Chapter One

Angela sat on the sofa watching television with an empty ice cream carton between her thighs and tears running down her cheeks.

Only six months earlier, Angela had been a sophomore in college. She had been in her dorm room, studying late on a cold winter night. When the phone rang, she had been expecting a call from her boy friend, Brad, making salacious suggestions that would send her to bed giggling and more than a little aroused. The call might have been from Terry, her younger sister. Terry had been moody lately, still mooning over some adolescent Lothario who had abandoned her when she refused to let him have his way with her. The sisters had always been close, and missed each other more than either would admit. Terry had been calling often; needing Angela’s hard headed practicality to temper her romantic giddiness.

She didn’t recognize the man’s voice.

“Angela?”

“Yes.” She turned the radio down to hear him better.

“This is Mr. Thatcher, your parents’ neighbor.”

“He is arranging a surprise party,”was her first thought, “their twenty fifth anniversary is at the end of the month.”

“There has been an accident,” he said.

As he stammered out the tragic news, Angela felt her world coming apart around her. Her parents’ car had slipped on the ice and drifted into the path of a tractor-trailer. Her father had died instantly, her mother on the way to the hospital.

She had packed hastily and hugged her roommate goodbye. They made empty promises to stay in touch. She called Brad, and he made equally empty promises to be there for her. She drove all night, dry eyed, still unable to believe the truth until she reached the house and opened the door. It was the sight of Terry, sobbing in Dad’s favorite chair, which finally made it real.

During the dreary business of settling the estate, Angela discovered that her father had cashed in his life insurance and taken out a second mortgage to pay for her college education. Funeral expenses consumed her tuition fund. She had faced it all bravely at the time, dropping out of school, finding work, and trying to help Terry cope with their loss.

Terry and Angela were very different in temperament and appearance. Angela had been the brave tomboy, the tree