Arms of an Angel by Linda Boulanger Page A

not
college. He’d said she needed a degree. She could paint and teach
or… He went nuts. Made her feel worthless; showed her again what a
disappointment she’d been to him.
    Why couldn’t he just love her? And why
couldn’t Garrett just want her, stay with her sometimes, and
nothing more. That way when he found someone who could give him
what she couldn’t, there’d be no strings attached. He could simply
walk away.
     
    She hadn’t been completely truthful with
Garrett. There had been another baby once. Her father had a son. It
was several years after the artist. Claire was almost sixteen. That
other woman, the boy’s mother, had wanted Claire’s dad to leave his
family and be with them. He’d told her no. He couldn’t. But he
wanted her to give up the boy and let Claire’s mom raise him. Can
you imagine? Requesting that your son with another woman be raised
by your wife? Not only that, expecting a woman to walk away from
her own child? What kind of woman could do either of those things?
Her father was an obsessed idiot.
    The mistress had refused and left with the
baby. Her father had been devastated…for a while, though slowly he
recovered…with her mother’s help. That was the one thing Claire had
never understood. The whole event had brought her parents closer.
She’d held out hope it would tear them apart and then it would just
be her and her mom. But somehow his refusing to leave had made
Claire’s mom overlook his faults and love him even more. He’d
chosen her and, to her, it meant he truly did love her.
    Claire supposed that made sense. Still, she
hated him for how he made her feel.
     
    Claire rode up the staff elevator, thankful
to be alone. A perk of having been around this old building as a
child, she knew the inner workings. If only she could figure out
her own self as easily.
    No figuring out left to do. There was too
much turmoil, too much pain. It was time to go. She wondered
briefly if perhaps she’d never really been meant to be.
     
     
    She was calm by the time she reached her
floor, her decision having been made. Undoubtedly she looked a mess
and was again thankful for a vacant hall. There was only one other
unit on this floor, so she wasn’t surprised. Still, she was
thankful. A chance encounter might deter her as it had when she’d
stumbled across Garrett.
    Garrett! She snorted as she clicked on the
light and several of her paintings were illuminated, including the
one of him as her angel. She’d sat her favorites out in hopes of
showing him should he have joined her that evening. There was the
angel one, a farm scene with a happy family in the corner, a
couple, mother and child, and the little girl she’d taken back from
Old Joe.
    Joe! Her heart twinged. He’d miss her. She
gathered the paintings into a pile in the sunroom closet and
hastily scrawled a note that directed her finder to take them to
Joe’s shop. She wondered if he’d sell them or keep them. No matter.
At least he’d appreciate them. He was the only one who’d ever
appreciated her.
    Claire looked out over the city, taking in
the lighted night sky. False illumination, she thought. What a
hollow place; beautiful on the outside, broken on the inside. Just
like her. The whole world was the same.
    She went into the living room and poured
herself a large glass of wine, kicked off her shoes right there at
the bar and left them. Her dad would have been livid. All things in
their place.
    She trod silently to the bedroom in her
stocking feet. How anticlimactic, she thought as she opened the
night stand drawer and pulled out the bottles. She studied their
contents as she reclined against the stack of silk pillows piled
neatly at the headboard. At least they were pretty little pills,
she thought, which caused her to begin to laugh hysterically,
ending in a sob. God, she was tired. She reached for the throw at
the end of the bed and pulled it up over her and closed her eyes.
So, so very tired.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Garrett