Death was only a few hours away now.

She lay quietly in the bed, her shallow breathing the only testament to the tenuous flicker of life to which she still clung. At least she was not suffering anymore. The battery of narcotics had seen to that. It had been that way for days. Only today had been different. She slept fitfully and in her few moments of wakefulness, there had been doubt in her eyes and a question on her lips. He tried to ask, only to find her summoned back to the land of dreaming. He had dozed himself throughout the evening and at one point awoke to find her staying intently at him. He came immediately to her side.

“Whenever I awake, you are always here.”

He managed a smile.”I am always with you, my love.”

“Even in death?’

He pulled back a moment before answering.”Yes...even in death.”

She looked away as the tear traced a slow course down her cheek.”Where I go, you cannot follow.”

He conjured the bright smile that grew every more difficult to bear.”My heart goes with you, my love. I shall love no other like I have loved you. When you are gone, the light shall go out in my life and I shall look always to the heavens in your memory.”

For a moment, she looked at him terrified.”You cannot allow that to happen. You must go on for the both of us....live for the both us.....love for the both of us.”

He took her hand.”What is in your my heart, my love. Speak to me.”

Her eyes were a curtain of eyes.”I am afraid, so terribly afraid. I am about to embark on the greatest journey of all and you will not be at my side.”

He struggled to think of something reassuring.”There are those waiting for you...your grandmother and your parents.”

“That is at journey’s end...no one knows how long the journey takes....I will be alone.”

Suddenly the thought came to him, forged in the desperation of the moment.”No, you will not be alone....because I will be there with you.”

Her eyes grew wide in a combination of joy and terror.”What...do you...mean?”

This time the smile was so much easier when it came.”Fear not, my love. What I propose is to give you the most luminous piece of me to take with you...a fire which you kindled and will light the way even the darkest places.”

The aura of life came back to her eyes for a moment as she framed a question.”Your heart! Yet you have already given that to me....”

He pulled her hands to him and held them lovingly.”No, my love. I make the gift of my heart to you quite literally to safeguard you on your journey.”

With that, he pulled his hands away and drew them up to his chest. Cupping the area surrounding his heart, he leaned forward as if to gently coax something from inside his chest. Slowly, he wiggled and prodded until with a shudder, he pulled his imaginary gift free into his waiting hands. Quickly, he held it up to the light and blew on the unseen bounty as if trying to fan new flames from the embers of a dying fire. He then took the invisible boon and placed into her waiting hands. Uttering a shriek of delight, she enclosed her hands about it and held it tightly to her chest. This caused an uncontrollable fit of coughing and she leaned back in the bed, yet her eyes burned bright with newfound joy.

“You are...utterly...mad!”

For the first time in weeks, a genuine smile creased his lips.”It is a madness which you inspire, my love!”

Only then came the moment of doubt.”I would not have you live without your heart until the end of your days. Once I have crossed the threshold into Heaven, how shall I return it to you?”

Again inspiration came quickly.”Return it to me on the brightest shooting star at the stroke of midnight. I shall await at that moment for the rest of my life until you are safe.”

Joy slowly waned in her eyes as the harsh reality returned.”I shall miss you, my love.”

Within moments, she was asleep again, yet an exhausted smile clung to her lips. Her hands were still tightly wrapped around the illusory offering. He drifted off to sleep himself, waking frequently to keep his vigil. Along about midnight, he roused himself and went out to get a cup of coffee. As he left the room, he looked back to reassure himself. She lay still, hands fiercely encircling the center of her chest. He walked slowly to the coffee machine, his hand scouring his pockets for change. As he inserted the first quarter in the machine, he heard the desolate wail echoing down the hallway that could mean only one thing.

Flatline.

Dropping the quarter, he raced back to her room. As he entered, he saw the nurse already there, the syringe in her hand waiting. The resident hurried into the room, picking up one of her hands to feel her pulse. She stared blindly forward in the vacant sleep of oblivion. The resident looked up at him questioning. He shook his head. They had agreed. There would be no heroics. The resident nodded and placed her hand back on top of the other, leaving the room with the nurse on his heels. He was alone. Looking down at her motionless body, he felt a great emptiness descend upon him and knew with mounting sadness that it was true.

She had taken his heart with her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He sat in the moving van waiting, his mind going over the events of the last month.

