All About Angels

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Jefferson and Daniel’s first mission took them to upstate New York. They would soon be joined by another pair of young marrieds, a couple whose earthly lives and life together were cut short, just like Jefferson and Daniel’s, except united. These young spouses left behind an infant, a boy who would be raised by a village, a befuddled teen just finding his way into adulthood, and a somewhat troubled aunt also recently gone, who would come for the special Christmas task as well.

“It pleases me so that it will not be only angels,” Jefferson told Daniel, “but also mortals who will assist us. Their contributions, though perhaps unwitting, will be that goodwill toward men I hope does truly exist here still. For now, let us observe.”

“As you wish,” Daniel said, and so they did, leaning against opposite sides of a roughhewn cedar roof post outside a*****e on a snow dusted nearly empty street in a small town the likes of which might appear on a Christmas card.

* * * *

Normally, at two hours each way, New Mill Town would be too far upstate for Westchester County ride share driver Alfonse “Z” Zapata to pick up or drop off passengers. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it had affected both his business and his aunt’s flower shop and plant nursery, Z was desperate for money, though. He was taking on much longer trips for people who didn’t mind paying, those who preferred a long, expensive, but quiet and comfortable car ride to the crowded and noisy train.

“Here is fine.” Justice Becker had hired Z to bring him home from Westchester Medical after an overnight stay for a sleep study.

“The thrift shop?” Z asked.

Justice told him, “Yes.”

Aunt Faye’s Things was already decorated for the holidays, even though a few days still remained before Thanksgiving. Ropes of fresh balsam garland looped around the roofline outside. A dusting of sparkling snow made them even more beautiful. It always snowed early in New Mill Town. Hot in summer, cold in winter, seasons as they should be, Archie Wilkes, who’d recently acquired the thrift shop always said.

“That man is Justice,” Jefferson told Daniel. “Justice loves Archie, who came into a large sum money after his Aunt Faye’s passing. The property his aunt’s house sat upon was sold for a handsome sum, and a portion of her many, many belongings were quite valuable. When 14K Konsignment and Kollectibles went up for sale after one former proprietor left town because the other, his spouse, was taken off to prison for murder…”

“Oh, my!” Daniel was understandably shocked.

“When all of that went down, as the current vernacular goes, Archie Wilkes bought the place.”

“I see.”

Inside the neat but overstocked thrift store, multicolored lights around four large front windows blinked cheerfully, and an animated village with skaters and carolers, children building snowmen, and a horse drawn sleigh looked like the actual quaint New Mill Town burg in miniature. Z, who’d followed Justice inside, looked momentarily festive, as he tapped his foot to a jaunty Christmas tune playing from four speakers, one in each corner of the 900 square foot space. When he peered up at the big screen TV on the back wall, however, his demeanor changed. Daniel and Jefferson, now inside as well, took note. Z covered his mouth with his hand, though his mouth was already covered by a protective mask. In a two-shot with the smiling anchor on the fourth hour of the top-rated network morning show was Nero Storm.

“Tell us about those precious animals looking for a forever home this holiday season, Nero,” the anchor requested.

While Z looked away from Nero’s report, Justice straightened his face covering and focused on the television screen, surrounded by a chain of fake orange and yellow leaves with a tissue paper turkey affixed at the top. Though eager to bring out Christmas, “I don’t want to shortchange Thanksgiving,” Archie had said. Archie was awesome like that.

“I know that guy.” Justice spoke to no one in particular, though Z stood right there, as the two both perused through a large stack of books. “The guy who owns this place now, he’s a sucker for romance,” Justice said, nosily glancing to see what kind of books caught Z’s interests. “He showed me video of these flowers some other guy planted for Nero Storm, flowers that came up in the shape of smiley faces, back a couple years ago, when Storm was a local reporter in Westchester.”

“I remember.” Z was holding a book on mental health, one Justice recalled seeing in the bookshelf at Archie’s home. Faye Wilkes struggled in that area.

“Hard to forget something like that.” Justice smiled in Z’s direction. “You know him?”

“What makes you think that?” Z didn’t smile back, leading Justice to wonder if he was struggling, too.

“Cop’s intuition.” Justice just had a feeling and said so, something in the way Z kept looking up and then away from the TV only when Storm was speaking.

“I used to know him,” Z said.

“Guy’s really on his way up in the world, huh? Big Apple reporter, now. Network level sometimes.” Justice’s third cup of coffee since leaving the hospital had kicked in. “He’ll be working the Rockefeller tree lighting next week, I read somewhere, the pared down, social distancing, 2020 bummer edition of the usually big shebang.”

“Shebang?”

Justice cringed. It was an old man word, perhaps. He still hated being reminded of his age, twice Archie’s at one time. Not anymore, though. Thinking of the math, Archie’s math that had proven not so long ago how the gap was narrowing, that brought a smile. “Storm’s popular and adored by everyone all of a sudden.” Justice put his own issues aside and rambled on. “Not just the hopeless romantic planting flowers for him. Archie, the aforementioned owner who also happens to be my boyfriend…the young man I’m…the man I’m with, he did something for me with flowers every bit as—”

“I’m sorry.” Z took one more look up at the TV, “I gotta go,” then turned for the exit, without revealing the hopeless romantic who’d planted the flowers for Nero Storm was he.

