Live Like You Were Dying Read Free

combination I no longer seemed to know. Now the projects that I’d left behind at the paper mill hindered me as much as the bandages around my chest.
    Jay Beckett and the rest of the gang from the construction company sent over a fruit basket that filled every inch of the portable tray table. “We can’t have this now,” the pink-lipsticked nurse said as she moved the basket from where the delivery person had placed it, clucking her tongue like a disapproving mother hen. “We need to keep gifts off of this table. We have to keep a place for our meals, don’t we?” By the second day, her use of the word we wore my nerves down to the quick.
    But the day that I was able to sit up in bed, the real gift that I’d been waiting for arrived. My daughter, Malley, stood in front of Heather with her arms folded across her stomach, only moving them once to push the auburn hair from her eyes. Her eyes were as green as my own, and every time I looked into them, I saw the best part of me. Heather nudged her forward slightly, but it was only when I reached out my arm to Malley that she locked ahold of me until my chest ached. I could only imagine what it must have been like for my twelve-year-old baby to toy with the idea of losing her daddy. Holding her and feeling the beat of her heart against my own, I could only relate by knowing how painful it was to watch my own mama die of pancreatic cancer two years before. I guess whether you’re twelve or thirty-nine, the pain and fear that come with loss sting just the same.
    When my family doctor came in carrying my ever-growing medical file, Malley was sitting in the chair beside me. We’d been playing a match on the new electronic tennis game that she had bought. A man no older than myself, the doctor had a soul better suited for a man my father’s age. His smile was slanted and his eyes tired.
    â€œWhen am I going to be able to check out?” I asked. “Did you know that there are 427 specks on that ceiling tile? Now, that shows you how bad this place is wearing on me.” The doctor rubbed his chin and looked at Heather. “He’s back kicking, I see.”
    Heather laughed and winked at Malley. “Now you see why we want him to stay in here as long as possible.”
    It hurt when I laughed, so I held it in and felt the blood rush to my face. Malley laughed harder and pointed at me. “Look at him. He’s getting bashful.”
    As soon as the laughter faded, the doctor rose up on his toes and coughed. “No, we’ll have you out of here in no time. First I want you to have another X-ray. You know, to make sure you’re all clear of the blood. For once it’ll be a relief just to see three cracked ribs.”
    Relief never came. The same doctor now stood over me, pointing to the new X-rays on the lighted screen behind my hospital bed. I could only hear his words and watch Heather’s reaction as she gripped her necklace tighter. “It’s just happenstance that we found it,” the doctor said. A single white spot remained on the screen.
    â€œA smudge,” I first suggested, but all Heather did was look down and offer a smile as tight as the nurse who cared for me. Later I studied the X-rays on my own and gazed at the foreign white object on the lung pocket outlined before me. While the doctor talked of specialists and second opinions, I stared at the spot, trying to will it away, to force the smudge from the screen and away from my life.
    This isn’t me, I kept thinking. During hunting season I can outrace a fox and stay squatting in a tree stand for hours on end without even a single muscle cramping. I can climb sixty-foot towers at work and never lose my breath. The smudge on the black celluloid had to be nothing more than somebody’s fingerprint. A mistake most likely caused when the X-ray was processed. “Sugar Boy, just dismiss it from your mind with a good old belly laugh,”