When the baby was born the mother knew he was an angel. He had black hair that shimmered like deep water. He had eyes within his eyes. They put him on her chest and he was covered in viscera. Which was hers, the viscera. She bestowed it upon him. He put his fist in his tiny mouth, he ate of her body, her blood. She wondered afterward if that’s what gave him his powers, or if she gave them to him earlier, while he was still inside her. He never said thank you, but she never minded. It was the honor of her lifetime just to have made him. To anyone who’d listen, she said that.

That morning I called Father Marco to remind him about Three Kings Day, but on the phone I called it Día de los Santos Reyes, out of respect. Father Marco said it was still a month away. “Si,” I said, “pero I wanted to remind you to put it in the newsletter. You said I should remind you.”

“You must learn to live more in the moment,” he said. It was his confession voice, the same one he used to assign Holy Marys and Acts of Contrition from behind his metal screen. “The future is nice to think about. But the now is all you ever have.”

I have thought about that a lot. I thought about it on the table that day, when the pain was so bad I thought God had forsaken me. I thought it would pierce through my hands and my feet, so for the rest of my life I would be pinned there, bleeding. But I never foresaw what would really happen, the rumbling like thunder and the heat like a burning bush and an unearthly power coming forth.

It was my baby. The mother was me. I knew he was an angel. Or she. With the blinding light between her legs it was hard to tell.

♢

Father Marco came to see the angel the next day, which was the day she exercised her first powers. She was nursing, her tiny face pressed up against my breast and getting squished by it, swallowed by it. It took me several minutes to realize it was growing. I had never had big breasts, but it was the size of a grapefruit by then, a bowling ball. I worried it would smother her. I pushed it up off her face and it was like a bag of wet sand, but under there she was content. She was sure.

It was disturbing, but I trusted her. She stopped nursing and it shrank back down to its normal size. I explained it to Kyle and he said “that’s great,” and then went back out to talk on his cell phone in the hallway. I explained it to Father Marco and he said, “It is amazing how a woman can adapt to motherhood.”

“It wasn’t an adaptation,” I said. I was nursing her in the hospital bed, under the sheet. I was half hoping she would do it again so Father Marco could see, but she didn’t, out of respect. “It was a miracle. It was her heart’s truest desire and she manifested it.”

Father Marco did his most dazzling smile at me, with just one corner of his mouth. To the untrained eye it would look like mocking, but I knew him better than that.

“It’s like I told you on the phone,” I said. “She’s an angel.”

“On the phone you told me it was a boy.”

“I think angels can be either one.”

“Angels come from heaven,” said Father Marco. “Not from pregnant women.” There was a flicker in his eye. For a second I thought he was flirting openly, but we never did that.

“Maybe it was immaculate,” I said.

“What?”

“Conception,” I said. “Like la Virgen Maria. Like Jesus Christ.”

“Ah,” Father Marco said. He nodded slowly. “But Jesus is not an angel. And you are not a virgin.”

He raised one eyebrow at me. It was long and pointed on top. I glanced at him, and then out to the hallway at Kyle, and wondered how either of them could presume to know anything about the parentage of my child.

“Maybe it’s because I got the baby out of the cake,” I said. “It was like an omen. I said that.”

“You should not talk about omens,” said Father Marco. He made the sign of the cross at me, which made me shiver even though I was annoyed. I looked down at the angel, the fuzz on her head that was all stuck up with sweat. It was light brown by then. I wondered if she was going to be a shapeshifter too.

“You weren’t there,” I said. “When she blew up my breast.”

Father Marco made his confession face, the one from behind the screen. I had never seen him there, obviously, but I knew it when I saw it.

“If you were there you would know what I’m talking about,” I said. “You taught me about all of it. Angels. And miracles. I never would have known what she was if not for you.”

Father Marco’s eyes moved down and up again, to the beautiful thing I created, and then me.

“She’ll do another one,” I said, “If you stay long enough.”

I slid my free hand out toward him. It was a subtle move, but he saw it. He always did.

“Ay,” he said. He put his hand on top of mine. It was bigger than Kyle’s. “There will be plenty of time for miracles.”

I smiled at Father Marco. He smiled back at me. The angel’s tongue writhed around my nipple like a mouse, like she was gestating some whole new animal in the hot milk of her mouth, which maybe she was, I wouldn’t put it past her. I turned my hand over to hold Father Marco’s, but he had gotten up and left.

