Of Promises And Angels

By Di

Tires squealed and dirt rolled as the convertible screeched to a halt directly in front of the small building bearing the sign, which read "Clinic".

Frantically the driver jumped from the car, raced up the walk and rang the doorbell. Looking back at the man slumped in the passenger seat, he turned back to the door and, making a fist, began banging on it repeatedly as if this would bring anyone inside to the door more quickly.

The fear on his face was evident to the woman dressed in a white nurses uniform as she opened the door in response. Glancing over his shoulder she saw the cause of his concern seated in the white convertible parked in front.

"This is a *clinic*, not a hospital. We cannot handle emergencies here. The doctor will not return for a week. If your friend is hurt, I would suggest that you drive him into the city right away. We are not equipped to help him here," and she moved to close the door.

Before she could latch the door, the young man had pushed it back open with his shoulder and grabbed the young woman by the wrist, dragging her toward the car. The pleading look in his eyes softened her heart and she decided that at the very least she could see what the problem was.

Turning, she looked down upon one of the most strikingly handsome faces she had seen in her twenty-five years of life. Her heart went out to the young man standing at her side. The man in the passenger seat had not moved since she had answered the door and she feared that any help she might be able to offer might be too late.

Reaching into the car, she could not help but stroke the man's cheek as her fingers moved down his throat in search of the pulse point in his neck. Finding the spot, she pressed down gently. Immediately her eyes flew to the boy who stood beside her.

"I found a pulse! Go inside and get the wheelchair that is by the desk! Hurry!"

As he ran into the building, she quickly opened the car door, removed the coat that was covering the man sitting there and immediately saw the blood that stained the right side of his shirt and trousers. Had he been stabbed? Or shot? Gentling pulling him forward she saw that there was no exit wound on his back.

The wheelchair suddenly appeared next to the open door and together they lifted the injured man out of the car, settled him in the chair and rushed into the clinic.

"Bring him back here!" she directed the young man pushing the chair as she opened the door to a small room equipped with both a hospital bed and an examining table. With one foot she locked the brake on the chair, as she barked instructions at him and together they lifted the unconscious man onto the table.

Grabbing a pair of scissors from a tray near the table, she cut away the blood-soaked shirt and reached for a stack of gauze dressings, which she placed over the seeping wound.

"Come! Hold this right here! Keep pressure on it while I get some supplies. He's lost a lot of blood and we need to stop the bleeding now! We'll worry about getting the bullet out later, if he survives."

The boy looked down at the man on the table and, leaning forward, kissed his forehead as he repeatedly smoothed the hair back in a comforting gesture. Tears shone in his eyes as he looked for the first sign of life since Antonio had passed out in the car and saw nothing, no flutter of eyelids, no flicker of pain.

The door crashed open as the woman entered the room pushing an IV stand on which she had hung two plastic bags, one filled with a dark red fluid, the other clear. Wheeling the stand next to the table, she began inserting the intravenous needles into the veins in his forearms all the while instructing the boy to keep the pressure steady on the wound. Once they were inserted, she gently removed his hands and lifted the gauze. The bleeding had slowed and, from the amount of blood he appeared to have lost, it was apparent to her that the bullet did not hit any major veins or arteries, which explained why he was still alive.

"Stand on the other side of the table. I'm going to clean and dress the wound. Then we will just have to wait to see what happens. He is much too weak to be able to survive me trying to remove that bullet right now."

Nodding, the young boy moved around the table and took Antonio's hand as he watched the young woman work.

Once the wound was cleaned and bandaged, she checked his pulse and was encouraged to find that it was much stronger than it had been in the car and with the bleeding nearly stopped and the infusion of blood from the IV, some of the color was slowly returning to his face.

Covering the man on the table with a light blanket, which had been stored on a shelf by the door, she gently took the young boy by the wrist and when he resisted, said, "We've done what we can for now. The bleeding has slowed and he needs to rest. If he regains some of his strength by morning, I will try to remove the bullet. The rest is in God's hands. Why don't you come with me into the next room and you can tell me what happened. We'll leave the door open so we can see and hear him, all right?"

