I don't think he could catch Jacob, that man was always four feet off the ground, walking on clouds while we walked on the hard ground. Never had dusty shoes. Never had shoes on. Who needs them when you don't have to fight your way over broken glass or sharp rocks, never have to step on the backs of those you climbed over to get to where you are now. Never had to be a mortal because he wasn't and he knew long before the rest of us that his heaven would welcome him so much earlier. He was a VIP. Early entry. Separate doors. Credentials? Check.
He caught Cole easily enough. Cole's black wings never lie completely flat. They stick up, bent and charred, singed and ratty, easy enough to grab, folding around his solid frame, tying the outside feathers closed over his blue-black eyes so I don't have to see the frightening expression on his face and then he threw him in the backseat of the car. Company for the road. Someone to talk to when there's no one left to talk to. Someone to be present for the fast lane, an exit in double-time just to get it over with.
Probably thinking about the ones that got away.
I take a breath and turn back. Not going to dwell on right or wrong or feelings or sudden failure or abrupt and uncomfortable homesickness of the space now empty. I go and sit in the room. Bed stripped, desk cleared. Suitcase gone from where it was open on the side table for the better part of a week. Promises given. Times set for contact if I want it.
I don't want it. I was so busy. So tired. So shell-shocked and then it just became habit, muscle-memory and now once again the whiplash is fierce and stinging. I'm distracting. I'm working. I'm trying to sort out a lower, softer, kinder and more bitter version of White Dress this morning but I'm just not into it, the image of the car driving out the driveway and pausing at the top is stuck in my mind and I was hoping the reverse lights would come on but then it was gone and with him, my ghosts.
Maybe they were only here because of him. Maybe he was sent here to take them back, when the time was right. Maybe the joke is less of a lark and more like the truth than I realized. Maybe pigs flew overhead as he drove down the highway. Maybe we set off fireworks in the form of sparks here, suddenly able to focus again for the spectre of history, the fog of war has cleared.
Maybe I'm drunk at eight in the morning because someone else has decided for me that if the day is fuzzy around the edges it's be easier even though I just said we could focus now. By we I mean them, not me, and you agree, so you drink half of it,
(You stupid girl, this took way too long.)
(That's how I do things, you know this by now!)
(Bridgie, who are you talking to?)
call it breakfast, call it a day, call it a draw, call it how you see it. I don't care. It's not up for debate. It's done, and it's as big an experiment as anything else, don't you think?