Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Well, she should put a line through that one because she fucking achieved it.
2. See some of the world. Pick a project. Do something just for you.
Check again. She saw London and Paris. Her project was me. And what she did? That would also be me. She did me and she did me over.
3. Be fearless. Because what is fear but a monster of your own making? What’s scarier than fear? Only the inevitable.
I sit with that one for a minute, not sure what to make of it. She was obviously cared of Brugada, but not enough to take care of herself. Maybe she’s one of those people who can just bury their head in the sand. What was the inevitable? Surgery? Death?
4. Don’t live in the cages other people build for you. Fly. Run, and not just because you’re feel like you’re being chased for a change. Frolic. Have fun. Fuck—yes, fuck. The thing you were taught not to want, the expression of life itself. Do it. Enjoy it.
Number four makes my heart ache, even though she managed to use the f word.
5. Tell everyone you love how much you love them. Not only that but love them gently in actions and deeds. Love them hard, if they can take it. Love them however you want, but just make sure they know how much you love them.
Scrawled in the margins is a note that reads: Love Whit but don’t tell him. Maybe I’ve always loved him, and have just managed not to admit it. Don’t spoil it, Mimi. He deserves someone better.
Number five leaves a ball of emotion in my throat. Someone better or someone who won’t lie to me?
6. Give up guilt. Live the best way you know how. The rest? Forgive. Forgive yourself and forgive others. None of us are perfect.
True. So true.
7. Stop being hard on yourself. Life can be hard enough without all that mind chatter.
I skim seven in favor of eight.
8. Breathe while you can. A good life and a good death are the best a person can hope for.
Something wanders over my grave and, for a second, I’m back in my bedroom, crying and kneeling on the floor next to her.
“What’s that you’re reading?”
I flip the notebook closed as Polly hops up onto the stool next to me. “Nothing much.” Nothing I can make much sense of.
“Have you seen Mimi since she was discharged?” she asks so airily that I know this isn’t a throwaway line.
I make a vague gesture meant to convey no as I lift my coffee cup to my mouth.
“It’s such a shame what happened to her.”
“Yep. A shame she didn’t look after herself.”
Polly tilts her head to one side. “That’s a little unfair, and not at all like you.”
“She had a cardiac arrest in my bedroom.”
“I’m so pleased you were there.”
“What if I hadn’t been? What if she’d really died? Gone? I would’ve carried that guilt around with me for my whole bloody life.”
“Well, that’s what you do, Leif.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you feel things deeply. That you take on responsibilities that aren’t yours.”
My expression twists in warning. Dangerous territory, Poll.
“I know you had to when your father died,” she says, stretching out her arm, her hand covering mine. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. But I’m here now. I’m okay. When those little toe rags cause you any pain, just flick them back my way.”
“It’s become habit now,” I say, staring down into the foam in my cup.
“And they know it. Honestly, I’m sure half the time they’re just trying to you’re your life difficult. Taking the piss. Especially Lavender.” My head jerks up at Polly’s language. She rarely swears. “She just feels like she needs to be seen. If you take a step back, perhaps,” she suggests softly. “I might be able to make some headway with her. And if you did that, you might have more time for Mimi.”
“Stop,” I say softly. “We tried, and it didn’t work out.”
“It’s just so not like you,” she says, frowning. “You never give up.”
“I didn’t give up. I got involved with a woman who wouldn’t let me in.”
“At first, maybe.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mum. She’s not the person you think she is.”
“She’s not the person you think she is, either,” she retorts sharply. “Take off your blinders. See this for what it really is.”
“And what’s that?” I say, pressing my fist into my hip.
“She didn’t have a death wish, Leif. When the tests came back, the advice from the cardiologist was that she should consider having an ICD fitted. Not that she had to, that death was imminent.”
“If that had happened to me, you would’ve sat on me—kept me in one place until I gave in and said yes to the thing.”
“But that’s what her parents have done her whole life. She’s lived in fear—their fear. And then just think, she couldn’t put their fear down because of the weight heaped on top of it. Not only was she facing her own mortality, but this device, this ICD, would keep her alive, but not without complications, physical and otherwise. Think of the emotional consequences alone.”