Arms of an Angel Read Online Free PDF

touching.
    Claire was suddenly starving as well as being
struck with an overwhelming desire to see an old friend. She
quickly rinsed her brushes, returned her supplies to the closet,
and busied herself with the task of looking presentable.
    Old Joe…she thought about her friend. She
wondered if he’d remember her. Five years was a long time.
    A quick bite was eaten at
the corner deli as she watched the crowd bustling by. She wondered
if there was ever not a crowd in the historic neighborhood. She
looked across the way to her building and counted up the rows of
glass windows to where she’d sat not long before. She was glad to
belong to the history; to be a living part.
     
    With intentioned slowness, Claire strolled
the three blocks to Old Joe’s art gallery. She knew it was still
there. She’d seen it, even seen him a time or two from behind the
windows of a cab or looking out of a would-be suitor’s car.
    The chimes jingled as she opened the creaky
old door, pressing hard as the sign directed.
    “ Be right with you in a
couple,” the familiar voice called from somewhere in back. “Feel
free to look around.”
    “ Take your time. I’m in no
hurry,” Claire hollered back. Joe immediately came through the
drape covered doorway.
    “ Little Claire Orion. I
thought you’d left me for good, Angel.” He came toward her and she
hugged him tightly. Claire blinked to hold back tears.
    “ Just took a wrong turn,
Joe. Thanks for welcoming me back on course with open arms.” She
patted his scruffy cheek as he released her. “It looks like you’re
doing well, old friend.” She gestured to all the pieces of artwork
and the vast number with sold tags.
    Joe smiled and nodded. “Thanks to you,” he
chuckled. “From a street vendor being told to pack up or else, to a
shop owner. All because a perfect little girl made mighty demands
upon her wealthy father.”
    “ This old shop was sitting
idle because it wasn’t pretty enough for one of his own ventures
and, quite frankly, he paid me off because I knew who the woman was
who had vacated it.” She elbowed Old Joe. “It didn’t take a rocket
scientist to know his only interest in an artist would be the
pictures she could paint in his bed.”
    “ Now, now Missy. No speaking
ill of the dead. I worried about you after. Tried to get in touch
with you but they shooed me away up there at your big fancy
building. Think they thought Old Joe was a gold digger when all I
wanted was to check on my angel. No Ma’am - always wanted to make
my way doing just exactly what I love. And thanks to you, I been
doing just that for nearly thirteen years now.” He hugged her
again.
    “ I’m sorry I never came
back, Joe.”
    “ Ah. You’re here now. Let it
go. Always look forward, Angel. No matter what you’ve been through
or what life throws at you, the future has the potential to hold
greatness. Don’t you ever forget that.” He led her to a small table
in the back. “I don’t suppose you want milk and cookies anymore.
Look at you. What a fine woman you made. Though there was no doubt
in that coming about.”
    Claire laughed. She felt like the same little
girl inside, especially here with Joe. “How about tea? You always
had tea when I had my milk?”
    Joe nodded and began preparing their drinks.
“You still paint, Claire? I still have requests for your work. I
kept the last three, marked sold but still on display. People
always want them…”
    “ I painted this morning for
the first time in five years, Joe. Not a great job, but a beginning
still.”
    Joe nodded. Claire looked away.
    “ When they took away my
ability to make babies, I thought I could still leave a legacy with
my artwork. Then he told me it was all worthless, all of it. Then he died… and I
wanted to die. But, instead I threw myself into becoming numb…
until last night.” She looked back at her old friend. She’d always
talked openly with Joe. He’d listened without judgment for all
those years while