It was instinct, by now; before I’d even thought about it I was moving, grabbing her arm and pushing her (gently, always so gently) behind me as I bristled up at the being of light. “Hey! You need to back off!”
The being’s head tilted to the side. “This is not your concern. This angel failed in its duties.”
The light from behind me (and she was always made of light too, always had been, I don’t know how I didn’t notice until now except somehow I think I did) dimmed. I could feel her shaking, fingers twisting in the folds of the diaphanous robes I’d found myself wearing on arrival. I planted my feet more firmly. “No, she hasn’t! You don’t know what you’re talking about! And even if she had, you still don’t get to talk to her like that. She’s good, she tries so hard-” I could hear my voice becoming shaky, angry tears threatening, and forced myself to take a deep breath. “No, you know what? I don’t care if you understand or not. I love her. I’m not going to let anyone disrespect her, whether it makes sense to you or not.”
Memories flashed through my head. Three years old, finding the toddler who’d wandered too far away from the adults and fallen from a tree, wrapping my pudgy baby arms around her and half-carrying, half-dragging her back to someone who could bandage her wounds. Eleven years old, standing over a crying girl and throwing rocks at the big boys who’d made her cry until they ran away. 18, buying beer late at night on a fake i.d., when the cashier whispered that the man who’d come in behind me always stayed too long, stared too hard, made comments that made her feel gross even after he’d left. I’d stayed with her, glowering at him with my phone out ready to record, and he bought his cigarettes meekly and left.
That was the day she finally told me her name.
There were more times: finding her stranded on the side of the road in the heat of summer and letting her sit in my air-conditioned car until the tow truck came. Finding her again in the dead of winter, hitchhiking, and giving her a ride to her motel. A freak accident, a limb cracking and falling from a tree: I reached out to pull the person in front of me out of the way, and I wasn’t even surprised to discover who I held in my arms.
That was when she first agreed to go on a date with me.
Later there were the homophobes, the bigots and racists who didn’t know what she was, exactly, but sensed that she wasn’t like them and hated her for it. The illness, when I spent hours filling out paperwork and screaming at corporations and government officials alike to get her on my insurance. The blood transfusions, the transplant. The home invasion, years later, when some asshole pointed a gun at my wife and I knew in that moment I could kill a man and never lose sleep over it. In our last years, when I found out they were hurting her, the nurses were hurting her, and everyone said I was too old, too weak and frail by now, to take care of her myself in our home, but I did. I did. To the end of our lives, I did.
And the secret, the secret is this: every time I did, she would look at me with those eyes made of light and she would smile, and everything in the world would be okay. Every time the world was too hard or too overwhelming, I would remember that she was in it and I was in it and we were in it together, that there was someone in this world who needed me and who I needed like I need air and sunlight, and I knew I could get through it.
I would fight God or the devil for her. I would certainly fight an angel.
The angel didn’t have much of a face, but I could still feel it frown. “Your life was destined to be hard, little one. To be full of struggle and pain, doubt and despair. This angel was assigned to guard and protect you. Instead it became yet another burden. Instead of easing your strife, you had to save and protect the very one who was supposed to do that for you.”
Oh, my dear one. I swallowed away the tears. I had to remain fierce. “Then she didn’t fail at all. She helped me find strength I wouldn’t have had otherwise. She kept me from giving up. She eased my strife, every day I was with her. Because of her, my life was worth living.”
The angel was silent, an inhuman silence that stretched into infinity. Finally, it spoke. “I have decided on a suitable punishment for the disgraced angel.” From behind me came a small gasp and I braced myself, ready to intercept, but the angel held up a hand. “For your failure to protect this mortal, you are hereby stripped of your status as a guardian angel. You will not be reassigned to a new mortal. Instead you will stay here and accompany this mortal soul through her afterlife, until such time as she decided you have made amends for your failure and releases you from her service.”
The angel, seemingly having said all there was to stay, turned to glide away. As it turned I swear I could see a glint that might have been a wink.
Finally allowing the tears to fall, I turned and wrapped my arms around my wife.
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