Angel of Mercy Read Online Free PDF Page A

that. He didn’t want to cry in front of us when Mommy died.”
    “Daddy didn’t cry in front of anyone when Mommy died. Not even himself,” Faye said.
    “That’s not so. I was there. I saw him cry. I saw him,” Susie insisted.
    Faye turned away to look out the window again.
    “Mr. Livingston’s going to need someone to stand by him, isn’t he?
    Will you tell him about me? Faye, will you?”
    Faye took a deep breath and then turned around and stared at her a moment.
    “He has family, children,” she said. She hoped Susie would leave it at that, but in her heart, she knew she couldn’t.
    “You’ve met them. You know they won’t give him any real support.
    They’re self-centered. Will you tell him I’m available? Will you? He needs me.” She limped up to her sister. “Faye?”
    Faye nodded softly, resigned.
    “I’ll tell him at the proper time, after the funeral,” she whispered.
    “Promise?”
    “I said I would, didn’t I?” she snapped.
    Susie seemed to wither right before her eyes, growing smaller and smaller until she looked like a twelve yearold girl again, always depending on her, even more than she depended on their mother and father.
    “It’s just that when I peeked in, he looked just like Daddy, sitting by the hospital bed.”
    Faye closed her eyes and opened them.
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Daddy never sat at Mommy’s hospital bed.”
    “Of course he did,” Susie said smiling.
    “All right, Susie.”
    “I don’t know why you insist on saying these things that you know aren’t so.”
    “All right.”
    “You just forget, that’s all. You want to forget, so you just forget.”
    “Don’t start!” Faye snapped. “Just go home,” she ordered. Susie backed away, nearly stumbling over herself as if she expected Faye to reach out and slap her.
    “You don’t have to shout at me.”
    “Just… go home, Susie. Please.”
    “You just forget,” Susie insisted. She turned and started away. Faye watched her sister hobble down to the elevator. Then she started back to the room where she knew Tommy Livingston was still sitting, staring at his dearly departed wife.
    “This is a helluva sight for a man who nearly had a heart attack,”
    Frankie muttered when he and Jennie were forced to stop at a green light to let a funeral procession go through the intersection. Behind the metallic black hearse, Tommy Livingston, his two sons, and their wives and children rode in a gray stretch limousine with tinted windows.
    There were close to twenty-five cars of friends and relatives following.
    After the last car passed through, the light turned red again before Frankie could go forward. He had insisted on driving, reminding Jennie that the doctor had said he could resume normal activities until he returned for the pacemaker.
    “His idea of normal and yours are quite different, Frankie,” Jennie said, but she relented and permitted him to take the wheel. Now he twisted impatiently in the seat.
    “I knew that light would change before we could pass.”
    “We’re in no rush, Frankie,” Jennie said. “You might as well get used to the slower tempo of life right away.”
    “Yeah, I suppose,” he said, although he had no idea what a slower tempo of life really meant.
    “Look at the mountains, Frankie,” Jennie said. He gazed to his right.
    “Doesn’t it look like a movie set, like someone just planted them there?
    I never get used to them.”
    He smiled. It was impressive—the city of Palm Springs built right at the foot of the mountain range, a true oasis in the desert. The light changed and they coasted down Palm Canyon Boulevard into the heart of the small city that had a native population of just over forty thousand.
    But it was still the season, still busy. Small clumps of people sauntered down the sidewalks and over the crosswalks.
    Despite his constant stream of anger and self-pity, Frankie felt the tension drain out of his body. This lazy vacationer’s