The Angel

by Michelle Davidson Argyle

Janie watched her father in agony, her stomach growling a pitiful plea to feed it. “Daddy,” she whined, crawling onto her small wooden rocking horse in the center of the cramped living room. “Daddy, I’m hungry.”

Her father, hunched over a desk that was shoved against a wall, scratched his head in annoyance. There were so many papers that needed to be read and approved. So much to be done, and so little time!

“Daddy,” the small whine repeated. The incessant rocking of the horse across soft carpet could be heard, and Janie’s whining grew high-pitched with a slight moan and whimper that grated against Mr. Anderson’s ears. He scrawled across a paper in pen angrily and tried very hard to ignore his five-year-old’s complaining.

Janie could feel her stomach tightening, and she wondered in horror if she could make it any longer. Her father hadn’t fed her lunch and now that the sun’s shadows began to lengthen and darken, supper time was impatiently waiting. She stopped rocking and tilted her head as she watched her father’s back. He had been sitting at that desk since this morning, stopping occasionally for a cup of coffee and maybe a cookie from the top of the refrigerator . . . where Janie could not reach.
“Daddy,” she gulped, “can you get me a cookie?”

Mr. Anderson mumbled under his breath. “Not now,” he snapped.

Janie watched him desperately. “Will you read me a story, then?”

Mr. Anderson threw his pen down and twisted around furiously in his chair, staring in irate annoyance at his wide-eyed little girl. “Dammit, Janie,” he spit wrathfully. “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’m going to send you to your room.” He swung back around and picked up his pen.

The words stung. They fell upon Janie’s ears like the ear-piercing explosions of a hammer slamming against an anvil. It wasn’t often she heard her father swear and now that he had, she clamped her mouth shut and tightly gripped the handles protruding from the horses head. She remembered her mother swearing when she became angry, but that was before she left almost two years ago.

“Where did Mommy go?” Janie would ask her father time and time again. Mr. Anderson would stare at her solemnly, his deep green eyes welling with tears. “She didn’t want us anymore,” he would say bluntly. “She just didn’t want us.”
Janie’s stomach growled again. This time it was louder. It hurt. Her heart hurt. Her eyes hurt with the sting of tears. She hurt all over.

The tiny apartment’s heater clicked on and the sound of it drowned Janie’s little sobs from Mr. Anderson’s ears. In fact, he was so engrossed in his work that the heater’s groaning and obnoxious hum completely hid the soft thud of the door shutting as Janie walked defiantly out of the apartment.

She made her way down the stairs sloshed with footprints of snow and mud from outside. Then with tiny, trembling hands, she pushed the door open and entered the cold, bitter weather of December. It was near Christmas and the streets of Salt Lake City bustled with bundled-up shoppers and businessmen. A fat, red-and-white Santa Claus could usually be found on every corner ringing a bell and patting the gawking children on the heads as they pranced by with their mothers.

Janie headed bravely down the icy sidewalk, feeling better already that she had left her angry father behind. She delighted in the small flurries of snow that caught on her delicate eyelashes and nose, and could feel the cold air nipping at her cheeks. Cars and trucks and taxi’s rushed by in the mad stampede of Christmas shopping and the five o ‘clock rush hour. Janie passed a few adults who stared at her strangely, but when she turned the corner to where the mall was located, it suddenly became loud and busy with people.

She stopped, the breeze instantly becoming frigid. It cut shrilly through her thin sweater and bit her skin as if it had fangs. There, in front of her, stood a towering world of the unknown, and it frightened her. So many people! There were bags and briefcases and coats and scarves. Purses and hats and dresses and shoes. Coughing and sniffling and laughing and shouting, and they were all surrounding her like a wall of water rushing over a tiny pebble. She didn’t know what to do. She pushed and shoved and elbowed, and it wasn’t hard for her tiny, squirming little body to zigzag out of the crowd.

Panting and shaking in fear, she suddenly wished for her father. He would scoop her into his strong arms and carry her away from this horrible place. She looked ahead through her tear-obscured vision and joyfully laid her eyes upon an empty bench. She scurried to it and brushed off the soft cold snow with her bare hand.
“If you ever get lost,” her father had said urgently, squatting to look into her face, “don’t you go anywhere. You stay right where you are and I’ll find you.”

These words ran through Janie’s mind as she crawled onto the bench and pulled her wobbling knees to her chest. It was getting darker now and the lights of the city began to flicker on. From the tiny, subtle lights wrapped around the snow-laden trees to the blaring headlights of the cars whizzing by, it was a yellow world, lit up like a giant Christmas tree. Janie buried her frost-nipped face into the stiffness of her jeans and began to cry.

Alan Maxwell Cummings, or Alan, as he liked to be called, stepped shopping-bag-heavy from the swinging doors of the mall. His long black overcoat swung freely over the dark cotton suit, starched white shirt and plain silk tie. He clenched his briefcase and a few bags in one hand and held several other sacks in the other. It was when he darted his eyes past the thickly falling snow to the bench ahead, that he stopped promptly in the middle of the slow moving crowd, his serene figure seeming to repel the ever-falling snow that clung to the rest of the crowd’s clothing.