♢

The newsletter came out a week after we got home from the hospital, which was later than I would have liked, but still enough time for everyone to save the date. I had the plastic baby already, of course. I had streamers in the basement. I asked Kyle to hang them up since I was holding the angel and I couldn’t risk falling off the stepladder.

“It’s not for a month,” he said.

“Three weeks.” I pointed at the calendar.

“Same thing,”

“Don’t confuse him,” I said. I put my face down by the angel’s face. “A month is four weeks, not three.” The angel blinked his eyes, and the eyes inside them, to show he understood.

“He doesn’t know English,” said Kyle.

“He knows all languages,” I said. “Y Español también, verdad?”

“Stop that,”

“I want to put them up early,” I said. “I’ve always said that. So we can have time to live in them and readjust if we need to.”

“I’m going to work,” said Kyle. I glanced at the little clock on the new radio, but I never bothered setting the radio clocks, so it said it was the middle of the night.

“If you won’t do it then I’ll have to do it myself,” I said. “And if I fall it’ll be your fault.”

“Why would that be my fault.”

“And the baby could get hurt.” I patted the angel’s back. He gave Kyle a look that was both reproachful and a little condescending. Kyle turned to pour the coffee in his travel cup, which was just an excuse to look away from us.

“If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it,” he said. “I’ll do it some other time.” 

“You want the baby to get hurt?” I said. “Is that it?”

“I’m not doing this with you.”

“It wouldn’t take that long,” I said. Kyle slammed his cup back down on the counter and coffee came out of the mouth hole. 

“He wants you to get hurt,” I said to the angel. “He wants us both to fall to our deaths.”

Kyle looked at me again, but not at the angel.

“See?” I murmured. “He can’t even look at you.”

Kyle’s face twitched with anger, like it always did. He eyed the new radio. Then he opened up a drawer. He took out a big chef’s knife and gripped it in his hand and it glinted in the angel’s light.

He stabbed it hard into the top of the radio. The digital clock went out.

“Nice,” I said sarcastically. But I almost meant it. Normally he would just smash the radio with his fist, or throw it on the floor. This at least had some flair.

I would have told him so, that I kind of liked it. But he walked away before I could say a word.

♢

The angel was easy to take care of. She weighed less than a normal baby because she chose to float a little bit. She grew teeth immediately because she wanted them. She hardly ever cried, and when she did it was to tell me something in a language I did not yet speak. I strapped her to my chest so she could see everything I did, and when she liked something it would come flying into her hand, so I was careful with the knives. I covered her eyes while I pulled the one out of the radio and put it back in the drawer. When I uncovered them she looked up at me concerned.

“It’s okay,” I said to her. “The radio has a warrantee. We’ll just take it back to the store. I do it all the time.”

She was great in public, just like she was at home. At the store Amanda smiled and poked her fingers at her, and she stared quiet over the customer service desk.

“Who is this?” Amanda squeaked.

“My baby,”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. She’s an angel.”

“Angel! Hi Angel!”

The angel didn’t smile at her. She hardly ever smiled. It was one of the things I loved about her, she understood the seriousness of all things.

I slid the radio across the counter, and then Amanda stopped smiling too.

“What happened to this one?” she said, running her finger over the knife wound.

“You’re not allowed to ask me that,” I said. “Legally. It’s a no-questions-asked warrantee.”

The angel and I gave Amanda threatening looks, so she peered over the counter into my cart instead.

“That’s a lot of plates,” she said. “And cups,”

“Flutes,” I said. “They’re called champagne flutes.”

“Are you having a party?”

“You’re not allowed to ask me that either,” I said. “Legally.”

Amanda lifted up her eyebrow at me. It looked like Father Marco.

“Okay,” I relented. I smiled at her conspiritorially. “I am having a party. For Three Kings Day. Last year I finally got the plastic baby in the cake, which means I have to bake the cake and host the party this year. But it’s just a small get-together, just for my church. So unfortunately I can’t invite you. And you can’t go spreading it around.”

Amanda smiled, but it had a pained look about it. Probably she was upset about not being invited.

“That’s a lot of flutes for a small get-together,” she said.

I shrugged my shoulder.

“They’re on sale. And I can always use the leftover ones for the party next year.”

