The Trouble with Angels (Angels Everywhere #2)(4)

"No, it isn’t,” Karen insisted. "See?” With both hands and all her might, the twelve-year-old managed to lift it a scant inch off the worn carpet.

"Karen, put it down, or you’ll hurt yourself,” Maureen insisted as she absently sorted through the mail. She paused when she saw the bill for her attorney, cringed, then tossed the mail on the counter without opening any of it. "How was your night with Grandma and Grandpa?”

"Fine.”

"What did you have for dinner?”

Karen brightened a bit. "Swedish meatballs. My favorite.”

"Grandma’s going to spoil you,” Maureen warned, grateful to her parents for keeping Karen for her when she traveled.

Karen laughed. "With apple strudel for dessert, and I ate three whole pieces.”

Maureen gasped. "You’ll get fat.”

"I won’t because I ran it off on Grandpa’s treadmill. I can go faster than he can.”

"Yes, but then you haven’t had two open-heart surgeries, either.”

"If you’re worried about me not getting enough exercise, I have a solution.”

Maureen knew from the sound of her daughter’s voice that she wasn’t going to like this. "Oh, what’s that?”

"I could always take up horseback riding.”

"Karen,” Maureen groaned. It seemed her daughter brought the subject into every conversation. "We’ve been through this a hundred times. We can’t afford a horse.”

"That’s where you’re wrong.” It was as though Karen had been waiting impatiently for this very argument. She disappeared into her bedroom and returned breathless a moment later. "This is the address I got from the library. Did you know you can get a horse free from the United States government?”

"Karen—”

"Mom, it’s true. All you need to do is read this brochure. I wrote away to Utah for all the information. It should come any day now, but I had the lady at the library make me a copy of this pamphlet so you’d see I wasn’t making this all up.”

"Honey, think this through. Where would we possibly put a horse?”

"In a stable,” Karen answered as if that much were obvious, or should have been.

"Where in the name of heaven would we find a stable?”

Karen elevated her hands until they were level with her shoulders. "Don’t sweat the small stuff, Mom.”

"The small stuff? I can barely feed the two of us on what I make. In addition to everything else, I can’t afford to feed a horse.”

"But I’d find a job, Mom. I’d do anything I could to earn money. I bet even Dad would be willing to help pay for my horse.”

Maureen’s face hardened at the mention of Brain. "No,” she said sternly. "I won’t allow you to bring your father into this. As for getting extra money from him, sweetheart, you’re a dreamer. I’ve had to fight for every penny he’s ever given us. He forgot about you the minute he walked out that door.”

"That’s not true.”

"I don’t want to argue with you about your father, Karen. If anyone should know how worthless that man is, it’s me. Now enough about this stupid horse. I’m tired, and I don’t want to argue.”

Karen looked at her mother as if she’d been struck. "Will you read the pamphlet?” she asked in a tiny, hurt voice. "Please?”

"All right,” Maureen agreed, already regretting her outburst. "I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to blow up like that. It’s just not a good idea to hit me with a bunch of stuff when I first get home.”

"I’m sorry.”

Maureen felt worse than ever. "It was my fault,” she said, and hugged Karen. Then, deciding not to leave it sitting in the middle of the living room, she carried her suitcase into her bedroom. One of these days, when the lawyer was paid off, she was going to get herself a fancy suitcase with wheels so she could roll it from room to room.

Brian used to carry it for her. It had been about the only thing her son-of-a-bitch ex-husband had been good for.

"Do you see what I mean?” Gabriel asked, standing next to Shirley.

"Oh, poor Karen,” the smaller angel said, and sighed deeply. "She loves both her parents. It’s hurting her terribly to have her mother feel this way about her father.”

"This is a complicated situation, involving many lives. Bitterness has eaten away at Maureen’s heart until her life has become clouded with it.”

"It’s as if she were buried to her waist in sand and trying to walk,” Shirley suggested.

"Exactly,” Gabriel said, surprised by the prayer ambassador’s insight. "She can’t move forward in her life, weighted down as she is with hate.”

"Emotionally, Maureen Woods is crippled.”

"It doesn’t help matters any that her ex-husband has remarried and seems happy.”

"Is he? Happy, I mean?”

"He appears to be to Maureen, and it’s like rubbing salt in her wounds. Karen’s mother finds it grossly unfair that Brain should be living a new life with a wife and second family.”

"But why?”

"Brian hurt her deeply. He mangled her self-esteem with his affairs. Maureen has a strong sense of justice, and it doesn’t feel right to her that the man who broke his wedding vows should go merrily about his life, while she’s left to raise their daughter alone.”