Angel of Mercy Read Free Page B

were high. Chelsea was particularly ebullient that evening because her Mom was driving up the following week to spend the holidays with her daughter. Linda, Chelsea, and Chelsea’s brothers Thomas and Nathan were going to take a snow weekend at Blue Mountain Ski Area in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.
    Thomas and Nathan had become quite expert on the slopes and wanted to show off their skill to their big sister. The presence of a lodge full of snow bunnies was certainly part of the appeal as well. Terry Harrington, a student at Keystone albeit not in the nursing program was working part time behind the bar at Bella Pizza. Some of the nursing students knew Terry quite well from their General Studies days on campus. Chelsea knew him particularly well as they had shared public speaking classes together.
    Earlier in the evening Chelsea and Terry had shared a laugh and a quick hug before Chelsea joined her nursing student friends at the table. Just as the last slice of Hawaiian Pizza had been consumed Chelsea noticed that Terry was talking quietly with the restaurant manager, a woman named Mary Lou Campbell. After a quiet word with her bartender Mary Lou had hugged Terry, who quickly left the restaurant by the front door. Chelsea, with a shiver of worry traveling up her back, excused herself and went outside.
    She found Terry Harrington sitting on the cold sidewalk with his head in his hands. As Chelsea moved closer she could hear the sobs that were wracking Terry’s body. Chelsea sat down next to Terry and put her hand against his back.
    “Oh dear, Terry what’s wrong?” Chelsea asked.
    Terry turned to Chelsea and, with tears coursing down his face sobbed more than spoke, “Guy Harris is dead!”

Chapter Two
     
    Somewhere behind Chelsea’s shock and dismay she remembered that Guy and Terry were half-brothers from Pittsburgh who had come to school at the same time. She had seen them together at freshman orientation. Though they couldn’t have looked more dissimilar, Terry short and fair, Guy tall and dark, they were very close. Now…Guy was dead.
    Chelsea wanted to say that it must have been a mistake or that Terry must be mistaken, but she could see the truth in Terry’s trembling lips and taste it in the tears that he shed against her cheek when she hugged him tightly to her. Her tears flowed freely as well, and the two friends sat together in each other’s arms and wept over the senseless and foolish loss of young life cut down in its precious prime.
    After a few minutes Terry’s head slipped down into Chelsea’s lap and she cradled him in his inconsolable grief. Snow had begun to fall, but Chelsea and Terry failed to notice the flakes as they wafted about.
    Chelsea stroked Terry’s crimson cheek and asked a question, the answer to which would do nothing to assuage her sadness but one that she needed to ask nevertheless.
    “How did he die?”
    Terry answered without looking up. Chelsea heard most of what he said.
    “They called our Mom and told her that Guy was in a convoy on the way from Baghdad to Tikrit that was hit by a roadside bomb. Twenty-nine people were wounded, and eight were killed. Guy was in the second Humvee. It was the one that took the most direct hit. They say that he would have died instantly.”
    Terry turned his head and looked up at Chelsea with a face contorted in anger, anguish and despair. “That was supposed to make us feel better. I mean, I guess it does, or will, but it doesn’t make me feel any better right now.”
    “No, Terry. It doesn’t. Why Guy? Everybody loved him,” Chelsea’s voice trailed away. She had just said that everyone loved Guy. That included, of course, a table full of nursing students inside Bella Pizza. The task of informing them of the tragedy fell, Chelsea knew, on her.
    She asked Terry if he wanted to join her in telling tell Guy’s friends the news. He shook his head and said, “I need to try to pull myself together. I’ll just sit out here for now.