Entertaining Angels

The wine had been breathing for forty-seven minutes when the doorbell rang. She smoothed her blue dress and checked her reflection.

"He's here, darling."

Her husband emerged from his study. "Yes, the Cooperation Act amendment, just expanding those bilateral protocols." He ended the call. "Right then."

The man at the door was younger than expected, with warm brown skin and careful eyes that seemed to catalog everything. But where her husband's assessments felt like appraisals of value, this stranger's attention seemed considerate.

"Madame, please accept my deepest apologies. Minister Davidson has been detained. I am Jean-Baptiste Moreau, his senior policy advisor." The French accent wrapped around each word, though she caught a slight hesitation on certain consonants. "He insisted I attend in his place."

"Not at all, please come in."

He waited—actually waited for her to step aside before entering, as if her permission mattered. How long since anyone had sought her consent for anything?

Her husband appeared, hand extended. "Excellent. Sorry about Davidson."

"Indeed. Though I should mention, I am also a Senior Policy Coordinator for Cross-Border Affairs. I ensure international protocols don't create unintended complications." He smiled. "Mostly I prevent politicians from accidentally declaring war through poor wording."

In the sitting room, her husband poured drinks with his usual efficiency—large whiskey for himself, calculated portions for others.

"Wine would be lovely, m-merci."

Jean-Baptiste accepted the glass with both hands, a small bow of acknowledgment. The slight stammer made Jean-Baptiste seem vulnerable, struggling with the language despite his obvious education. Something about his careful effort touched her—when had anyone last tried so hard to communicate properly in her presence? Her husband handed over the glass with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, already calculating his next advantage.

"Tell you what, let's have some music. Alexa, play some dinner jazz."

The black cylinder came alive with blue light. "Playing dinner jazz from Spotify."

Miles Davis filtered through the room. Jean-Baptiste tilted his head, listening with genuine appreciation rather than performative knowledge.

"Wonderful choice. Kind of Blue?"

"Good ear." Her husband seemed pleased. "Though I wonder—do you know much about music? Real music, beyond the obvious classics?"

"I know a little, perhaps."

"Bit of a hobby of mine. Let's play a little game, shall we? Test of cultural knowledge. See how much gets lost in translation."

She recognized the tone—her husband setting up dominance games disguised as entertainment. Her stomach tightened in familiar preparation.

He gestured toward the device. "Go ahead, ask her to play something."

Jean-Baptiste looked uncertain, glancing at her with what seemed like genuine concern for her comfort. When did anyone last check her reaction before proceeding? "What would you suggest?"

"Surprise me."

"Alexa, play... play Édith Piaf."

"Playing Edith Piaf from Spotify."

La Vie En Rose began. Her husband nodded, but she could see him calculating, preparing his next move like pieces on a chess board where she and Jean-Baptiste were merely pawns.

Over the next twenty minutes, he led Jean-Baptiste through increasingly complex requests, dictating each one with precision. She watched him position himself center stage, Jean-Baptiste relegated to repeating commands while she observed from the margins.

"Tell her to play the third track from Abbey Road, side B only."

"Alexa, play the third track from Abbey Road, side B only."

"Playing 'Waterloo' by ABBA."

Pop music burst through the room. Her husband's eyes lit up with delight at Jean-Baptiste's apparent failure. She found herself counting his smiles—always when someone else struggled.

"Tell her to play 'Coltrane's soprano sax solo from Giant Steps, live at the Village Vanguard, March 1962.'"

The request was repeated carefully.

"Playing 'Sweet Caroline' by Neil Diamond."

Her husband leaned back, savoring each technological failure. She noticed how he held his glass—never quite empty, always refilling before she could offer. Control, even over small courtesies.

Jean-Baptiste caught her eye briefly, and she saw something there—not pity, but understanding. As if he recognized the careful choreography she performed around her husband's moods. His dark skin seemed to absorb the lamplight, making him appear almost ethereal in the golden glow.

"S-sorry," Jean-Baptiste said. "My English is... not always clear."

"Don't apologize," her husband said, practically radiating satisfaction. "It's fascinating, really. The way technology struggles with... certain pronunciations."

