Page 82 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

It was a tired old line, but it always made me smile.

I hung up. “That clinches it,” I said to my sister. “You’re stuck with me for the rest of the night. Doctor’s orders.”

“Perfect,” Lizzie said. “You can help me with the laundry.”

I followed her into the laundry room and watched as she rooted four days’ worth of dirty clothes out of her suitcase, threw them in the washing machine, and headed for the kitchen.

The first bottle of wine seemed to have evaporated, so we popped the cork on a second.

“We should make a list,” Lizzie said, picking up a pad and pencil from the counter.

“Of what?” I said.

“Criteria,” she said as we went back to the living room. “It’s like online dating. You’re the gold standard. If we’re looking for your successor, we should write down all the special qualities you have that Alex adores.”

She sat down and started to write. “Let’s see... pushy, annoying, control freak, adequate boobs...”

“I see you’ve lost no time finding the humor in all this,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said innocently. “Now, how do you spell ‘intransigent’?”

“You know what would be extra special?” I said, playing along. “It would be great if we could find a woman whose grandmother was the only female physician in a county of more than fifty thousand people. Dad loved that about Connie. And Alex is a doctor, so he’s bound to love it even more.”

We drank and laughed our way through the most serious conversation we’d ever had. Fifteen minutes and another half bottle of wine into the exercise Lizzie put the pencil down.

“I think we’ve got it,” she said, looking at the pad. “This is solid.”

“Read it back to me, Miss Moneypenny,” I said.

“Wanted,” Lizzie said. “New wife for successful doctor with two slightly annoying but incredibly adorable teenage children. Candidate should be incredibly intelligent, fun loving, moderately patient, really, really great with kids, have an amazing sense of humor, adore long walks on the beach, and be able to suck dick like a Park Avenue call girl.”

“Wait a minute. I don’t remember saying anything about dick sucking,” I slurred, my dysarthria in full bloom.

“I thought you told me Alex said you give world-class blow jobs.”

“I do. But that should be my legacy. When I die, that title is retired. Strike the dick-sucking part,” I said.

She scribbled on the pad. “Okay. Did we leave anything out?”

“Duh... what about healthy? The first one broke down halfway through the race. The next one should have great genes and no family diseases coursing through her veins. The only things she should have inherited are a trust fund and the loyalty and devotion of a Labrador retriever.”

“Damn it, Maggie, you’re making her sound spectacular. Alex can’t marry them all. Maybe if I’m lucky there’ll be a dyke in that pile of applicants.”

“What about Olivia?” I said.

“Oh my God,” Lizzie said, laughing hysterically. “I completely forgot that I have a girlfriend.”

By the time the clothes were ready to come out of the dryer, we were both too plastered to fold.

We staggered upstairs and crawled into the same bed for the first time since we were kids.

“Thank you,” I said as I curled up next to her.

“For what?”

“For making me laugh.”

“That’s the thing about the McCormicks, Maggie,” she said. “It’s in our DNA. We know how to laugh through the pain.”