He remembered the funeral in the drizzling rain, the fine sheen that covered the black lacquer of her coffin, the white roses laid carefully around the edges. Her clustered friends gathered close at graveside, the distinct absence of family, all lost in a spectacular boating accident except for her, safely tucked away at school.

The days afterward were a blur. There was the sale of the house to an old friend. The feverish division of many of their cherished belongings to their closest friends. His solitary packing of the barest of essentials which he would take into his new life. Then there was the final goodbye last night with many a tear shed in parting.

Which brought him to this moment. He turned the key in the ignition.

The engine growled momentarily to life. With a hand firmly attached to the wheel, he leveraged the shift lever into drive and eased the truck out of the driveway. In the distance he saw the morning mists that clung over the Santa Monica Mountains. He moved along Artesia Boulevard towards the 405 Freeway, he thought about the future. Almost instantly the thought came to him. There was no future without her. They had asked him last night what his plans were. His response had been equally as swift.

There was no plan.

He urged the truck up the freeway onramp and came to complete standstill. Morning rush clogged for the four lanes. For an hour he crawled through South Bay into West LA and finally up into the Sepulveda Pass. Once he moved west on the 101 Freeway, traffic thinned out rapidly. During the long wait, there had been nothing to do except think. He would head north and let destiny take him where it would.

They thought he was mad when he told them. He simply shrugged his shoulders.

Morning gave to afternoon and saw him up past Santa Barbara headed through the burnished beauty of the Pacific Coastlands towards San Luis Obispo. Once in the open countryside, he had a chance to think about his promise. Every night he had gone out into their backyard by the beautiful koi pond they had lovingly made together and waited for midnight to come. And each night the witching hour came and went with nothing save a star-filled sky. No shooting star in sight. After a few weeks, he began to ponder their final conversation and seized something that she said.

No one knows how long the journey takes.

It was the greatest irony that it was natural to think that the translation to Heaven would be a matter of days. What if it were a journey of much greater length measured in months....or even years? Every night it became more and more apparent that this was a journey of years. And he would have to be prepared to wait. It was a promise he would be certain to keep.

Midday saw him at a roadside tavern outside of Goleta. After a quick meal of clam chowder and buttermilk biscuits, he was back out of the road. San Luis Obispo fell behind in his rearview mirror as did Atascadero and Paso Robles. Twilight saw him passing through Salinas and when darkness fell he was on the outskirts of Gilroy on his way to San Jose. It was full-fledged dark as he made his way up Interstate 880 through the East Bay towards Oakland. He stopped at Rodeway Inn in Oakland and made it to his room scant minutes before midnight. Dropping his bags by the bed, he immediately made his way to the balcony. As midnight came and went, the stars stared back at him in abject silence.

Suddenly the weight of his loss descended upon him. He wandered back into the hotel room, an immense weariness bearing down like a tidal wave of grief. He collapsed on the bed and curled up in a fetal position, weeping like a wounded child. Exhaustion finally took him and he fell into a dreamless sleep. When he awoke in the morning, he sat up on the side of the bed. Doubt began to pierce the edges of his resolve.

What was he doing? What on earth did he hope to accomplish?

In that question lay his answer. It was not about Earth...it was about Heaven.

He stood up and walked over the window, throwing open the curtain. A bright sunrise rose in the east, its first rays shining through the morning fog that crept down from the Oakland Hills. When the two collided, the result was a brilliant rainbow which stretched over Berkeley. Directly underneath lay Interstate 880 and its constant ribbon of traffic headed towards Sacramento. A sly smile crept over his lips.

It was almost like she was speaking to him.

An hour later he was among the rolling farmlands of Davis with signs pointing toward Sacramento on his right. Yet for some reason he did not understand, at the last moment, he took kept going through Sacramento, his eyes upon the distant mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. Under the rays of the noonday sun, he was well into the Sierras where he stopped at truckstop for lunch at an auspice place name Truckee. When he climbed out of the cab, the air was fresh and crisp. The snowcaps of the Sierra loomed all about him. He heard a distant rumbling and chuckled when he realized it was his stomach.

He was starving.

The diner was brightly light, full of chattering voices. He sat down next the window and looked the sun high over the mountains. Lost in his thoughts, he did not see the waitress come up. Her voice called him back to reality. He looked up into compassionate eyes.

“Mornin! What it’ll be, handsome?”

Looking at the menu, he was seized with a sudden madcap thought.

“I’ll take one of everything!”

She stared blankly for a moment puzzled and then laughed brightly.”Excellent!”

