Michael renews his vows to Angel

Michael renews his vows to Angel in a quiet sequence of grief, remembrance, and care that turns the wind chime he makes for her into a sign of devotion. After they speak on the hill where he had taken her to watch the sunrise, Michael answers Angel’s painful memories with a handmade echo of her childhood “private symphony” and promises to love and honor her; their renewed closeness is immediately shadowed by her leaving the next morning.

The Hill and Their Fear

Frightened by thoughts of her father, Angel searches for Michael and finds him on the hill where he had taken her to see the sunrise. She wraps a blanket around his shoulders and offers to leave, pointing out that she now knows the road and could find her own way back. Michael answers simply that he does not want her to go.

Angel asks whether he believes God is playing a cruel joke on him by allowing what has happened. Michael says he has asked God the same question and believes the trial is meant to strengthen him. He admits that he is not yet strong enough for what lies ahead. When Angel shivers, he puts an arm around her and assures her that God will show him the way when the time comes, as God has before. Angel says she wishes she could believe.

The Wind Chime

Angel recalls hearing her mother weep at night and remembers the sounds of the bottle and glass in the room where her mother sat. Rainy days had been her favorite because men came less often; in the alley, Angel collected tin cans and polished them, setting them beneath a leaking ceiling to catch the drips. She called their sound her “own private symphony.”

Back at the cabin, Michael leaves to work in the barn. Angel sees him hanging metal scraps, utensils, nails, and a worn horseshoe from the cabin eaves. Running his hand along the row, he names it her “own private symphony.” The simple objects answer her childhood memory with a sound made for her in the present. Angel is so moved that she has to sit down; she thinks that although she has destroyed his dreams, he has made her wind chimes.

Renewed Vows and Departure

After supper, Michael stops Angel from washing the dishes and loosens her hair. Seeing her fear, he promises to love, cherish, honor, and sustain her in sickness and health, poverty and wealth, through both bad and good days. He vows to remain true to her until death and, God willing, beyond it. When Angel asks what she must promise in return, he answers with gentle humor and kisses her.

The intimacy that follows feels unlike the rules Angel has learned from her former life: she experiences it as warm, tender, and right. A single tear appears, and Michael reassures her that it is a good sign. But the reconciliation does not end their separation. When Michael awakens the next morning, Angel is gone.