It was Saturday, February 23. I was almost 13 years old. It had been an unseasonably warm winter. I can't remember why I was walking across the ice on that stock dam, but I can clearly remember the sickening feeling in my stomach as I heard the ice crack. I can remember how for 10 feet around me the ice suddenly sank. I don't remember the ice breaking, but I remember feeling warm urine running down my leg before I felt the cold water. I don't remember struggling, but I remember noticing how the water was alive with algae and bugs. I remember a pair of strong hands pulling me out of the water. I will never forget the face of my rescuer as he stood on the shore and watched me cough out a lung full of water. Before I recovered enough to speak he walked away.
Years later, shortly before we were due to go back to college, a group of friends and I went camping up in the hills. It had been an extremely dry and hot August and the trees were dry as kindling. We took a lot of beer and no food or matches. We planned on getting stupid, but we weren't dumb. I had left our group to go back to the truck for some more beer. I was dragging the cooler out when a voice behind me said, "You boys are on private property. I'm giving you five minutes before I call the sherrif and report a bunch of minors throwing a wild party on my land. There's only one road out of this valley and I suggest you boys are off it before the sherrif gets here." I got a good look at the speaker as I ran back to my friends and relayed his message to them. None of us could afford to jeopardize our scholarships or careers with a minor consuption on our records, so we were long gone before our five minutes were up. The next day it was on the news how the entire valley had went up in flames. A group of campers who had been farther up the valley than we were had been trapped. None of them came out alive.
****
It has been two years since the night she broke my heart. Every month or so she calls and leaves a message on my machine. Sometimes she sounds like she just wants to talk and hear how I am doing. Several times she has appologised for leaving me. Once in a while she sounds absolutely desperate for me to return her call. I never return her calls. I don't believe in messing with divine intervention.
I never heard about any one dying from eating tainted Romaine lettuce at the resturaunt that night. There was no report of an insane gunman showing up and leaving no survivors. It looks as though nothing life threatening happened that night. So, maybe I had been saved from a fate worse than death.
You see, she had been absolutely right about him being a guardian angel. I recognized him from across the parking lot that night.
She was just wrong about whose angel he was.
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