Angels Unaware

he was in the Navy, God rest his soul. He waved to me from up on the ridge, Mr. James, I mean, not Mr. Hennessey, who’s been dead for thirty years, and couldn’t possibly wave.”
“Was he wearing the black helmet, ma’am?”
“Now let me just think.” The widow put a bony finger to her lips. “Yes, yes, he was.”
“Then are you sure it was him? It’s pretty far up to the top of that ridge, and with a helmet on…”
“I’m positive,” she snapped, clearly affronted at the notion she might have been mistaken. “I saw him just as clear as I see you standing here. My eyes are as sharp as ever, and it was that James fellow up on that ridge. Just because I’m getting old doesn’t mean I can’t see.”
“All right now, ma’am. There’s no need to get your bowels in an uproar. If you say it was him, it was him. Just seems strange, that’s all.”
“Are you satisfied now?” I demanded.
“For the time being,” the sheriff answered. “But you and your mama better stick around, ’cause there’s something about this whole thing that smells like old fish.”
“And where would I possibly go?” I asked defiantly. “Nobody in Galen ever goes anywhere except to the cemetery.”
And, feeling sad in a way that had nothing to do with the dead man in the orchard, I went back into the house.

3.
Lighting a Little Hour or Two
In the history of mankind, has there ever been a life that went according to plan? At sixteen, I had my entire life, as well as the entire lives of my sisters, all planned out in advance. It seemed the practical thing to do.
The girls were shaping up nicely. Jolene was getting smarter every day and dazzling us all with her book knowledge. And Caroline took your breath away with her overwhelming beauty, though she was somewhat more overwhelmed than the rest of us. But I wasn’t fooled. Despite their sterling qualities, they were as self-sufficient as chicks in a fox den, and I knew that they would never really be able to take care of themselves. Hence, somebody would have to always be there to take care of them, and I was damned if it was going to be me. The only logical persons to assume responsibility for them in later life, since they would never do it themselves, were husbands. Better yet, rich husbands who would have the means to shelter them from the harsher aspects of life, just as Jewel and I had done. I reasoned that there was only one place where a young girl could count on meeting, if not wealthy, then at least up and coming men, and that was college, which everyone knew was jam packed with rising doctors and lawyers. For myself, I didn’t regret that I would never go to college because I knew I would always know more about the things that counted than my teachers. It would have been nice to marry Jewel off, too, but that wasn’t likely, seeing as how she’d been on the market so long already with no takers.
As for me, I planned never to marry. The idea of loving somebody seldom crossed my mind except in the most fleeting way. I loved Jewel and my sisters simply because I’d taken care of them for so long, and when you put a lot of care into something, you grow to love it, even if you didn’t start out that way.
Loving a man never occurred to me at all. I knew you needed one to have a baby, but you needed him for such a short time, just a minute or two probably, that it seemed pointless to sign up for a lifetime of service. Besides, I didn’t much like children. They were too loud and bothersome and tied you down for half your life—the good half—so that you never got to travel anywhere and wound up born and dead in the same lousy little town. Not for me. The only kind of future that I would even consider was one filled with adventure, with no sisters and no Jewel depending on me for everything from lighting ovens to fixing the truck.
Nobody gets to pick where they’re born or who they’re born to, and I accepted my lot in life early on, but as soon as the girls went away to college and Jewel had mastered the basic principles of profitable inn keeping, I was going. I’d point myself in the direction of Kathmandu and little by little, town by town, year by year, I’d get closer to it. Maybe I wouldn’t reach my destination till I was an old, old woman, but damn it to hell if I was about to let anybody hang on my coattails when time came to start the journey, not even the people I loved. Loving someone, I’d determined, would only slow me down and delay my travels to exotic places. And many years would pass before I came to know that the place where you love a man deeply and irrevocably is the most exotic place to be found.
It’s strange how we never recognize the future, how the most momentous things can happen, and for a while we go along thinking nothing’s changed at all. That’s how it was with him.
I was out back when I heard somebody coming up the walk. I’d been busy all morning butchering a pig, a job I hated, but since I was fond of eating regular, I’d reconciled myself to the slaughter. I reminded myself that we prey upon and are preyed upon. That’s just how it is. My hands were all bloody when I came around front, wiping them on my apron. An old man waited there, with a young boy hovering behind. I waited for the old fellow to say something, but he just stood dumbfounded, staring at my bloody apron. Finally, he lifted his eyes and in broken English, he muttered something and