How I Came to Sparkle Again Read Free Page A

taken an irreparable turn. Some, against all odds, bounced back, slowly rebuilding. And she saw others whose prognosis was hopeless, who somehow kept fighting anyway. What was it, she wondered, that made some people give up and others fight harder? Where was her fight? She was out. She was out of will.
    Still, she had the good sense to stall a little longer before deciding to lie in a cold field and wait for her ruined life to be over. She turned her thoughts to Uncle Howard and Lisa, instead, and kept on driving. They loved her, and they had saved her before. Surely they could again—as long as she could get herself to Sparkle. She kept telling herself that—that if she could only get to Sparkle before this heartbreak killed her, she would be okay. Uncle Howard and Lisa would make sure she was okay.

 
     
    chapter one
    SNOW REPORT FOR NOVEMBER 17
Current temperature: 29F, high of 33F at 3 P.M., low of 22F at 4 A.M.
Clear skies, winds out of the southwest at 10 mph.
25" mid-mountain, 33" at the summit. 1" new in the last 24 hours. 6" of new in the last 48.
    Cassie and her babysitter, Nancy, sat silently at the table eating Lean Cuisine cheese cannelloni frozen dinners. Nancy’s breathing bothered Cassie, even though she knew Nancy couldn’t help having sinus problems. Cassie just didn’t want to listen to it. It reminded her of her mother’s last two weeks, when her breathing had become so difficult. To make it worse, Nancy was sitting at her mother’s place at the table.
    Cassie looked up at Nancy, wishing she weren’t there—not in her mother’s place at the table or in her mother’s place as her caregiver.
    “Do you need something, Cassie?” Nancy asked.
    “Don’t sit there anymore,” Cassie said.
    Nancy looked startled and slowly stood. “Where would you like me to sit?” she asked gently.
    Cassie looked at her father’s place at the table. “There,” she said. “He’s the one you’re replacing.”
    She looked back down at her cheese cannelloni while Nancy moved. The mere smell of it made her stomach turn. Of all the frozen dinners, it was the least offensive, but it was offensive nonetheless. She’d never eaten out of cardboard during the ten years of her life that her mother was alive, and she feared that if she kept eating Lean Cuisine, she would become as weak and fat as Nancy. She stared at her food and wondered if any of it really mattered.
    All of her Olympic dreams were going down the tubes anyway. She hadn’t even joined ski team this year. When she skied, she felt sad now, so deeply sad that she just wanted lie down in the snow and fall asleep.
    She looked down at her dinner again and wanted to throw it, but she couldn’t rally enough will even for that. She simply said, “I hate this crap,” got up, walked up the stairs to her room, and locked herself inside.
    From her room, Cassie could hear the sound of Nancy’s regular evening routine—the lid of the stainless-steel garbage can opening and closing as she threw away the cardboard trays, the spring in the dishwasher door creaking as she opened it to put in the forks, the sound of running water and the microwave beeping two and a half minutes later. Finally, Cassie heard the questions and buzzers on Jeopardy! and occasionally Nancy’s voice when she shouted out the few answers that she knew. As usual, the TV stayed on for the duration of the night, and the noise, combined with Nancy’s snoring, drowned out the sound of Cassie’s sobs during or after her nightmares.
    *   *   *
     
    Mike Jones wanted to believe that Kate’s soul was eternal, but he wasn’t sure if a person could believe in that without believing in God. Believing in God wasn’t so easy. Five hours ago, he was on a call for a woman who drove off a steep embankment and miraculously was okay. She gave full credit to God. And now he was here, at this accident, a head-on collision between a semitruck and a family in a minivan. Both parents and one child were