He stepped forward, the heavy weight of his shopping bags no longer seeming burdensome in his arms. As he neared the brown-haired creature curled tightly into the corner of the bench, he could hear that she was crying. His heart threatened to jump from his chest in agony, and he quickly stepped around the bench and sat quietly next to the sobbing child.
“Hey Sunshine, why are you crying?” he whispered, leaning close to the girl’s soft brown hair dotted with snowflakes. Her young little body jerked in surprise, and she lifted her tear-reddened face to the man. She sucked in a meager breath and bit her lip in fear. Alan leaned forward and smiled. “You don’t need to worry,” he said pleasantly. “I only want to help you. Where are your parents?” There were only more tears, so Alan began another approach. “What’s your name, Sunshine?”
There was a pause. “Janie Anderson,” she whispered through chattering teeth as her little body shook with the deadly cold surrounding her. Alan lifted one end of his long overcoat, gently wrapped it around her shivering back, and held it in place with his comforting arm.

He smiled warmly and Janie could feel his compassion spreading through her. “That is a beautiful name,” he laughed. Janie smiled back and tucked her bone-chilled hands closer to her stomach. “It’s near Christmas,” he began. “Are your parents inside the big mall shopping?”

She stared back with sadly animated eyes, and Alan frowned in confusion. “Shouldn’t you be getting home? You must live near here, am I right?”

Janie kept her mouth quiet and a few more hot tears sliced through the frosty skin of her red cheeks. Alan suddenly pulled a bag to his lap and shoved his hand inside. When he pulled it back out, a small silver bracelet dotted with turquoise gems was spider webbed through his fingers. He rolled it into his palm and warmed the cold metal with the gentle motion of stroking it between his two hands.

“I have a daughter in college,” he said quietly as Janie watched him play mindlessly with the beautiful bracelet. “I bought her this.” He lifted the bracelet into the air and let the snowflakes fall upon it. “I miss her,” he breathed heavily, then tucked the bracelet back between his hands and turned to Janie. “I think your parents might miss you. Do you think?”

Janie’s mouth dropped open in reply. “My Daddy . . . he might come to get me,” she said between nervous breaths, her body no longer shivering. Alan’s saintly warmth had spread through her, saving her thinly dressed body from practically freezing to death.

He sighed gratefully. “I’m glad to hear that.” He stared sadly at the white blanket of snow upon Janie’s head, then slowly gathered his bags and briefcase and slid off the bench. He stepped away from Janie’s wandering eyes and began to walk down the sidewalk.

Janie stared open-mouthed as he walked on further. Bewildered, and feeling very abandoned, she slid off the bench and ran toward Alan, her short little legs pumping. “Wait,” she gasped as she neared him. “Wait.”

Alan turned around quickly and laid his eyes upon Janie, not surprised in the least of this predicament. She stared up at him, her huge brown eyes dropping with lonely tears. He let her stare a moment, then watched as her eyes drifted from his face to an object that grasped her attention ahead of him. He turned to look at this object and smiled intelligently as he spotted a man dressed in a tan leather jacket and jeans stumbling down the sidewalk in tears.

Many might stare in confusion at this man, but Alan only smiled wider as the man’s eyes darted from one end of the sidewalk to the other frantically. Tears streamed his face to the point that he almost seemed childlike. Alan knew . . . he knew this was the child’s father.

Janie stood in silence and waited for her father to spot her, and when he finally did only a few yards ahead, his eyes widened as he fell to his knees in a flood of overwhelming joy and relief. Janie ran into his open arms and squirmed her quivering body into his warm embrace.

“Janie,” he sighed, looking upward at the white snowy heavens in thankfulness. “Janie, I am so sorry.” He squeezed her tighter. “I thought I’d lost you . . . like I lost your mother.” He began to cry in a throbbing rush of grief, then stopped suddenly and pulled Janie away to look into her angelic face. “What were you doing here, honey?”

Janie smiled. “That nice man helped me,” she said sweetly, throwing her arms around his neck again. Mr. Anderson looked ahead, but saw no one.

“What man?” he asked softly.

Janie twisted around in his arms, confused as she scanned the sidewalk where Alan had once stood. But he was not there, and Janie turned back to her father. “Daddy, he was there. He talked to me. He made me feel better when I was lost.”

Mr. Anderson scanned the thickly snow-covered sidewalk, and to his astonishment, saw no footprints; simply a circle of untouched snow surrounded by the sloshy vestige of scattered tracks from the crowd. His eyes caught onto a shiny object lying in the circle of snow, and he picked up his daughter and carried her to it. He slowly bent down to pick up what he now recognized as a bracelet, then held it to his face and Janie’s.

“That was his,” Janie exclaimed shortly.

Mr. Anderson turned it over and stared in shock at the inscribed name on the back of the largest silver-set stone. Deeply etched into the silver was the name Janie. Mr. Anderson lifted his watery eyes to his daughter and pulled her close to him in a loving embrace as the celestial heaven of softly falling snow fell around them.