Abide With Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

gray, unruly spikes of hair had replaced the golden waves that had been Sandra’s glory for all of her life, although she had helped Mother Nature along by lightening her hair, which had darkened with age. Pain had doused the sparkle in her dark blue eyes, and her full figure had grown gaunt, even skeletal, by the time death had offered sweet release and the Lord had come to take Sandra Home, silencing her infectious laughter forever, at least in this world.
    Cancer.
    Cancer had turned everything Sandra was into something…ugly and grotesque, even inhuman. A scrapbook of memories opened and images flashed through Madge’s mind. She caught her breath and held it for a moment to try to silence the sobs that tore through her throat.
    When she finally regained control, when her body was limp with exhaustion, when the well of her tears had gone dry, only then was she able to hear the whisper that cried out only loud enough for her heart to hear. As insidious and evil and destructive as cancer had been for Sandra or Kathleen or Mother or Dad, nothing had been able to destroy the beauty of their spirits. Nothing.
    And it was that thought that gave Madge the courage to help her sister Andrea now.

Chapter Four
    W hat on earth had possessed Andrea to give in to Madge? What had she been thinking?
    In all honesty, she had been unable to think beyond the increasing pressure in her bladder or the relief that Dr. Newton had been right. Andrea had felt no pain from the chemo, although she had been a little frustrated at being forced to lie down for two hours in the middle of the day. But most of all, she had been thinking how she simply could not hurt Madge’s feelings.
    Still, by the time she got back to her office, she had kicked herself twice over for agreeing to let her sister take her for treatments, figuratively speaking, of course. Unless Andrea wanted to be late for her appointments or carry the stress that she might be late, she had to think of a way toeither change Madge’s habit of losing track of time or tell her sister that she had changed her mind.
    Andrea opened the rear door to the agency, slipped inside and bolted the door behind her, even though she routinely left her car unlocked only a few feet from the back door. Located in the heart of the business district, her one-woman office occupied one of the old storefronts that had been carefully restored after she had purchased it over ten years ago. Not remodeled—restored, at least at the street level. She rarely went to the second floor. The upstairs, once the living quarters for the original owners, was a disaster, having been being used as a storage area for a short-lived pharmacy, wallpaper outlet and a news agency over the years. With rents at an all-time high, Andrea wondered if she really should do something about the wasted space overhead.
    “Someday,” she mumbled, and made her way along the narrow hallway that ran down the center of the main office. Wide-planked floorboards beneath her feet carried the scars inflicted by years of use, but shone beneath several coats of polyurethane. Bead-board paneling, stripped of half a dozen coats of paint, lined the lower half of the office walls, below pale blue, freshly-plastered walls.
    She passed by the restroom and two conference rooms on either side of the hallway and went straight to the front office. Her office—her home away from home—held memories that swelled and washed over her. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Cancer threatened her life, true. But it also threatened the quality of her life, both present and future, and she was not going to see all that she had worked so hard to achieve fall by the wayside because of an…an illness.
    She paused and glanced around. The picture window showcased photographs of properties she had listed for sale, both residential and commercial, for pedestrians. Nearly half had a “Sold” banner tacked on top of the photograph, and she needed to update the display as