The boy hesitantly allowed himself to be led from the room and sat in the chair by the desk, adjusting the angle so he could see the man lying on the table.

Slowly she lowered herself into the chair behind the desk, pushed away a stray strand of hair which persistently fell in her eyes, and looked at the young man seated across from her. "Tell me your name. And your friend's name."

At first it didn't appear that the boy had heard her so she repeated herself, more forcefully this time. Glancing at the woman, he motioned to her, imitating writing on an imaginary piece of paper. It took a second for her to remember that she had not heard a word from him since she opened the door in response to his repeated banging and realization finally dawned on her. Opening the drawer, she removed a pad of paper and a pen and slid them across the desk.

The young man wrote quickly, all the while keeping one eye on the other room, and slid the paper back across the desk.

"His name is Antonio. He is my brother. They call me Chico," were the words printed in large block letters.

Smiling for the first time since their whirlwind arrival, she extended her hand across the desk. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Chico. My name is Angela."

*****

Angela looked down at her patient as she picked up his wrist to check his pulse. It had been two days since she had successfully removed the bullet from his abdomen and she was becoming extremely concerned that while his vital signs were stable, he had made no progress toward regaining consciousness. Stealing a glance across the bed, her heart went out to his brother who had refused to leave his side and, even now, slept in the chair next to the bed clasping his brother's hand.

Returning her attention to Antonio, she leaned over him, pulled up his right eyelid and was pleased to see that the pupil was no longer dilated. Each time she had checked for dilation, she was surprised at the arresting color of his eyes.

Releasing the lid, she gazed at her watch as she silently finished counting the strong and steady pulse. Her hand reached up to check the other pupil and froze in midair as she suddenly realized that the man lying there was staring at her with those beautiful cinnamon colored eyes, fully awake. A self-satisfied smirk curved his lips as he watched her shocked reaction.

Startled, she dropped his wrist and almost knocked over the IV stand as she took two steps back. Rushing around the bed she shook the dozing boy by the shoulders. When he appeared to have woken sufficiently, she leaned down and said, almost in a whisper, "He's awake!"

The chair he had been dozing in tipped over as he jumped to his feet and took his brother in his arms, trying to be mindful not to dislodge the IV tubes.

Angela backed away and watched the brotherly reunion with a smile. The smirk that had greeted her was gone and had been replaced with a look of genuine joy at seeing his younger brother. After several seconds she could see exhaustion return to Antonio's face and moving closer to the bed, reached across and tapped his brother on the shoulder.

"Come with me, honey. He is back with us but he needs to rest to get better. I'll make us some lunch, okay? He'll be much stronger when he wakes back up so let's just let Antonio sleep now."

Although the boy looked at her with uncertainty in his eyes, a quick glance at Antonio confirmed that he was about to drift off and, nodding, he moved around the bed and into the other room.

Angela quickly checked the IV's and moved to follow him but was stopped as a hand shot out and closed around her wrist. Drowsiness about to overtake him, he managed to ask, "How do you know my name?" Forcing herself to breath normally, she looked into his eyes and said, "Your brother told me." Somewhat amused at the puzzled look which crossed his face, she continued, "He wrote it down."

Satisfied, Antonio nodded sleepily as he asked, "And you? What is your name?"

"Angela. My name is Angela."

Exhaustion finally winning out, Antonio closed his eyes as he sighed, "Angela. Yes, Angela…my angel" and fell asleep.

*****

Antonio's recuperation was nothing short of miraculous, spurred on by the love of his younger brother and the attentive care from Angela. In the six days since their arrival, very few people had appeared at the clinic and those were all for minor injuries, sore throats and the like. Angela met with each of them in the small office and, if the case were serious enough, referred them to the clinic in the city, twenty miles away. The doctor assigned here split his time between several small towns and only saw patients at this particular clinic on Wednesdays. Angela was well aware that today was Tuesday and that Antonio and Chico must not be here when the doctor arrived the next day.

