Page 78 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

“I’m in competition with a forty-ton cement mixer,” he shouted. “We’re on a continuous pour. The trucks have been delivering concrete around the clock for three weeks. This week I caught the night shift.”

The first job Johnny landed when he got out of the halfway house had been carrying ninety-four-pound bags of cement for a construction company. A year later he’d learned to read blueprints, get the perfect water-to-mix ratio, and use all the tools of the trade. Now he was a foreman supervising the trucks with the giant rotating barrels and telling them where and when to pour their concrete.

“Can we talk when your shift’s over?” I yelled into the phone.

“Better than that,” he said. “Let’s do breakfast. Corky’s. Eight thirty.”

An hour later Johnny and I were sitting across from each other in the same diner, in the same booth we’d been coming to since high school. We spoke at least once a week, but we hadn’t been able to connect in person for two months.

“First things first,” I said. “Let me see pictures.”

He leaned over and swiped his phone until he got to a picture of his wife, Marisol—a tall, classically beautiful woman with radiant black hair and creamy caramel skin—and his three daughters, ages four, six, and eight, each wearing a pastel-colored Easter dress with a matching bonnet. Behind them, with his paws wrapped around the girls, was a giant, fluffy white Easter bunny.

“Just when I thought they couldn’t get any more gorgeous,” I squealed. “What mall did you take that in, and how come you’re not in the picture?”

“No mall,” he said, and swiped again.

It was almost the same picture, only this time the bunny was holding his head in his hands. It was Johnny.

A wave of joy surged through my body. “I am so, so proud of you,” I said.

“And I am so, so grateful to you.”

“You did the heavy lifting, Johnny.”

He laughed. “Any idiot can carry a couple of million pounds of concrete. You’re the one who gave me the shot. So, what’s up? You need any help running your little kingdom, Mayor Dunn?”

I told him. No foreplay. No punches pulled.

He sat there. Stunned. Speechless. And then he did something I’d never seen him do, even when his life was about to go down the toilet.

He cried. His lips turned down and quivered, and he fought to hold it together. Finally, the tears spilled over, and he sat there silently shaking his head, as if by denying the reality of what I said he could make it go away.

I reached into my purse and pulled out a tissue, but he waved it away—his macho way of communicating that Kleenex was for sissies. Then he took his sleeve and wiped it across his face, adding a big, wet, loud manly snort, just in case anyone in the diner had seen him having a moment.

I stood up. He looked up at me, his eyes wet, and then he slowly shifted his weight, slid out of the booth, and wrapped his arms around me.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

“You’re doing it,” I said, hugging him back.

“No, I mean like do you need a kidney or something?”

I knew he was joking, but if I had said yes, he’d have dragged me to the hospital and told Alex to take one of his kidneys before I changed my mind.

“The only thing I need is a friend,” I said, “and you’re probably the best one I ever had.”

He held me tight, rested his head on my shoulder, and sobbed unabashedly.

FORTY-SIX

Nobody gets to choose how they come into this world, but some of us are lucky enough to have a say in how we go out. Now that I knew the clock was ticking, I wanted to exit on my own terms.

I’ve seen people document their final days by sharing their journey on social media, garnering thousands of likes, retweets, and sad-faced emojis on their way out. That’s not my style.

I’d become a public figure, but I had no desire to be in the limelight surrounded by hundreds of well-wishers. I wanted to die in the dignified quiet and comfort of my home, with a small circle of close friends and family watching me set sail.

But I knew I’d need a rock-solid support group along the way. Telling Johnny had been cathartic. For the next few days, he was my lifeline, helping me wrestle with questions like, “I want to leave each of my kids a letter like my mother left me and Lizzie. How honest can I be?”