He was positioning himself between Jean-Baptiste and the door now. Not obvious, just a casual shift while gesturing with his drink. The way he always positioned himself when he wanted someone to stay exactly where he put them. She knew because she'd learned to read these movements years ago, survival depending on predicting his territorial claims.

"Let's try one more. Tell her exactly this: 'Play the opening interlude from Te Deum, Berlioz version, Vienna Philharmonic, 1984 recording.'"

Jean-Baptiste repeated the complex request with painstaking care.

"Playing 'Entertaining Angels' by Newsboys."

Christian rock began, guitar chords building toward something that felt like prayer made audible. She looked up at the chandelier, its light suddenly seeming less like illumination and more like observation. The music spoke of watchers, of protection, of hosts that moved unseen through ordinary moments. For a strange instant, she felt less alone than she had in months.

Her husband's face showed visible discomfort. "Christ, Alexa, enough." His voice carried the edge she knew from private moments when things didn't follow his script. "Stop music. Religious nonsense."

"Christian rock. Not my cup of tea." He poured himself another whiskey, his good mood restored by the return to Jean-Baptiste's ignorance. The way he said 'Christian' carried the same distaste he reserved for anything that suggested authority beyond his own. "The point is, technology only works if you know how to use it properly."

They moved to dinner, where she served the lamb with extra care, aware of Jean-Baptiste's presence in a way that made her hands almost steady. He held her chair—actually held her chair and waited for her to sit before taking his own place.

"This is magnificent, Madame," Jean-Baptiste said as she served him. "You have real talent."

The simple acknowledgment hit her unexpectedly. She found herself looking at him properly—noting how he thanked her for each small service, when had someone last acknowledged her efforts like that? The repetition made her realize how long it had been since anyone noticed what she did.

"Tell me," her husband said, cutting his meat with sharp strokes, "what's Davidson's real position on the planning applications? All this fuss about historical preservation."

"The Minister believes heritage deserves protection from hasty development."

"Even when that development brings progress?" Another sip of whiskey. "Easy to say when you're not the one being blocked by bureaucracy."

Jean-Baptiste's fork paused. "Some things, once destroyed, cannot be rebuilt."

"Can't they? Seems to me that's just lack of vision."

She served the vegetables, noticing how Jean-Baptiste's attention followed her movements—not possessively, like her husband tracked her for efficiency, but with what seemed like appreciation for her care. When their eyes met, she felt something stir that she'd thought permanently dormant.

"Perhaps," Jean-Baptiste said carefully, "the question is not whether we can rebuild, but whether we should."

"Should." Her husband's laugh had lost its warmth. "Who decides what 'should' happen? Local people who understand the community, or outsiders with their own agendas?"

The word 'outsiders' landed heavy in the room. Jean-Baptiste continued eating with mechanical precision, and she realized he was calculating each response the way she'd learned to calculate hers—aware that wrong words could trigger something dangerous.

"I would hope that all perspectives could be considered," Jean-Baptiste said.

"Would you? Even when those perspectives conflict with progress? With jobs? With what people actually need rather than what preservationists think they should want?"

Her husband's voice was rising slightly, the way it did when he felt his authority questioned. She found herself watching Jean-Baptiste's hands—steady, careful, never making sudden movements. He knew, somehow, how to exist around contained volatility. The contrast between his composed dark features and her husband's increasingly flushed face was becoming more pronounced.

"Perhaps the question is not whose perspective matters most, but how we balance competing needs without destroying what cannot be replaced."

"Balance." Her husband set down his glass with deliberate precision. "Spoken like a true diplomat. Always looking for compromise, never willing to make hard decisions."

The conversation was shifting toward familiar territory—her husband's contempt for anyone who didn't share his certainty, his need to establish intellectual dominance over anyone who dared disagree.

"I believe," Jean-Baptiste said quietly, "that the best solutions serve the greater good."

"Do you? Because I think what you believe is that your judgment is better than the people who actually live here. That your values should override local decisions."