A half hour later, he was elbow deep in pancakes, eggs, hash browns, steaks, hamburgers and dozen of other dishes. When the others in the diner realized what he was doing, they came over and helped themselves. Soon the place was filled with riotous laughter and joy. After two hours and a $500 breakfast with a $50 tip, he called the waitress to his table and instructed her to give doggie bags for all.

She laughed and then touched his shoulder.”I saw the sorrow in your eyes when you came in. I was going to give you some words of encouragement, but you seem to have found your own answer.”

He nodded and hugged her goodbye. Waving to everyone, he went out to the truck. Zipping his jacket against the cold, he breathed deeply and climbed up into the cab. Putting on his sunglasses, he cranked up the engine. He looked across the road and saw a sign for State Route 89 to South Lake Tahoe. Putting the truck in gear, he pulled out.

He had had enough of grief. He was going to live.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The majesty of State Route 89 was that it wrapped on the very edge of Lake Tahoe. For nearly two hours, he was treated the unobstructed view of the lake as he worked his way south. Passing through McKinney Bay, he wove through the hamlet of Tahoma. It was so vastly different than the congested life he has spent over two decades in West LA. Its pastoral nature was something he had never experienced, the small town feel made him feel at ease. After a short stroll along the pier out into the clear blue water, he found himself at home amid its lazy energy. This was just what his ravaged soul needed. Refreshed by his revelation, he returned to the truck and slowly made his way up one of the side streets up towards the hills surrounding the lake. Initially passing the rows of high-dollar rustic cabins, he finally reached the end of Tahoma. There, at the edge of town, he saw it.

A forgotten For Sale sign nearly obscured by a high growth of weeds.

He slammed on the brakes, causing the truck to fishtail along the side of the ride before coming to an uneasy stop. He saw a narrow ribbon of road that led up into the trees and the vague silhouette of some sort of structure. He leapt out of the cab and went running down the road. The broken asphalt soon gave way to a dirt track. As he came to the edge of the trees, he saw the broken down shell of a redwood cottage. There was porch that ran around the entire house which was collapsed in several portions. The shingles of the roof were missing in many places and the chimney had caved in. Yet the structure was sound and with a fair amount of work, the cottage could be reclaimed. After a careful reconnaissance, he walked slowly back down the road, turning the aspects of possibly the single most lunatic thing he would ever do over and over in his mind. By the time he got back in the truck, his thoughts were galvanized to action. He retrieved the fallen realtor’s sign and dialed the number with his cell phone.

Within the hour, he was met by a very stylish woman in a tailored black embroidered suit. He gingerly sat down inside her red Mercedes and they took the slow ride back to the house. All the while she chattered away about the cabin’s previous owner, a schoolteacher who had died of ovarian cancer. The house had been abandoned for almost three years as the owner’s will had be in probate, hence its dilapidated state. The recent death of her sister had allowed the house to go up for sale. The price had been greatly reduced to over half of its original worth. True, it would take a lot of work, but it would be worth it in the end.

A quick tour of the house yielded very surprising results. The beautiful cherry floor was in amazing condition. There was a flagstone fireplace at the center of the house. The dining room had built-in china cabinetry and matching cabinets in the kitchen. There was a room at the back of the kitchen which could serve as an office. Upstairs was one large room. Again there were built-in drawers, closets and a large writing desk that unfolded from the wall on several golden chains. At the north end of the room was a cozy sleeping loft with king sized futon and a wooden log ladder that granted access. When she was finished, he could not believe his luck.

He had come home.

It took a few days to seal the deal and get money transferred from his bank in LA. In the end, the cottage cost $400,000. He had made nearly $750,000 on the sale of their house and figured it would take $100,000 to renovate the cottage. That left him with $250,000 to pursue the promise of a new dream. By week’s end, work began on the cottage. The roof was done in two days and the porch in three. He had decided that the living room would become his work area and he arranged bookshelves around two large tables that stood in front of the fireplace. He hired several high school students to unload all the dishes and furniture for the dining room and kitchen. This left the office and the upstairs for which a special plan was taking shape in his mind. By the end of his first month, it was done. He spent most of the time happily cozy in the upstairs loft while work continued unabated downstairs. Now that he was all alone again, he cracked a bottle of champagne and toasted to his new life and the testament of the one thing that still held meaning for him.

His midnight passage.

