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He swallowed and offered an apologetic smile. One that said news like this never got easier to deliver, no matter how many times he'd had to be the messenger.
“I'm sorry,” he said, holding my gaze. “I'm afraid it doesn't look good.”
Soldierhad saved my life three times before I saved his once. And as the bricks holding my walls together were crushed, settling as dust on the floor of that waiting room, I knew it hadn't been enough.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
TIME TO GO
SOLDIER
At eleven, I had developed a crippling fear of dying after witnessing my grandfather collapse on the sidewalk in front of our house, only to, a couple of years later, watch my grandmother lose her quick and sudden battle with cancer.
My denial was strong—an impenetrable tower in the center of my mind and everything I did—and I got by on the belief that if I simply wanted it hard enough, I alone could avoid death.
I fought hard for myself. I fought harder for my mother. And I survived—we both did—just as I’d believed I would, despite the obstacles that had come our way. I had made sure of it.
But when I was twenty-one, sitting on the side of the road and watching my best friend take his last breath, any fear of dying I’d had disappeared. The realness of mortality was driven home, toppling that tower over with a single blow, and I was overcome by a simple acceptance that death was just an inescapable part of life. Somehow, I’d found a sense of strange comfort in watching Billy die. Almost as though if he could do it, so could I.
And I held to that tightly throughout the rest of my life. That, if I were to meet the end of my life at any given moment, I would do it fighting until I couldn’t fight anymore. I would accept my fate with dignity, and then the transition would be simple. Easy-peasy—just as it had been for Billy.
Because like I said, if he could do it, so could I.
But at thirty-one, I realized that the difference between Billy and me was that he’d believed there was nothing in his life worth living for. Leaving this life and taking that step into whatever came next had come so easily for him because, hell, whatever it was had to be better than what he had been doing here, right?
But leaving Ray wasn’t easy.
Although she had told me repeatedly that she loved me, that she always would, it couldn’t bring me the comfort I needed to settle into the acceptance I’d thought I had. Because acceptance meant giving up, and giving up meant to give in.
I didn’t give in. I held on toevery lastshred of my life, just to get one more glimpse of her bright emerald eyes. Not until I wasn’t given a choice, and then …
Nothingness.
That was the first time I had died. Before they brought me back and Ray was gone. She’d been replaced by strange voices, strange faces, strange hands, strange sounds. Muttered words of encouragement and reassurance that they had me and I should stay withthemand I had to hang in there. As if I had a say in the matter.
But I asked them about Ray in words I thought made sense, and the strangers assured me she was fine, she was safe, and that was all that had ever mattered. It was all I needed.
And I died a second death, knowing now that if I couldn’t be with her, if my body wouldn’t allow it, I wouldn’t be anywhere at all.
And somehow, as the clock struck eleveneleven, I accepted it.
***
I didn’t know where I was, yet I didn’t feel lost.
Encircled by blinding light and a warmthsimilar tostanding on a dock in the middle of the summer, I was met by a presence I knew. One that knew my name, called me buddy, and said it was good to see me again.
Grampa.
He was there with me. I knew it. I felt him all around me, an embrace of comfort and light, but I saw nothing.
“Where are you?” I asked, calm and without fear, searching the white for a face, a hand … anything to see or feel.
“My boy.”Gramma. “Oh, my sweet little man.”
I laughed like they were playing a game of hide-and-seek. I laughed because there was nothing little about me at all.
“I can’t see you guys!”
