“For Angela” – Short fiction, excerpt

Ever since she was a young girl, Angela was fascinated with the night. One particular night at bedtime, when she was four, Angela asked her mother a question that she would ask again and again until her mother would become worried the day Angela stopped asking.

“Will the sun come back tomorrow?” she asked, gazing out her second-story bedroom window. Over the leaves of an elm she could see that the night was clear and a string of stars dotted the sky.

“Of course, honey. It always does.” Her mother pulled the covers up to Angela’s chin.

Angela turned her gaze to her mother. “Why does it go away then?”

“The sun needs to sleep. Just like little girls.” She brushed Angela’s frizzy brown hair out of her eyes.

“Why does the sky turn purple and orange and green when the sun goes to sleep?”

“That’s called dusk.”

“What’s dusk?”

“It’s when night and day touch hands and, just for a moment, dance together and light up the sky.”

“Do you think one of those stars is Susan?” Angela pointed out the window.

“Yes, honey.” Her mother gulped, looking away from Angela, toward the window. “Yes. I do.”

Angela squinted her eyes at her mother. “Then where does Susan go during the day?”

Though Angela couldn’t see it, tears welled in her mother’s eyes. “Flies around the world and makes sure that all little girls stay safe.”

Angela crawled out of bed and grabbed a lone purple candle from the Advent wreath on her dresser across the room. She brought it over to the bed and laid it next to her mother.

“Can we put this in the window, Mom?”

“For what, Ang?

“Just so Susan knows which house is ours.”

Her mother nodded. She walked over to a drawer and pulled out a pink-tinted glass candle holder. Arranging the candle on the sill, she lit the candle and sat back on Angela’s bed. Angela smiled and crawled back into bed, pulling the covers up to her head.

“Goodnight, Mom.”