Life and Other Near-Death Experiences Read Free

floor, so I knew it hadn’t gone in that deep, but Tom was jumping around and pumping his arm up and down like he’d been burned, or, you know, stabbed. “I pour my heart out to you, and you spear me like a piece of meat? What is wrong with you, Libby?”
    “What is wrong with me?” I stared at him, wild-eyed; I was feeling a wee bit feral. “What is wrong with me?!”
    What was wrong with me was becoming a very long list in a remarkably short period of time. Previously, my problems amounted to incurably frizzy hair, a butt that was too big for otherwise well-fitting pants, and an awareness that although I was quite good at it, I hadn’t actually enjoyed my job since Bush Jr. was in office. Now I was dying of cancer and wanted to murder my husband, who, as it turned out, was attracted to a chromosome makeup distinctly different from my own.
    “You’re always doing this,” I told him.
    Still clutching his hand, he took a step back. “What do you mean?”
    I could feel the crazy coming on again. “Upstaging me!”
    It was not entirely lost on me that his commandeering my big reveal was probably not the right dilemma to be dwelling on, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. It was as though the spirit of Jackie, she of the many long-winded outbursts, had slithered into my body. “Every time, Tom!” I screeched as he stared at me with horror. “Every time!”
    In high school, Tom won rave reviews for his rousing performance of Curly in Oklahoma! while I was relegated to the understudy for Laurey, a role I did not once bring to fruition while pining for Tom from the chorus. His custom-tailored suit for our wedding was far nicer than my dress, and it was all anyone could talk about at our ceremony. If anyone could steal the thunder of my cancer diagnosis, it was Tom.
    Now, I know, I know: Musicals? Designer suits? Surely, Libby, you must have been aware that your husband was perhaps not as hetero as he’d let on? But Paul had been out and proud from the minute he emerged from his amniotic sac. I knew from gay men. At least, I thought I did.
    “I’m dying,” I said. “I. Am. Dying!”
    “Libby, please don’t be dramatic,” he said. “I understand that you’re upset. I am, too. But we can’t move forward if you’re screaming at me.”
    “Tom,” I said, eyeing the recently sharpened steak knives, which hung from a magnetic strip just above the sink, “don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you should leave before I do something we’ll both regret.”
    He recoiled. “Libby, don’t you have any sympathy for me? Do you know how hard that was? I’ve been working on this for months now.”
    How lovely. Even as my tumor grew from a pea to an olive to a lime just beneath my skin—not far from the very area where the baby I pined for should have been reaching similar milestones—Tom had been perfecting his I’m-breaking-up-our-marriage elevator speech.
    “Tom, Tom, Tom,” I said, fingering the top of the knife bar, which was dusty; I’d take care of that later. “You lost the right to ask for sympathy about three minutes ago. Now get out of our home before I stab you again.”

THREE
    Would I have gone off the deep end if the whole mess with Tom hadn’t unfolded as it did? Hard to say. Tom would have come out eventually, although I suspect that if I’d had the chance to tell him my Really Bad News before he told me his, he probably would have kept his secret under wraps until after I’d died. How convenient that would have been for him. I could just imagine him telling people, “I loved my wife so much that after her untimely passing, I just couldn’t feel that way about another woman again—ever. So now I date men.”
    But as these things go, Tom couldn’t wait to open his trap, and the news that came flying out was so terrible I could barely breathe, let alone tell him about the grenade in my gut.
    I can’t say for sure exactly what happened after Tom left, although I do remember lying on