Every night he had maintained his vigil in his new environs. Since it was the depth of summer, every midnight was marked by the company of squadrons of fireflies. And still the stars remained absolute in their silence. He took the glass of champagne out to the newly revived balcony and raised it to the heavens. He heard the seconds tick by on the alarm until its shrill call announced the arrival of midnight. It was then that he saw it.

A star barely above the level of the trees that pulsed brightly for a few seconds to many times its normal size and then faded just as rapidly. He blinked for a moment, uncertain that he actually seen it. Suddenly he was full of doubt. They had agree on a shooting star, hadn’t they? Had he actually seen it? The champagne glass slipped from his fingers to shatter on the planks of the balcony. Its sound shocked him back to reality. He raced back into the living room and turned on the television. After anxious minutes of waiting, there was a special report.

A solar flare of immense proportions had erupted from Proxima Centauri, companion to Alpha Centauri, the binary star system nearest to the Sun. The event had only been visible in the Northern Hemisphere. He sat down slowly on the couch, trying to ponder its meaning. Somehow it seemed more than coincidence. Almost sheepishly, he went to the desk and found a bag of things he had purchased in LA. He pulled it a singular item and began unfolding it on the tabletop. It was a map of the stars. Grabbing several push pins, he mounted the map on the wall and took a red push to mark the Sun and another to mark Proxima Centauri. Standing back, he looked at the two red dots and thought about how small they looked against the entirety of the cosmos. Only then did the memory of his grandmother’s voice return to him.

From humble beginnings, great things are grown.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Over the months that followed, he settled into his surroundings. There were several out buildings which included a garage, gazebo and a brick fire pit. There were the remains of several abandoned trellises and withered vines of what had once been a proud rose garden. Remembering the modest rose garden that his wife had grown, he made a vow to reclaim what had been lost. Daily work yielded not only a great sense of accomplishment, but a fragrant sanctuary of Winter Sun and Wildfire tea roses, New Dawn climbing roses and Moondance floribunda roses. Once it was completed at the very end of summer, he never failed to take late afternoon tea and even dinner in the fading light.

The gazebo would require more work as its roof would need to be reconstructed and would have to wait until spring. The garage was a separate enigma as when he went inside, he found bales of hay stacked high for some purpose which at first he could not fathom. It was not until he investigated the brick fire pit that he found stacks of long dried redwood and mesquite and in the bed of the hearth lay the charred remains of strands of straw, giving testament to their use as tinder to ignite the flames.

Inside the house, the little touches that made it home where soon in place. Boxes of books that he had devoured over the two decades of his marriage were unpacked and found their homes among the cherry bookshelves. The work tables themselves were piled high with books and papers which were the tenuous beginnings of the new dream he longed to undertake. There a small desk in the office which he would use for the financial epicenter of his life. The kitchen was all sorted and he already made himself several lavish dinners.

Yet when he sat down at the desk to embrace his dream, the muse did not come.

He had spent long weeks during the reconstruction of the cottage thinking about the new direction his life would take. He had worked nearly 20 years as an architect and draftsman. Now he wanted to put his drawing skills to a different purpose. The inspiration had been slow in coming and had begun to be realized the night he had seen Proxima Centauri. He had thought about the vastness of the cosmos and wonder how it reconciled with the image of Heaven. He wondered if there were some force watching over those who inhabited Earth and the many hitherto undiscovered worlds of the cosmos. His mind they suddenly seized on the most obvious choice.

Angels.

The next week saw him embarking on the next part of his plan. He had ordered four of the fastest computers from a computer warehouse. When they arrived, he began to set them up in the upstairs in a with two large 1080p monitors per machine. For each machine, he set up a Wacom tablet and began using the computer-aided drafting program. Using the CAD program and the Wacom tablet, he then began creating several complicated designs for angel wings. Working with the wire-frame models, he ran several different versions of the wings. After that, he layered the wings and ran the rendering which would take a while, even with the high-speed computers. He was about to embark on the next part of his creation when the alarm on his watch squawked unceremoniously, causing him to nearly leap through the roof.

He sauntered slowly out onto the balcony. The night was crisp and clear signaling the coming days of autumn. As he stared up into the cloudless sky, there was a sudden explosion. He gasped sharply, stepping back involuntarily, watching the spreading light grow where once there had been a star. It could only be a supernova. At the stroke of midnight. This time he calmly sat down in front of the television and waited. In moments his suspicions were confirmed—it was a supernova in one of the lesser stars surrounding Procyon. He went back to the star map, placing a red push pin where Procyon was. Standing back, he looked at the straight line it created toward the edge of the map.

