The In-Between

He skated backwards, pulling me along. The blades bit into the ice. Crusp, crusp, like an ongoing song to which our souls had to dance. We lost ourselves in that moment until he twirled me around my center. One of his skates caught on my wings and we fell. I think it's called head over heels. 

“This is not what I had planned.” I clawed through the thin layer of flaked ice in search of my halo. Oh feathers, it was all hazy now. To little avail, I tried polishing it with my sleeve, then put it back on my head as it was. 

“What did you have planned then?” he asked, all innocent charm. Chips of ice sparkled in his ruffled hair, and from underneath, a thin trail of blood trickled down his temple. Such a pity. I hated taking them when they were so young, when they looked so—I scanned the taut muscle under his tight pants and swallowed—capable. 

I got up and swatted some flakes from my chiffon dress. The sky overhead was clouding up and I’d rather not navigate blind, especially with a soiled halo. “We should be flying by now, handsome, and I should be leading you, not the other way around.” I stretched out my arm so he could take my hand.

Instead of taking my hand, he dug into the pocket of his sports jacket and retrieved his phone. “What’s your name?” 

I frowned. “You have no use for that thing where we go.”

“Humor me.”

“You remember what I told you, right? About you hitting your head? The fatality of your injury?” 

He nodded, a hint of liquid veiling his deep brown eyes. “I’m not daft, but still, you didn’t tell me your name.” 

No human had ever asked my name before. The question felt so personal, it made my wings itch. I rubbed my elbows, wondering what to do with this man. There were no celestial laws that prohibited me to share my name, it was only so unusual. “You have no need for it.” 

“I …” His voice got stuck for a second or so.  “I’d feel better if I knew. I’m Emmet by the way.”

As if I didn’t know his name already. I knew everything about him … his name, the precise moment of his birth to the exact second. I knew the name of the father that had baptized him, and the number of times he had spoken the name of our heavenly Father in vain, which was so extensive that dear Saint Peter would have to speak more than one word with the man upon our arrival in heaven. I knew the name of Emmet's rubber duck for crying out loud. 

But I hadn’t known the effect of trusting my hand to his glove. Somehow, my gilded ledger had failed to mention the magic Emmet Raleigh could create when sweeping an angel across frozen water. I had to put an end to this right here and now. “You may call me angel. Now, can we go?” 

He aimed his phone towards me and snapped a picture. “Suppose you don’t have a number?” He typed something and grinned at his own joke. “I’m gonna need some one-on-one on how to date in heaven.” 

“Pardon me?”

“Only ruffling your feathers, angel. It’s a joke. But in all earnest, can I skate one more lap? Just one?” He glanced around the ice rink longingly while shoving his phone back into his pocket. “We have a little time, don’t we?”

No, we didn’t. Not if I wanted rice pudding before bed. He inhaled deeply, as if ice has a scent. I remembered some of the data my ledger held on him. Thirty five hours on the ice a week, fourteen hours of training outside the rink. No girlfriend. No other hobbies. This man had given his life to figure skating.

“Please, angel, have a heart!”

I swallowed and closed my eyes, painfully aware of the emptiness inside my chest. Maybe he did need some angel one-on-one lessons before I took him to heaven. His ignorance combined with his blabbering mouth wouldn’t do him any favors up there. 

“Oh God!” He grabbed his head, terror sweeping his pretty face. “You don’t have ... Angels don’t have hearts?” 

I squinted my eyes at him. “Don’t … say ... His name like that.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. This … “ He gestured around the rink. “... just means a lot to me. Is there an ice rink in heaven?”

I shook my head.

“A frozen pond?” 

The expectation in his voice was endearing, but it wasn’t my job to meet it. I wasn’t the Make-A-Wish foundation for feather’s sake. “Listen, I’m really sorry, but it is what it is. Your life on earth has ended, and I’m tasked with escorting you safely into the next, which is rather divine, if you must know. You’ll like it well enough. Even more so, if we make it back in time for our evening pudding.” That last bit came out through gritted teeth as my soul had started growling. This was taking too long.

“Just one spin.” As he spoke, he whirled round in a half circle, sweeping one leg up and stretching his arms in breathtaking elegance. 

“Hey!” I scampered after him. “You can’t just wander off. Stay close to me!” 

I had come close to losing a passenger before, an experience I didn’t care to repeat. She had been one of my first passengers, a middle aged woman that suffered a stroke in the middle of her forest walk. Somehow she had managed to drag her dog into the in-between with her, and when I had informed her of her fate and my assignment, she had insisted on taking the animal for one last stroll. “I can’t just leave, you see?” She had wavered her Nordic walking pole at me. “He will wonder where I’ve gone.” Not waiting for reply nor permission, she had turned on her heels and walked away, wielding those poles as weaponry, inflating her chest as if she was steeling herself to cross the Andes. She whistled through her teeth and a golden dog’s tail waved and disappeared between the leafy greens. I had lost them.

Night fell over the forest. My soul roared over missed pudding, and ten hours later I missed breakfast plum rolls too, but returning to heaven without my passenger was not an option. It was unheard of. I would lose my wings for sure, and then what? Sit around on a cloud with Saint Peter all day? The amount of lectures I would have to endure weighed down my steps, but not as heavy as the understanding that I would fully deserve them. The realization of my own failure numbed me from the bramble vines latching onto my dress and scratching my legs. I ignored the chill of the morning mist. I fought the hopelessness sinking in my chest.

