Angels in Pink: Holly's Story (Lurlene McDaniel (Mass Market)) by Lurlene McDaniel Page B

page from her mother’s life and sleep through the holidays. She cleared her throat. “The ski lodge is pretty in the pictures. Maybe I’ll make a snowman and date him.”
    Kathleen giggled. “Look at your nails. They’re a mess. You can’t go to a ski lodge with ugly nails.”
    Holly looked down at her chipped nails, some bitten down to the quick. She had started painting her nails so that she would stop biting them. She didn’t even remember when she’d started biting them again. “I’ll paint them later.”
    “No, we’ll give each other manicures.” Kathleen jumped up. “Wait here, I’ll go gather my stuff.”
    “But I don’t—” Holly was protesting to the air, because Kathleen was gone. She sighed, and was staring at the tree, feeling sad, when she heard the mechanical swish of Mary Ellen’s wheelchair. She looked up and saw Kathleen’s mother emerge from the doorway.
    “Hello,” Holly said, forcing a smile.
    “Hi, honey.” Mary Ellen stopped next to the sofa. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you say you were going away for the holidays.”
    “Dad’s idea.”
    “I feel so bad for you and your family, Holly.” Mary Ellen looked as if she had more to say, so Holly waited patiently. “I know a little myself about losing someone you love.”
    “Your husband.”
    Mary Ellen nodded. “I just wanted to crawl into a corner and die. In fact, I couldn’t understand why he’d died and I’d lived. I certainly didn’t want to face my life without him. I didn’t want to face advancing MS without him either.”
    Holly was well aware of how Mary Ellen’s MS had affected Kathleen. “Nothing’s ever going to be the same at home.”
    “That’s true. But things will get better.”
    Holly wanted to believe her.
    “In the end it was my child who saved me from myself. She was only eight, you know. Just a scared little girl. My turning point came when I was lying in my hospital bed wishing I could die and I looked out the ICU window. I saw her standing there, nose pressed against the glass, her red hair all wild. And I thought, ‘Someone had better brush that child’s hair before it snarls into a thousand knots.’ ”
    Mary Ellen chuckled at the memory. “It was the first positive thought I’d had in weeks. The first time I’d thought about someone other than myself. And I realized that my little girl needed me. She was mine and Jim’s. And I needed her. Not because of my MS, but because she was all I had left of him.”
    Holly had never appreciated what Kathleen’s mother had gone through. It was different from her losing Hunter, but it was also the same. “I’m the one who’s left, all that’s made up of my mom and dad.” She hadn’t considered that before.
    “You are. It is a large responsibility to be the one left standing. Your parents are devastated, and it may seem like you’ve fallen through the cracks, but they love and appreciate you even though it might not seem so just now.”
    Holly wasn’t sure she was ready to shoulder all their expectations. “Does it . . . your heart . . . ever stop hurting?”
    “Yes and no. You never forget, but you do see ‘happy’ again. You don’t think you will, but you do.”
    Holly nodded as a lump of emotion rose in her throat. “Sometimes it seems like that man murdered my whole family.”
    Mary Ellen reached over and squeezed Holly’s hand. “Don’t let him win.” After a few emotionally charged moments, she put her chair into reverse and turned for the doorway. “One more thought before your manicurist returns. Don’t be afraid to care about someone just because he may not be facing the brightest of futures.”
    Chad.
    “If the good Lord had told me when I was your age that I was going to be sick and that my husband was going to die in a car wreck, I still would have chosen the life that I have. I loved Jim with all my heart. And he gave me Kathleen. It’s been enough.”
    Raina thought the Christmas holidays would