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Tonight, he lay quietly as he inhaled into my hair.

“Are you worried about tomorrow?” I asked.

“Isn’t that my line?”

I walked a finger up his arm where it wrapped around me. “If anything, I’m excited. I’m ready to get this over with.”

He stiffened behind me. He sounded stiff as he asked, “The surgery?”

I laughed. “Yeah, the surgery. What did you think I meant?”

He cleared his throat. “Nothing.”

“I’m ready to be fixed. No more tiptoeing around my body. These past few weeks, it hasn’t felt like my own.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a traitor.”

“We have the illusion of control over our bodies, but it’s just that: illusion,” he said. “At any moment something can happen. I’ve been lucky to be healthy.”

I scowled. “I took my luck for granted. I can’t help being pissed off it ran out.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to call your parents and tell them about your surgery?”

“I’m sure.”

“I still don’t understand why,” he said.

I could sense his discontent. It was the only thing we’d argued about in our short marriage. Jimmy wanted me to tell my parents and brothers about my condition and surgery. I didn’t. They’d hover. I loved my family, but every illness became a dramatic event with my mother. I couldn’t stand the guilt of pulling her and maybe my dad away from the business that supported them all. They couldn’t afford it, and I was more than old enough to stand on my own. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I didn’t want them to have to shoulder the consequences. Jimmy’s insistence that I tell them was ironic given his own relationship with his parents. Ultimately, he acknowledged it was my family and my decision, but he was still grumpy about it.

He didn’t have the experience with my family I did. I wanted to fly under the radar a little longer. When I was ten, my older brother had fallen off his bike and ended up with a broken arm and concussion for his wannabe stuntman attempt. My mother dropped everything to care for him. I didn’t want her to feel she needed to do that for me. I was an adult. Besides, I was fine. I had Jimmy to look after me.

Jimmy. I smiled into the darkness. His big hand rested along my rib cage. I’d come to rely on him. I sighed. That should have been a bad thing. Something to avoid. So why did I feel like I was rushing headlong into something I didn’t want to name and couldn’t resist?



















Chapter 18