Angels in Pink: Holly's Story (Lurlene McDaniel (Mass Market)) (6 page)

ten

KATHLEEN COULDN’T STOP crying. The news about Hunter came from Raina’s mother via a phone call. Mary Ellen was crying when she brought the news to Kathleen, who was preparing to go to Raina’s for an afternoon at the pool. Kathleen called Carson, and when she couldn’t hold herself together on the phone, he came to her house.

“This is unreal,” Carson kept saying while Kathleen sobbed. “It can’t be happening.”

“But it
did
happen. How could someone
do
that? Just walk up and kill somebody who’d done nothing wrong?”

“If I ever meet the guy in a dark alley . . . ,” Carson said.

“It wouldn’t bring Hunter back.”

With Mary Ellen, they watched the evening news, on which Hunter’s death was the lead story. “Oh, that poor family,” Mary Ellen said, crying openly. “What a terrible thing. Have you talked to Holly yet?”

Kathleen shook her head. “I’ve called her and Raina both, but their lines are always busy, so I’ll bet they’ve unplugged them. Their cell phones go straight to voice mail, so I know they’ve got them turned off too. I don’t blame them. How can they talk about it yet? It’s too horrible.”

The TV reporter said that police were going over a surveillance tape that soon would be released to the public, and that the restaurant was offering a large reward for the perpetrator’s capture. “Maybe someone will recognize the scum,” Carson said.

“This is just too sad.” Mary Ellen, back in her wheelchair since her latest flare-up of MS, shook her head and left the room.

Kathleen watched her mother go. “I’m worried about Mom.”

“Why?”

“Stress causes problems for her.”

“No one can lead a stress-free life.”

“But the less stress, the better.” Kathleen sighed. “Don’t you see? This is bringing up all her bad memories from her and Dad’s car wreck. I can tell it’s affecting her.”

Carson slid his arms around Kathleen and kissed her temple. “I liked Hunter. And if there’s anything you want me to do to help your mother, you or your friends, tell me.”

“The next few weeks are going to be really hard for all of us. Just be with me through all of it,” she said.

“There’s no place else I want to be.”

Holly felt as if their house had been invaded.

Pastor Eckloes came Sunday afternoon and stayed for hours. The elders came on Monday, and then people from the congregation showed up with food. Not that she or her mother or dad ate much of anything. Food stuck in her throat and she could hardly swallow. No one knew how to comfort them. Many people wanted to pray with the family, except that Holly didn’t feel like praying. She just wanted everyone to leave them alone.

She hid in her room whenever she could. But the loneliness got to her quickly and she usually ended up pacing the upstairs hallway, listening to the murmurs from the floor below until she wanted to scream, “Go away!”

Everything in the house whispered Hunter’s name and magnified their loss. In the bathroom Holly shared with him, she put his toothbrush, hairbrush, aftershave and razors into plastic bags and stowed them under the sink, out of sight. It helped to not have to constantly see his belongings, reminding her that he wasn’t coming home.

In his bedroom, most of his things were packed in boxes and stacked along one wall, ready for the trip to college that would never come. He had stripped his bulletin board above his desk and now only a few lone thumbtacks remained in the cork. His closets were mostly empty and his bed was neatly made. Holly touched his pillow, where his head had lain only the night before, and cried.

She slept fitfully and woke with a start late Monday night to the sounds of weeping. She followed the sounds and found her mother sitting in the middle of Hunter’s bed, holding his pillow and sobbing into it. Holly eased wordlessly onto the bed.

“It still smells like him,” Evelyn said.

Holly buried her face in the pillow, where Hunter’s scent lingered. “Why is this happening?” she whispered. “Why Hunter? Why us?”

Her mother didn’t speak for a long time. When she did, she said, “All I know, Holly, is that almost nineteen years ago, God gave me a baby boy. A son. And now he’s taken him away. In the cruelest and most terrible of ways, he’s taken him from me.”

Hunter’s nineteenth birthday was coming up on September 30. Holly cried harder. All she wanted was for the pain to go away. She wanted her mother to comfort her, but Evelyn did not. And inside the shell of Hunter’s room, Holly feared that she
could
not. Her mother had entered a dark place. She wouldn’t be coming out anytime soon.

