She gave us a tight smile when she entered the exam room, and nonchalantly she said, “So you two were just married?”
“Yes, three days ago,” Evey said.
“Do you want kids?” Dr. Smythe asked.
I had known this would happen. Evey had cancer, and the doctor was going to ask about freezing eggs and talk about chemo and send us to an oncologist. This was the end. This was going to be Evey’s life because of me.
“Oh God,” I said.
The doctor looked at Evey and jutted a thumb in my direction. “What’s his deal?”
“He’s nervous,” Evey replied. “I am too. Can you just tell us what’s going on?”
“Well, you don’t have cancer, but you are pregnant. Good all around, I hope. Congratulations.” She beamed, and then the room went black.
I passed out. I just passed out right there on the exam room floor. When the nurse waved smelling salts in my face, my eyes shot open.
Evey was staring down at me from the exam bed, looking worried. “Lucian, what happened?”
“First-time dads sometimes have this reaction,” the nurse answered her.
I stood on shaky legs. “Can you give my wife and me a moment?” I thought it was the first time I had referred to her as my wife to another person. I felt a sense of pride and smiled, even though I still felt like I was going to fall over.
Evey was watching me cautiously. “Wait,” Evey said to the doctor.
My smile faded when the reality sank in. I was an angel; she was a human. I couldn’t get her pregnant. I was paranoid and curious as to whom my wife had been sleeping with.
“What, Evey?” I said rudely. “Why do you want them to wait?”
She jerked her head back, apparently surprised by my tone. Then it occurred to me that I was always with her, so her getting pregnant by someone else without my knowledge would be impossible. I got nervous again. The room started spinning.
She shook her head at me and scowled before directing her attention to the doctor. “What’s the lump then?”
“Just a cyst,” the doctor said. “The biopsy brought back nothing. If it doesn’t clear up in a few weeks, we can have it removed, but it might make more sense to wait until after the baby’s born.”
The word baby and that was it, I was on the floor again.
“Geez, Lucian, get a grip!” Evey yelled.
When the doctor and nurse left the room, Evey jumped off the bed and came over to me. She helped me up and directed me to a chair in the corner. She crawled into my lap. “We’re gonna have a baby.”
She was smiling. Tears of happiness filled her eyes. I knew they were happy tears because I could feel it in my heart. But I was shaking, still in disbelief. “It’s impossible, Evey.”
“I didn’t think angels were possible either,” she whispered near my ear.
“But you’re so young, and your career…”
“Lucian, I’m starting to get the annoying feeling that you don’t want this.”
“I do want this, more than anything. I just can’t believe it,” I said.
“Do you have to see it to believe it?”
I just stared at her for several long moments, then I shook my head.
After we called the doctor back in, they calculated that Evey was very newly pregnant, about six weeks. Evey was paranoid about the six ounces of wine she’d had at the wedding, but I assured her that I’d been around long enough to know a few ounces of wine would be harmless. Back in the day, women drank wine like it was water during their pregnancies.
In the car on the way home, Evey said, “We need to figure out a way to make our situation more normal.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t spend every waking moment together anymore, Lucian.”
“Excuse me? I don’t think you understand.” I turned and looked her in the eye. “Wait a minute, are you getting sick of me?”
“No, I love being with you.”
“Well, I’d hope so, because we just got married and we’re gonna have a baby.”
“I just don’t understand how this is going to work. Are you just going to be hovering around me all the time and while I’m in the bathroom for the rest of my life?”
“I don’t hover around you. I give you space. And I’ve never gone into the bathroom when you were in there unless you asked me to.” I raised my eyebrows at her.
“If giving me space means going outside for a few minutes, then you’re crazy. You need a job and a hobby,” she said.
“You’re being irrational,” I told her, even though Zack had basically said the same thing to me once. “If I’m not with you, you’ll be alone.”
“I can be alone! You said yourself you had a light caseload. Other angels cannot be in two places at once, so how do they manage more than one person?”
I was getting more and more frustrated by the second. “That’s when bad stuff happens. Do you want bad stuff to happen to you?”
“We’ll have to take our chances sometimes.”
I was quiet, trying to process what she was saying, trying to process the fact that she was carrying my baby and wanting more freedom from me at the same time. Since the moment Evey and I had decided to be together, I saw fewer and fewer angels out in the open. It was also harder for me to hear Evey from another room. I was losing my ability to protect her. I wondered if humans always felt that way… worried about the unknown, and constantly worried that something might happen to their loved ones. Maybe another angel was watching over Evey, and I just couldn’t see him.
“Hello, earth to Lucian? Don’t you agree that we need more space from each other?”
I looked over at Evey, glaring at me from the passenger seat, waiting for my response.
“If I knew for sure that another angel was assigned to you, I would say okay. I want us to be normal too, but I can’t lose you. And I definitely can’t lose you because I made the selfish decision to be with you.”
“We’re in love.” She squeezed my hand but stayed looking straight ahead. “We’re in love and we are normal, and we’re going to have a baby.” She took her phone from her purse and began dialing.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“Everyone. I’m telling everyone we’re going to have a baby.”