I had never confessed this to anyone, but I did fail. I never found them. They found me. The golden dog popped up first and started licking my hand, his nose cold and wet against my skin, his tongue raspy and gross. The woman appeared behind him. “I’m ready now.” 

I scratched the dog behind his fluffy ears. “You can’t take him with you.”

“We know. We’ve gone over that. It’s okay.”

Humans are strong like that. So are animals. They sometimes need a little time, but in the end they always find the strength to say goodbye to what or who they love without losing love itself. I’ve seen this many times since, but never again have I been so foolish to let a passenger stray out of my sight.  

Emmet’s skates chirped as he turned to a halt. “I get it. You’re concerned about our safety, and you should be. I’m obviously not having the best of days. Jezus, I fell twice already.”

“You really shouldn’t do that.”

“I know. It’s stupid.” He probed the fatal head injury with the tips of his fingers. 

“His name! I wasn’t talking about the falling, but if it makes you feel any better, the second fall was probably on me. Angels are not equipped for ice skating.”

“I’m sure you’d do better on actual skates.” He ogled my satin ballerina flats. The sincerity in his eyes elicited a chuckle from my empty shell of a body. It was a tempting thought, to take his hands once more and whoosh after him, to let go of the ever pressing sense of duty and forget the throbbing of a hollow chest, to simply dance and risk falling, to teeter on that ominous ledge between skills acquired and skills yet to learn. The memory of that kind of vulnerability excited me. The memory of being human. 

It was a foolish thought, unworthy of an Angel of God, and God would not be pleased to hear it. I rolled my shoulders and flapped my wings into position. “Probably, but we don’t have any extra pairs in the in-between, now do we? Better get on with the flight. After all, that’s what in-betweens are for.”

“In-betweens heh?” He took in his surroundings with renewed attention, as if finally grasping that the earthly scene of his untimely death had gained a rather ethereal touch to it. As if he finally noticed that we weren’t bothered by unpleasantness such as paramedics with defibrillators and trainers with ringing phones. In the in-between, I distilled only the most essential elements from the deceased’s last place on earth, enough of the familiar to make for a reassuring, smooth transition, but nothing more. His gaze lifted to the sky above and he smiled. “It’s prettier without a ceiling, magical, but what you say isn’t true. We do have an extra pair of skates in the in-between.” He pointed to the side of the ice rink, where to my surprise, a pair of white figure skates very casually lay waiting. How did they get here? They were not essential. I must have underestimated my desire for skating. But this in-between wasn’t about my desires. The only one who could’ve needed them here was … 

Regret slipped into the tension of Emmet’s neck and shoulders, the slow tilt of his head. “I never got around to pair skating. Never found the right partner,” he said wistfully. 

“Ow …” Though I no longer possessed a beating heart, the yearning in his eyes stirred something in my soul. “I’d have to try them on first. They’re probably not my size.”

His face lit up. “Of course, I’ll help.”

I sat down on a bench next to the rink and put my first foot up. Emmet’s touch was surprisingly tender. He wrapped a sock around my foot and up my calve before donning the first skate. When it finally dangled on my foot, it was heavy and awkward, and a giddy sort of nervousness took hold of me. While he clothed my second foot I had ample opportunity to breathe in our surroundings and discovered that ice did have a scent and that I rather liked it. 

He helped me to my feet, and I tottered onto the ice. “Umph.” I grabbed his upper arm as one foot slid from under me. 

“Easy, tiger.” He laughed while steadying me. “Are you good?”

“I’m good.” 

“Alright then.”

“Or maybe, wait!” I reigned in my wings, not wanting to get tangled up in them again. “That’s better.”

And then we were off. Crusp, crusp. Pushing one foot. Lift. Glide. Push again. 

“Like angels,” he said, and I had never heard anything funnier. Crisp frost brushed my cheeks and nibbled at my ears. Emmet’s warm gloves squeezed into my hands reassuringly. I floated behind him, perfectly in sync one moment and scrambling for balance the next. I laughed. Genuinely laughed. My face came close to hitting the ice on several occasions, but somehow I, we, managed to keep upright. With every near miss came new, victorious joy. 

“For an angel without a heart you sure know how to have fun,” Emmet said, “So what about stomachs? You have a stomach, right? You mentioned pudding.”

“Food for the soul,” I exclaimed. “Entirely different. Entirely delicious.” As was this skating sensation, which maybe, now that I thought about it, did more to nurture my soul than pudding ever could. 

“I’d love to hear all about heaven, but first …” Emmet yanked me alongside him and pushed my hand from a different angle. “... a pirouette.”

I squealed as I spun around my own axis and somehow knew how to arch my feet in order to make that turn.

“You did it, angel!” he said as I smashed into his chest and both of our bodies came to a rest. 

I lifted my face to his and then up to the infinite sky, where meanwhile a gazillion stars had assembled. Too late for pudding now. Much and much too late. I let out a breath. “Gabriella. My name is Gabriella.”

He followed my gaze up and blinked a few times. Heaven is a radiant place. “Gabriella. I like that name. I suppose you should take me up now?”

I should, I really should, but the smell of ice and Emmet kept me lingering. “I think we can cram in one more round?”

A lopsided grin formed on his face. “Works for me. I think we’re ready for a lift now.”

Unbridled joy spread through my empty chest at the idea. “I am nowhere near ready for a lift, but maybe the next round, who knows?”

“Says the angel with wings.” He twirled around me, pushing his gloves tighter to his fingers. “But okay, the next round then. I got time.”

Time, I thought, was such a human concept. It didn’t really apply to us, did it? Crusp, crusp. 

The End