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)
She pressed a kiss to my chest. “I’m gonna fight hard, baby. But it won’t be enough.”
I felt my throat close. “I know.”
“I want you to remember me.”
The tear slipped free. “There’s no way in this world that I’d ever forget you.”
She snuggled even deeper. “You promise?”
“Yes,” I said simply. “I do.”
Chapter
Nineteen
Let’s get on the naughty list, baby.
—Dixie to Mary
DIXIE
Present
I sat on the bed, on my side, like I’d done for the last twenty years.
I still made the bed exactly how she liked it.
I got up in the morning and watered all her plants, happy that I’d managed to keep most of them alive and well over the long years since she’d been gone.
Sometime last year I’d thought about getting a new bed because it was hard to get in and out of this one, but the thought of losing yet another part of my wife had sent a wave of grief so deep through me that I couldn’t stand the thought of doing it.
I still remembered the day I’d built it for her like it was yesterday.
She’d loved it so much.
She’d even helped me burn the wood to match her ‘motif.’
I ran my hand over the pine boards, admiring the blackened knot.
My eyes strayed to the side, and despite the way it was getting harder to breathe, I smiled.
My fingers traced the letters.
D + M
Dixie plus Mary.
I’d tried to add a forever underneath the M, but she’d wanted me to leave it just like that.
So I had.
And I looked at it every night I went to bed and prayed I’d dream of her.
“Mary, I miss you like crazy,” I said into the silent night.
When I laid back, my old, gnarled fingers still tracing the letters she’d carved into the wood, I prayed that I’d make it through one more day.
One more day, and then she’d be with me again.
I did dream of her, too.
But the dream still broke my heart, just like it always did when I revisited that particular one.
It didn’t make it any less sweet, though. Even when it came with so much heartache.
Chapter
Twenty
The only package I want this Christmas is yours.
—Mary to Dixie
DIXIE
Past
It was so cold, and I knew that she was fighting to stay awake.
A small smile overtook her face when I dropped down to my haunches at her side.
“Hey,” she rasped.
“Hey, baby.” I ran my thumb over her cheek. “You need anything?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m finally…”
Ready.
She was finally ready.
Though she hadn’t voiced it yet.
“I know you are, honey.” I tried and failed to keep the tears at bay. “And I’m okay. We’re going to be okay. You can go.”
She looked around the empty room.
She’d told everyone to go home.
Today was Christmas.
We’d had a long day of opening presents.
Our children and grandchildren had just left, leaving us alone for the first time in days.
“I made it,” she teased, her voice barely above a whisper.
She had.
She’d told me she wanted to make it to one more anniversary.
“Dix?” she whispered.
“Yeah?” I caught her hand in mine.
“Have I ever told you how much I have enjoyed my life?” she asked.
She had.
So many times.
Especially after she’d gotten sick, and we’d gotten the heart-wrenching diagnosis.
“You have,” I agreed.
“I just wanted you to know that you’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” she whispered. “If you hadn’t walked into that bar and saved me, I would’ve died there. He would’ve killed me.”
I hated her father.
He’d tried and failed to insinuate himself into our lives ever since she’d left, and every time he tried, I wanted to go back to that shitty bar and kill him.
If it wasn’t for her brother, I might have.
“I know, baby,” I said.
“I wish we’d gotten more time,” she admitted. “I wished we had until I was eighty.”
I wished that, too.
She was fifty-five.
She should’ve had so many good years left in her.
But she didn’t.
And now I was left wondering how the hell I was going to face the rest of my life alone…
“I wish we had that too, darlin’,” I murmured. “But we have right now.”
She smiled dreamily, then opened her eyes, those baby blues directed at me.
“One last ride?” my wife rasped.
Her lips were so chapped that they were cracking and bleeding.
I didn’t offer her water.
I’d learned that when you were dying, dehydrating was a good thing.
The hospice nurse that had come to the house had been with our daughter, Lisa, last week, when I’d brought up the issue that she wasn’t drinking anything.
Lisa, our smarty pants nurse of a daughter, had explained. “People often need less pain medication, urinate less, have less vomiting, and breathe more easily with decreased congestion with dehydration.”
I’d remembered looking down at my feet and thinking what a shitty death that had to be.
But I’d noticed that Lisa was right.
That didn’t make the terror of knowing she had barely any water in her any less.