I grabbed the phone from her hand. “No!”
I felt her getting angry. “What is your problem? Your erratic behavior is starting to annoy me, Lucian.”
“Oh God, we’re fighting. We’re having our first fight as a married couple.” I was circling our block, looking for a parking space.
“This is normal conversation. You’ve been around long enough to know that. I can’t believe how crazy you’re acting.”
“Me? I’m not acting crazy, you are. You’re probably hormonal or something.”
“Oh no you don’t. Don’t even go there. I resent that. Our baby probably resents that.”
My hands were sweating on the steering wheel. I took a corner too fast, and the tires on Evey’s shitty Honda squealed.
“Jesus, Lucian, are you trying to get us killed?”
“You need a new car!” I yelled. “This car is not safe!”
“This car is perfectly safe. You are the one who is not safe. You need to calm down.”
I took a deep breath in through my nose. “I am calm Evey, but you’re newfound need to be away from me is really pissing me off.”
“You’re pissed? I saw you checking out that blond nurse.”
“What? Oh my God, now you’re really being insane. I’m not attracted to women, for the millionth time.”
“You’re not attracted to women?”
“Other women, I mean.”
“Oh, okay, and you expect me to believe that?” she snapped.
“You don’t understand anything.”
“Well, help me understand.”
“I can’t. I’ve tried. You’re just special. You’re different.” I knew if I said soul mate, she’d laugh.
“I’m special? That nurse had a perfect body, and I saw you checking out her ass. Meanwhile, I can feel myself getting fatter by the minute.”
I stopped arguing with her. I think it was the hormones.
I finally found a spot, parked, jumped out, and rushed to the passenger door with my hand out.
Evey pushed me away. “I can walk on my own. I have two legs still, last time I checked.”
Once inside the apartment, she rushed off to our bedroom and slammed the door. I went to living room and plopped onto the couch. I was fuming too. This wasn’t going as planned. It got even worse when I heard Evey say under her breath, “God, he’s annoying sometimes.”
“I can hear you!” I yelled.
“Then turn off your angel ears, jerk!”
That was it. I marched down the hall and knocked on the door. “Can I come in?”
“Why even ask? Why don’t you just beam yourself in here? You could be in here right now for all I know.”
I turned the knob slowly and opened the door. Walking toward Evey as she lay on the bed, I noticed her eyes were closed, her arms crossed, and she was breathing heavily through her nose. She was very mad. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I took her hand. She resisted at first, but then finally gave in. She kept her eyes shut.
“First, no name-calling, and second, come here. I want to hold you, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” she said with her eyes still closed.
“I don’t want to fight either.”
She finally looked at me, a little reluctantly at first, but it didn’t take long for Evey’s genuine kindness to come through. She crawled onto my lap, wrapping her legs around my body. I held her head to my chest.
“I’m as scared as you are,” I said. She sniffled. “Please don’t cry. I want to tell you that everything will be okay, but I just don’t know anymore. I can’t give you that comfort, and I feel terrible because of it.” She kissed my neck while I tried to soothe her. “I’m going to leave you alone for a while. I’m going to try to do that more and trust that you’ll be okay, that you’ll watch out for yourself.” She nodded into my shoulder. “Take a nap, my love. I’ll be back in a few hours. Text me if you need anything.”
We had exchanged numbers a week before our wedding, which we both found hysterical. Evey thought it was so funny to text me from the other room. I guess we were becoming sort of normal. I knew I had to get a job and find a way to still protect Evey but also be a person, a member of society… her husband.
I found a billboard off the 1 freeway to sit on and watch the traffic. I sat there for two hours, tempted to text Evey and see how she was doing, but I stayed strong. I blinked once, and Zack was sitting next to me. He looked back at the billboard. “Very apropos, man,” he said. It was a photo of some shiny-haired dude next to the words Jesus is watching you. “Why do humans think Jesus was a white surfer from Southern California?”
I shrugged. “That’s not even the best part. Look behind you.” I directed Zack’s attention the XXX porn shop that sat just to the right of the billboard.
“It’s intentional… the billboard?”
“Yeah.” I laughed through my nose. “Humans are always so willing to judge, but they know nothing.”
“Neither do we,” he said.
“Exactly, so what’s the point of the fake Jesus billboard? It says Jesus is watching, but pseudo-Jesus is smiling. I guess he’s happy that you’re in the porn shop?” Zack laughed and held his hand to his stomach. I was so happy to see him, and I knew he was happy to be there. I ruffled his hair. “I thought you weren’t allowed to talk to me anymore?”
He shrugged and pointed at the billboard. “I’m sure he has bigger fish to fry, and anyway, Mona’s been really cool.”
“Didn’t they assign Mona to another group?”
“Nah, they let her keep me. My good behavior, I guess. She was in hot water for a while, but that blew over. I also got my couple back, so I’ve been watching you and Evey from across the street. I followed you here. Why’d you take a cab, Lucian? And why aren’t you with her, man? You guys fighting already?”
