a party hat

“I need to have a party for you,” she thought to her guardian angel at one o’clock in the morning. “To show how much I appreciate you.”

The house was quiet. In the dark illuminated only by the clock-light, she cuddled up to the baby and thought to her guardian, “We could have cake and balloons and streamers and party hats.”

She imagined a package of those paper party-hats with the elastic chin-strap, imagined handing one to the angel. Imagined the angel declining to put it on.

“Come on,” she imagined saying to the angel. It was after midnight, and under the blankets, she was having the late-night giggles in silence. “It’s just a party hat. It’s festive.”

She imagined the angel continuing the decline the honor of a party hat. She imagined putting one on herself. “Well, then I’ll wear the party hat.”

She tried again, but even in her imagination she couldn’t make an angel wear a party hat.

She thought, “Saint Philip Neri would have worn the party hat.”

She imagined the angel replying, “Philip would have done a lot of things.”

She giggled in the dark. She thought, “But I wanted a party so we could recognize all the ways you protect me.”

She imagined the angel thinking back, “Party hats are one of the things I try to protect you from.”

For a while she fell quiet, and then, before drifting back to sleep, she thought out into the dark, “You know I’m just kidding about the party hat.”

And for a moment she felt warm and understood, and somewhere in the world, an angel is amused.