“I couldn’t.”
I looked at the clock; it was time.
Car doors opened and slammed shut around us. The visitor doors were unlocked.
“You’re up,” Kaidan said.
It took awhile to get through security. They had to look for the fax Patti had sent giving me permission to visit as a minor. She’d jumped through major hoops to make it happen. The guard who took my name became interested when I told him I was Jonathan LaGray’s daughter.
“First visitor Johnny LaGray’s had in seventeen years,” he stated.
Not likely, I thought, envisioning a steady stream of visiting demon spirits scoffing at the prison’s security measures.
The guard gave me a rundown of the rules. Hugging and holding hands were fine in moderation, but the guards would be watching to make sure I didn’t pass anything to my father. He didn’t have to worry—hugs and handshakes were not on my agenda.
He explained that my father would be notified that he had a visitor, but he had the right to refuse to see me.
The other visitors and I were led into a room the size of a small cafeteria and told to sit and wait in our assigned places. Mismatched tables lined the room, surrounded by guards. I sat down in a chair as wobbly as my stomach. The room filled with murmurs of adult conversation and the high-pitched voices of children. The general atmosphere was bleak, with gray auras most prevalent.
Sounds of heavy metal doors opening and chains clanging made me panic. I worried I might get sick. Prisoners entered single file, hands cuffed in front of them, chained feet dragging, wearing orange jumpsuits. People craned their necks to see.
I recognized him at once, head shaved smooth. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. His short brown goatee from the day of my birth had grown into a long, pointed beard with a bit of gray. His badge shone a deep, dark yellow. And then I saw his eyes and remembered them from the day of my birth—small and light brown, curved downward at the corners, the same as mine.
Our matching eyes met and stayed locked as a guard marched him toward me. I saw concern and hope in his eyes, not the evil I’d feared. As he got closer, every shred of anger I’d been harboring fell from me.
He stood in front of me now, on the other side of the table, and I found myself standing, too. Both our eyes filled with moisture. Maybe it was him I needed to thank for the curse of overactive tear ducts.
The guard unlocked my father’s handcuffs, keeping his ankles shackled, and we reached out for each other across the table. His hands were warm and rough. Mine were cold from nerves, but they would thaw now.
“Have a seat, LaGray,” the guard said, and we sat, never looking away from each other. The guard left us.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said. His voice was as scratchy and gruff as I recalled. “I wrote so many letters over the years,” he continued, “but it wasn’t safe to send them to you. And... I wanted you to have a chance at a normal life.”
“There was never any chance of that,” I said as gently as I could.
He nodded and sniffed. He looked like a hard man—a scary man.
“You’re probably right about that. I hoped you would learn from that nun when the time was right.”
“Sister Ruth?” I asked. “I haven’t met her yet. She talked to my adoptive mother.”
“Have they treated you well, the people who raised you?”
I was shocked by his openness with me, his obvious sensitivity.
“Yes. Just one woman. Patti. And she’s as close to an angel as humans can be. I’ve never been without love.”
He relaxed, lowering his shoulders, but his eyes still brimmed with moisture.
“That’s good. That’s what I hoped for. What did Sister Ruth tell her?”
“She said you and my mother were in love.”
He half smiled, and for a moment his face was dreamy, a far-off look passing over it.
“I’ve got a lot to tell you, and that’s a good place to start,” he said. “Back when I was an angel in heaven. If you want to hear it.”
“I want to hear everything.”
We still held hands, and there was no chance either of us was letting go. His rough thumbs rubbed the soft peaks of my knuckles. We sat with our chests leaning on the table, heads inclined toward each other, keeping our conversation as hushed as possible. I listened as he began.
“Before there was earth, there were angels in heaven, billions of us. We were content. Well, most of us. Angels are genderless. So our relationships in heaven weren’t clouded by the physical. It was a community of friends, which may not sound compelling to a human, but it was good. It was right.”
His face softened, reverently, as he remembered. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there having a civil conversation with my father. I watched him, marveling, as he continued his story.
“Even though we angels could feel the full range of emotions, there was never any need to feel dark for more than a moment or two, and then we let it go and moved on. Everyone had a role, and we were all used to the best of our abilities. We felt secure and important.
“When I met Mariantha, our personalities clicked right off.” He paused, bashful at the mention of this angel, Mariantha. His tender expression was so contradictory to his hardened outer appearance.
“Mariantha is your mother, Anna,” he explained.
My heart leaped. I nodded and bit my lip, savoring each detail.
“I was drawn to her. I say ‘her,’ but remember—we were genderless in the heavenly sphere. Our feelings were strictly emotional. I made excuses to see her time and time again. Our souls complemented each other to the point where, eventually, we couldn’t stand to be apart. During that time there was an angel in the highest hierarchy who had the kind of charisma that quickly made him like a celebrity in the heavens.”