” Josh was fascinated with lights.

      Mrs. Hargrove, the twins’ Sunday school teacher, was the closest thing to a mother the two had these days. She was one of the reasons Matthew had put aside his own bitterness and rented the old parsonage next to the church when they’d moved to Dry Creek, Montana, six months ago. He wanted the twins to be able to go to church even if he didn’t. In Matthew’s opinion, a man who wasn’t talking to God during the week had no business pretending to shake His hand on Sunday morning just to keep the neighbors quiet.

      “I’m sure Mrs. Hargrove is thinking of the angel Gabriel,” Matthew said as he smoothed down Josh’s hair. Josh, the restless one, was in Power Rangers pajamas. Joey, the more thoughtful twin, was in Mickey Mouse pajamas even though he didn’t really like them that much. Joey wasn’t enthused about anything, and Matthew worried about him. “And that angel definitely exists.”

      “See,” Josh said to no one in particular. “And my angel can have ten wings if I want and a Power Ranger gun to zap people.”

      “Angels don’t carry guns,” Matthew said as he scooped the twins into bed and tucked the quilt securely around them. The weatherman on the news had predicted a mid-December blizzard. “They bring peace.”

      “Peace,” Josh said. “What’s peace?”

      “Quiet,” Matthew said as he turned down the lamp between the twins’ beds. “Peace and quiet.” And a reminder. “No guns. Angels don’t like guns.”

      Matthew kissed both twins and turned to leave.

      “I want to see my angel,” Joey whispered. The longing in his voice stopped Matthew. “When can I see her?”

      Matthew turned around and sat down on the edge of one of the beds again. “Angels are in heaven. That’s a long way away. Most of the time it’s too far—they can’t come down and see people. They just stay in heaven.”

      “Like Mommy,” Joey said.

      “Something like that, I guess.” Matthew swallowed.

      “Miz Hargrove said that when God took our mommy, He gave us a guardian angel to watch over us,” Josh explained.

      “I’m here to watch over you.” Matthew pulled the covers off his sons and gathered them both to him in a hug. He blinked away the tears in his eyes so his sons would not see them. “You’ve got me—you don’t need an angel.”

      “We got one anyway,” Josh said matter-of-factly, his voice muffled against Matthew’s shoulder. “Miz Hargrove says.”

      The night road was sprinkled with square green exit signs marking rural communities. Glory had pulled off at a rest stop close to Rosebud and slept for a few solitary hours, curled up in the back seat of her Jeep. Finally, around four in the morning, she decided to keep driving. It was quiet at that time of night even when she came into Miles City, where over 8,000 souls lived. Once she left Miles City behind, the only lights Glory saw were her own, reflected in the light snow on the ground. If all of this darkness didn’t cure her stress, nothing would.

      Glory needed this time to think. The shooting at the grocery store, and the long minutes afterward when she waited for the paramedics to arrive, reminded her of the accident that had changed her own life six years ago. Gradually, sitting there in the grocery store, all of the old feelings had surfaced. The terror, the paralyzing grief and the long-lasting guilt. Her dreams had stopped the night of the car accident that took her father’s life. That night Glory stopped being a carefree college graduate and became a tired adult. She’d awakened in the hospital bed knowing her life was forever changed. Her father was dead. Her mother was shattered. And the words inside Glory’s head kept repeating the accusation that it was all her fault. She’d had the wheel. She should have seen the driver coming. It didn’t matter that the other driver was drunk and had run a red light. She, Glory, should have known. Somehow she should have known.

      There was nothing to do. Nothing to bring her father back.

      She tried to put her own pain aside and comfort her mother. Her mother had always seemed like the fragile one in the family. Glory vowed she would take care of her mother. She would do it even if it meant giving up her own dream.

      Glory didn’t hesitate. Her dream of being a real artist wasn’t as important as her mother’s happiness. She took the job as a police sketch artist and packed away her oils. Right out of art school, Glory had wanted to see if she could make it in the art world, but the accident had changed all of that. Dreams didn’t pay the bills. She’d be willing to live on sandwiches while she painted, but she couldn’t ask her mother to do that with her.

      But now, seeing her mother happy again, Glory could start to breathe. She no longer felt so responsible. The captain would take care of her mother. Maybe, Glory thought, she could even dream again. She’d always wanted to paint faces. All she needed to do was give her notice to the police department and take out her easel full-time. She had enough in savings to last awhile. When she put it that way, it sounded so simple.

      The more miles that sped beneath the wheels of Glory’s Jeep, the lighter her heart felt. Maybe God was calling her to paint the faces of His people. Faces of faith. Faces of despair. All of the faces that showed man’s struggle to know God. She needed to rekindle her dream. For years she’d been—

      “Dry…” Glory murmured out loud as she peered into the snow at the small sign along the interstate. Even with the powerful lights of her Jeep she could barely read it. “Dry as in ‘Dry Creek, Montana. Population 276. Five Miles to Food and Gas.”’

      Glory turned her Jeep to the left. A throbbing headache was starting between her eyes, and her thermos of coffee had run out an hour ago. It was five-thirty in the morning and she wasn’t going to count on there being another town along this highway anytime soon. There was bound to be a little café that served the ranchers in the area. She didn’t have much cash left, but her MasterCard had given her a healthy advance back in Spokane and it would no doubt be welcomed here, too. She’d learned that roadside coffee was usually black and strong—just the way she liked it.

      Matthew woke with the dawn and went to check on the twins. Ever since Susie had died, he’d been aware of how easy it was for someone to simply stop living. He couldn’t bear to lose one of his sons. So he stood in his slippers and just looked at them sleeping in their beds. The security light from the outside of the old frame house shone through the half-frosted window and gave a muted glow to the upstairs bedroom. He pulled the blankets back up on Joey. The electric heater he’d put in the twins’ bedroom kept the winter chill away. But the rest of the house was heated with a big woodstove, and he needed to light it so the kitchen would be warm when the twins came down for breakfast.

      There were no windows in the hall and the dawn’s light didn’t come into the stairway that led down СКАЧАТЬ