“But you wouldn’t be hosting that one,” said Amanda. The angel and I narrowed our eyes at her.

“Why would you say that,” I said.

“You just said– whoever gets the baby in the cake hosts the next one. So unless you got the baby again…”

Amanda trailed off with a stupid look on her face, a goofy smile that reminded me of other babies, not mine.

“But I guess you’ve got plenty of babies in your life now, huh?” She leaned across the counter, toward the angel’s face. “Isn’t that right?”

We didn’t answer her. We stood poised and immaculate. There was a tone over the store intercom that sounded like heavenly song. After a minute Amanda unscrunched her face and ducked down under the counter where she kept my new radios. She slid one across the counter to me and I put it in the cart.

♢

I made a practice cake a week before the party. The angel helped me. I poured the ingredients with no measuring cups and he made sure they were the right amounts. I held the eggs over the bowl and he cracked them with his omnipotent gaze.

“I marked the baby with a toothpick,” I said to Kyle as I set the cake on the counter. It came out perfectly, thanks to the angel, a big ring shape with almond slices and candied cherries baked into the top. I thought about the many-eyed wheel Ezekiel saw in the air. I wondered if the cake reminded the angel of home. “So at the party, I’ll just take the piece with the toothpick.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose?” said Kyle. “If you already know where the baby is.”

“It’s to make sure we can have the party again next year,” I said. “Surely I don’t have to explain this to you.”

Kyle gave me the mal de ojo and then looked down to flip through the mail. He did that all the time to avoid me. I never saw him open any of our mail.

“So at the party,” I said a little louder. “When you’re helping me serve, make sure you don’t give that piece away.”

“Okay,” Kyle said to the mail.

“Okay,” I said. I opened the drawer and took out the big knife and cut the cake into pieces. The angel watched it with all of his many eyes.

“You could at least pretend to care,” I said. I meant to brandish the knife at Kyle, but for some reason all I could do was look down at it. “I’ve been planning this forever. I’ve never gotten to host anything. It’s always Lourdes. Or Natalie. Or Alma Salgado.”

Kyle moved an envelope from the front to the back.

“Were the Salgados the ones with the pool?” he said.

“Yeah,”

“Well, that’s why they got to host.”

“That is not why.”

Kyle looked up at me then, all the way. It wasn’t the look I expected. For a second I thought he might be the angel’s real father, that he might have enough eyes to see the truth of me.

“It looks good,” he said. “The cake.”

“Yeah it does,” I said. “Doesn’t it.”

“And there’s really a baby in there?” Kyle looked at the piece with the toothpick. I nodded my head. Then his eyes wandered up to the real baby, the one on my chest. The glow from him lit up my face. I thought maybe Kyle could tell.

“I guess you could also take the baby piece,” I said. “At the party. If you wanted. You could host here next year. I would help you.”

Kyle actually smiled. He took a step toward me. It was so unusual I smiled about it too.

“It’s really all coming together,” I said. “I’ve got the pork coming on Thursday, and I’ll get the rest of the food on Friday. And I got a nice nativity scene to put up by the fireplace. And you can do the streamers.”

I did a pointed stare at Kyle, but he was still smiling.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll do them tonight. I’m sure it will be great.”

“And I want to clean the whole house right before,” I said, looking around the room. “Even the upstairs. It’ll be the first time Father Marco’s ever seen it. I don’t want him to think we’re living in a manger.”

I thought maybe Kyle would laugh at that. He seemed like he was in a good mood. But he never laughed at any of my jokes.

“Father Marco,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s coming. He always comes. He said he would come.”

“That’s what this is all about?” said Kyle. “Father Marco?”

He wasn’t smiling anymore. I didn’t remember what it looked like. All the other Kyles I had seen in that face were gone. There was just this one, just those two blank eyes.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” I said.

“What if he didn’t come?” said Kyle. He put his hands down on the counter. “Would you still throw the party if he didn’t come?”

“Of course I would,” I said to him. “But he is coming. So why would you even say that.”

I shook my head reprovingly. Kyle looked around at the open drawer, but then he realized the big knife was already in my hand.

So he picked up the new radio like he usually did, right in the palm of his hand. He smashed it down on the countertop, over and over, until the speaker covers fell out of their holes and the little clock went dark. He left it there, next to the mail, and walked out of the room.

