Page 42 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

HOAX

Present

“This fucking sucks,” I grumbled, punching my pillow.

My wife crawled over me and straddled my back.

I stilled as her hands smoothed over my back.

“Honey,” she said softly. “Do you ever think about how sad Dixie is?”

I buried my face into my pillow.

Yes, yes I did.

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“Do you think it’s selfish of us to want to keep him here, when the love of his life hasn’t been here in decades?” she asked.

I pinched my eyes shut and glared at the inside of my eyelids.

She was right.

I would never want to live a life without Pru in it.

“Why are you so annoying?” I teased.

“I’m not annoying. I’m right, and you know it.” She took the bottle of lotion off the nightstand, just for this purpose, and started rubbing it into the tattoos on my back.

When she’d started this, I’d laughed and let her do it.

But now it was something we did every night, without fail, and I looked forward to the time we spent together as we talked about life.

Usually our talks were a lot more uplifting than today’s talk, though.

She smoothed those small, silky smooth hands over my back, and I closed my eyes as I thought about what happened next.

“I don’t think he’s going to make it much past the New Year,” I admitted. “If I had to guess, he would most certainly check out before he gets to the new year. I’ve heard him talking to my grandmother’s picture a few times, and he misses her fiercely. He doesn’t want to be here anymore without her.”

Pru snuggled her face into my neck, and held on tight.

“I am so happy to have the kind of love that they had,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t ever want you to suffer like that without me, so I’m glad that Dixie finally gets to go back to her.”

Yeah.

Yeah, when she put it like that, she was right.

I wouldn’t want to live this life without her, either.

Not a single day.

How my grandfather made it so long, I would never know.

I still remembered the grief on my grandfather’s face when we all showed up at his place, and the promise I made to always be there for him, the day my grandmother died.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

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