Page 29 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

I was already shaking my head. “I know, Dix. I know.”

Dixie looked like he was about to burst into tears again any second. “But…”

I walked up to him and pressed my lips to his.

His beard hair tickled my chin. “Dix.”

He wrapped me up in his strong embrace, and just like the first day we’d met and he’d walked into my life for good, he held me and promised me he’d take care of me always. For however long I had left.

We stayed like that for a long time.

Hours, maybe.

It was late when he finally pulled away and brushed my hair back from my face.

“What would be the note you’d put on me?” he teased, his tears still bright in his eyes.

I grinned. “You want to tattoo it there so you’ll never forget?”

He nodded, his throat bobbing.

“Let’s go,” I urged.

The tattoo artist, his usual, was there.

He canceled his other clients so he could take my man on.

“What will it say?” the artist asked.

I swallowed and pulled out my Post-it Note and pen.

I love you. With my heart and soul, you are the best piece of me. Smile because I love you. Stay strong, my love. Your Mary.

Chapter

Fifteen

Okay, but first, presents.

—Dixie’s secret thoughts

DIXIE

Present

After looking at the barely there tattooed words on my wrist, a wave of sickness hit me.

I’d been getting bouts of nausea for months, which had been what prompted me to go see the doctor in the first place.

Knowing that putting something in my stomach was the best course of action, I forced myself to get up and walk toward the kitchen.

I got to the pantry, uncaring that I’d already brushed my teeth, and stopped in front of the jar of canning materials that hadn’t been touched since the day that Mary had left me.

Most of them had a layer of dust coating them.

I had a cleaning lady come in now once a month thanks to my grandchildren’s intervening wives who said that ‘living in a dust bowl wasn’t healthy.’

She left this room alone, though.

---