“I don’t know if I can.”

“I know you can. I know you will.”

She kissed him again, and then he sat alone in the dark.

He got up, turned on the lights in his office. Though it was nearly midnight, he sat at his workstation.

He began to sketch her, his Lorilee. First her face—so many expressions. Happy, sad, angry, amused, seductive, surprised.

Then her body, full front, profile, turned away. He filled pages of drawing paper before he added wings.

He drew her with them folded, spread, with her flying with them, spinning with them. Fighting with them.

At first he drew her in a long white dress, and immediately knew he’d gone wrong.

White wings, yes, large, beautiful, and somehow ferocious. But her outfit should be bolder, stronger, fiercer than angelic white.

He tried again, sketching her in a snug one-piece, slim boots, considered a halo, rejected it as too clichéd. He brought the long sleeves into a point on the backs of the hands, dipped a V on the front of the boots.

Simple, strong, and when he reached for his colored pencils, he chose blue. Like her eyes.

She’d died saving others, he thought, but before her time. A mistake in the order of things. So … she’d been given a hundred years to live as human, but only if she continued to fight for others, to save them, to work for right, for the innocent.

Lee, she’d be Lee Marley—part of her first name, a combo of their kids’ names—in human form, in her alter ego. An artist.

And when she spread her wings, when she was called to protect, she became True Angel.

He pinned the sketch to his board.

Before his kids waked in the morning, he had the outline of her origin story.

He’d done what she asked, he thought. He’d let a little of the grief go, and made it into something else.

He got the kids dressed, hunted up the sparkly pink sneakers his daughter had to wear to preschool and couldn’t find. Since that ate up time, he made Eggos for breakfast—got some cheers for that.

Bundling them and his night’s work in the car, he did the drop-offs and headed into the office. And for the first time in a year, with real purpose, real excitement.

He snagged Jonah first.

“Jesus, Raylan, you look like hell. Like hell on uppers.”

“All-nighter. I need a meeting with you and Bick.”

“She just went up. Look, I need to round up Crystal for the lettering on—”

“After.” To save time, he dragged Jonah to the freight elevator.

“I know yesterday was rough on you, but did you seriously do a bunch of drugs?”

“Coffee, too much coffee.”

While the elevator started its moaning grind, Raylan texted Bick.

My office, right now!

 

“You hardly ever drink coffee.”

“I did last night. I’ve got something.” He patted his bag. “I need you guys to see it, give me your honest take.”

“Okay, sure. But no more coffee for you. We’ve got a partners’ meeting this afternoon anyway. Why don’t you catch a nap, and we’ll—”

“No. Now.”

He clamped a hand on Jonah’s arm again, pulled him to his office. Opening his bag, he took out sketches, started pinning them up. Ignoring the half-finished work on his desk, he added the outlines, chapter by chapter, of the origin story.

“She’s beautiful.” Jonah spoke quietly. “It’s Lorilee, and she’s beautiful.”

Raylan shook his head. “She’s Lee Marley in human form. She’s True Angel, guardian of the innocent.”

“Where’s the fucking fire?” Bick demanded as she came in. “I’ve got … Oh.” She stopped, studied the sketches. “Those are fantastic, my man.”

“I need you to look these over, I need you to listen to the story line. Then I need you to tell me if it’s a go. Not because you feel sorry for me. Not because you loved her, too. But because it’s right. No, it has to be better than right if we go with this. If you see flaws, I want to know. If it doesn’t work, I need to know. It’s her face. It’s her heart. So I need to know.”

Jonah had already moved to the board, already started scanning the outlines. “You already know it works. You already know it’s more than right. An homage to her, sure, but …”

He broke off as his voice shook. “Take over,” he mumbled to Bick.

“I’m reading.”

“I can tell you where it’s going,” Raylan began. “I’ve already fleshed out the outline in my head.”

Bick just wagged a finger at him. “Quiet. Move her from Brooklyn. Put her in SoHo. Give her a loft in SoHo. She works in the gallery downstairs to afford it.”

“Okay.” Raylan nodded as he thought it through. “Okay, and that keeps her in Manhattan. That’s better.”

“You’ve got her saving this woman in a store robbery. Could it be a kid? Like a ten-year-old boy? Street kid. It’s more poignant.”

“Could be better. I can work with it.”

“I’ll tell you what. Having her code in the ambulance, them trying to bring her back while her spirit goes to what you call the In-Between? That could be magic. How they’ve just called it when she’s sent back, breathes. Yeah, could be magic.”

She turned to him. “How hard is that going to be for you, to write and illustrate all that? Bringing her back?”

“It’s going to be solace.” It already was. “It’s going to be making something positive out of losing her. But only if I can make it matter.”

“It’s going to matter. Jonah?”

He’d pulled himself together, smiled now. “Here’s to True Angel. Long may she fly.”

They launched True Angel on the second anniversary of Lorilee’s death. Raylan pitted her against Grievous, the half-demon who infected human hosts until their ordinary resentments and frustrations turned to crazed violence.

The work kept Raylan busy, involved, and the reader reception to his Angel boosted his spirits, and his company.

But by summer, and the end of another school year, he accepted he needed to make a change. For his kids, for himself, for the quality of his work.

He took a long overdue vacation, a beach week with just the kids.

With even the thought of work left behind, he tossed the rules on bedtime, on breakfast so the world turned on sandcastles and sunscreen slathering, hot-dog grilling and clambakes. He woke to the sound of ocean waves and kids bouncing on his bed.

At night if he hadn’t succumbed to a sun-and-sea-day coma like his kids, he sat on the little deck, watched the stars shower over the dark sea.

When he dreamed of her, she wore a long white dress covered with purple flowers. He remembered the dress, one of the last he’d finally made himself pack up for donation.

She stood at the deck rail with the ocean breeze streaming through her hair and the moonlight bathing her.

“We always loved coming here. We talked about buying a cottage or bungalow one day.” She smiled as she looked over. “We never got around to it.”

“Too many things we never got around to.”

“Oh, we got to the important ones. They’re sleeping inside right now, all curled up and sun-kissed, with Jasper on guard.”