How to Save a Life Read Free Page A

am I supposed to call?
    My hand shaking, I pull my cell phone out and scroll through my contact list until I find my father’s home number. He’d walked away from my mom and me when I was four, and I hadn’t had much of a relationship with him since, unless you count child support and the occasional Christmas or birthday card. But my mother died five years ago after a short battle with breast cancer, so he’s all the family I have left.
    I click on his number before I can second-guess myself.
    “Hello?” A woman’s voice answers after two rings.
    “Uh, Sharon?” I’m surprised by how shaky I sound.
    “Jill,” my father’s wife replies, her tone as cold as it usually is with me. She’s been married to my dad for more than twenty years, and although we see each other several times a year, we’ve never had much of a relationship. “It’s the middle of the day. He’s out.”
    I feel a familiar surge of annoyance. “Can you tell him I called?”
    She sighs heavily, as if I’m asking her something absurd and troublesome. “Yes, Jill. I’ll tell him.”
    I hang up before my voice can betray me any further. Then I slide my phone back into my pocket, sit back on the bench, and close my eyes. I’m dying . I’m really dying . The thought invades my head as if it, too, is a malignant starburst of cells, silently taking over my brain. I’m dying . How can that be true when I still feel like myself?
    A month. Maybe two at most . It’s impossible, isn’t it? Wouldn’t I feel it if my body was already shutting down?
    But I do feel it. It’s what made me finally make the appointment with Dr. Frost. Yes, the headaches have been going on for a while, and yes, I’d learned to live with them. But the dizziness, that’s new. The absentmindedness I’d chalked up to being overly busy and stressed: another symptom. Maybe the signs had been there for a while, and I’d just ignored them. If you’d come to me sooner , Dr. Frost had said. The thought makes my stomach lurch. Had I sentenced myself to death by failing to pay attention to what my own body was telling me?
    “Excuse me,” says a voice to my left, and I nearly jump off the bench. I hadn’t noticed that I had company, but there’s an old man sitting beside me now, his wispy white hair blowing in the breeze as he clutches a cane in his left hand. His eyes are red rimmed and his clothes are rumpled.
    “Yes?” I manage.
    “Do you have the time?” he asks, tapping his bare wrist.
    I open and close my mouth a few times before I manage to say, “No,” although I do, in fact, have a watch on. But all I can think about is that my days are numbered, that my minutes are running out. Before I know what has hit me, I burst into tears—big, ugly, hysterical tears. “No,” I gasp between sobs. “It turns out I don’t have any time at all.”
    Without a word, the old man scoots over until he’s just beside me. He puts an arm around me, pulling me toward him until I’m sobbing on his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, dear. It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs over and over as he pats me gently. He has to be eighty, maybe ninety years old, so while I appreciate the comfort, I don’t believe him. He’s had decades and decades to live. I won’t have the same luxury.
    Finally, I pull away, sniffling as I try to get ahold of myself. “I’m so sorry,” I say, wiping my eyes.
    “Don’t be sorry.” He pulls out a handkerchief and hands it to me as I stand up. “More times than not, things are darkest just before the dawn.”
    I try to smile, but it just makes me start crying again. I hurry away before I can embarrass myself further. I’m halfway across the lawn, heading back toward Atlanta Children’s, before I realize I took his handkerchief with me. I turn back around, but he has already gotten up and is moving toward the entrance of Atlanta Memorial. “Thanks,” I whisper as I fold the handkerchief gently and slip it into my pocket.

    I PAUSE IN