Toward the edge of the universe.

Yet it was only three pins. It could still just be a coincidence.

Absentmindedly, he wandered back upstairs to check on the rendering. His mind was still reeling with what he had witnessed and what it could mean. All of this hinged on a single conversation he had with a dying woman. And did not matter how much he loved her. He turned to see the computer rendering in its final stages of completion. He turned his attention to the part of the project. This he choose a figure rendering program from the desktop and began working on the human form of his angel. Working swiftly, he created a tall thin woman, fleshed out her taut muscles, yet retained her lean compact gymnast’s form. He added icy cerulean blue eyes and shoulder length platinum blond hair. He created a gaunt, yet arrestingly beautiful face. When the wings were finished, he covered them with icy blue and white feathers and merged them with the image of ethereal woman. Enhancing the image with high resolution, he waited the final rendering.

He went back downstairs and out on the balcony. He looked up into the sky where he saw the spreading icy blue stain of Procyon supernova. He looked down and surveyed the immediate precincts of Tahoma and Lake Tahoe. Suddenly, the world had taken on an entirely different hue. The evening’s quiet was pierced by the distant call of a wolf somewhere in the mountains on the eastern side of the lake. Shivering, he went back into the warmth indoors. Doubt crept in around his heart. What did all mean? Before he knew, he was standing in front of the computer monitor. The image was done. He stood captivated by what he saw.

The figure of a naked pale blue angel, her icy wings spread wide, arms crossed across across her chest obscuring her breasts, yet her provocative stance exuded sexuality. Yet it was what he saw her eyes that was the most striking feature about her—pain, loss, suffering. And even death. And the more he looked, the more familiar those eyes became until at last there was choking revelation of recognition.

He was staring into the eyes of his dead wife.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Upon awakening the next morning, he felt like he was in need of some perspective. Things were moving much too quickly. He decided that a trip into town was in order. Only this time he would walk. Grabbing a day pack, he stuffed it with bread and cheese and a bottle of water. It was several miles into town, yet it was a bright sunny autumn day with a light breeze blowing up from the lake. Along the road, he felt his spirit lighten and hope return. Look down on the length of the lake, it was almost like he felt he had entered some magical realm and knew he had chosen well. He stopped on a huge granite stone, climbed to the top and had lunch basking in the sun. Once refreshed, he set out again and all too soon found himself on the outskirts of town.

It was the weekend and Tahoma was filled with tourists and there was almost a carnival-like atmosphere. Wandering down the main street, he gazed into the windows and felt his heart start to race. Each one seemed like a window on another world. Only did he remember window shopping with her and the magic she saw in every window. As he strolled down the street, it was almost like she was walking with him and for a moment a flicker of love’s kindness returned. Every window held a new marvel and he could not wait to get to the next. Until the last.

He stood there speechless, looking at what he beheld there.

In the window of a curios shop was a Celtic lap harp. Along its soundboard were paintings of intricate Celtic knotwork. Its pillar was also carved like filaments of a Celtic chain woven together. The rest of the harp was made of the most striking red cherry wood. He could only stand and ponder its beauty. In that moment, he thought of something else about harps.

Angels were known to carry and play harps.

He knew he had to have it, yet its beauty came at a price. Three thousand dollars. And as he put down his credit card worth every penny. He purchased other things in the curios shop—a memento box fashioned of black walnut, a box of tapered candles of many colors, a green tapestry embroidered with a black Celtic cross, and a stain glass suncatcher of an angel. These items he placed in his day pack and lashed the Celtic harp to his back and shoulders with rawhide ties and began the long walk home.

On his way out of town, he chanced to pass a store that had a calendar in the window. There was a picture of a beautiful Oriental pond full of golden koi. He stopped and turned, looking for the day. He became so lost recently that he had let the days slide past. Today was October 11. There were tears in his eyes when he thought the significance of that date.

It was the day after her birthday.

And with that came the next revelation—the supernova of Procyon was on her birthday.

He turned and fled the storefront, running towards home as the very hounds of Hell were after him. The whole way he could only think of one thing and if were true or not. Because if it were true, they this had all passed beyond the realm of coincidence. He ran most of the way, stopping when the pain in his lungs or the burden on his back became too great. When he finally got the house, he laid the daypack and the harp by the door. Running to the office, he pulled out the calendar he had been keeping.

