Warm Whiskey in a Cold Ditch: Installment #14

I wasn't sure if I had expected to write something in the Rhodia after my sister left the observation car, but I believed I planned to. This, though, wasn't atypical. Before we were even married, Peggy told me that the gap between my expectations and my plans was as wide as she had ever seen in anyone. I told her I thought that was a compliment.

So, rather than put pen to paper, I leafed through the notebook's pages yet again and found another of Ophelia's short entries. This one, titled "St. Peter's Gate," was illustrated with small clouds.

St. Peter's Gate

First, I have to say that I do not believe in angels. At least not the winged type that float beneath halos. If there angels, they are among us and embodied in living beings: the man who reaches out to stop you from stepping into San Francisco's traffic, the woman who hugs you after your first visit to the oncologist. At the train station in Chicago, though, I believe I did see an angel--a small, compact man who seemed to move through the crowds both unnoticed and accommodated at the same time as people changed their paths ever so slightly. He walked with such grace from the ticket counter toward the trains that I could not help but watch. And he watched me, too. He watched as I searched for my ringing cell phone and then let it ring unfound when I knew there was no reason to answer. Then, when he was gone, everything seemed fine. The anxiety of leaving Chicago and being without direction was gone. The commotion in the train station seemed suddenly comforting. I wanted to follow him.

I wondered about Ophelia's angel. On my trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, not long after Peggy and I had separated, I wandered out of Waverly Station and hoped the climate would soothe my literal and figurative hangovers. My brother Steven had recommended an inexpensive bed and breakfast, the directions to which I had written on a small piece of paper that was barely readable. "Head toward Holyroodhouse," Steven said. "It's a palace. The Queen sleeps there when she's in town." So, I carried my worn knapsack out of the station and turned where Steven's instructions said I should turn. When I found the palace, I stopped to look and thought of the idea of royalty. "Excuse me," a woman said as I began walking again. I turned around to see a tall, thin woman who smiled like no woman I have ever seen. Everything about her seemed perfect--her clothing, the tilt of her head, how she held herself against what had become a cold breeze.

"Hello," I said.

She held out her camera. "Will you take a picture?"

I could not place her accent, but I guessed French. "I will," I told her. She stood so the palace was behind her, and I took her picture. "You should look at it," I said as I returned the camera. "See if the photograph is okay."

She looked at the digital image now inside the camera. "It is good," she said. "The palace smiled nicely." The palace smiled nicely. Such a perfect phrase. "Thank you," she said as she put the camera into the pocket of her denim jacket. I watched her walk away, her hands clasped behind her back as she headed away from the palace and toward what appeared to be a castle at the top of a hill.

Later, as I lay in an uncomfortable bed that barely fit in a small room, I thought about her, how I could have loved her forever. Angelic, is what I thought.