“It’s okay,” I said to the angel. He held very still like always, watching while I picked up a little piece of black plastic that had skidded across the counter. “It has the warrantee.”

The angel looked at me solemnly. I gave a little sigh.

“I know I shouldn’t enable him,” I said. “But it’s easier this way. You should know that. You know everything.”

I put the knife down and stepped forward to gather up the rest of the radio, but all the sudden the piece of plastic flew out of my hand. It snapped back onto the radio. So did the speaker covers. All the cracks on it stuck back together. It flashed its red light. The little clock came back on and it was twelve o’clock midnight.

“Wow,” I whispered. I reached out my hand and ran it over the buttons, the flat face of the clock. I saw the angel in there, his reflection in the glass, and the look in his eyes was not judgment, it was like he understood. I made the sign of the cross on both of us. I kissed my fingers and then the top of his red hair.  

♢

Kyle did put up the streamers eventually, the night before the party. It was the same night I started cooking the pork. I let the angel shred it off the bone with her sharp fingernails and she lit the gas stove under it with her breath. Later she pretended to go to sleep, because she knew that was what babies were supposed to do, and Kyle and I had sex on top of our made bed. We laid together afterward. He ran his fingers down my arm. Then the angel cried in her holy tongues and I got up and left.

*

There was a whole flock of sheep in the nativity scene. There was a male and a female donkey. The firelight moved on them like a watchful eye, and on the baby Jesus in his tiny bed of straw. In the glow he almost looked like my baby, but even he wasn’t an angel. Father Marco said that himself.

I held the angel in my arms because the baby carrier was unflattering. This way we looked much more like a madonna and her child. She glared at Natalie and Lourdes when I let them in the door. She looked Alma Salgado up and down and squinted at her rings. She stared unblinking at the other cooing women and their husbands. But when Martina came in she smiled, or something like that.

“It is weird that he has teeth.”

Martina was sitting on the couch by then, and I was sitting halfway on the arm because a good hostess never truly sits. But most people had their food already, and their paper crafts, and Kyle was on champagne duty in the kitchen, so I held still and let her see the angel.

“It is weird. These two had no teeth until they were…” she turned to look at Ricky and Baby Martina, but apparently she couldn’t remember when they got their teeth. They were on the floor by the nativity scene, galloping the sheep and donkeys around even though I had told them not to.

“That makes sense,” I said. “They’re only human.”

Martina squinted her eyes at me, but we both knew I was right.

“Does he eat food?” she said. I nodded.

“He eats crackers and fruits, and sometimes pieces of meat. And he levitates objects, and makes little balls of light, and changes his hair color. Lately I’ve been thinking he might have x-ray vision.”

Martina pursed her shiny lips. The angel stared into her heart.

“When are you going to baptize him?” she said after a minute.

“As soon as we can,” I said. “I left it up to Father Marco to pick the day.”

“What about Kyle?” said Martina.

“What about him,” I said.

“Shouldn’t maybe you and Kyle pick the day?”

“Well, Father Marco is the one who needs to be there.”

Martina didn’t answer me. She raised her eyebrow up high. Clearly she was thinking about Father Marco too.

“Is he coming?” she said after a minute.

“Of course he is,” I said. Martina looked around behind her, out the diamond-shaped window in the door, but there was no one out there. I had been checking. “It’s still early.”

Martina looked at the time on her phone.

“Maybe he got snowed in,”

“It’s not snowing,” I said.

“Maybe he had something come up.”

“No he didn’t. If he wasn’t coming he would have called me. He and I are very close.”

“Did you ask Kyle?” said Martina. “Maybe he called Kyle.”

I stood up from the couch abruptly. It was easy because I was never actually sitting down.

“He did not call Kyle,” I said. “This is my party.” The angel and I turned away.

The streamers were purple and green and gold. The light was exclusively candle. Walking through it I almost felt like I was dreaming. Natalie’s husband leaned up against my wall in a ridiculous white suit. Alma lifted up her champagne flute when I passed and all her jeweled rings flickered. She smiled at me, but I knew better, so I didn’t do it back. I checked behind her. I checked behind Natalie’s husband, and Eva and Christina, and the liquor table, and the dice table, and the Alatorres’ teenage sons. I peered into the kitchen without letting Kyle see me. I thought that maybe Father Marco would just be there, that he had come in somehow without my noticing. I thought it so hard it might actually have been praying. Eventually I made my way to the stairs.

