Garden of Angels by Lurlene McDaniel Read Free Book Online Page A

and the ball squeezing is an exercise to help me get my strength in my arm back,” she said, seeing me staring. “I still have a drainage tube in place.”
    It had to have been hidden beneath her clothes because I couldn’t see anything. “I sure wish you were coming home, Mama,” I said.
    “Me too. But I can’t.” She forced a quick smile. “They tell me that the radiation makes a person dog-tired, and that the chemo makes a person dog-sick, so it’s better I stay here anyway.”
    “And then it’ll all be over? You’ll be well and won’t have to come back here again?”
    “I’ll have to come in for regular blood tests.”
    In my mind, I’d figured that over meant over, but with cancer it must not mean that at all.
    “All your friends are asking about you,” Adel said. “I don’t know what to tell them.”
    Mama sighed. “I guess I can’t keep this a secret. Carole’s already told the Women’s Prayer Fellowship, so if you don’t want to answer questions, tell people to call Carole.”
    I felt better knowing that the First Baptist prayer warriors were storming heaven on Mama’s behalf. God would have to listen to them!
    “You know what?” Papa interjected. “I’m getting a wheelchair from the nurses’ station and we’re taking your mother out for a walk around the grounds. It’s a beautiful day and getting outside will cheer us all up.”
    So that’s what we did. Papa pushed Mama, and Adel and I walked on either side. Somewhere someone was burning leaves, because the October air smelled faintly of smoke. Trees were taking on the colors of autumn and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue shot through with sunlight.
    Mama tipped back her head and opened her arms wide toward the sky. “Fall is surely my favorite time of year,” she said. “Next to spring. Nothing’s better than the smell of fresh earth, or prettier than flowers and trees beginning to bloom.”
    “By spring this will all be over,” Papa said. “You’ll be digging up the beds and putting in flowers.”
    Mama looked over at me. “Darcy, the hostas will need cutting down and the bulbs should be brought out of the cellar for planting.”
    “I’ll do it, Mama,” I said.
    “Nothing’s going to stop my gardens from blooming in the spring. Not even cancer.”
    We all agreed. Our mama had a fighting spirit, and nothing brought it out quicker than the fear of her gardens going fallow.
    We started home in the late afternoon, after a tearful goodbye. I was in a funk in the backseat and didn’t notice for a long time that Papa was driving a different route home. A fence ran along the road we were traveling. Signs read Property of the United States Army, and then all at once a booth with a wooden guardrail loomed in front of us. A uniformed man wearing an MP armband stepped out. Papa stopped and gave his name, and the MP checked his name off a list on the clipboard he held, put a card that read Visitor’s Pass under our windshield wiper and waved us through the gate.
    I couldn’t keep silent any longer. “Where are we going?”
    “I’m meeting Barry,” Adel said.
    I couldn’t figure when she’d made those arrangements with Papa. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
    “I didn’t think I had to clear it with you,” she answered.
    “It would have been nice to know,” I said huffily.
    “Calm down, ladies,” Papa said. “Let’s not start a war right here on Georgia soil.”
    Papa drove along neat, well-ordered streets, and I looked out onto open fields with rows of wooden barracks and low metal buildings.
    “There it is,” Adel said, pointing at a freestanding white building with a sign reading Enlisted Men’s Club.
    Papa slowed, and the car had barely stopped rolling when Adel jumped out and ran to a man dressed in uniform standing on the steps. He took both her hands and pulled her close.
    Papa parked the car and we walked over to the two of them. When Adel turned, I saw that her cheeks were pink and her eyes