“Thanks for the ride.” Justice reached out for a handshake, another antiquated thing. Antiquated and now forbidden. “Sorry. Old habits.”

“No worries.” Z was already out of reach, anyway.

“Happy Thanks—”

Then, he was gone before Justice could finish the word.

“Z seems very sad,” Daniel noted.

“Yes. We cannot change certain situations, but we can help bring people together who can touch one another in miraculous ways, some offering nothing more than solace and understanding. That is why we and the others were dispatched, if you will, this holiday season. The angels who’ll tend to Archie and Justice are eager to reunite with them. Z’s turn, his visit, will come closer to actual Christmas.”

“I trust you, dear Jefferson. Tell me more of Archie and Justice and their angels.”

“Well, no one had more things than Archie’s Aunt Faye,” Jefferson went on, “so, once she passed, it only seemed right to honor her legacy, even if it was a rather serious complication in her life. Hence, the shop’s name change to Aunt Faye’s Things. Archie still works as a librarian at the elementary school as well. He loves books. The day to day operations are run by Lois Glass, the new police captain’s wife.”

“And Justice and Archie are a couple?” Daniel asked.

“Very much in love, though struggling some, as happens when the past is not settled, and grief cannot be overcome.”

“How did I get so lucky?” Alone in the store, now—or so he thought—Justice read aloud from a random page in the athletes’ autobiography he had picked up. “I have everything anyone could ever wish for. And yet there are days I can’t help but wonder how life would be if it had all turned out differently, if the most important person in my life hadn’t died when I was so young.”

Relatable but random—or so he thought.

“I might have none of the success I’ve found. I wouldn’t have the people around who love me, who reminded me what love is, since I’d kind of forgotten. I likely wouldn’t even have the man who seems to love me more and more every day,” Justice read in the Olympic skater’s words. “There are moments when I think I might give that all up to find out what could have been. If I could live just two days over, just the one day, which would change the other, if I could save one life, even if that would alter everything else, would I do it?” Justice put the book aside to maybe bring home for Archie. Then, he placed it back on the shelf, since just that little bit, someone else’s life story, someone else’s dealings with love and loss at too young an age, hit way too close to home.

“Justice lost someone he loved at a very young age as well,” Jefferson explained. “Though the loss this author speaks of—”

“Forgive my interruption, dearest.”

“I do not mind, Daniel.”

“This author, he too is on our list, I see.”

“Yes. There are angels awaiting a reunion with him as well,” Jefferson said.

“So busy we will be. So much comfort and joy to spread.”

“Peace on Earth, if not all Earth, to some, by connecting its people in small ways, people in a world that has too long been separate, isolated, split. Now, if I might…”

“Yes, my love. Proceed.”

“Though the loss this author speaks of was his father,” Jefferson resumed, as Justice quietly scanned more book titles, “and later his mother to violence, a loss that devastated and set him on an uncertain and emotionally painful path for much of his life, Justice’s loss was different but equally severe. His best friend, who also wished to be Justice’s lover, he was taken when they were teenagers, and this left Justice feeling also dead at times.”

“Like when I lost you, my Jefferson.”

“But then we found one another again.”

“Yes. T’was the happiest day of my afterlife.” Daniel and Jefferson shared an angelic kiss. “Is there hope Justice might find this man again someday?”

“Justice!” Archie appeared from the storeroom in back. “I missed you.”

“Same.” Justice’s facemask was off before the two met in an embrace in the middle of the shop.

“How did you sleep away from me?”

“Fitfully.” He pulled back the one Archie wore for his customers’ protection. “I have to kiss you.”

“Well, Justice loves Archie now,” Jefferson told. “He is trying so hard to give his whole heart to Archie, his heart and his body. Life has been complicated for Justice, though.”

“Did they find anything in your brain?” Archie asked.

“Not a thing. An empty shell, just as everyone’s always suspected.”

“Don’t joke,” Archie said.

“You know doctors, Archie. No one will give me any results for a while.”

“Justice used to be a policeman,” Jefferson explained, “but no more. Uncompliant with past orders when it came to improving his mental health after yet another on the job injury, he found himself temporarily suspended. Just after the start of this year, a bullet fragment in his head shifted, requiring emergency surgery.”

“Frightening.” Daniel studied the pair, still holding hands in the center of the store. “Yet he seems fine.”

“For the most part, yes, save for the occasional headache and what he thinks are vivid dreams, dreams so odd he has consulted with medical professionals to try to stop them.”

“Hmm.”

“Justice has kept much of this from Archie,” Jefferson said, “as Archie also keeps some things secret from him.”

“Ah. The only secrets that are good to keep from one you love are the kind that involve surprise Christmas packages.”

“Indeed. Have you chosen one such for me, my Daniel?”

“You will have to wait and see.”

“What more might I ever desire than you?” Jefferson asked.

“I feel the same, my Jefferson.”

Their declaration was sealed with another kiss.

“Now, back to work. We will catch up with Justice and Archie a wee bit later,” Jefferson said. “For now, let us allow them some private time and rush off to Virginia.”

“Virginia?”

“To visit horses, a Christmas tree farm, and hang off the back of a garbage truck with two men whose happy ending just seems to grow happier with time. Does that not sound like fun?”

“It sounds like great fun,” Daniel said. “Especially in your wonderful company.”

“Then let’s fly.”

“And you do, of course, mean that literally.” Daniel took Jefferson’s hand so they could.