Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 80664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Ti embraced a crying Ray. King came up to me and lowered his voice. “She keeps passing out. Her breathing sounds like she’s been smoking a carton a day for the last fifty years.” He paused, running his hand over his face. “This is it, man. You need to get in there.”
King and I had been friends since we were fifteen years old. That was the first time he’d ever reached out and embraced me in more than a pat on the shoulder, but an actual hug. It was brief, but he was my brother. Blood or not, he had my back and I had his. Even in the hospital while our pseudo mother lay dying on the other side of the wall. “She really wants to talk to you,” he added.
I nodded and reached my hand out for Ti who had her hands full with a weeping Ray against her chest. “You go first,” Ti said, “I’ll join you in just a minute.” I didn’t want to go in alone, but at the same time, I felt like I had to. There was so much to say to Grace, but where the hell would I even start?
“Abel,” Grace said, again lowering her mask and stretching out her fingers for me. I sat beside her on the chair and took her hand in both of mine.
“I’m here,” I reassured her, giving her hand a quick kiss. Her skin was ice cold.
“I knew you would be. Even though I know you hate hospitals. Are you all right?” she asked.
I laughed because Grace knew me better than anyone. She was knocking on death’s door yet she wanted to make sure I was okay because I hated hospitals. “I don’t think okay is really the word I’d use,” I said.
She smiled at me. The same sympathetic smile that got me through a lot of hard times during my teenage years. “I know what happened to Samuel felt like the end of your life too, my son.” Grace drew in a shaky labored breath. “But it wasn’t. And when I get to the other side, I know for a fact the both of us are going to have a good long laugh at your expense.” She coughed and I lunged forward to place the mask back over her face.
She took slow deep breaths, her chest lurching on every intake. When she’d calmed, I said, “I wouldn’t put it past either one of you.” She waved away my hand and looked at me with unfocused bloodshot eyes. Her lips were a light shade of blue. Her hair was covered with a light purple bandana.
“I am dying, Abel. But I swear to fucking Christ that I’m not leaving you. You need to know I wouldn’t do that. When you make Thia your wife, which I know you’ll do just from the way you both look when you talk about one another, I’ll be here with you.” She patted my hand, again comforting me when she was the one in the hospital bed. “When you welcome your first, second, third child into this world, I’ll be here. When you don’t know what to do or you don’t know where to turn, I’ll whisper in your ear until you make up your mind. Just promise me one thing.”
My heart was hammering in my chest. Tears I didn’t know I possessed leaked from the corners of my eyes and trailed their heat down my cheeks, wetting my beard. “What’s that?” I asked. My voice cracked.
Grace flashed me a weak smile, her chest rose and fell rapidly. The machines beeping and blinking with each intake of final breath. “When it comes to the girl out there.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fuck it up.” Grace gasped.
I held her hand up to my lips. “I’ll try my hardest not to. I promise.” I chuckled, tasting the salt of my tears. My shoulders shook, and for a small moment I allowed myself to wallow in my grief.
“Thank you, sweet boy,” Grace said, bringing my hands to her mouth and giving them a dry-lipped kiss.
“For what?” I asked, wiping my cheek on the shoulder of the shirt I’d put on as we were walking up to the doors.
“For being the son I always wished for. You, Samuel, and Brantley. I prayed for sons every single day since the day I married Edmond, and it took long enough, and you boys didn’t come to me in a way I ever expected, but suddenly you were there, and you made me the mama I’d always wanted to be.” Machines beeped and blinked again. Some sort of alarm went off on the far wall. The room flashed in red light.
“There is so much I need to tell you,” I said, holding on to her more tightly as if she was going to slip out of my grasp at any second and physically fall to her death.
“I know, and there is so much I need to tell you.” Grace looked to the ceiling and then back to me. “I need to apologize.”
“For what? Dying?” I asked, the word coming out broken.
“No. For lying. I lied to you Abel, and I’m so sorry. I really hope you can find a way to forgive me some day. I thought it was for the best, but looking back, I think I should have fought harder. Come up with another plan. I…”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters,” I said just as Grace started to choke. She cleared her throat several times before she could speak again.
“It’s all there for you to find out,” she said, and I didn’t know if she was still talking about the same thing, or if she was on any pain medication that might have just kicked in. “As I said, I’m dying, but I’m not going anywhere. Even death couldn’t keep me from my boys.”
“Kind of like Preppy,” I said, forgetting that I’d never told Grace about hearing his voice.
Grace flashed me a tight, blue-lipped smile. “You hear him too.”
“Sometimes,” I admitted, “Although, not as much anymore.”