Tingle - a love story of the supernatural kind.

Chapter 7

The Team

For the next few weeks, the team did what they could, playing comforting music, the angels leading her to apartment rentals. Boxes magically appeared from school that needed to be recycled. Every time Natalie looked at the clock she was shown 555, and 111. New beginnings.

When she went to visit her mother, she had been shocked. "Colorado?"

"Yeah! Can you believe him?"

"No, but he...is your husband. Remember you did vow to love and honor and obey."

Natalie stood stiff and declared. "I never used the word 'obey.' It's archaic, Mom. Any woman with a brain would not accept that."

"Fine, but what are you going to do now?"

"We put the house on a short sale, selling the house, and I'll get half to make a down payment on a house out here."

"Alone? How are you going to afford that?"

"I don't know." She wondered if Dan would help her, but she was too angry to speak with him. He wasn't even home most of the time, and Natalie spent her hours packing up what she wanted to keep and discarding clothing, furniture, and knick knacks she no longer wanted to deal with. Her head spun still as she looked at listings. The housing market was unusually high, and she wouldn't be able to afford a home, even a small one with her salary.

Dan had left for the week, had gone to scout a home and see his new workplace. This left her full of resentment. Fortunately, Marie had come over that Friday night and was helping her to pack up.

The wedding albums and framed photos had all been piled up into the dining room corner on the floor. Natalie had not known what to do with them.

"What do you want to do with the photos and albums?"

Natalie shrugged. "I have no idea. I'll ask if he wants them."

Marie shuffled through a satiny creme-colored album with little ribbon roses that bordered the cover of the frame on top. They had been so young, and she wondered then if things would have worked out any differently if Natalie had listened not only to Marie but to family and other friends who had advised them to wait.

"Just put them in that box for now and label it pictures," Natalie said.

Marie placed them carefully at the bottom and one by one wrapped piles of picture frames in newspaper. So many memories there. So many good ones. Marie smiled when she came across their prom picture. They'd been the oddest couple at the time.

She ran across a picture that she and Natalie had taken inside a photo booth. Back in the days when Marie wore her dark hair short and Natalie had always kept her length about the same. It seemed like Natalie never truly changed who she was, though the one thing that had changed was her figure. Which would have been okay, if she could have accepted that about herself.

After flipping the small photo over she noticed the date on the back. "10/10/2010," she mused.

Natalie straightened, after a day of bending over and putting things in boxes, her lower back reminded her to stretch. "1010!" she said. "There's that number again!"

Marie smiled. "1010? Are you seeing that one a lot lately?"

"Yeah. And I wake up almost everyday at 5:55, I see the clock when it's 2:22, and my watch at 3:33."

"Awww. Angel numbers."

"Angel numbers? What in the heck are angel numbers?"

Natalie believed in the idea of angels, but she tended to lean away from the woo woo stuff that her friend embraced.