There was nobody on the second floor, but it was clean anyway. At noon that day I had vacuumed the carpets, wiped down the baseboards, straightened the picture frames. I had put the decorative pillows back in the master bedroom. But mostly I focused on the nursery.

I had pulled the angel’s bedsheet tight. I had arranged the unused baby toys more neatly on their shelves. I had tied up the cloth curtains and dusted the rocking chair and straightened the wood cross on the wall. It was the first thing someone would see walking in there. I had tested it out, I had imagined it a lot, how it would look to Father Marco when I led him through the door.

The angel would have shaken the walls, maybe, or levitated the diaper genie. She would have made her little balls of light, or inflated my breasts. Then I would have turned away to lay her in her crib. I would have hummed Resucitó until she pretended to sleep. She would have glowed, laying there, and Father Marco would have seen it. He would have looked up in my eyes, and the eyes within my eyes, and known that she was mine.

But when I went into the nursery none of that happened. I shifted the angel into one arm and took out my cell phone. He answered on the third ring. He always answered me.

“Father Marco,”

“Hi,” he said. “What is it?”

For a second I couldn’t say anything, but the angel smacked my face to knock the sense back into me.

“How are you?” I said.

“I am good,”

“Good. Muy bien. Estoy feliz de hear that.”

I could hear Father Marco breathing, like from behind the confession screen.

“I was just calling to check your ETA,” I said.

“My ETA?” he asked.

“Your estimated time of arrival. To the party. It means what time do you think you’ll get here?”

“To the party?”

“Yes,” I said. “For Día de los Santos Reyes. It’s at my house. Right now.”

There was a silence where I could hear faint music from downstairs. I was squeezing the angel’s thigh hard in my hand, but it didn’t hurt her, her muscle was hard as a rock.

“Did you forget the date?” I said. “Because it’s been in the newsletter for the last three weeks. You put it there. But that’s okay, everyone will still be here for a while. You have plenty of time to make your appearance.”

“Ah,” said Father Marco in a different voice, the one he used in sermons to explain how all of us were sinners, even him. “I am not coming to the party. I thought you knew this.”

I blinked my eyes. When I opened them the room was darker, or I was going blind.

“What?” I said.

“I thought you knew this,” Father Marco said again. “Kyle said he was going to tell you.”

“Kyle?” I said.

“I uh,” Father Marco laughed nervously, which normally I would have loved. “I talked to Kyle recently, and we decided I would not come.”

“You called Kyle?” I said. “To tell him you couldn’t make it? You could have just called me.”

“Kyle called me,” said Father Marco. “He said to me that– the two of you are working hard on your marriage now, to be good parents for the baby. And I think this is a great thing, for the baby and for the two of you. And so, he asked me to help you. By…staying home from the party. And I said, of course, I am happy to do this. Anything for the two of you, I am happy to do.”

I stared into the darkness. I squeezed the angel’s thigh. Then she dug her sharp nails in my hand and I drew my breath and giggled.

“Well it’s not Kyle’s party,” I said. I looked for my face in the dark window to see if I was smiling, but I couldn’t see anything at all. “It’s mine!”

“It is both of yours,” said Father Marco. “That is what marriage means. Your lives become joined. It is a beautiful thing.”

“No it’s not!” I giggled. “It’s my party. I’m the one who got the baby. And I of course want you here. You know that.”

“I know that,” said Father Marco. “But I think maybe Kyle is right. I think maybe I will sit this one out, and everybody can have their fun without the priest looking over their shoulders, right? Ha ha.”

He wanted me to laugh with him. But the giggling had stopped.

“That’s just silly,” I said. “Everyone wants to see you.”

“Tell them I will see them on Sunday, okay?”

“They want to see you here. At the party. Right now.”

“I will see you on Sunday too,” said Father Marco. I didn’t answer. So then he said, “I’m sorry. I have work to do anyways. It’s just not going to work out this year.”

“What about next year?” I said. “If you put it on your calendar right now, do you think you can make it next year?”

I could hear him thinking about it. I could see him in my mind, the swoop of his hair and the deepness of his eyes. Before the angel they were the deepest eyes I had ever seen, except for mine.

“Probably,” he said. “Probably I can.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

“Okay. I will see you on Sunday. Tell everybody I say hi.”

