Justice, Rain Down From Heaven
Michael The ArchAngel's POV
Michael was sitting in a beautiful old Oak tree on a street in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan which was directly across from the house that he had come to observe. The tree was huge and about 100 years old. Currently its boughs were naked, as it was winter, but spring would bring beautiful green leaves to this lovely old tree as it had for so many years before. The Elm had greeted Michael upon his arrival and told him he was welcome to sit among its sturdy limbs for as long as he liked. Like all living things made by the Creator, the tree was connected to the life force within Michael just as Michael was connected to that within the tree and the Elm recognized who and what he was at once. It would seem that only man had difficulty with that type of discernment and both the tree and Michael had wondered why that was many times within their long lives. While Michael could feel the cold, unlike human beings, it did not trouble him at all. He would not freeze no matter how long he was out in the elements and he had been sitting in the tree for about 6 hours. No one had come or gone from the house in that time.
It was now about 8:00 AM and Michael could hear voices within the house. The home belonged to Nicholas and Mia Galbretti. Nicholas was a well respected Banker in the Detroit Community, having taken the reigns of Michigan Bank this past May. The bank had been founded by his great great grandfather Matteo Galbretti and had weathered many storms over the last 200 years under Galbretti leadership, always emerging from them stronger than when the storm had begun. The Galbretti's had 3 children, 2 daughters and 1 son. Nick Jr. was a a sophomore at the University of Michigan and the apple of his father's eye. Nick was also a very spoiled young man who never had to deal with any real issues in life. When something came up that was uncomfortable for him, Nick's dad always came to the rescue. His mother had noticed that since Nick had started college the rescue efforts had been needed far more often and Nick never seemed to learn from the matters that his dad had stepped in to settle. When his mother would try to talk to him about that, Nick would put her off saying something to the effect of "Mama, it's settled now. No need to stress" and walk away. Worse when she tried to talk to Nick's dad, he would say," Mia, he is just a kid. Kid's make mistakes" and change the subject. The last scrape had been a serious one. Nick had been hanging out with his friends and had prepared very poorly for his Sophomore mid term exams. He and several hundred other students had bought term papers for some of their courses from an alumnus of the University and gotten caught. His dad went into action to keep him from being expelled. He was an active member of the Alumni and pledged to furnish a new dormitory that was being renovated to re-open the following fall. Nick and several other well connected students were suspended, but not expelled. Some of the less well connected were not so lucky and had been expelled. That distinction in the handling of these students had resulted in a lawsuit being filed that was making its way through the courts now. Nick, though, was not phased. He was enjoying being out of school for the rest of this term. He would return to classes in the spring. In the meantime , he would party with some of his frat brothers who had also been suspended. He was having fun, fun, fun or he had been until two weeks ago. He had been driving home from a friend's and had been in an accident. He had been drinking and knew that if he had been tested he would be in even bigger trouble than he already was. It could ruin his life especially if someone died. Scared out of his mind and slightly inebriated, he had fled from the scene of the accident. He had panicked and did not know what to do. He had taken the car to a friend's place and put it in the garage and told him that he had an accident and he had been drinking and needed to sober up. He stayed put until he could reach his father. He told him what had happened and his dad told him to stay there until dark. He would have the car picked up on a flatbed and taken to an out of town garage for the body work. In the meanwhile he made some calls to some of his contacts and found an exotic car rental brand that rented Range Rovers. He arranged to pick one up that was for all intents and purposes identical to his son's. No one would need to know that Nick's car was in the body shop as he would return home in the same type of car. He picked up the rental and followed the flatbed to his son's location. The friend that had allowed him to wait at his place for Nicholas Sr., was in no way at risk for telling anyone that he had been there. He had been bailed out of many a jam when they were in high school by Nick's dad and would keep his mouth shut.
Nick's father drove them back home. He was , however, furious with Nick this time. What had he been thinking? Nick told him that he panicked and knew it would embarrass everyone if he was arrested and taken to jail so he ran. His father said that as bad as that was, he wasn't addressing that...he wanted to know what he was thinking when he drank and then got behind the wheel of his $90,000 car. Nicholas then said "don't answer that...because clearly you weren't thinking". They drove the rest of the way home in strained silence. The only words his dad said to him before he entered the house was "do not tell your mother. Let me handle that".
