Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [20]
chapter eight
The Church of the Holy Name was dimly lit by the fading sun as Lydia entered. Awed by the hush of the sacred room, at once she felt like a child and an intruder. She consciously pushed the vivid images of her dream from her mind. Still she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach. She kept expecting to see her mother. Why did you come here now? she asked herself, as if something outside her had made the choice to stop suddenly on her way to the airport.
As she walked cautiously down the center aisle toward the altar, the old, immaculately polished wood floors groaned loudly beneath her lizard-skin boots.
“Is someone here?” Juno Alonzo materialized in a doorway that had been empty a moment ago. He was a tall man, almost six feet, and thin. His eyes seemed fixed on her—jet pools in a landscape of strong but gentle features. Full, red lips sloping into a square jaw, chiseled cheekbones leading to a high, deeply lined brow. But his face was more than the sum of these parts. There was something mesmerizing about it, like a portrait come to life. He was easily the most beautiful man—in an ethereal, almost angelic way—she had ever seen. She had the urge to confess all her sins to him and do penance in his arms.
He spoke again. “Hello?”
“Mr. Alonzo?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Lydia Strong.”
“The writer?”
“Yes.”
She wondered for a moment if he would treat her with suspicion and then turn her away as he had to other writers who came to interview him. But instead he smiled and approached her with his hand outstretched in greeting, as if he had been expecting her.
“A pleasure, Ms. Strong. My uncle has read your work to me from magazines and I’ve listened to you interviewed on National Public Radio. I had heard you had a home in the area.”
When she took his hand in hers, he covered it with his other, gently pulling her closer to him. It was a warm and powerful grip, full of a strange energy that made Lydia flush and smile lightly in spite of herself. They stayed like that for a moment longer than would have seemed appropriate in another context. And as she stood captivated by his unseeing gaze, her small hand folded in his large one, she was tempted to believe what she had read about Juno. She wondered suddenly if he did have the power to enter people’s dreams. It was a ridiculous thought but it stayed with her. She would give anything to have one last chance to talk to her mother, to say good-bye, to say she was sorry … for what, she didn’t know. She would give anything to show her mother the accomplishments she had made in her career, to hear that her mother was proud of her. Would it cause her mother pain to know she wasn’t married, that she never went to church? Would Marion be angry or disappointed? Lydia wanted to know these answers so badly sometimes.
She looked at Juno, searching his face for some hint of the supernatural. Like what—some kind of glowing tattoo—a third eye? she thought. But even her own internal sarcasm couldn’t dampen the irrational and inexplicable feeling of hope that welled in her. And the images from her dream haunted her, were a tune stuck in her head, repetitive and annoying.
“Please, sit down, Ms. Strong. Tell me what I can do for you.” He led her to a pew with his hand on the small of her back. “I assume you are here to talk about Christopher Poveda.”
“Who?”
“The boy who died recently of leukemia.”
“Actually …”
“Sometimes God calls his children home, Ms. Strong. And there is nothing on earth any of us can do.”
“I’m sure that’s