After closing the clinic, she watched the brothers from the doorway for several minutes before interrupting.

"Antonio, Chico...I'm afraid you cannot be here tomorrow when Dr. Hernandez arrives. He must not know that you were here or what I did to treat you, as some of those things should have only been done by a doctor and not by a nurse." Knowing his concern for his brother, Angela quickly continued, "Don't worry. Tonight you will both come and stay with me at my apartment. It is small but you will be comfortable there until Antonio can fully recover."

Seeing the worry in his brother's face, Antonio turned to her, smiled and said, "Thank you, Angela…no, thank you, *Angel* for you truly are an angel to help us like this. You know we cannot repay you until…"

"Don't worry about that! Right now we have to concentrate on getting you back on your feet. Why don't you rest for a couple of hours and I'll go to the apartment and get things ready. Stay with him, Chico, but make sure he rests, all right?"

The young boy nodded and she smiled as she ruffled his hair, kissed the top of his head and walked to the door. Turning, she looked at the brothers once more and said, "I mean it...rest!" but sternness of her voice was belied by the smile in her eyes.

*****

The next two weeks flew by and each passing day saw a marked improvement as Antonio regained his strength. Each day he would accompany his brother on walks around the neighborhood while Angela was at work. As his strength grew, the walks became longer and longer until Antonio was able to handle walking to the business district of the small town and back with ease.

Returning home from work one evening, Angela found Antonio and his brother sitting at the kitchen table. Several books lay open and she watched in silence as Antonio pushed a book across the table and pointed to something that brought a smile to his brother's face.

Walking into the kitchen, Angela stopped behind the young boy's chair, put her hands on his shoulders and asked, "So, Chico, where did you and Antonio go today? The Library?" Catching Antonio's eye, she continued, "And what are all these books about?"

Reaching down, she closed the cover of the one he held in his hands and read the title, "A Visitor's Guide To Baton Rouge". Her eyes skimmed over the titles of the books that remained unopened and saw that all of the titles dealt with the United States and, in particular, Louisiana.

She was flipping through one of the larger books when she heard Antonio clear his throat and say softly, "We can't stay here, Angel. Some bad things happened and if you hadn't helped us, I would be dead or in jail by now. We need to get as far from here as we can and Baton Rouge is where Chico has always wanted to go. I promised him a long time ago I would help him get there. But we have no passports and can't travel under our own names . . ."

Coming around the table, she crouched down beside Antonio's chair, took his hand and looked into his troubled eyes. "I have a cousin who can help you get the paperwork you need. He *knows* people who can provide these but it is going to be expensive."

Antonio smiled weakly and squeezed her hand. "We will find the money, Angel."

"All right, I'll contact him tomorrow but for now, let's get all these books off the table so we can eat dinner!"

As she brushed her hair later that evening, she could hear Antonio's one-sided conversation with his brother through the partially open door.

"It's going to happen, Chico! Tomorrow we start making plans to go to America and our new lives! It will be different there, I swear…no more rich older women like Isabel! We will make it on our own without their help."

Questions raced through her mind as she lay in bed a few minutes later. What really had happened? Who was Isabel and what *help* had Antonio gotten from older women? There was an obvious answer but she tried to push it from her mind. Yet...his looks, the designer clothing he had been wearing, and the expensive car he drove all suggested that it may be the truth. One thing was apparent, however. Antonio had decided to leave his past behind and to do so meant having to leave this country, and her, behind too.

*****

The trio watched as a large plane landed and taxied up the tarmac. In the past week, all of the arrangements had been made for Antonio and Chico's trip to the United States. The expensive car had been sold and most of the money used to pay off Angela's cousin for the passports and to purchase the airline tickets to New York. After buying some new clothes and necessities, there was just enough left over to get them through the first few weeks until they could find jobs.