Michael of course knew all of this. He was extremely disappointed when Mr. Galbretti registered greater concern about driving while drunk due to the monetary value of the damaged car than for the potential of lost lives...either his son's or the others who were totally innocent. When Jesus had sent him to resolve this issue, he had told Michael that the boy was not in league with the enemy yet. He was simply an undisciplined, highly privileged young man who had never had to deal with consequences of his actions, thanks to his overindulgent father. His mother was not of the same mind, but his father was a serious roadblock to positive change in this family. The young man still had a future and would make solid contributions to the work of the Creator if he learned these lessons and pulled out of this downward spiral. His path would change at this point, but he could indeed still contribute to the collective good. He therefore counseled Michael to remember it was better to redeem than to send to final judgement. Michael understood his mission. He was to bring Nick to the light of repentance and redemption through whatever means he needed to, but he was not to harm him in any way. He was also to bring his father to repentance and redemption for his allowing this young man to remain trapped in boyhood due to his solving all of his problems. Michael heard Nicholas say goodbye to his wife and saw him leave at about 8:15 AM. He and Mia had gotten into a bit of an argument when she questioned why he and Nick Jr. were barely speaking to each other the night before. He had left home still angry and she was left very frustrated. He sent a thought to Raguel, the Angel of Justice and asked him to watch Nicholas Sr. while he was at work. Nick finally appeared to be up and about at about 12:00 Noon. He told his mother he was going to meet some friends for lunch and left the house. He headed to one of the hangouts he and his fellow suspended friends had been haunting since they had been kicked out of school. It was a bar near Ypsilanti that young people frequented and where some of the the bartenders did not check ID. Drinking was not legal in Michigan until one was 21 years old. Nick and some of his cronies were only 19. Two of them though were 21. He entered the bar, fist bumped three of his friends and ordered a beer and a cheeseburger and fries. When the food was served, Michael was standing right behind Nick and as the he picked up the beer, Michael caused him to drop it with a thought. He ordered a coke and another beer and was just about through with his meal when he reached for the second beer. Michael caused it to fly across the table with a thought. Now Nick was freaked. When he asked his friends if they had seen that ...they had no idea what he was talking about. Michael had not allowed for them to be aware of what was happening. Nick got annoyed and raised his voice and accused them of playing some sort of sick joke on him. They responded by telling him to chill and asking if he had been smoking weed or something. Nick settled down, he needed to figure out what was going on as he had definitely not been smoking weed...at least not yet anyway. When they had paid their bill, they decided to go hang out at one of his friends homes. The friend was from Iowa and had an apartment a little closer to the campus in Ann Arbor. The guys parked and went into this friend's place. His name was Cliff King and he was one of the King's of Iowa. They were one of the 10 largest landowners in the state and had over 900, 000 acres of land. The family was involved in many ventures, but by far, cattle and feedlots contributed the most to their millions of dollars earned annually. Needless to say Cliff's place was quite upscale for a college student. They went out onto his patio shortly after arriving and Cliff offered them some Vietnamese weed. Despite recreational smoking being legal in Michigan, the good stuff seemed to come from faraway places like Vietnam and Acapulco. One could still get arrested if one was driving under its influence though. Cliff lit up the fat joint and toked it twice before passing it on to the next man in the circle. Finally it got to Nick and as he put it to his lips, Michael blew on the joint just enough for it to leave Nick's fingers. It fell onto his Cashmere sweater, burned a hole in it and then dropped to the ground. "So are you going to pass the joint bro", Cliff asked? "It dropped, didn't you see it", Nick responded? "No" the men said at the same time. "Look, it burned a hole in my sweater", Nick added while poking his finger through the hole from the inside out. "Clumsy ass", Cliff said laughing. Looking down, Cliff retrieved the joint and re-lighting it, took another toke and then another and passed to the next in the circle again. The guys were getting lit, all except Nick who did not have a clue what was going on with him. When it reached him again, it was burnt down too short for him to hold for long. He took one toke, tried to do a second and burned both his lip and his finger. "Shit" he said out loud. This time all four of the other guys started cracking up. "Man you really are a klutz today", Cliff said. So went the afternoon with Michael sizing up his charge and based upon what he was learning of him forming a game plan in his mind as to how he would move him to the light. Michael smiled...this was going to be one scared young man by the time he decided to get his head together. Unfortunately, the Creator often had to use fear to get the attention of men when they were on the wrong path. However if it turned things around, the short term fear was seriously worth it.