My hair was getting long. I tucked a strand behind my ear and thought idly that it was strange that my hair was growing. I had been exactly the same for two thousand years. “Now that Evey and I are married, I’m trying to make things seem more normal for her.”
“But it’s not ever going to be normal because of what she knows and what you are.”
“It has to be though. We have to figure out a way. All we’re doing is loving each other. There can’t be anything wrong with that. We should get an award for that. How can it be wrong?”
“Big guy works in mysterious ways.”
I sighed. “I wish people would stop saying that.”
“Lucian, I know it’s getting under your skin—all of those self-righteous angels who scoff at the two you as you walk down the street holding hands. Fuck them. You’re in love with Evey, and that’s all that matters.”
“She’s pregnant,” I said.
He jerked his head back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, pregnant? Wow. Pregnant?”
“Yes. The doctor confirmed it.”
He was quiet for a minute. “What if it’s like an alien baby?”
“You know there’s no such thing as aliens, but thanks for the heartfelt congratulations, friend.”
“How is it even possible? I’ve never heard of that.”
“Maybe I’m becoming human,” I said, hoping he’d agree.
“I don’t know. So you don’t know how it happened?”
“No clue, except, you know, we did it.” I looked over at him and opened my eyes wide
“Yeah, I knew that part; I’m not that inexperienced. But just how is she pregnant?”
“No clue. Maybe I should ask Mona.”
“She won’t know. She knows nothing, except for when it’s time to order coffee filters or who should get fucking cupcakes for their hard work. I asked her about my paycheck last week, and she said that accounting was on vacation, and she’d have to get back to me. Isn’t that like their fifth vacation this year? I swear, it’s a bureaucratic mess up there. Mona says she gets the runaround about everything. Every time she calls her supervisor, his secretary says he’s in a meeting. You’re not the only one being ignored.”
“I know. It’s like they sit in meetings all day and nothing ever gets done because all they do is talk, talk, talk. And then half the higher-ups leave the meeting and go on vacation. Not to mention summer Fridays. What the fuck is that? It’s like high school up there. Did you know they actually take Fridays off during the summer? We don’t have Fridays off, and we’re doing all the work.”
“I know, man. Mona has totally given up. That’s why she hasn’t been on your ass lately. She doesn’t even know what’s going on.”
“I thought they’d at least want you to stop talking to me?”
He said something, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. Then his image started to fade as he sat beside me.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Nothing,” he mouthed.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Can you hear me now?” He was clear again.
“Yeah, Jesus, that was weird. It’s like I lost your signal.”
“Fucking Verizon,” he said jokingly.
“It’s not funny. Weird things are happening to me.”
“Welcome the change, Lucian. Honestly, weren’t you bored out of your mind before anyway?”
“Weren’t you?” I asked.
“No, I’m content. I like my life. I like what I do. Hey, I gotta go though.” He looked at his watch. “Top Chef is almost over.”
“Cool, man, good seeing you,” I said.
He waved, then he was gone.
“Mona!” I yelled, but she never came.
I had an idea for how I would spend the rest of the day. First I texted Evey:
Me: Everything okay?
&
nbsp; Evey: I’m good. Just reading about pregnancy. Our baby is the size of a lentil.
Me: Wow, weird. I hope you don’t give birth to a giant legume. You never know with us. It could be anything.
Evey: Stop, Lucian. What are you up to?
Me: Nothing much. Just hanging out. Might go see a movie or go jogging.
Evey: You swear to me you’re not hovering in the corner?
It occurred to me that for Evey, this was all kind of creepy.
Me: I promise you, Evey. I’m going to take a walk right now. I’m far away and anyway, I won’t ever watch you without telling you. Just please be safe.
Evey: I’m just lying here. Doors are locked. See you when you get home.
Me: Love you.
Evey: Love you too.
Most normal conversation we had ever had. It was time for my experiment to begin. I stood, and a giant seagull dropped a load of shit on my shoulder. If that wasn’t enough proof that I was becoming a human, I didn’t know what was.
I flew poorly to the bay and dove in. Fuck, it was cold. I tried to hold my breath. I counted to three hundred then almost passed out, so I shot out of the water. I had a hard time getting lift with sopping wet, sparse wings and boots on. I found an empty public bathroom and dried my clothes under the hand dryer. Everything in me had weakened.
Next stop, the bridge. I went to the Golden Gate and stood on the railing for a long time, looking for angels. I couldn’t see any. I started teetering like I was going to fall. I was visible to humans.
I heard someone gasp and a woman scream, “He’s going to jump!”
Then there was a voice behind me. “You don’t want to do that, man.”
I turned around and saw the faint outline of wings.
“You’re an angel,” I said to the man, but why didn’t he know I was? It just validated my point even further. He couldn’t see my wings. I jumped down and stood face to face with him.
“I’m not an angel, but if I’ve convinced you not to jump, then I’m very happy to know that.” He was lying. Those lies we tell.