Jean-Baptiste's eyes moved from her husband to her, something shifting in his expression that made her feel genuinely seen. "I believe all people deserve to have their environment protected from harm."

"Environment." Her husband leaned back, glass in hand. "Interesting word choice. What about personal environments? Private spaces? The idea that some things are between people, not subject to outside interference?"

The question felt loaded, dangerous. She recognized the pattern—her husband creating philosophical traps that led inevitably to his preferred conclusions.

"I think," Jean-Baptiste said with evident care, "that when people are harmed, sometimes they cannot advocate for themselves. They may need assistance."

"Assistance from whom? People like you? Foreigners who think they understand situations better than the people living them?"

Her husband stood abruptly, moving to the sideboard with movements slightly looser than before. The whiskey was affecting his usual precision. "Everyone's an expert on harm these days."

He opened the drawer, and she knew with terrible certainty what he was reaching for. Her carefully cultivated hope—that fragile thing Jean-Baptiste's kindness had awakened—began to crystallize into dread.

"Tell me," he continued, his back to them, "what harm do you see in this room? What terrible injustice requires your intervention?"

Jean-Baptiste remained perfectly still, but she caught the way his attention sharpened, how his posture shifted almost imperceptibly. "I see a lovely dinner, prepared with obvious care by a gracious hostess."

"Do you? Because I think you see opportunities." Her husband turned around, gun emerging from the drawer like a dark flower blooming. "I think you came here looking for something to report."

The weapon seemed to suck light from the room. She felt herself fragmenting—part of her watching in frozen terror, part calculating escape routes that didn't exist, part mourning the loss of those precious moments when Jean-Baptiste had made her feel human again.

"Monsieur, I came here to discuss planning applications."

"Did you? Because you've been much more interested in my wife." The accusation landed like a physical blow. "All that attention, all those thank-yous. Making her think she's special."

She was special, she realized with startling clarity. Or at least, she had been, for those brief moments when someone noticed her efforts, acknowledged her care, treated her like a person rather than a service provider.

"Your wife has been extraordinarily kind to a guest."

"Has she? All that careful service, all those grateful looks. Tell me, what exactly were you hoping she'd do? Leave with you? Report back to your superiors about what a terrible husband I am?"

The gun was pointing at Jean-Baptiste now, her husband's hand steady despite the alcohol. "People like you make me sick. Coming into my country, my home, acting like you have any right to judge how I treat what's mine."

She watched the scene unfold with horrible recognition—her husband, red-faced with rage and alcohol, towering over Jean-Baptiste who remained seated, composed, his dark skin a stark contrast against the pale dining room walls.

The possessive pronoun hit her like a slap, but also like revelation. She was 'what's mine' to him—property, not person. Jean-Baptiste had treated her like a person.

"She's my wife," her husband continued, the words raw with ownership. "My house, my marriage, my business. And you come here acting like some kind of protector."

Jean-Baptiste's response was barely audible, but it carried weight that seemed to shift the air in the room. "Do you believe she deserves better?"

It was the wrong question. She saw her husband's face change, saw the moment where words became insufficient for his rage, where the careful mask of civilization finally slipped completely.

"She's my wife."

The gun fired.

The sound was impossibly loud. Jean-Baptiste jerked backward, hit the wall, and slid down leaving a dark streak that caught the light from the chandeliers strangely.

She went very still. Something inside her that had begun to unfurl over the evening—some forgotten possibility of being seen, being valued, being treated as if her thoughts and feelings mattered—died as quietly as it had awakened. Her hands grew cold. The careful hope she hadn't even realized she'd been nurturing crumpled like paper, and with it died the version of herself that Jean-Baptiste had somehow called into being simply by noticing she existed.

Her husband stood frozen, gun still extended, staring at what he'd done. The mask was completely off now, all pretense gone, and she saw him exactly as he was when no one else was watching.

"Look what you made me do," he said, turning to her with the voice she knew from behind closed doors—the voice that made everything her fault, her responsibility, her failure to manage his emotions properly. "Look what happens when you embarrass me in front of strangers. When you make me look like the bad guy with your pathetic grateful looks."