On Tuesday, Holly turned on her cell phone and found her voice mailbox crammed with messages from Kathleen, Carson, friends from the hospital and friends from school. There were none from Raina. Holly called Kathleen.

“I’m so relieved to hear from you!” Kathleen cried at the sound of Holly’s voice.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner.”

“It’s okay. Please don’t even think about it. I—I just needed to hear your voice.”

Emotion clogged Holly’s throat.

Kathleen asked, “Have you talked to Raina?”

“Not since . . . Sunday.”

“She’s not taking any calls. Carson and I went to her house on Monday, but her mother said she’s in bad shape and her doctor was giving her sleeping meds and a few tranquilizers to help her through these next few days. Her mother is taking personal days off from work to take care of her.”

“She was awfully upset,” Holly said, alarmed by the information. At least Holly had her parents to go through the horror with her. Raina was alone. Of course Vicki was around, but they had been at odds for months.

“The TV stations are showing the surveillance tape. Have you seen it?”

“We’re keeping the TV off, but I’ll tell my folks.” Holly’s stomach heaved as she thought about actually seeing the person who’d done so much damage to their lives.

“Do you think you’ll come back to school anytime soon?”

Holly hadn’t thought once about school in days. “I don’t know.”

“Mom let me stay home again today, but I’ll have to go tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to it.”

“I—I have to go now.”

“Sure,” Kathleen said. “Call me again soon?”

“I will.”

Holly hung up, rested her forehead in her hands and was startled when her cell chirped. She didn’t recognize the number, but answered it anyway. If some reporter had gotten hold of her number, she was prepared to blast him or her.

“Hi. I—I wasn’t sure you’d talk to me. I’ve called a couple of times, but didn’t leave messages.” The caller was Chad.

The memory of his face, his dark eyes and his unruly curly hair flashed. There might have been a time when she’d have been ecstatic to have a boy call her. Now it was inconsequential. “I’ve had my phone off for days.”

“Holly . . . I’m really sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“You aren’t alone. Nobody knows what to say.”

“If you ever want to talk . . . you know . . . just talk . . .”

She let the silence lengthen. “That’s nice of you,” she said finally. “I don’t know what I want right now.”

“Can I call you again? E-mail you?”

“I guess.” She regretted not being nicer to him and added, “Thank you for calling. I—I know I have to start talking to people again. This was good practice.”

“Anytime. My number’s in your cell phone’s memory now.”

For reasons she couldn’t explain, Holly did feel better after talking to Chad and Kathleen. She remembered what Kathleen had said about the videotape being shown on the news and went downstairs. The noon news was about to air. She turned on the TV, turned the volume down low and waited. Within the first few minutes of the broadcast, the tape ran. Her heart hammered as she watched the grainy footage, shown once in real time, then again in slow motion.

The image of a male wearing a torn T-shirt and jeans, with a baseball cap pulled low over his face, filled the television screen. The camera zoomed in on him, freeze-framing his head. Holly couldn’t make out any of his features. How could anyone ever identify him? How could the cops ever find him if they had no better pictures than that?

“Turn it off.”

Holly whirled and saw her mother standing in the doorway, her face an ashen, stony mask. Holly scrambled to turn off the set. “I—I . . .”

Her mother said nothing more, just turned on her heel and left the room.

Holly’s face burned with shame, as if she’d been caught doing something awful. Tears threatened. She hadn’t meant to hurt her mother. She’d only wanted to look at the force of evil that had destroyed her brother and devastated her family. She sank onto the sofa, buried her face in her hands and cried silently.

On Thursday, the coroner’s office called to say that Hunter’s body had been released to the funeral home for burial.

eleven

FOR RAINA, ALL light had gone out of the world. Everything that had once been familiar and friendly loomed like treacherous icebergs, pulling her deep into waters that were icy cold and dark. She felt great gratitude toward the pills she was taking. They kept her brain foggy, her body languid and relaxed, just hovering on the verge of consciousness. If one dose began to wear off before it was time for another, she wept.

