The Unknown Beloved

by Amy Harmon

January 1923

January 1938

What a strange vortex the years suddenly seemed. The jump from ten to twenty-five was a lifetime. The leap from twenty-five to forty was but a long weekend. It was like being trapped in a Jules Verne novel.

“No, Tetka. You’re wrong. I know a great deal about him. And he . . . knows . . . about me.”

“You feel me? What do you mean?” She shrugged again. “Just . . . you. Kinda like I can feel you next to me without looking at you. You’re warm and you’re big and you smell clean.” “Huh,” he grunted. He thought of the colors from his childhood, the hues that surrounded different people, and trying to describe it to his mother. “Do you believe me, Malone?” she asked. “Yeah, Dani,” he whispered. “I guess I do.”

The nuns told Mother I had an evil spirit. So Mother took me out of school.”

Malone had just wanted to go home. He’d just wanted to be done. He didn’t want to care. But then Murphy had put him in charge of the kid. That poor little girl. And he’d cared. He’d cared enough that he’d changed his plan. He postponed it. Just until he picked up a kitten named Charlie. Then he postponed it again. Just until he got back from taking a train, a kid, and a cat to Ohio. But Dani Flanagan had looked into his eyes and said, “If you don’t do it, who will?” And his plan had dissolved for good, leaving an odd, new purpose in its wake. Dani Flanagan didn’t know it, but she’d saved his life.

When Irene had asked him to go, he’d been relieved too. It was exhausting being responsible for someone else’s happiness.

I used to see colors around people when I was younger. Some murky. Some bright. I always thought I was seeing the color of people’s souls.”

When she was a child, he had seemed almost towering. Solid and safe. Now he was merely a man, a shade too thin and a bit too old, at least . . . for her.

Yes, Dani was nice looking. Beautiful, in fact. Perfectly, imperfectly, beautiful. And he could not say so without making it seem too important. Or all important. And as much as he liked Eliot Ness, and as innocent a question as it was, Malone couldn’t talk about the way Dani looked. He could not . . . reduce her . . . to that. He met Eliot’s gaze.

“I really can’t imagine myself telling you no,” he muttered.

“Yes. When I’m not with her, it’s like this . . . itch. And when I’m with her, I itch. When I think about her, I itch. It’s just this incessant . . . itching.”

And maybe the world needs men like us too, Michael Malone. To save the saints and the angels from the demons.