"A"

I think he's an angel.

Something in his eyes.  I've seen it before.  On an elevator last year.  In a man in a blue Chevy at the park.

I caught him.  Radiating.

Reading over spelling words, writing and erasing and rewriting words.

I leaned in.  He looked up.  Said something I don't remember because I was paralyzed by the light I saw there.

As if, in their depths, he was telling me a secret: "I am here for you," his eyes twinkled, "just in case you got confused and thought you were here for me."

He went back to homework, head bent low, eraser shavings everywhere.  But I just stared at him suspiciously.  Knowing in my heart, the only way sometimes we know truths, how often we entertain angels.  The ones who are strategically placed in our lives, who require more, who wear us out.  The ones we are better for knowing.

We are better for him being in our lives.  Every thrown chair, every punched wall, every blank stare.  Stretching us.  Wearing out our hearts and our arms and draining us, so we are empty of ourselves.  So the One who sent him can move in.

Don't you dare smile, we tease.  Thinking we are drawing something out of him he would otherwise reserve.

Don't you dare love me, he responds by shuffling his feet and dipping his chin to hide the truth flirting with the corners of his mouth.

I dare you.