“These are just temporary,” Vicki warned her as she gave Raina another dose. “Tomorrow you will taper off. One every eight hours. After that, one sleeping pill only at night. Then none.”

Raina was too fractured to plead, but she was certain that she couldn’t keep it together without the lovely little pills. By Friday morning, the prescription was finished and her retreat from reality was over. She was left to face her life without Hunter. Forever.

Vicki made her come down to breakfast, which she couldn’t eat. Vicki spread honey on a sliver of toast and handed it to Raina. “Eat it.”

“I can’t.”

“You must. You’ll need strength. Hunter’s funeral is this afternoon. I assume you’ll want to go. Naturally I’ll go with you.”

“Today?” Raina felt dismayed. She wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready.

“Mike Harrison called last night to tell me. Only family and close friends are being invited to the graveside service. There will be a memorial service at the Harrisons’ church afterward, and the whole community is expected to show up. Reporters will be there, I’m sure. If anyone shoves a mike in your face, kick them where it will hurt the most.”

Raina nodded. She forced down the toast, went upstairs, took a long, hot shower, washed her hair and put on light makeup. She dressed in a soft floral-print dress that Hunter had loved. She brushed her hair until it shone like spun gold. She put on sunglasses. She did it all for Hunter . . . because it would be the last thing she could ever do for him.

Holly was seated with her parents at the burial site, under a canopy, when the invited guests began to arrive. The mahogany casket that held her brother sat on a raised platform, draped with a mantle of spring flowers. Holly clutched a box of tissue, watching Raina and her mother walk from their car. Behind them came Kathleen and Carson, pushing Mary Ellen’s wheelchair over the bumpy ground. Three of Hunter’s best friends from high school and three buddies from their church youth group were acting as pallbearers.

The cemetery looked beautiful, clipped and trimmed and bathed in sunlight. Bright splashes of flowers dotted the landscape, tributes to all who’d come before her brother. In the distance, she saw a small lake edged with tall rushes and grasses, a fountain in its center. The water sprayed upward to some mysterious rhythm; the droplets caught sunbeams and then splattered onto the surface, where they disappeared into the deep only to rise and shower again.

Holly was glad that her parents had opted for the small private burial. She was dreading the memorial service yet to come. How much more grief could she and her parents bear?

When everyone was gathered, Pastor Eckloes stepped forward and read Bible passages about life and death, hope and heaven. Holly’s thoughts wandered. She’d attended church all her life, believed in what she’d been taught, never questioned it. Until now. Yes, the promise of heaven seemed glorious, but she could not understand why God had taken Hunter away from them.

She had overheard her mother challenging the pastor one afternoon at their house. “I thought God sends angels to protect his own. Where were Hunter’s angels the day he was shot?”

“Hunter’s angels had a different job that day—to carry him up to heaven,” the pastor had answered.

Holly thought the image of winged angels bearing Hunter off a pretty one, but it brought her no understanding, no peace. Her brother had not deserved to die. God could have prevented it. He hadn’t. It made no sense to her.

When the brief graveside service was over, Holly went to Raina and Kathleen. They hugged one another. Kathleen said, “This is so hard. So horrible.”

“I’m just pretending he’s away at college, like he planned,” Holly said. “It’s easier to lie to myself than to say he’s never coming home again.”

Raina said, “This is the worst day of my life.”

Carson came up, put his arms around Kathleen and Holly. “Do the cops have any news?”

“Not that we’ve heard.”

“They’ll get the sorry scumbag.”

“You sound like the detective who’s in charge of the case,” Holly said. “But why is it taking so long?”

Holly’s father called her. “I really wish we could go home. I don’t want to go through another service,” she told her friends.

“None of us do,” Raina said. “It’s just more of the same nightmare.”

“I’ll call you both later,” Holly said, and she hurried off to ride to the huge brick church for a second service, which would commemorate Hunter’s brief life.

“There certainly was a crowd,” Mike said that evening.

“Even people who hardly knew him or us,” Holly said, feeling resentful about reporters she thought had no business coming.