There, marked with a huge blood red X, was the date of death, August 3rd. He stared at it for a moment, trying to conjure its significance. With starling clarity, he sheppishly remembered its relevance. He had been too wrapped up in grief to remember their first date. An uncharacteristically rainy day in early August where they huddled in a coffee shop for hours waiting for the rains to stop. Pulling back the page, he looked to the next month where he saw a green X which marked the flare on Proxima Centauri. Nearly six weeks later—echoing precisely the day he had asked her to marry him.

He let the calendar slip from his fingers. None of it made any sense—nothing did. Only he could not deny it anymore. He would have to go wherever the journey took him. The only thing that he could do was look ahead. He reached down and picked up the calendar, searching for the day that he already knew. Running a finger across the calendar, it landed on Saturday. Six days from now. The day of their betrothal party. Tears welled up in his eyes when he remembered. She had insisted. In front of her friends and his, they would give each rings and then the party would commence. And what a party it had been,

Exhausted from his day’s expedition, he slept late the next day. When he awoke, he made a home for his new acquisition upstairs. Using the Celtic tapestry as a backdrop, he sat the harp on a pedestal in front of it and arranged the candles about it. He then darkened the room and let the candles illuminate the room. He sat down in front of the monitors and pondered the harp’s wooden beauty. He then turned to the monitor and the image of icy blue angel. What she needed now was a home. Using all his architectural skill, he spent the next three days creating a high mountain sanctuary amid the snows of the Sierras. By Friday morning, her citadel of snow and ice was finished. All that remained now was to find out if his theory was true. Friday night he went onto the balcony and waited.

As the final moment ticked away before midnight, he saw a star midway on the celestial horizon begin pulsing like a beacon. As the moments passed, it became stronger and stronger. A curiously wicked smile came to his lips. As he turned away and went in to turn on the television, the smile grew and grew. Fifteen minutes later, the news flash made it official. A hitherto unknown pulsar in the Vega system had exploded into existence. When he went to the star map and placed the third red push pin. Stepping back, he looked at the straight red line of pins. Twenty-six light years in three months. Something had changed. This was no longer about reassurance at the moment of death. The smile returned to his lips when he looked at the blinking image on the television. It was like she was winking at him. Every instinct told him she was trying to get his attention.

If only he could figure out why.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next two months passed in a blur. Again, it was like she knew. The speed and number of the celestial events increased. First, it was another pulsar in Arcturus at 36 lights years, two weeks later it was a huge solar prominence from Capella at 42 lights and then three weeks the collapse of a star in Regulus that caused a white dwarf at 79 light years. While her speed had increased tenfold, he still had absolutely no idea what any of it meant.

At first, he took long walks in the wood, enjoying the variegated leaves in their many hues. Soon, the riot of autumn color soon gave rise to the first snows of winter. As the specter of Christmas loomed, he had finished his Olympian fortress for his angelic queen. He embarked on a costume design for his naked angel and seized upon blue skin tight cloth that hugged her lithe form closely. Once he was done with that, he knew that he should try to create a fellowship of angels as her companions, yet this proved much more tedious than he thought as he began to research the cadre of angel lore.

He knew that he should not take the stellar timetable to heart. These events had occurred decades, if not centuries, before the world was seeing them and were framed entirely by the time it took like to reach the beholder. Yet their increasingly uniform symmetry spoke to the fact that they were somehow bent to shape the current skein of events. It still could be a rather amazing coincidence with no relevance in the real world. Try as he might to remain object, he could not. He wanted to believe that the hand of Heaven was behind this.

The week of the Winter Solstice changed everything.

For three days preceding and three days following, there were daily events in the heavens, each transpiring at exactly midnight. Like stepping stones across a celestial pond, they jumped from Bellatrix to Canopus to Alycone to Polaris to Deneb and finally Rigel, encompassing more than 1000 light years distance. Finally, on Christmas Eve, there was yet another supernova that exploded in the cluster of Menkib some 1800 light years distance and arising in the eastern sky, its brilliance and duration such that it caused the entire world to think it was the Star of Bethlehem reborn.

Then for three months there was a silence in the heavens.

As days passed in the weeks and then months and nothing happened, he began to fall into disappointment and finally into despair. He would wait every night at midnight surrounded by the sound of silence. He would do anything not think that it was over and she was now safe in Heaven. And after that darkness once replaced disappointment. He had allowed himself to be sucked into this fantasy, wanting so desperately to believe what could only be a hideous coincidence, a cosmic joke.

