Free Desolate Angel by Chaz McGee Page A

awaited slowed me down. I hung back, gathering my courage, as Maggie knocked on the door. A trim, middle-aged woman answered. The welcoming look on her face collapsed into disbelief and uncensored anguish as Maggie delivered the news. Morty caught the woman on her way down and led her to a nearby sofa. There, the mother aged before my eyes. I saw the flow of blood leave her complexion, the brightness in her eyes deaden to gray, the lines of her face harden and deepen in permanent sorrow. The air around her solidified, as if the universe itself was trying to embrace her, trying to remind her that she, at least, was still among the living. She sank against the cushions of her couch, speechless, as Maggie filled the room with words, giving the woman time to compose herself and to absorb the enormity of what she had lost.
    Morty sat next to the mother, holding her hand, waiting his turn to serve. The woman closed her eyes, unable to face the world that had betrayed her, and Maggie waited until she had opened them again before she offered to answer any questions she might have.
    The woman asked how her daughter had died.
    The news that her child had been murdered hit the mother with the force of a blow. She jerked back and Morty put his arms around her, holding her tight, as if infusing her with his strength. She began to weep, her tears flowing like liquid silver from her eyes until she buried her face in her hands and sat, face hidden, absorbing the details of her daughter’s demise with a determination that shone through her sorrow as a testament to human endurance. It was the worst possible news a mother could hear and yet she was forcing herself to face the truth. I was awestruck at her courage.
    Maggie sat on a footstool at the mother’s feet, speaking slowly and clearly, assuring her in a dozen different ways that whoever had done this to her daughter would be brought to justice. The light I had glimpsed in Maggie the first time I had seen her returned, surrounding her, making me wonder if my Maggie—for I thought of her as mine by now—was more than human, might even be an avenging angel sent down from the heavens to repair the unholy violence humans visited upon one another.
    Or did we all have that light within us, that brightness and strength?
    No, I told myself. Not everyone. It was Maggie. Maggie was special.
    When the mother asked if they were sure it was her Vicky, Maggie was ready. She had known the question was coming, had known that the mother would be unable to risk hoping for a reprieve. She gently showed her the photo Danny had shown around campus. The hopelessness in the mother’s eyes told them all they needed to know: the dead girl was absolutely Victoria Meeks, only child of a loving mother who would now need to face the worst alone.
    Then Morty worked his magic. I saw that he was not the passive oaf Danny and I had labeled him. He was, indeed, a gentle man whose heart ached for those who hurt around him. In the kindest of voices, he asked the mother to tell him about her daughter, saying it would help them find her killer if they all knew more about her.
    I understood that this was not why he had asked.
    He was asking because he knew that the broken woman before him needed to talk about what she had lost, would want to honor her daughter’s brief life—and that talking would help her reconcile the awful truth of the present with the lingering light of her dead girl’s past. Perhaps, in talking, she would realize that though her daughter was gone, the memories of her remained and could never be taken from her—the kindest gift the human mind has to give its host.
    At first the mother answered Morty’s questions in a faltering voice. Eventually, her voice grew stronger. She began to tell them about all her remarkable daughter had accomplished, despite having lost her father at an early age.
    The mother paused abruptly and I knew she was thinking of her long-dead husband, wondering, with the endless