Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
I still remembered the first time she’d made canned applesauce in the kitchen.
She’d hated how she hadn’t had any room to put her jars.
She’d bitched and complained about how she wanted to make sure that I had some of her home cooking even after she wasn’t there anymore.
She didn’t trust anyone to take care of me—not even myself—the way she did.
So she cooked. And she prepped.
All for the one day that she would no longer be there to help take care of me, or she’d be too weak.
I still remembered how scared she’d been. How hard she’d tried to keep it together despite her terrified state.
She’d fooled everyone…everyone but me.
I knew her better than she knew herself.
I knew that she was terrified.
Not of dying, but of leaving us behind.
She knew that I would suck at life without her.
My fingers ran over the note that still hung on the bathroom mirror.
It’d fallen off so many times over the years.
Hell, as it was, you could barely read the blue inked handwriting.
I looked down at the inside of my left wrist.
The day that she’d told me that she was going to die, I’d gotten this tattoo.
She’d been there with me and had written the words that were so faded and hard to see.
Years and years of hard living—of missing her—had worn it down.
I swept my thumb over the lettering, and my heart skipped a beat.
Chapter
Fourteen
Jingle my bells.
—Dixie to Mary
MARY
Past
I’d felt weird since I’d left the doctor’s office.
It was now six days later, and I just knew that I was about to get a call any second.
I didn’t know why or how I knew, I just did.
And at four, right as I was taking my husband’s favorite pie out of the oven—comfort food was what I knew best—the phone on the wall next to me rang.
With shaking fingers, I picked it up and said, “Hello?”
“Hi, Ms. Normus?”
My ears started to ring.
“Y-Yes,” I said, my eyes staring blankly at my man’s cherry pie.
“I’m calling about your test results from your appointment last week,” she said carefully.
Too carefully.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
She didn’t beat around the bush, and I admired her for that.
“You have cancer.”
I nearly dropped the phone, even though I expected the words.
“I’m sorry, what? Can your repeat that?”
She didn’t need to repeat it.
I’d heard her loud and clear.
“You have cancer, Mrs. Normus,” my gynecologist repeated. “I’m so sorry.”
I’d felt fine.
“But it was just a routine checkup,” I pointed out.
The news was…gut wrenching.
“I know,” she said softly. “I have made an appointment for you with Dr. Castilian. He’ll be able to meet with you tomorrow morning at eight.”
After grabbing the details from her on when and where to meet up, I hung up the phone, then walked woodenly to the oven to turn it off.
I then gathered my paperback and headed out to the front porch to read.
Just like every other night since our final child had moved out to spread their wings in the real world, I found myself with nothing to do.
Like always, I took my seat and opened my paperback to the last page I read.
I had to smile when I read the word “cock” on the page.
Dixie liked to call this my ‘smut time.’
I tended to agree with him.
Today, though, I couldn’t focus on a single word I was reading.
I got up and went to find the Post-it Notes.
I started writing the moment that I got a pen.
One for the bathroom:
We use Charmin toilet paper. Not any other kind, because it’s the one that doesn’t make you break out.
Another one in the pantry:
Remember, if you want to make a pie, it takes two cans of filling to one pie shell. The recipe for the pie shell is in my recipe book.
Another one by our checkbook. Well, more than one.
I had to write four.
I explained the bill paying process, what he needed to pay and when, and how much we owed on each thing as of right now.
The next Post-it was a list of numbers. The trash people we used. The water company. The car note company.
I did this over and over again until I got to the one on the nightstand.
Don’t forget to take your medicine before bed. You know you’ll sleep like crap if you don’t. Love you always.
I had to stop because I ran out of Post-it Notes.
It was a good thing I did, though, because when I passed the mirror in the hallway, my gaze snagged on the mirror hanging there and I saw my reflection.
I made a beeline for the bathroom and started to clean off my face, but it did no good.
No amount of water or makeup was getting rid of the bloodshot eyes.
I was so lost in thought, looking at myself in the mirror, that I didn’t hear him come in.
I cursed myself for not meeting him outside like I usually did.