A few times over the years I have sprung for tickets to Broadway shows. It only happens when my tendency toward thrift blinks, and a momentary judgment that two hours of splendor overrides a month of electricity prevails. 

 

We were typically in the cheap seats, though such a label hardly applies. My daughters and I saw Anastasia, and the turmoil of a girl without a family roiled on stage. Her grandmother longed to find her, though the hope felt more fragile than a snowflake in winter. It turns out that I am easily absorbed into the uncertainty, even though another portion of my brain is cognizant of the fact that it all ends well. 

 

What if it doesn't?

 

The illusion was such that I believed that the general of the Bolsheviks had power. Lots of it. He was after all cloaked in somber music and extravagant robes. Servants shuddered to his command and so did I. 

 

But memory floated in from a music box, and Anastasia awakened to the unlikely miracle that she wasn't alone. 

 

I am not in exile. There is no one hunting for me either for good reasons or ill. But a more subtle kind of demon chases me. The one that prods me to find fault with people I love, and rebel against trust. I heard the raspy voice as I was trying to fall asleep, and the angst was incompatible with surrender. 

 

Sometimes my refuge comes wrapped in a recollection... as when I glance at the wedding photo above our bed, or John's piano piece wafts up the stairwell. I adore this family, and our shared history. Why do I want to make them wrong? In that sweet release of conflict I slipped back into the awareness of where I belong. 

 

It's then that I heard the soft clapping of angels in the balcony. The ones who know how it ends.