Chapter 1: Ashes and Angels

The day the angel landed in our backyard, she looked at my dad like he was the last man on Earth.

Maybe it sounds like something out of a country church sermon, but I swear, that’s how it all started—a being so dazzling, so utterly otherworldly, dropping right into the middle of our lives. She set her sights on my dad, the way a tornado picks a farmhouse on a summer night.

She waited until the day my father and I went out together, then set a fire that reduced my mother to ashes. I remember skipping down the porch steps, Dad laughing behind me. When we came back, the sky was smeared with smoke, and the sirens were already gone.

I couldn’t breathe. My knees hit the gravel. Dad just stood there, shoulders shaking, staring at the place where our kitchen used to be. The air was thick with the tang of burned wood and the sick silence of loss.

Afterward, she disguised herself as my mother and lived with us.

She looked just like Mom—same tired eyes, same Patsy Cline humming from the kitchen. But when she set out dinner, the mac and cheese was burned, and the dog wouldn’t come near her. Even Rusty, who’d lick the mailman’s boots, wouldn’t budge from under the porch, his growl vibrating through the floorboards.

But after only three days, she grew tired of the routine—waking at dawn and resting at dusk. She slammed the fridge so hard the magnets rattled. When I spilled my juice, she just glared—cold, sharp, nothing like Mom. She stared out the window at the dead lawn, bored out of her mind.

Then, with a snap of her fingers, she left, clean and decisive.

I heard the pop, like a bottle cap coming off, and then she was gone. No explanation, no look back, just a vanished presence. The kitchen clock ticked on, the world shuddered, and the air felt a little lighter—but emptier, too. The family photo on the fridge curled from the heat, and the smell of burnt plastic lingered in my clothes.

Three years later, my father passed away and went to heaven.

The day it happened, the wind carried the smell of rain and something else—like someone had left the back door open to the afterlife. People at church said he looked peaceful, but the lines on his face told a different story.

He gripped my hand, squeezing it once, firm as a promise. His voice was low, almost broken: "Bailey, you stay put. I’ll fix this. For your mom. For us."

Days blurred into nights. I kept my eyes on the old clock, trying to will the hands to bring him home. I counted school days, watched the seasons change from the window—autumn leaves blown into the gutter, winter frost crawling up the glass. My longing sat heavy in my chest, sour as old lemonade.

But all I waited for was my father’s keepsake—a leather keychain my mother had made for him.

It arrived in a plain envelope, soft and worn at the edges. The leather was cracked from years of being handled, the initials still pressed deep, a piece of her in every stitch. I pressed it to my cheek, hoping for some trace of their warmth. It smelled like leather and Dad’s aftershave. I almost believed if I squeezed hard enough, he’d walk through the door.

He was just a number in someone else’s story. Turns out, all that talk of greatness—making it to the top, being special—meant nothing when you’re just one more face in the crowd. They don’t make movies about guys like my dad. The news didn’t even mention his name.

He was sent to clean up the mess left by the angel, and left no remains behind.

All that was left for me were stories, and the empty ache of his absence. His body never came home. There was no grave to visit, no funeral to cry at. It felt like the world was trying to erase him, scrub him clean off the page.

I sat on the old kitchen linoleum, scarfing down every last sandwich, crumbs scattering everywhere. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, stuffed my clothes into an old duffel, and slipped out before the sun could rise. The house creaked behind me, but I didn’t look back.

I tightened my grip on the keychain, the leather warm in my palm. Whatever came next, I was done waiting. The angel owed us. And I was coming.