She stared at him, understanding finally that he'd seen exactly what she'd felt—that moment of awakening, of possibility—and had killed it as deliberately as he'd killed Jean-Baptiste.

"You think you're so innocent, don't you? Sitting there playing victim, making him think he needs to rescue you from your terrible husband. Well, now look. Now look what your little performance has cost."

The front door exploded inward.

"European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation! Nobody move!"

Officers in dark uniforms flooded the room, weapons drawn. Her husband spun around, gun still in his hand, his face cycling through confusion and rage.

"What the hell—this is my house! You have no jurisdiction here!"

The lead officer, a woman with silver hair and cold eyes, stepped forward. "We have full jurisdiction under the Cooperation Act 2024, which you personally shepherded through Parliament six months ago."

Her husband's face went white. "That was just administrative cleanup—"

"Administrative cleanup that expanded our authority to investigate crimes against EU citizens and designated personnel." The officer gestured toward Jean-Baptiste. "You are under arrest for violent assault against a cross-border liaison officer."

"Liaison officer? He's Davidson's aide—"

"He is Senior Policy Coordinator Jean-Baptiste Moreau, ELO designation 7749, European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation."

Her husband's mouth opened and closed. "But he didn't identify himself as police—this is entrapment—"

"He identified himself as a Senior Policy Coordinator for Cross-Border Affairs upon arrival. His exact words were recorded by multiple devices." The officer's voice carried no sympathy. "You were informed he ensures international protocols don't create unintended complications. That is a precise description of his assignment here."

Jean-Baptiste was stirring against the wall, and where she expected blood, fiber optic cables glowed beneath synthetic skin.

"Status report, Agent Moreau."

Jean-Baptiste's voice emerged unchanged, still carrying that careful French accent. "Assignment completed successfully, Commander. Subject demonstrated clear escalating pattern of domestic abuse, culminating in attempted murder of an investigating officer."

Her husband dropped the gun, hands rising. "He's not human. This is impossible—"

"This is justice, Mr. Harrison." The Commander turned to her, expression softening. "Ma'am, you're safe now. We've been monitoring the situation for several months."

She stared at Jean-Baptiste as he stood with mechanical precision, systems visibly repairing themselves beneath artificial skin. The being who had thanked her for every kindness, who had absorbed her husband's violence without flinching.

"What are you?" she whispered.

"I am what was needed," he said simply. "Someone who could document the truth without being destroyed by it."

As they led her husband away, she heard him shouting about rights, about jurisdiction, about the impossibility of machines. The irony wasn't lost—destroyed by his own legislation, betrayed by his own need for control.

Jean-Baptiste approached her carefully, damage already fading as repair systems worked beneath synthetic skin. "I apologize for the deception, Madame. But some truths can only be revealed through careful theater."

She looked at this artificial being who had shown more humanity than her human husband. "The kindness—was any of it real?"

His expression shifted, and for a moment she saw something that looked remarkably like genuine emotion. "The kindness was real. The care was real. The stammer, the hesitation—they're real. But perhaps strength best reveals itself through what appears to be weakness."

She felt tears beginning. "And Minister Davidson?"

Jean-Baptiste's smile carried secrets she might never fully understand. "Minister Davidson sends his regards and his assurance that your safety remains a priority."

On the sideboard, the black cylinder that had been their unwitting witness glowed softly in the sudden quiet.

"Thank you," she said simply.

"It was my honor, Madame. Truly." He moved toward the door, then paused. "You will have support. There are programs, people who understand. And there are systems watching now—systems that remember everything."

He walked into the night, leaving her standing in her own doorway for the first time in years—truly her own doorway, truly her own choice.

On the table lay a card: "European Union Victim Support Services - Specialized Intervention Unit."

She picked it up, turned it over. In Jean-Baptiste's precise handwriting: "You were always worth protecting."

Standing in the silence of her house—her house now, truly hers—she realized that the strangest part of the evening wasn't that an android had come to dinner. The strangest part was that it had taken an artificial being to show her what genuine humanity looked like.

She was safe. She was seen. She was no longer alone.

She was free.