Roxy leans her bloodied face against the doorpost. The phone?

I have to tell you something, Roxy says. She takes hold of Maddalena’s hands. They stare into each other’s eyes.

ANGEL LOVE BY BEN HARDWELL 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 61

The desert stretches to the flat line of the horizon (there’s this smudge of a purple outcrop of hills) and on the edge of an airstrip this tiny figure, Maddalena in a long black dress (the negative image of a wedding dress) holding at her waist a posy of bright pink flowers. The desert wind drags at her hair. Her glistening eyes reflect the empty sky. Someone to love, she says.

Callington and Little Josh lean forward against the scratched perspex window of the small plane cabin. The pilot turns back to them, points down at the curve of the earth, and shouts over the roar of the engine, there she is.

Suddenly the plane throws around in turbulence, they hold on tight. The pilot loves it, rides the plane through it wildly. Yeehaaaaaaa!!

Maddalena in that same long black dress sits by the blackened kitchen wood stove, the fi…