Garden of Angels by Lurlene McDaniel Read Free Book Online

soldier boy, Barry. When she didn’t return, I made another stab—literally—at eating the pork chop. “Poor fellow,” I said to the slab of overcooked meat, not sure if I was pitying the chop or the soldier.
    Finally Adel came to the table. She looked upset. “That was Papa,” she said. “He’s not coming back tonight, and neither is Mama. Her doctors want her to start radiation and chemotherapy treatments.”
    “What!” I could hardly contain my disappointment. “But why?”
    Adel shook her head and I could see she was pretty upset. “It’s just what they have to do now. To make sure the cancer’s killed.”
    “You telling me everything?”
    “I’m telling you what Papa said. She starts radiation tomorrow. Chemo next week.”
    “How long?”
    “A month to six weeks.”
    I was so shocked, I sputtered, “Six weeks! That’s forever!”
    “Papa said he’ll be home tomorrow after her first treatment and that he’ll take us to visit this weekend.”
    “Why can’t she come home to have radiation and chemo?”
    “Conners doesn’t have the equipment for radiation treatments, and Mama has to get the treatments five days a week. And the chemo is no walk in the park either. She’s better off staying near the hospital at Emory.”
    I knew that what Adel was saying was true, because ours was a small town with one doctor, a dentist who only came through twice a week and one emergency medical care clinic run by Dr. Keller, the lone doctor. If a person wasn’t bleeding or in danger of dying quickly, he had to go to a hospital in either Atlanta to the north or Macon to the south. I began to see that despite my fondness for my hometown, Conners had some shortcomings. “So she’s just going to live in the hospital?” I felt cheated.
    “Papa said she’ll become an outpatient. He said that private homes around the area rent out rooms for short terms. He’s going to rent one for Mama.”
    “I can’t believe Mama has to live with strangers. There should be a special hotel run by the hospital so that families can stay together.”
    “It’s the way things are, for now,” Adel said, picking up her plate of barely eaten food.
    I picked up mine and followed her into the kitchen. I’d completely lost my appetite, and for once I couldn’t blame it on my sister’s cooking.
    On Saturday morning, before we left for Emory, I took an enormous vase out into the yard and cut flowers from the gardens. I filled the vase with sprays of pink and purple crepe myrtle blossoms, autumn roses, hydrangeas, the last of the summer’s black-eyed Susans and the first of the fall mums.
    I climbed into the backseat holding the huge arrangement, and Papa asked, “Did you leave anything
in
the yard, honey?”
    “I just want Mama to enjoy her gardens,” I said. “Until she can come see them again for herself.”
    “The flowers are fine,” Papa said. “I’m sure she’ll be pleased.”
    She was. When I walked into the room with the vase, her whole face lit up. She hugged us all, begged us for news from home. Adel chattered about household things and I told her about school; the upcoming high school football game against Redford, a rival of Conners for years; and the arrival of Jason and J.T.’s lack of consideration toward him.
    “I’ve met Jason,” Mama said. “Jim and Carole stopped by on their way home from the airport and he was with them. He seemed like an unhappy young man, so I hope you’ll be kind to him, Darcy. I know what it feels like to be far away from home. I’m sure he’s missing all things familiar.”
    “Do you know if he plays football?” I asked out of the blue.
    “No, I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
    “No reason,” I said.
    Mama was dressed in regular clothes, but she looked pale and thinner than when I’d last seen her. I could tell she was having trouble moving her arm, wrapped in an elastic sleeve. She held a small rubber ball that she kept squeezing. “The sleeve keeps the swelling down,