Valentine’s Day was hard as she had been healthy last year, the cancer not diagnosed until early summer. He simply could not bear to stay at home and elected to get away from Tahoe entirely. He went to his sister’s house in Vancouver for a week, yet even then he could not get away from it. Upon his return to Tahoe, spring arrived early in the form of thunderstorms that followed one after the other for a period of several weeks. A misty gloom descended upon Lake Tahoe that seemed to cling to the trees and the sky was filled with dark ominous clouds. Each night he went out at midnight to the sky hidden by a black veil.

Over the course of those dark nights, his vigil was broken.

He would go out every night, yet visibility was zero. What the torrential rains did not obscure, the cover of the stormy skies hid from view. He finally decided to remain inside until the weather clear. He retreated into old pictures and video, each falling asleep on the couch consumed by melancholy. Finally, nearly 10 days later, the morning arrived crystal clear. He took his first walk in nearly two weeks and finally returned back at sunset.

Determined to change his mood, he had gotten some steaks and potatoes to cook on the grill. When the embers were just right, he threw the New York strip steaks on the grill and reveled in the sizzling sound. He then laid the chunks of potato out on aluminum foil and smothered them with cheese and barbecue sauce. He was so lost in his culinary delight, he did not see that night had fully fallen. When he looked into the flawless night sky, he saw it clearly.

Just to the left of the crescent moon hung something that looked like a luminous gem. There was a halo surrounded it, spreading outward. He raced back in, turning on the television. He soon learned that it was five days ago when a new quasar was born at the edge of Andromeda Galaxy some 250,000 light years distant. The event was such magnitude that it caused light to refract around the quasar in such a manner to give it the star the appearance of a multifaceted gem. Hence it became known as the Diamond Star.

Returning outside, he laid out his dinner and ate in stunned silence looking at the quasar. When he finished, he set the dishes aside and walked to the ledge of the balcony. Taking sip of wine, he pondered its magnificence. Suddenly, the alarm went off on his watch. Looking up again, he saw the glimmering celestial gem start to collapse in on itself. He watched fascinated as the black hole reached its final event horizon and with a cataclysmic implosion disappeared from the night sky.

He looked down at his watch as it chimed the final note of midnight.

.

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There was not even a moment to think about it.

No sooner had that final chime sounded then a single shooting star creased the night sky over Lake Tahoe. He watched as it cut a steep arc over the Sierra headed directly across the lake. Leaving a blazing trail of sparks and flames across the night sky, it was headed directly towards him. In the space of time it took for him to drop the wine glass, snatch up his car keys and leapt down to his truck below, the shooting star overshot the cottage and made for the forest behind. Running towards the truck, he saw the meteor strike the tree tops, igniting them like the wicks of giant dark candles. Firing up the truck, he slammed it in reverse and then floored it out into the main road. Speeding down the narrow ribbon, he watched as the shooting star impacted in the hillside, digging a deep furrow through the trees, sending clouds of earth and splinters of wood flying in great geysers into the night. When he arrived at impact crater, he brought the truck to an abrupt stop and leapt from the cabin. To either side of the furrows, trees burned like fiery sentinels. The center of the furrow had filled quickly with ground water and cooled the meteor’s passage with superheated steam.

Without thought, he ran towards the meteor which glowed at the end of the furrow almost a half mile way. When he was almost upon it, there was a titanic cracking sound and then a report like a cannon as the meteor split in two and ejected a shimmering object into the night sky. It landed in the furrow and came skidding towards him, stopping not 50 yards away. It glowed molten red and rapidly cooled in the ground water. He took careful steps towards it, listening to the bubbling hissing steam as the fragment quickly submerged under the surrounding waters. He knelt down and reached his hand under the waves and tentatively searched until it touched something smooth and cool. Taking his other hand, he pulled the fragment free of the mud in the furrow and brought out where he could see,

There, reflected in the flames of the aftermath, was a silver teardrop shaped like a heart.

He stared for a moment, seeing himself reflected in its smooth surface. He did not realize he was crying until he saw the tears in his eyes there. He collapsed slowly to his knees in the rushing water, tears streaming down his face, clutching the silver heart to his chest, crying her name over and over again. And, as if in answer, the heavens opened up with a deluge of tears of its own.

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END CHAPTER ONE