Page 31 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

“Bad,” Mary croaked. “The doctor isn’t optimistic with my outcome. They believe that as advanced as it is, I won’t make it past six months.” She straightened her spine. “I’m going to fight it, though. I’m not giving up.”

“We have to move,” I admitted. “The doctor that she wants us to see is in Benton, Louisiana.”

The kids all started talking at once.

There was a lot of crying.

A lot of arguing.

But in the end, they understood our need for the move. Some of them even said they’d follow us.

Hours later, when I told the club, it was Silas who said, “Hear the new chapter that started there are looking for some members. Let’s go.”

I looked at one of my greatest friends and said, “It’d be an honor if you went with me.”

Mary got up and hugged Silas. “Thank you. I don’t want him to be alone.”

Silas hugged her back and whispered something into her ear.

I didn’t get jealous.

If there was a person I trusted most in this world besides Mary and my kids, it would be him.

She whispered something back, then Silas winked at me and transferred her back into my arms where she belonged. “I’ll go make some calls.”

And he did.

Chapter

Seventeen

You know what I heard makes a merry Christmas? If you let me put my penis inside of you.

—Dixie to Mary

DIXIE

Past

The doctor’s news wasn’t good.

The specialist’s news was even worse.

“Stage four,” he said. “It’s very, very bad. It’s spread to her lymph nodes. Her chest is riddled with masses…” he explained everything, then ended with, “I don’t even recommend treatment at this point. What I would suggest was appreciating what little time you have left with each other.”

Ten minutes later, when I was helping her onto the back of my bike, she said, “I’m going to make it to our anniversary, Dix.”

Our anniversary was in ten months.

If she made it that long, she’d be four months past what they said she’d have.

But if there was someone more determined than my Mary, though, I hadn’t met them.

“I know you will, honey.” I put her helmet onto her head.

She leaned her helmeted head against my back all the way home, both of us lost in our morose thoughts.

“We move,” he said. “We move to where you’ll have access to a great doctor. We’ve already discussed it. No one will mind that you’re trying to find someone that’ll help you stay here longer.”

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