Prince's POV
It was already 1:30 PM, and today's filming had not gone as well as they had all hoped. Prince had to run through the Cool Breeze three times today before they got it right. Timing had been off for the band and even the vocal harmony had to be refreshed. He knew what the problem was and so he stayed focused on getting it right and not digressing into a what the heck session. They were tired, every last one of them...including himself. Anthony was not pleased with the dialogue within the scenes either. So they were back at the beginning of the first scene now and had been since lunch. Anthony called a break and had them gather around to tell him why they were struggling so today. Prince said "I think that we are all feeling the burn from the long hours we have been keeping", sharing that the soundcheck had not gone well today either which was really unusual. They needed a break to re-energize Carlos added. Sidney said that he was wiped and could barely remember all of the chord changes this morning. Anthony looked at them and weighed if he should tell them to suck it up or if he should be a little less exacting with this group. They had delivered big time until today and they had been working almost non-stop. He decided on the second choice. They would work through the filming of Cool Breeze and pick up the dialogue on Monday. Somehow, knowing that was the plan gave the band new energy and they worked hard in rehearsal mode and at 3:00 the film rolled. They shot the entire Cool Breeze set in 50 minutes, even with two additional takes to get the movement and camera angles filmed to Anthony's taste. The treasured words, "cut/print" were spoken at 3:50 PM. The cast headed to the showers, turned in their costumes so that they would be cleaned or washed and pressed as the material dictated and dressed quickly and headed to their places of rest. Anthony thanked them for working so hard today despite their fatigue and encouraged them to get some rest and to come in ready to dazzle on Monday morning. The 4 piled into the SUV and headed to Kendra and David's home. They chatted about the day and how they had run into a wall in performing today. The girls were especially concerned. They couldn't deal with performing going poorly while they were working on the wedding plans. Those were stressful enough. They did not even want to think about the thing they did so well becoming problem ridden. " It would force us over the edge", Elaine said with her voice sharing that she was on the verge of tears. Carlos put his arm around her and whispered something into her ear. She laid her head on his shoulder and wiped her eyes with a tissue she had extracted from her purse. Frank landed the car smoothly and pulled into the garage as soon as the door had opened enough for him to do so. The 4 and their security team entered the house leaving boots in the mud room and hanging their jackets, parkas and scarfs on the uniform, bronze hooks that adorned one of the walls. Each of them slipped into their own house shoes that were on the wall directly opposite the hooks. They entered the hallway that led to the rest of the house and headed to the family room. Sitting down in the plush chairs the 4 reviewed the day in their individual minds while Ross headed to the kitchen to heat up some Apple Cider. He appeared with a tray and several mugs of the hot beverage a little while later and heard a spirited discussion as he neared the entry to the family room. Bella was speaking and then Carlos added some thoughts and finally Elaine did the same. Prince sat quietly taking everything in and then said, " you have each made very good points, but as I sort them out, I come up with a common denominator. We have been eating and sleeping this film for months. First with the book, then the development of the screenplay, then with rehearsals of both music and dialogue. We need a break", he said. " Unfortunately, we cannot just leave and head to some beautiful island and relax for a week...so I think we should do the next best thing. We will not rehearse the music, run lines, talk about script changes or set modifications or anything else to do with the film all weekend. We will simply focus on our wedding plans and enjoy each other's company. While that too may cause some fatigue, it is a different kind of fatigue that I think we will all enjoy. Are you game to give that a try"? They looked at each other and he watched their faces as smiles began to replace looks of upset and borderline tears. "Yes", each of those closest to him said. "Great, now along those lines, Carlos and I want to tell you something". We should be finished filming if everything goes well by Friday night. If so, we will air drive to Chicago that night. We can stay at our parent's homes and sleep in a little on Saturday morning, but at 11:00 AM we will meet with a realtor and look at some homes, Prince said. "We have not forgotten our promise that we would buy you your own homes by the time we tied the knot, so we need to look at where we will bring you two beautiful brides back to once we are married", Carlos added. Bella and Elaine squealed and stood up and taking each other's hands started jumping up and down. They then went over to their men and kissed them deeply. "Thank you Prince"....Bella whispered as she pulled her lips away. "You are the best" Elaine said as she did the same. Ross had watched this exchange with a wide smile as it had unfolded. "Well", he said, "who wants dinner? We still have lots of Potato Soup and Salad. I will also warm up some Italian Bread". "Sounds great", they all said and went to wash up for dinner. David and Kendra, as well as David's chief of Security would join them tonight. Once they had washed up they met again in the kitchen and enjoyed the delicious hot meal. They had a choice of hot or cold Apple Cider to drink as well.
