Page 58 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

“What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know... start at the beginning.”

“Okay. It was September 11, 1978, and I was left in a Dillon’s grocery store shopping basket at fire station 6 on North Plum Street in Hutchinson, Kansas.”

He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t kidding. “Oh my God,” I said. “You were abandoned?”

“I like to think I was rescued. Whoever left me there couldn’t take care of me, but they loved me enough to leave me someplace safe.”

“Did you ever find out who your birth mother was?”

He shook his head. “Not a clue. It might have been some local schoolgirl, but I was found on a Monday. The Kansas State Fair was on the previous weekend, so it’s possible that I could have been left by any one of the thousands of exhibitors or carneys who were passing through Hutch at the time. The note in the basket said,‘This is Alex. Please find a real mother and father to love him.’

“I’d been well fed and taken care of, and the hospital pegged me at four weeks old when I was found. That’s a long time to hold on to a baby you know you can’t raise, so I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision for her to give me up.”

“Who became your parents?”

“I was lucky. I could have gone into the foster system and bounced around for years. But the fire chief and his wife... I’m sorry, this is kind of a bummer topic for a first date.”

“This stopped being a first date about an hour after you sat down at my table at the White Dog,” I said.

He smiled, and I marveled at the power he had over me just by moving a few facial muscles.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “I don’t usually let women do the kind of things you did to me on the first time out. I’ve studied anatomy, but clearly you are my superior in that department.”

“And we still have two days left to the weekend,” I said, munching suggestively on a cold spare rib. “Now tell me about the fire chief and his wife.”

“My mom and dad,” he said. “Nancy and Kevin Dunn. It was 1978. Their only child—a son, Dylan—had been killed in Vietnam six years earlier. They were in their early fifties at the time. They weren’t thinking about more children, but then along comes this newborn in a basket from Dillon’s supermarket—it didn’t matter that it was spelled different from their son Dylan. My mom—she wasn’t my mom yet—she decided it was a sign. She told my dad they had to adopt me. And he just said, ‘If that’s what you want.’”

“Just like that?” I said.

“That was my dad. He was the easiest guy in the world. He’s gone now, but he always let my mother call the shots. Never argued, never complained. So they adopted me. The doctors did the math, and the official court papers say I’m Alex Dillon Dunn, born in Hutchinson, Kansas, on August 11, 1978. It may not be a hundred percent accurate, but it’s been blessed by the powers that be in the Sunflower State, so that’s my story.”

“And are you going back to Kansas when you finish med school?”

“Probably not. Mom is pushing eighty; she’s got some moderately progressive cognitive impairment, but last year she moved into an assisted-living facility, and she seems to be happy there. I grew up in the Midwest, but I’ve become kind of fond of the East Coast, so I think I’ll stay here. Not in Philly. I’m definitely not a big-city kid. Anyway, I’ve still got two years of medical school before I have to think about where I’m going to do my residency.”

I had already thought about it. Heartstone Medical Center. But I didn’t tell Alex. Not on the first date.

THIRTY-FOUR

sixteen years before the funeral

Falling in love was different the second time around. I was sixteen when I willingly and happily gave my heart, my soul, and my virginity to Van. I spent hours scrawling his name and mine in countless notebooks, but I never once thought to ask him what his goals were after the Marines.

At twenty-four my perspective had changed. I had a life plan. There were boxes to be checked, and Alex checked off every one of them, including a few I didn’t even know I should have.

He was heart-stoppingly handsome, fun to be with, definitely up to my performance standards in the bedroom, had a promising future ahead of him, and maybe best of all, he was a lot like his father—a true partner, but content to let me steer the ship.

Falling in love with Van had been like getting hit by a Mack truck. With Alex it was like walking into a car showroom and shopping for the perfect ride. He was the Rolls-Royce of boyfriends. I wasn’t about to let him go.

We were married a month after he finished med school. Six years later we were the perfect doctor-lawyer couple living in a beautiful Tudor-style house in Heartstone, less than a mile away from my father and Beth. Alex was a thoracic surgeon at Heartstone Medical Center, and I was an assistant district attorney with the county.

Lizzie had been right. Not just about Alex but about me.The only reason everything works out exactly the way Maggie wants is because she’s an obsessively compulsive micromanaging control freak.

I got pregnant, as planned, a few months before my twenty-seventh birthday. I wanted two children—a boy and a girl—and even though some things are beyond my micromanaging skills, the gods were kind enough to put them both in my belly at the same time. They were due on New Year’s Eve, but their cribs, car seats, tandem stroller, and everything else on my extensive list had been ready since Halloween.

My career with the prosecutor’s office was going well, and not wanting to lose momentum, I decided to work right up until the holidays before taking my maternity leave.

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