I thought about what to say next, something funny, something flirty, something irresistible. But I wasn’t fast enough. The phone made a tiny click, and the sound of Father Marco’s breath was gone.

♢

My blindness resolved itself, or the angel cured me. After minutes I could see myself reflected in the window, and I could see him on my hip, his glowing grace and love.

“There’s always next year,” I whispered. “He said he would come next year. And if Kyle tries to stop him that time, I’ll kill him.”

The angel looked up at me. I expected his rebuke, because murder is a sin, but the face he made was sympathetic, almost reassuring. He had turned his hair gold that morning to match the decorations. His many eyes fixed on me, and then turned to the door.

“What?” I said, looking over there too. “What, you think maybe he’ll still come tonight?”

From downstairs I heard Lourdes’ voice and then a chorus of laughter. It sounded like a dream still, like anything could happen.

“You could help,” I whispered to the angel. “Is that what you mean? You could give me a miracle?”

He still didn’t know how to talk, even angels aren’t that advanced. But he blinked all of his eyes at me, one after the other. I am his mother, so I knew exactly what it meant.

♢

The radio blinked at me from across the kitchen. It said it was the middle of the night. I stared at it for a long second before I looked anywhere else, because I was busy imagining what I would see. Father Marco would be standing there, next to the pork, holding a champagne flute, his collar coming loose. The conversation upstairs would turn out to have been the dream. He would turn and see me and throw his arms out wide. I was nervous, but I trusted the angel. I knew what she was. So I hugged her close and whispered, “Okay.”

Then I looked around the kitchen once, and then again, and then I stopped.

Father Marco wasn’t there. It was Kyle instead. My eyes landed on him, behind the dessert table, holding the big knife. He was handing Martina a piece of cake on a plastic plate and it looked beautiful on there, with the almonds and the cherries.

There was a toothpick coming out the top.

“Kyle,”

I spoke his name louder than I meant to, as loud as the voice of God. It struck the kitchen silent. Everyone looked at me. Lourdes opened her red lips, the Alatorres clutched their pork, Eva and Christina drank out of their champagne flutes at the exact same time.

Martina turned around, holding her little plate.

Kyle’s blank eyes squinted just a little. His flat voice said,

“What?”

I looked at the cake in Martina’s hand. It had come out perfectly, golden on the outside and fluffy in the middle. The cherries glimmered in the light like Alma’s jeweled rings. For a second the angel bestowed x-ray vision upon me, so I saw right through the cake. I saw the plastic baby in there, with the toothpick at its heart. I saw right through it to Kyle and I saw his heart too. I saw what was inside of there, the pride and wrath and envy. I saw inside his eyes and knew they could never see in mine.

I walked forward across the kitchen. I reached out and took Kyle’s hand. For a second we looked at each other, his eyes within my eyes.

Then I grabbed the big knife from him and I stabbed him in his chest.

I thought I could never do that once I had the baby. I thought it in the hospital bed, when I was thinking of the future. But I should have learned not to do that. You never know what an angel will take from you, but you also never know what it will give.

I left the knife in Kyle for a second and then I pulled it out. It was sharp like the angel’s teeth. It shone red in his light. Kyle fell to the floor on the other side of the dessert table and several people screamed, Lourdes and Graciela and Natalie’s husband in his suit. Martina dropped her piece of cake on the ground, and I could have picked it up, but I was living in the moment. I had my own baby.

“What did you do!” screamed Martina. “What did you do!”

I stepped back from the dessert table, toward the pork. I remembered when the angel tore that flesh apart.

“Was this it?” I asked him. “Was this the miracle?”

He was heaving with my breath, hot with power, working, divine.

“You gave me the strength to do it. You showed me– we don’t need him. You showed me my own power. Was that it?”

The angel looked at me with the eyes within her eyes. She wasn’t old enough to talk yet. But my heart sank a little because I was her mother, I knew what she meant. Father Marco says we humans must be patient with ourselves. He says we and the Lord are like babies and mothers, or like mothers and babies. The second one is sacrelig, but I know it is true.

The angel trembled in my arm. He widened all his eyes. There was a rumbling like thunder, a power coming forth.

Kyle stood up behind the dessert table. He was as good as new. The people gasped. The angel smiled. The radio blinked its light.

 ♢

May 21, 2025