From the Corner of His Eye

deep respect and admiration.
        "All right," Celestina conceded, and looked relieved. "Thank you, Paul. You're not only an exceptionally brave man but a gracious one, as well."
        Paul's Mediterranean complexion didn't make a blush easy to detect, but Tom thought his face brightened until it was a shade or two closer to the color of his rust-red hair. His eyes, usually so direct, evaded Celestina.
        "I'm no hero," Paul insisted. "I just got your mom out of there in the process of saving myself."
        "Some process," Grace said, gently scornful of his modesty.
        Angel, busy with a cookie through most of this, licked crumbs from her lips and asked Paul, "Do you have a puppy?"
        "No puppy, I'm afraid."
        "Do you have a goat?"
        "Would your decision to visit me be affected if I did?"
        "Depends," said Angel.
        "On what?"
        "Does the goat live in the house or outside?"
        "Actually, I don't have a goat."
        "Good. Do you have cheese?"
        By gesture, Celestina indicated that she wanted to see Tom alone.
        While Angel continued her relentless interrogation of Paul Damascus, Tom joined her mother in front of the large window at the end of the room farthest from the dinner table.
        The ship of night floated over the city and cast down nets of darkness, gathering millions of lights like luminous fishes in its black toils.
        Celestina stared out for a moment, and then turned her head to look at Tom, with both the shade of the night and the sparkle of the metropolis still captured in her eyes. "What was that all about?"
        He briefly considered playing dumb, but he knew she was too smart for that. "Gunsmoke, you mean. Listen, I know you'll do whatever's necessary to keep Angel safe, because you love her so much. Love will give you greater strength and determination than any other motive. But you should know this much… You need to keep her safe for another reason. She's special. I don't want to explain why she's special or how I know that she is, because this isn't the time or place, not with your dad's death and Wally in the hospital and you still shaky from the attack."
        "But I need to know."
        He nodded. "You do. Yes. But you don't need to know right now. Later, when you're calmer, when you're clearer. It's too important to rush you through it now."
        "Wally gave her tests. She's got an exceptional understanding of color, spatial relationships, and geometric forms for a child her age. She may be a visual prodigy."
        "Oh, I know she is," he said. "I know how clearly she sees."
        Eye to eye with Tom, Celestina herself did some clear-seeing. "You're special, too, in lots of obvious ways. But like Angel, you're special in some secret way… aren't you?"
        "I'm gifted to a small extent, and it's an unusual gift," he admitted. "Nothing world-shaking. More than anything, really, it's a special perception I've been given. Angel's gift seems to be different from mine but related. In fifty years, she's the first I've ever met who's somewhat like me. I'm still shaking inside from the shock of finding her. But please, let's save this for Bright Beach and a better evening. You go down there tomorrow with Paul, okay? I'll stay here to look after Wally. When he's able to travel, I'll bring him with me. I know you'll want him to hear what I have to say, too. Is it a deal?"
        Tom between curiosity and emotional exhaustion, Celestina held his gaze, thinking, and finally she said, "Deal."
        Tom stared down into the oceanic depths of the city, through the reefs of buildings, to the lamp-fish cars schooling through the great trenches.
        "I'm going to tell you something about your father that might comfort you," he said, "but you can't ask me for more than I'm ready to say right now. It's all a part of what I'll discuss with you in Bright Beach."
        She said nothing.
        Taking her silence for assent, Tom continued: "Your father is gone from here, gone forever, but he still lives in other worlds. This isn't a statement of faith alone. If Albert Einstein were still alive and standing here, he'd tell you that it's true. Your father is with you in many places, and so is Phimie. In many places, she didn't die in childbirth. In some worlds, she was never raped, her life never blighted. But there's an irony in that, isn't there? Because in those worlds, Angel