Page 9 of Someone to Watch Over Me

We rallied around them when Iris had surgery and radiation for stage-zero breast cancer, but that felt like the least we could do for someone who does so much for everyone else.

I rest my head on her strong, capable shoulder, thankful every day for her continued good health. It never ceases to amaze me how important people I didn’t know when Jim was alive have become to me in this new “afterward” since he passed. They’re my best friends. I’m closer to them than people I’ve known since childhood. They get what I’m going through, and their support makes all the difference.

“You guys don’t have to wait up with me. You can text my number to Cora.”

“We’ll wait,” Iris says.

“I can’t thank you enough for everything.”

“You don’t have to thank us,” Gage says. “You’re family.”

The simple poignancy of his sweet words brings me to tears again. “I want to be there for Tom. I really do.”

“We know that, honey,” Iris says.

“He’d do it for me. He’d drop everything for me.”

“That’s an interesting observation.”

I hear the smile in her words.

“It’s true. He’s been such a great friend to me, and he never asks for a thing in return, as if he knows I don’t have it to give.”

“I can’t wait to get to know him better. From what I already know of him, he seems like a very special man.”

“He is.” I wipe away tears that refuse to quit. “He’s the best.”

“Just think,” Gage says. “If he hadn’t offered you a place to live, he might’ve died on that floor with no one due home to find him.”

“I had that same thought. It’s unbearable to think about what could’ve happened.”

“You’ve already saved him, Lex,” Iris says. “Whatever happens next, he has a fighting chance because of you.”

That gives me tremendous comfort as I wait to hear whether I’ll ever see him again.

3

Tom

I have no idea where I am when I open my eyes to bright lights and my sister’s face hovering above me. What’s she doing here? Where the hell am I?

“Oh, thank God,” Cora says as tears cascade down her cheeks.

I want to ask her what’s wrong, but my throat hurts so bad, I can barely swallow.

“Don’t try to talk. You had a procedure to put stents in a blocked artery to your heart.”

What? What the actual…

“Lexi came home and found you collapsed on the floor. She saved your life.”

Lexi…Oh no.That’s the last thing I’d ever want her to have to deal with.

“She was here but left with her friends Iris and Gage. They’re taking care of her.”

That means she was upset, which I can’t bear to hear. She’s already been through so much.

I have so many questions but can’t seem to muster the strength to ask any of them. I feel as if I’ve been run over by a truck.

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