Free Garden of Angels by Lurlene McDaniel Page B

made me remember all the times I’d gone in the costumes Mama made for me. Whatever I told her I longed to be, she somehow managed to create it. I’d been an Indian princess, a fairy queen and Tony the Tiger. My last year of dressing up I’d gone as Marcia Brady, complete with wig. Mama let me eat all my candy too. She didn’t parcel it out the way Becky’s mother did. No, I ate it until I got sick of it.
    Early the next morning, Papa woke me from a sound sleep with a roar. “Darcy Quinlin, come down here this minute!”
    I staggered downstairs, half asleep, heart pounding. He stood in the doorway, looking livid. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
    He pushed open the front door and I went out on the porch and gasped. Our front lawn was a sea of white. Someone had toilet-papered our trees, bushes and car. Morning dampness had caused the paper to shred and sag. “I don’t know which one of your hoodlum friends did this, but you’re going to clean up every last dollop,
now.
Is that clear?”
    “B-but I—I’ll be late for school.”
    “Clean it up!” He slammed the screen door and retreated into the house.
    Papa was boiling mad, but so was I. Whoever had done this knew I would get into trouble. And naturally, I could think of only one person who would do such a childish, stupid prank. J.T. I was as certain of it as I was of my name.
    I gritted my teeth, found a plastic lawn bag and began the long, tedious task of raking up the soggy toilet paper. “I’ll get even with you someday, J.T.,” I muttered as I worked. I didn’t know how or when, but I would. I surely would.

Nine
    November

    It became harder to go to Atlanta every Saturday. Not because I didn’t want to see Mama—I did. But because I could hardly stand to see what the chemo was doing to her. Her hair was gone, even her eyebrows and eyelashes. “Better tell Marcia I won’t be needing that weekly appointment at her salon,” Mama would say in an effort to make light of her loss.
    She grew thinner. “Now I can eat all the chocolate I want,” she’d tell us. She grew weaker. “I think I’ll just sit here in bed and visit with you today, if you don’t mind.” She grew more tired. “Let me just doze a minute, all right? Now, don’t leave. I want to visit more right after a little catnap.”
    I cried every week on the way home. “Seems to me the chemotherapy is killing her,” I’d wail from the backseat.
    “Now you hush,” Adel would hiss. “Sure it’s bad, but it’s killing the cancer too.”
    Papa didn’t say much of anything. He looked grim and sad and lost without Mama.
    Carole and some of the church ladies drove over on Mondays to visit Mama. And casseroles, fried chicken, roasts and other yummy Southern cooking showed up at our house every evening like clockwork. We were all grateful. Not only because the food was good, but because we were all worn down from the strain of holding things together. It wasn’t just that we missed Mama, but her absence had left a hole in our family and we didn’t know how to realign ourselves to fill in the empty space.
    Papa stayed late at the bank working most nights. After work, Adel shut herself in her room and wrote long letters to Barry and talked on the phone to Sandy. I buried myself in my schoolwork. The college-prep courses were tougher than other schoolwork I’d done over the years, so I doubled my efforts on every assignment, telling myself that Mama would be proud if she knew how hard I was trying.
    We were sitting on the porch of the little house, visiting Mama, when Adel said, “I want to ask Barry to come for Thanksgiving. His commander is offering three-day passes and I want to invite him to stay with us. He can’t get to New York and back, and I’d hate for him to spend the holiday stuck at the base.”
    “I don’t know—” Papa started.
    Mama interrupted. “Why, that’s a wonderful idea. Poor boy’s so far away from home. He should be with a family.”
    “I’ll cook,