As the door to the jetway opened and they heard the flight to New York announced, Angela felt the tears spring to her eyes. She hadn't realized how much she had grown to love these two and how empty her life would be without them. Grabbing Chico's arm, she pulled him into a quick embrace and gave him a peck on the cheek. Blushing, he smiled at her and then made his way toward the woman who was collecting tickets.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she turned to look up at Antonio and felt her bottom lip quiver...

"Write me when you get a place in New York, okay? I want…N-no, I *need* to know where you are and what you are doing."

Antonio's eyes misted as he gathered Angela into his arms. Looking down, he gave her a weak smile and slowly lowered his lips to hers in their first kiss. Being in his arms with his lips on hers made the parting even more agonizing as she realized that she may never see him again, never be in his arms or feel his lips on hers again.

The overhead speaker crackled as the flight attendant announced the final boarding call and Angela broke the kiss and stepped out of his arms.

"You better go. You'll miss your flight."

Nodding, he grabbed her hand and gave it a final squeeze as he backed away. "I will write you as soon as we have a place. I will miss you…you truly are my Angel!"

Angela watched him hand the woman his ticket and walk down the jetway without looking back. As the door closed, she once more wiped the tears from her eyes, squared her shoulders and faced the trip back to the now empty apartment and her now empty life.

*****

New York City hadn't turned out to be the gateway to their new life that Antonio had expected. After a month of applications and interviews, he was no closer to a real job than he had been the day they stepped off the plane onto American soil. He was sick of being told he either wasn't qualified or that his English wasn't good enough to communicate with customers.

Even the meager rent at the small efficiency apartment they had rented was more than what Chico earned at the dishwashing job he had managed to get at the corner diner. Every day saw more money going out than coming in and, although he tried hard to hide it from his brother, Antonio knew that there was not enough cash left to pay the rent when it came due in two days.

Although they could hardly afford it, Antonio reasoned that the cost of a drink or two was not going to make much difference, pulled open the glass door to the upscale restaurant and took a seat at the bar. Several empty stools separated him from the other patrons and, staring into his drink, he reflected on the interview he had just come from at the trendy men's store on Fifth Avenue. Even though the paperwork Angela's cousin had provided appeared flawless, the personnel manager appeared skeptical and within ten minutes had thanked Antonio for coming in and closed the interview.

With no plan for the future, Antonio thought back to his life in Spain and the choices he had made that brought him to this place in his life. Before he was set up for killing Isabel's husband, he had never had to worry about money. There was always a lonely woman who was willing to pay the price necessary to have the company of a good-looking, younger man. And he knew how to play that game to get everything they were willing to offer. But he had left that life behind and now…

A whiff of expensive perfume made Antonio realize that the bar stool next to him was no longer empty. Glancing to his right, his eyes took in the mink coat, Gucci handbag and supple leather gloves as the woman worked them off her fingers to reveal the expensive diamond rings she wore on each meticulously manicured hand. Raising his eyes, he was met with the knowing smile of a woman about twenty years his senior.

Feeling somewhat uncomfortable in what used to be a familiar situation, Antonio finished his drink and was preparing to leave when the bartender set a drink in front of the woman and placed a new drink in front of him.

As the bartender moved to the other end of the bar, Antonio tried to catch his attention stammering, "Excuse me! I did not order this!"

The woman next to him placed a hand on his arm and purred, "I did. I don't like to drink alone and you look like a man who could use another one. Or, maybe you would prefer to have that drink someplace quieter?"

Suddenly he felt the woman place her hand on his thigh and he heard his breath catch as she slowly moved it higher. When he didn't pull away, she chuckled and said, "I thought so. Come with me, lover!" and slowly walked out of the bar, watching him over her shoulder.

Biting his lip, Antonio struggled with the realities of his situation. He had promised himself and his brother that he would never do this again but that was before there was no money and no immediate prospects for paying the rent. As she disappeared through the glass door, he made his decision, finished the drink in one swallow and headed for the door. Had his English been better he may have caught the irony as the piped-in Muzak began to play an old David Lee Roth tune…"Just a gigolo, everywhere I go...as the door closed behind him.