She sat with her parents at the kitchen table. A few dishes of the many brought by friends and neighbors had been heated, but no one had an appetite. Evelyn picked at a salad and Holly toyed with a bowl of soup.

“But a lot who did,” Mike said. “A lot of people loved our boy.”

Holly had looked over the crowd briefly, recognizing teachers and kids from school, and many from the hospital—Sierra; Susan from the pediatric cancer wing; Mrs. Graham; Carson’s parents; Betsy, the newborns’ nurse Raina had liked so much; even Mark Powell, the director of volunteer services, including the Pink Angels program. Seeing them jolted her back to a life she’d almost forgotten. She’d been so swallowed up by what had happened that she hadn’t thought about a world she’d soon have to rejoin.

“Mike, why did God take our son away from us?”

The look of sadness on her mother’s face made Holly feel sick.

“Who can know the mind of God? His ways are beyond us.”

“I don’t want religious platitudes. I want to know why a boy who only wanted to serve God wasn’t allowed to live. Why did God do that? God was supposed to take care of Hunter. He was supposed to keep him safe.” Tears swam in Evelyn’s eyes.

Holly’s father looked weary, smaller somehow, as if he’d shrunk over the past days. “I don’t know why. I just know that we still need God to get us through this. What do you want to do? Curse God and die? How would that honor Hunter? How would that help you?”

Evelyn locked gazes with him. Holly held her breath. Her mother’s comments were valid.
Someone
owed them an explanation, a reason.

“In other words, God calls all the shots and we have no one to appeal his decisions to.” Evelyn carefully folded her napkin, placed it on the table, pushed her chair backward. She stood and, without another word, left the room.

In her dream, Raina was floating in the pool at night. Stars glittered overhead and a soft tropical breeze rippled the water’s surface. She felt warm, as liquid as the water itself.

“Hello, Raina.”

The voice startled her. She righted herself. “Who’s there?”

Hunter stepped from out of the darkness. Her heart leaped. “Hunter! You’re all right!”

He crouched by the edge, laughing. “Of course I’m all right.”

“You are! Oh, Hunter, I’m so happy to see you.”

“Then why don’t you swim over here and show me?”

She began to swim and swim and swim. The side of the pool never got closer. Soon she was gasping for air. “I—I don’t know what’s wrong.” She looked up and saw that Hunter was standing.

“I’ve got to go, babe.”

“But you can’t! Don’t leave me.”

He stepped away, the smile still on his face. “I have to go.”

“No! Don’t go!” Raina thrashed in the water and it clung to her arms and legs like quicksand. “Hunter!”

Light streamed across Raina’s face and she woke with a gasp and sat straight up. Her mother was opening the blinds on the window over Raina’s bed.

“Honey, what’s wrong?”

“I—I was having a dream. About Hunter. He was alive and . . . and . . .” Raina started to cry, covering her face.

Vicki sat on the bed, took Raina’s wrists and pulled her hands away gently. “Listen to me. It was just a dream. You’re going to have them from time to time.”

“It was just so real.” Raina noticed that her mother was dressed and beautifully groomed. “You’re going to work?”

“I have to. And you have to go back to school. It’s been ten days, Raina. Even Holly’s gone back. Her mother told me this morning that she started back yesterday.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I know, but you have to. Life goes on.”

“Why?”

Vicki heaved a sigh. “Get up and get moving.”

Raina felt raw anger bubble up. “I’m not going! I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You can’t change what’s happened. You can’t bring him back from the dead. I know something about this personally.”

She was talking about Justin, Raina’s father, who’d died of a drug overdose without ever knowing that Vicki was pregnant with Raina. She’d wondered if her mother had even mourned him. “I hurt!” Raina cried.

“We
all
hurt. But you’re still alive and you have your senior year to finish and you have a network of people at the hospital asking when you’ll be back and a ton of friends who love and care about you. It’s time, Raina; pick up the pieces and go on.”

“I hate you.”

Vicki flinched, but she didn’t back down. “Fine. Hate me. You’re still getting out of that bed and going to school. I’m taking you, so start moving. Now.”