During dinner they discussed their plans for the weekend as well as the planned trip to Chicago if filming was completed. Kendra was a little disappointed that they had decided to live in Chicago rather than Detroit, but she kept her own counsel and said nothing, at least until she and David had gone to their room for the evening. It was just settling into her heart that her little girl would never call this house where they had raised her "home" in the same sense again. She shed a few tears as she lay in the comfort of her husband's arms that night, but even as she did she was very happy that her daughter had been given a man who adored her as Prince did, and whom she knew would always care for and take care of her Bella. She was Prince's Bella now too...and she always would be until she drew her last breath. Of that, Kendra was absolutely certain.
Michael The Archangel's POV
Michael had remained cloaked and therefore invisible although in the presence of Nick Jr. for most of the day. After the burning of his lip and fingers, Nick left the joints alone. He simply chose not to smoke any more and by the time he left, he was totally sober again. Michael smiled...the door to the next level was opening in the life of this young soul. He called to Raguel asking him to join him in the beautiful Elm tree. Raguel came, greeted the lovely tree and his Angelic Chief, Michael. He shared what he had observed in the day of Nick Sr.
Raguel said, "Nick Sr. was angry most of the day and while he was irritated at some of the questions his wife asked this morning, I do not think he really knows why he is angry. Yes he is upset about the accident and his son's recklessness. But he does not want to acknowledge why and it is the why that in this case is important", Raguel said. "Michael, he knows on some level that the anger is actually at himself. He knows that his overindulgence has created the behavior that he is dealing with now in his son. It is, however, still too painful for him to embrace completely. As you know Michael, he must embrace his role in creating this low version of his Son's character. Only then, can he encourage Nick Jr. to deconstruct his character allowing it to grow into what the Creator intends and intended from the beginning of time". The key to creating a breakthrough for Nick Sr., within him, is to create a circumstance where his anger comes out full throttle forcing him to look at it and to own it for what it really is...disgust with himself", Raguel said. Michael listened attentively and when Raguel was finished, he said, "very succinctly put. Let's make it so."
Bella's POV
Melvin and Larry cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. Bella and Elaine had gone into Kendra's study and getting on their laptops had found that they had the food count for 22 of their guests. That was a good start for only one day after Linda had sent out the email. All of the head table had responded which was 14 people. The only ones who had not weighed in were themselves. Bella knew that Prince would go with the seafood as would she. Elaine and Carlos opted for the same. So the entire wedding party was accounted for along with 4 others. They should have the entire count by Monday as planned if the pace continued. They decided that they would focus on 3 things this weekend. Getting started on their Wedding Registry was number 1. They had re-thought the stores and decided that they would keep Bloomingdale's and Macy's, but would replace Neiman Marcus with Bed Bath and Beyond. Neiman's would basically be a repeat of Bloomies. They would begin with kitchen items and then move to bedroom and bath items. They would calendar the bridesmaid luncheon and plan on doing invitation writing that day with their help and finally set food tasting appointments with Linda and Kendra's help. Bella made a note to ask her mom if they had gotten the flower cost from Victoria. It would be a major step forward to get the flowers ordered.
They needed to also talk to their men about the band. They both knew this was delicate territory because of their men being amazing professional musicians. But they wanted to enjoy their reception with their men. Would they be open to having another band play for dancing and maybe only playing a couple of numbers? On the other hand, since this would be the only wedding they would ever have, did they want to let their men do it however they wanted? As they talked about it, they came to the conclusion that it should be the latter. They would like to know what was planned though. They would talk about it with their men over dinner either Saturday or Sunday night.
They had a plan for the weekend's focus which they were pleased with...but fatigue now was really settling in on the girls. They powered down their laptops and gave each other a hug and then headed to their own rooms. Prince was in their room laying across the bed. Cloud Stream was on but he was fast asleep. She kissed him on the cheek and said "baby wake up and lets get under the covers. He woke up and pulled off his clothes and laying them on a chair he went in a drawer and pulled out some soft, warm cotton blend pajamas. Bella washed her face and brushed her teeth and put on some warm pajamas and climbed in the bed as he slipped into his pajamas too. They got into their favorite spoon position and Prince said "love you Mama" and within minutes was sound asleep. Bella smiled...she could not think of anything that made her happier than being in his arms and hearing those words. "Love you more", she whispered as she joined her handsome Prince in dreamland.