Free If Angels Fall by Rick Mofina Page B

tattered, comfortable sofa
chair was in the middle of the room, which had hardwood floors and faded green
flower print wallpaper. Reed’s framed degree, his two awards, a Star front page, and silver-framed pictures of Ann and Zach, were leaning on the
fireplace mantel, hastily placed in the hope they would be collected at a
moment’s notice. A stack of newspapers tottered a few feet from the floor next
to the dresser. It had started growing the day he moved in-three weeks after
Ann moved out of their bungalow in Sunset. When she left, their house had
become a mausoleum for their marriage. He had to leave, or be entombed. They
agreed to rent their house.
    Reed went down the hall to the kitchen for ice. In his
room, he poured some Jack Daniel’s, striped off his clothes, casting them onto
the pig-sized heap in the corner, slipped into jogging shorts. He opened the
bay windows and watched the twinkling lights of the Golden Gate.
    All he ever wanted in this world was to be a reporter.
The dream of a kid from Big Sky Country. His dad used to bring him a newspaper
six days a week, The Great Falls Tribune . He’d spread it open on the
living room floor and read the news to his mother. When he was eleven, he
started his first Trib route. Trudging through the snow, shivering in
the rain, or sweating under the prairie sun with that canvas bag, nearly black
with newsprint, slung over his shoulder like a harness. Dad had knotted the
strap so the bag hung just so, like an extension of himself. He would read the
paper as he delivered it, dreaming of seeing his stories in print. He had forty
customers and every day, by the time he emptied his bag, he’d have read the
day’s entire edition.
    Life’s daily dramas enthralled him. He became a news
addict and an expert on current affairs. In high school, he graduated from newspaper
boy to cub reporter, writing stories for the school paper. He was accepted into
J-School at the University of Missouri, where he met Ann, a business major with
big brown eyes and a smile that knocked him out. She was from Berkeley and
wanted children and her own shop to sell the children’s clothes she would
design and make herself. That was a secret, she told him.
    He wanted a family, too, but he wanted to establish
his career first and maybe write books, the last part was a secret. If you talk
about writing books, you’d never do it.
    They were married after graduation. A few weeks later,
he got a job with AP in San Francisco. Ann was happy to move back to the Bay
Area, where she would be near her mother. And Reed was determined to prove
himself in San Francisco. He hustled for AP, breaking a story about the Russian
Mafia. He was short listed for a Pulitzer, but lost out. The San Francisco
Star then offered him a job as a crime reporter at twice his salary.
    Ann got an administrative post at one of San
Francisco’s hospitals, at night, she worked on her business plan and clothing
designs. He traveled constantly, worked long hours and was rarely home. The
years passed. Starting a family seemed impossible.
    Then boom. Ann was pregnant. He was stunned.
Unprepared. She had forgotten her pills when they vacationed in Las Vegas. He
hinted that she’d done it purposely. Not true, she said. They didn’t want to
argue. In the following months, they retreated, withdrew into themselves. Ann
welcomed the coming of a baby, Reed braced for it.
    When he witnessed the birth of their son, he felt a
degree of love he never know existed. But soon, he grappled with his own
mortality. It frightened him, overwhelmed him with the realization that he had
little time in his life for accomplishments. He was a father. He feared he
would fail fatherhood. He compensated the only way he knew: by striving through
his job to leave Zach a legacy as a man who had made his mark. Someone Zach
could be proud of. Consequently, the Star became his mistress and
family. It seemed Ann and Zach became people he appreciated only when needed.
They