Page 122 of Angels Are Falling

“Rose is the reason you’ve been sulking.”

His silence was all the confirmation I needed. Caden Maxwell, who had never in his life paid mind to anyone, was brought to heel by a girl who couldn’t speak in front of others.

The laugh that came out of me sounded wrong to my own ears. The liquor and the drugs heightened the absurdity of our situation.

“Who would’ve thought we’d end up in the same boat?”

“No.” His voice was mild. Unbothered. “Not the same boat. I have, at the least, informed mine that I exist.” He turned to look at me, full-on, for the first time, and whatever he found in my face made even him decide to leave it alone.

His gaze went to Stefan instead. “As far as I understand, she’s been with him for years. Whatever this is, you’re wasting your time, Cavendish. Go home.”

“Fuck off, Caden.”

He took no offense. Perhaps because I’d used his first name for once and something about that made him take pity on me. Or perhaps it was because he was constitutionally incapable of taking offense.

“As you wish.” And then he disappeared into the dark as silently as he’d arrived.

Across the garden, the little girl in the red hat had gone still. Her small shoulders had dropped, and then came the broken sound of a child who’d suddenly remembered, in the middle of being happy, that she was no longer allowed to be.

“I want Mommy to come back.”

Amelie had her off the ground before the last word had landed. No looking for Stefan, no asking. Her body simply moved, scooping the child up.

“I know. I know, baby.”

“I miss her.” A hiccup against her throat. “Does Mommy miss me?”

I had sat across tables from men who’d reshaped whole countries with a single sentence. I had a mouth that could make nearly anything sound like the only conclusion a reasonable person could come to. I had never, in all my life, heard anyone build a thing as fast or as flawlessly as Amelie did next.

“She misses you more than you miss her. So much more than that.” Amelie drew her head back to find the girl’s small, wet face. “You want to know a secret?”

The child nodded.

“It’s snowing tonight because your mom misses you,” Amelie told her.

“Really?”

“Absolutely. My grandmother told me that when someone we love goes to heaven, they send us a sign when they miss us. She knew that I loved rain. Before she died, she told me that every time it rained, it meant she was thinking of me in heaven. And because she couldn’t be with me, she was sending me rain.”

She lifted her face, and the child turned with her, helpless, both looking at the snow-covered ground.

“See this?” Amelie said, grabbing a handful of snow off the ground. “Your mom knows how much you wanted to see snow, so she sent this down for you. All the way from the top of the sky.”

Bella held out her palm to touch the snow on the ground. “This is all from Mommy?”

“That’s right. Because she wanted to remind you that even though she can’t be here with you right now, she misses you just as much. And until she can see you again, she is sending little angels in her place.”

Bella perked up, curious eyes bouncing around. “Angels? Where are the angels?”

Amelie laughed. “Every snowflake is an angel, silly.”

The boys had wandered in close now, both of them, the steady one and the wild one, their snowman abandoned. Even Stefan had turned to listen to Amelie’s story.

“So here’s what you do.” Amelie caught the small, mittened hands in hers and lifted them. “When it snows, you hold your hands up. Like this. And you catch the snowflakes as they fall. This way, you can count how many angels your mom sent for you. Because that’s how much she loves you.” Her voice thinned, only for a second, only enough for me to catch it from forty feet off.

I was listening to her, enthralled, as if she had spun the story not to soothe a child but for me. I glanced at the white-covered railing and held out my hand, touching the cold snow that had fallen on it.

The little girl, hiccupping, held out her hand to do the same. So did the boys without a word. Three children in a freezing garden with their palms out, touching snow, and the woman I loved in the middle of them.