Angel's Hero

Chapter 11

Conner promised to return the next day near to lunchtime.
He said he wanted to sort through his notes on the two incidents before coming back to speak through what had happened that morning.
He left, and Michelle set herself up at the kitchen island with her laptop and hard drives.
She could spend the day editing images from her latest shoot. Jackson was happy playing in the spare room. She wasn't worried about him breaking anything, as he was very aware of how special the posters were to Angel.
When Mavis had called earlier, telling her that Angel had had an accident, Michelle's stomach had dropped out.
Images of Angel's body lying torn up in a hospital flew in front of her suddenly blind eyes, before Mavis' words had penetrated.
"...small bump on the head, a few stitches."
Almost weeping with relief when she'd realized that her best friend wasn't dying somewhere, she focused more on the words that followed asking if she would be able to go look after Angel.
"Yeah, sure, I'll be right over," Michelle had rushed to her room in her mother's house and was already throwing some clothes in a bag. "I can be there in twenty minutes. Who? The Sherriff? He found her? Okay, I'll hurry."
Mavis had sounded calm and jovial, which had settled the knots in Michelle's stomach.
Seeing her friend in the arms of that enormous man had scared her briefly, until she'd seen the flush on his neck, and the goo-goo eyes on her friend's face.
The fact that Conner had come down so soon after taking Angel upstairs solidified her opinion of him. A good guy.
She laughed as she remembered a certain 'studly' nurse who'd unfortunately been the target of Angel's affections after she'd had her appendix removed. Michelle laughed as she remembered sitting next to Angel when the good-looking nurse had come in. She'd stroked the man's cheek when he'd bent close to adjust some wires above Angel's head, and asked him to ravish her behind the curtain.
And that had been someone she's only just met! Not someone who Angel was currently swooning over.
Michelle had her spies, and they kept her well informed over Angel's current state of distress.
When Angel had arrived all those months ago, looking so forlorn, her heart broken over the unexpected death of her mother, Michelle had stepped into guardian mode. As had Sienna.
Both of the Winters' women had their reasons for wanting to protect and help Angel.
Sienna would never be able to thank the woman who had fought so bravely to save her daughter's life, and Michelle would forever owe Angel for the life of her son.
A mother's love was unconditional, and Angel had earned the gratitude of two mothers.
And that made the three of them a unit, a family.
Their bond had only solidified in the first few years of Jackson's life, when Michelle's father had gotten ill.
There was a Jack Winters sized hole in Sienna's heart, but his passing hadn't been sudden, and it hadn't been painful.
Michelle had had the chance to say goodbye to her father, and her father had died while holding his wife in his arms, in the bed at the hospital, after she'd snuck in to be with him one more time.
It warmed her heart at how her parents had loved each other.
She'd so desperately wanted a relationship like that all her life, that she had fallen for Owen quickly, not realizing the lies he had been feeding her to manipulate her into his bed.
Years later, she recognized the patterns of her ex-husband and reconciled his actions with what he was. A sociopath.
Michelle couldn't remember where she'd heard the word, but she'd looked up the definition online and had the bottom of her world drop out from her over the realization that she had been so gullible. So trusting, and oh-so stupid.
The mask that Owen had fixed over her eyes had been ripped away, painfully. She remembered typing the word into the search engine and the first article highlighted a number of traits that matched Owen to a T.

Glibness and Superficial Charm.

Owen had always been aloof, but could always make her feel incredibly special.

Manipulative and Conning. They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible.

He had belittled her passion to work as a photographer. He'd convinced her to rather do online work, where she could work from home. Admin.
He said it was because he didn't want her on her feet all day while carrying his child. She now knew it was to keep her away from anyone else, and have her exactly where he would always be able to find her.

Pathological Lying.

Where are you going Owen? Just to the store.
Why do you smell like perfume? I wanted to buy you a present for being so wonderful, and tried some out, but I forgot my wallet.
What are those marks on your back Owen? I fell at work.

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt.

She'd caught him mid-discretion, with the prostitute in the motel room. He'd walked her out and made her feel like the one to blame. Then he'd gone back to the deed while she was still within earshot.

Incapacity for Love.

