The Calling. Kim O'Neill

the sensation stopped. I was spooked and utterly dumbfounded. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before!

      I jumped up from my desk, scurried to the door, and looked down the hallway. Everything seemed completely normal. I was still spooked, so I walked down the hall to the reception area and found Shirley hard at work in front of her computer.

      “Have you seen anything out of the ordinary this afternoon?” I asked her.

      “In this office? You’re kidding me, right? When isn’t something weird going on?”

      Her sarcastic, down-to-earth response made me smile, and it calmed me. Striding back to my office, I assumed that what I had experienced was stress-related. The agency was going through a severe financial downturn, and I was still in business with David, my temperamental ex-husband. Who wouldn’t be going crazy?

      Blessedly, the rest of the afternoon was uneventful. I was able to leave the office around six-thirty. I picked up some Chinese carryout and got caught in a typical gridlock of Galleria rush hour traffic. Once home, I changed into a nightshirt and crew socks, fed Winston, poured a glass of Chardonnay, put an old Thin Man movie in the VCR, and in an exhausted stupor sat down in front of the television to eat.

      The moment I picked up my fork, the goose bumps electrical-current sensation started again. This time, it was much stronger. Then some movement caught my attention. My eyes widened with shock as a ghostly apparition began to take shape in my living room. In mere seconds, it assumed the discernible form of a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was wearing a dark suit that looked as if it could have been at the height of fashion in the late nineteenth century. He had piercing blue eyes, dark hair combed away from his face, a strong jaw punctuated with a cleft, and a rugged build. He just stood there and smiled at me.

      My fork clanged to the plate. In a panic, I screamed and leapt to my feet. I had never been so frightened. A man had just broken into my apartment! But he wasn’t a man . . . he was a . . . ghost? Can a ghost . . . break in? Was I clearly seeing an apparition? Was I becoming delusional? Did I need a padded cell? I quickly surmised that this was definitely not the result of money problems or working with David.

      Nearly hysterical and flooded with adrenaline, I quickly realized that I had no escape route. The apparition, or whatever it was, could easily grab me if I tried to dart past him. In the small apartment I had nowhere to run. The apparition just stood there smiling.

      My scream awakened Winston. With obvious irritation, he yawned and then caught sight of our uninvited guest. I was still poised to flee, as I watched Winston casually stretch and then eagerly trot along the back of the couch toward the apparition. The spirit held out his hand and gently stroked Winston under the chin. My cat began to purr loudly. By all appearances, my Persian cat, who was disdainful toward all humans but me, was interacting with someone he apparently knew and liked. But then it occurred to me that this being wasn’t . . . human.

      The apparition made no move to approach me. He simply stood and smiled. Then, to my further amazement, he spoke to me with a resonant voice that had a British inflection.

      “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to frighten you. My name is John Reid.” His blue eyes were full of quiet amusement. He was not at all surprised by my reaction to him. I stood without speaking, mute with disbelief. Things like this simply did not happen to me. Nor did I want them to start happening now. When I didn’t respond, he continued to explain his presence in my living room.

      “I’m an angel. You asked for help. They sent me.”

      I could feel the same disquieting wave of energy running through me, just as I did that afternoon in my office. Shivering with goose bumps, I wondered silently if he had visited me earlier.

      “Yes, I did,” he answered, reading my thoughts. “It was my way of making an introduction.” His voice took on a somber, earnest tone. “I want you to know you’re not alone anymore. Now you have me.”

      My mind was racing but not comprehending. My first instinct had been to protect myself from a stranger who had broken into my apartment. As a woman who lived alone, I had become very protective about my safety. Now I was confronted by the scenario I feared most. What was he going to do to me, I wondered? Logic told me that if he wanted to hurt me, he could have easily already done so. But he didn’t appear threatening in any way. He just stood there smiling peacefully; his manner seemed very warm and reassuring. Did I really just see him materialize out of thin air?

      “Why would an angel want to visit me?” I blurted suspiciously.

      “You asked for help,” he replied.

      “How do I know you’re an angel? Do something to prove it.”

      “Like a party trick?”

      “You can’t be an angel. Angels don’t talk to human beings.”

      “You’re misinformed.”

      “But it’s not natural!”

      “It’s the most natural thing in the world. You’d be feeling it if you weren’t being so anal retentive.”

      “Anal? I’m not anal!”

      “You think not?” His eyes twinkled with merriment. “You’re the poster girl for what we guardian angels refer to as the Human AA Syndrome. I should have asked for hazardous duty compensation when I signed up to work with you again.”

      “Human AA Syndrome? What’s that?” I asked fearfully.

      “You’re anal and you’re angry.”

      “I’m NOT angry!” I shrieked. “And I’m NOT anal!”

      John Reid started to chuckle.

      “Are you making fun of me? Angels don’t tease people!”

      “You’re misinformed. With all due respect, having a good sense of humor is de rigueur for an angel to work with human beings.”

      “It’s what?”

      He smiled with affection and indulgence, as one would with a small child who had just asked a quaint question.

      “Leave me alone . . . or . . . I’ll call the police!” It was an empty threat. The phone was in the kitchen, and there was no way I could scurry in there fast enough and make the 911 call before he grabbed me. “Get out of here!”

      “It’s not that simple.”

      “Why not? If you’re really an angel, then you can do anything you want!”

      “You’re misinformed. We have commitments to attend to. It isn’t happenstance that I arrived on your doorstep. You asked for help. I agreed to work with you again. I’m perfectly willing to overlook your initial rudeness and your lack of hospitality.”

      “What do you mean you ‘agreed to work with me again’? I’ve never been visited by any angels!”

      “I wasn’t expecting this to be easy,” he sighed to himself. “Have you forgotten your childhood? You used to refer to me as your best friend. Let me take you back . . . ”

      As if by magic—in my mind’s eye—I returned to my childhood, and I was flooded with snippets of traumatic memories that hadn’t surfaced in years. The horrific dreams about violent crimes, my father, drunk, ranting, beating my mother. The never-ending fights about money, gambling, other women . . .

      I “saw” the night he tried to strangle her, and how she begged him to stop. Then I “saw” the apartment where Richard Speck had murdered the student nurses. And there was John Reid! He had been there. Revisiting the past helped me to recall the presence of an angel who stood by me through it all—offering comfort, support, encouragement, and protection. I never felt alone because he was there—the very same angel that stood before me now. How could I have forgotten? I had developed amnesia about my entire relationship with him.

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