The Damned by Andrew Pyper Page B

throwing into the creek were going to bankrupt me. And I’ve already got first-base-line season tickets at Fenway. But trust me. Your insurance has covered me just fine.”
    â€œWell, then. Until we meet again.”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œThe transplant?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œIf something becomes available—”
    â€œAbsolutely. We’ve got fingers crossed, I can tell you that.”
    He gave me a look that said he believed in miracles as much as the next guy.
    â€œI know everybody’s been all over you about not exerting yourself,” he went on after he asked if he could drink the untouched cup of orange juice on my breakfast tray. “But you really have to take it easy. Hang in there so we can keep spinning the wheel at our end. Not too much excitement, okay?”
    â€œSo you’re saying I should go easy on the hot-tub sex and half marathons?”
    â€œI’d definitely drop the half marathon. That doesn’t even sound fun. But I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to advise a fellow against the other activity if he’s given the invitation.”
    W ITHIN THE HOUR W ILLA AND Eddie were walking with me out the doors to the car, the sun hurting my eyes. Eddie was next to me the whole way, holding my elbow. I would have told him I was okay, it wasn’t my legs that were in lousy shape but my heart, but his need to help was greater than my desire to make a show of a hopeful exit, and I leaned on him a little.
    It’s a short drive between the hospital and our place off Porter Square. Willa took a roundabout route that afforded a glimpse of the Charles, Harvard’s spires, the rush hour traffic along Mass Ave. The faces of other passengers hinting of other stories-in-progress: the pissed-off, the anxious, the fulfilled, the bored. On the sidewalks everyone holding either a giant coffee or a cell phone, as though a law had been declared against public displays of empty-handedness. Everyday sights that struck me as original, heartbreaking, and funny at the same time. Too much life to digest all at once.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, honey?” Willa asked when she glanced over to see me drying my cheeks with a shirt sleeve.
    â€œNothing’s wrong. I just remembered how good it could be.”
    â€œHow good what could be?”
    I gestured out through the windshield. Kept my hand moving to point a thumb at Eddie in the backseat, then brought it up to graze Willa’s neck.
    â€œThis,” I said.

15
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    I t was Willa’s idea to get married.
    She asked me. I asked if she thought it was a good idea. She told me to shut up and give her an answer. I said yes.
    This was on a Monday, less than a week after I was released from the hospital.
    On Tuesday, we booked a church for the coming Friday. After that there wasn’t much to arrange for outside of a quick-turnaround dry clean on my tux and a reservation at our favorite restaurant in the Square for dinner after the service. You keep the numbers small and slip in a “Truth is, I’ve only got a couple months to live” here and there, and you can put a wedding together in a couple days, no problem.
    Which isn’t to say I didn’t have doubts about the whole thing. Just because my ticker didn’t have many miles left on it didn’t mean I deserved a woman like Willa, a woman who had already lost one husband and was now looking at her second leaving the stage, all well before she turned forty. She told me, in her forceful way, thatshe wasn’t doing this because of the shape I was in but because she wanted to. Because she loved me. She told me the same thing she said when she slid on top of me in our bed and I asked if she thought Eddie was asleep, if he might hear us.
    â€œJust do what feels good,” she said. “Can you do that?”
    As it turns out, I could. Even after a lifetime of training myself otherwise, a lifetime of Ash showing up to remind me