*****

Antonio pushed back the dark curly hair with his fingers and watched his younger brother as he slept with his head resting on the window glass. The air in the bus was stuffy and smelled of too many bodies cramped together for too long a time in too small a space. But Antonio hardly noticed. They were only a few miles outside of Baton Rouge and in a short while, they could leave this bus and start the new life he had planned.

Nothing had gone the way he had expected in New York and some would call his decision at the bar an act of desperation. And, in truth, the decision to go with Lorraine that first night *was* the act of a desperate man resorting to his old ways to keep a roof over his brother's head.

He had spent his entire adulthood taking advantage of other people, catering to their fantasies and reaping the benefits of their weaknesses. It had always made him feel powerful and in control of the situation…until Isabel.

At least with Lorraine, they both knew it was strictly a business relationship. She needed an escort and the companionship of an attractive younger man and was willing to pay handsomely for that. He needed the cash to support himself and his brother. No obligations, no emotions, no strings.

A strong friendship had developed between the two and Antonio told her of his brother's dream to live in Baton Rouge and how, someday, he planned to make that dream come true. Even knowing this, she felt a sense of loss the day he came to tell her that they were leaving.

They spent their final evening together at the opera and attending a cocktail party hosted by the CEO of a large corporation in which she was a major stockholder. Antonio was aware of what the other guests were saying behind their backs but it didn't matter to him. This was his last night with a dear friend and nothing was going to spoil the evening.

While he showered the next morning, Lorraine made a few phone calls and was waiting for him as he walked out of the steamy bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

"Antonio, I need to talk to you a minute. Please, come here and sit down?" she asked and patted the empty space beside her on the bed.

When he was seated next to her, she took his hand, looked into his eyes and said, "You probably don't want me to be involved in this but I know how hard it was for you here in New York and I want everything to be perfect for you in Louisiana."

Taking his hand, she pressed a folded piece of stationery into his palm. "I made a phone call. This is the name and number of a friend of mine in Baton Rouge. There is a job waiting for you…if you want it."

His thoughts snapped back to the present as he felt a hand on his sleeve and turned to see his brother looking out the window and pointing excitedly at a sign that read "Baton Rouge City Limits".

*****

Antonio climbed into the old blue Buick Skylark he gotten for $500 from the elderly man who lived in the apartment across the hall and looked at his watch. He was already over an hour late and he knew his brother would be starting to worry. Gravel flew as he sped out of the back parking lot and pulled into the street heading home.

Waiting at the light he had to shift into Neutral and *rev* the engine to keep it running. He smiled to himself as he remembered the Mercedes convertible he sold to purchase the tickets to America. They didn't have the luxuries that lifestyle had provided but both of them had jobs that they liked and they were meeting people and making new friends.

Watching the light change to green, Antonio shifted the car into Drive, stepped on the gas and pulled slowly into the intersection. Amazingly, today was one of the lucky days when the radio was actually going to work. He glanced down as he tried to tune in a radio station and didn't see the car on his right as it sped through the red light before smashing into the passenger side of the Buick.

*****

As if breaking the surface after being underwater for too long, Antonio gained consciousness with a surprising recollection of what had happened. He remembered reaching for the radio knob and hearing the sickening crunch of metal on metal as he was thrown sideways into the driver's door, striking his head on the window before everything went black.

Trying to force open one eye, he realized that his head hurt like hell and that even the beeping of the monitors in the room made it feel like a freight train was roaring between his ears. Keeping his eyes closed, he reached up and gingerly touched the large bump and winced.

A woman's voice broke the silence. "Well, Antonio! Are you ready to rejoin the world? You've been *out* for a couple of hours! Someone who is very worried about you is in the waiting room. I'll go get him and be right back!"