Seeing these specific words had caved in her chest, hollowing her out.
She'd felt ashamed for tying herself to someone like that, but it also filled her with relief. It wasn't her fault.
Physically shaking her head, Michelle pulled herself out of her memories to focus on the image of the family she'd captured earlier in the week.
They had chosen her Forest Fairy package.
The couple, in their mid thirties, and their two little girls had all dressed in white. She was busy processing one of the images to add wings to the little girls' backs as they ran towards the front of the picture, and the mom and dad were seated on the ground behind them, blurred out for effect.
The girls had their mother's golden red locks, and their daddy's dimples.
She'd taken the photographs in the wooded area north of the harbor, with the light pouring through the leaves in a halo effect behind her subjects.
She honestly loved her work, and didn't like to see it as just a job.
It was her profession.
Her career.
And she was damn proud of where she was, and how far she had come.
"Momma! Momma!" Jackson, the little boy who couldn't seem to walk anywhere, but had to race as fast as he could, bolted into the kitchen where Michelle was set up.
"What's up Jackie?" She rubbed a hand over his face as he came to a halt next to her.
"Yuck, Momma. Don't call me that. My name is Jay," he puffed out his chest. "Just like Sheriff Hero Conner said."
"Alright, alright, little man," she pulled him to her side. "But you'll always be my little Jackie."
"Ugh, fine. But only when we're alone. I don't want Granny to start calling me that too."
Michelle laughed as he rolled his eyes in a very grown up manner. She was suddenly struck with an image of her boy all grown up, and her heart stuttered in her chest.
What if he's like him?
He wont be.
Isn't it genetic? How does that saying go? 'It's blood, not bred?'
Other way round. 'It's bred, not blood.' Besides, that's referring to pit bulls.
Michelle looked at her son's shining face, the bright way his eye's sparkled up at her.
There couldn't be evil in this precious boy, could there?
She gathered him close, and squeezed him tight, wishing all the goodness in the world into him.
"Aah you're squishing me!" She planted kisses on his head then ruffled his hair as he moved out of her reach. "Jeez, Momma. Don't be so gross." He said it smiling, so she knew he secretly liked it.
He'd started acting the cool guy around his friends at school.
It hurt a little, but Michelle didn't take it to heart. She knew it was normal for boys to not want to act lame in front of their friends.
And getting kisses from your mother was definitely lame to a seven-year-old boy.
"Momma," Jackson started slowly. Oh, boy. He wants something.
"Yes, Jackie, sorry, Jay," she feigned forgetting to get him to smile again.
"Would you marry Conner?" His wide blue eyes looked at her with such hope.
Michelle almost went with her instinctive reaction to his question - shock. She'd learned over the years though, that whenever her son asked her any question, to take a deep breath before answering.
She needed to be sure to think her answers through.
Michelle didn't want anything said in anger, and in turn hoped it would teach Jackson a valuable life lesson to always think before speaking.
So far, he hadn't picked up on it yet.
"You like Conner?" She said, careful to keep her voice neutral.
"Yeah, I think it would be cool to tell Bryan at school that my new dad is a superhero," he moved his hand through the air in front of his face making the sound for flying, like most kids did when playing superhero.
"Honey," she took him by the shoulders, and turned herself to face him fully, before continuing carefully. "You know he's not really a superhero, right? He does heroic things, but he doesn't have any superpowers."
"But he could carry Auntie Angie upstairs. And she's, like, biiiiig."
Dropping her head to hide her smile, she climbed off her chair, and brought herself down to his level, squatting on her haunches.
"Jackson," she had to get this right. "You need to stop saying Angel is big."
"But she is! She's so much bigger than you, Momma."
"Yes, she is taller than me." Michelle stressed the word. "Taller. If she heard you calling her big, she'd be hurt, thinking you were calling her fat."
Jackson's face paled. He didn't understand why being fat was a bad thing, because Grace's Momma was fat, and when she hugged him, he always felt so happy. She was so soft and it was like hugging a real life teddy bear.
His Momma's face though, and tone of voice was telling him otherwise.
Had he made Auntie Angie sad by calling her fat?
"I didn't mean it! I swear, I didn't mean it, Momma. Angel is tiny, like, so little and small and perfect." His bottom lip trembled.
"I know, sweetheart," she hugged him close, his head ducking into her neck and hiding his face like he had done as a toddler. "Girls are silly. We think being fat is a bad thing."
"It really isn't, Momma. I think you need some fat on you," he sniffled. Realizing he might have said something bad now about his Momma, he pulled back and took her face in his hands, mimicking her when she wanted him to pay attention to what she was telling him. "I mean, you're also perfect, but I like squishy hugs. Like Shelby gives."
Michelle laughed, beyond convinced that the little boy she was raising was nothing like the man who'd sired him.
"You're pretty perfect too, baby," She squeezed him again.
"So..." he trailed off while enjoying her hug; his head on her shoulder this time. "You gonna marry Conner?"
"No. Conner is gonna marry Angel."
She had no idea why she'd said it. There was no way she could guarantee it, and she tried to avoid saying things that weren't true, especially to little boys who didn't quite understand what a white lie was.
She stood quickly, and pretended to shuffle some papers on the kitchen island to avoid her son's gaze, but keeping him in her peripheral view.
He pondered that for a minute, tapping his finger to his chin. Michelle moved to the fridge to get out some lunch for them. The morning had disappeared on her while she'd been working.
"Yeah, okay. I guess Uncle Hero Conner is also cool."
Michelle laughed again, her mood wonderfully improved.
"Right, little man," she used her favorite nickname for him. "What shall we make for lunch? Let's make a plate for Auntie Angie, too."
"I can decide?" Thoughts of marriage forgotten, he shimmied around the open fridge door to stand in front of her and see the contents.
"You can."
"This! Definitely this!" he pointed to the slab of chocolate. "And this, and this and this!" Cheese, milk, and a banana.
Strange kid.
"Ah, how about I make something for Angel, and you can have that?" She rubbed his head. "Just because it's Sunday, and you were so good eating your broccoli last night."
"Yuck! That was so gross!"
"But..." Michelle let the word trail off.
"But it's good for me. I know, Momma."
He was her shining star and she loved him so much at that moment as he rolled his eyes at her again.
"Good boy."