Even the squishing sound of her shoes seemed to echo in his head as she left the room and the door closed behind her.

Opening one at a time, Antonio's eyes began to adjust to the light in the room and his vision was finally beginning to focus just as the door opened and his brother rushed into the room with a relieved look on his face.

"Chico! I'm okay! You *know* how hardheaded I am! Hey, wait a minute! How did you get here? Did someone from the apartment house bring you down here?"

Holding up his hand in a "wait" gesture, his brother smiled and left the room, returning in seconds with another person in tow. Although Antonio's vision was improving, all he could make out from across the room was the white nurses uniform. As they drew closer to the bed, however, the person's face became clearer and he was convinced that there had been more damage done by the blow to the head than just the headache. It made no sense . . . it couldn't possibly be…"Angela? Angel, is that really you?"

"It's me, Antonio. I was working when they brought you in! As soon as I knew you were going to be all right I found your address in your wallet and they let me leave to bring Chico here."

"B-but you were in Spain! What are you doing in Baton Rouge? Is this why the letters I sent to Spain were returned?"

Angela smiled and gently pushed him back onto the pillows. "They want you to stay here overnight to make sure there are no effects from the concussion. We'll have plenty of time to talk about this when you are back home. I'll take Chico home with me tonight and we'll be back in the morning to pick you up. I'm not scheduled to work so we'll have all day to discuss this, all right? Good. Now close your eyes and get some sleep. We'll be back first thing in the morning."

As he closed his eyes, he felt Angela squeeze his hand once more and felt her soft lips as she placed a lingering kiss above his right brow. The last sound he heard was the swish of the door as it closed behind them.

*****

Sitting on his couch, Antonio tried to work through everything Angela had just told him...how the doctor had confronted her about the missing supplies and how she had finally confessed to having treated Antonio's gunshot wound.

"You mean he just told you to leave? What did he expect you to do? Where were you supposed to go?"

Angela took his hand and looked into his eyes. "Actually, he did me a big favor. He didn't try to have my nursing license taken away or report me to the authorities. So I decided that I needed to leave Spain and I knew that eventually you and Chico would end up in Baton Rouge so I sold everything I had and came here to wait for you. Since I hadn't heard from you, I didn't know how to contact you in New York to let you know."

Bowing his head, Antonio murmured something she couldn't hear and, when she asked him to repeat it, he looked up at her with sadness in his eyes.

"Things did not go well in New York, querida. I could not find a job; we had no money, no future. Until Lorraine..."Antonio took a deep breath and for the next hour explained everything to Angela...his past in Spain, what had happened with Isabel and his friendship with Lorraine. He was brutally honest and held nothing back, knowing that if there were ever to be any type of future for them, it had to be based on total honesty. It was a lesson that had taken him a long time to learn, but one that he had learned well.

"Now you know everything, Angel. Do you think there is a chance for us now that you know about my past?"

Putting her arms around him, she pulled his head to her breast and whispered, "We *all* have pasts, Antonio. The secret is to learn from them and move on. And we will move on to our future together, si?"

*****

The day had dawned clear and sunny without the oppressive humidity that was normal to Baton Rouge in the summer. The smell of the flower garden mixed with that of freshly mown grass making it a fragrant setting for the festivities at hand.

The crowd was small with only a few close friends and neighbors occupying the chairs set up along the small walkway leading to where Antonio and Chico stood nervously.

As the music began and Angela began down the walkway, he once again thanked the heavens for bringing her into their lives. She was nothing less than a vision in white as she floated towards him and they faced each other to exchange their vows.

Winking at his brother, Antonio turned to raise the veil and kissed his bride. As the kiss ended, they looked at each other and in silent agreement, both reached to draw Chico to them.

The three of them stood in front of their friends with their arms wrapped around each other. Chico raised his head and, with a grin, first kissed Antonio on the cheek and then Angela. The love he felt for both of them was brimming in his eyes as he took a deep breath and announced to the crowd with pride, "Mi familia!"