Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around by Pagán, Camille (dar e dil novel online reading .txt) 📕

our overhead low that I didn’t realize how short-staffed we are. It’s time to grow. Especially if we want to make this camp happen.”

Her mouth hung open. “Really? You’re going to make me codirector?”

“Absolutely. If you want it, of course,” I said, but she was already jumping up to hug me.

“I hope this isn’t too unprofessional,” she said, still squeezing me.

I hugged her back. “Not in this office, it’s not. Congratulations—and thank you.”

“For what?”

I smiled. “For keeping me from coasting.”

Shiloh wasn’t due in to work until Tuesday, so he told me he’d handle dinner. But when I got home, the kitchen was empty. He wasn’t in the family room or dining room, either. I went to the bedroom to change, figuring I’d text him in a few minutes to find out where he was.

I’d just started to pull my shirt off when I realized he was on the floor beside our bed.

His shoulders were shaking, and for a split second I thought maybe he was laughing.

Then I realized he was weeping. I’d seen him cry plenty of times, but I’d never seen him weep before.

“Sweetie,” I said, sitting down beside him.

He startled, then wiped his eyes on his forearm. “I’m sorry,” he said in a choked voice.

“Don’t be,” I said, wrapping my arms around him. I wanted to assure both of us it was nothing, but I knew he was supposed to get his test results back today. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What’s going on?”

His eyes were red and watery as he glanced at me. “I just needed a moment.”

“Take all the moments you need,” I said.

He looked at me again. Then his face cracked open. “It’s a swollen lymph node.”

I pulled back to look at him. “That’s good news, right? Why are you crying?”

“There was some sort of abnormal cell activity in the node.”

I couldn’t breathe. Because I knew exactly what caused abnormal cell activity.

Cancer.

That’s what.

“Oh honey,” I said quietly, wrapping him in my arms. “I’m sorry.”

“The doctor said it’s not necessarily malignant,” he said. His voice was raw. “I have to have the lymph node removed and have a full-body CT scan.”

Inhale, Libby. Now exhale. And again. “Okay,” I said slowly. “When will that happen?”

“Next month. That’s the soonest they can get me in. My doctor said to try not to jump to any conclusions.”

“Right,” I said, but in my mind, I was jumping all over the darn place. Chemo, radiation, recovery, repeat. He would have to stop flying for at least a year, and depending on the prognosis, might be forced into early retirement. Basically, everything Shiloh and I had spent the last thirteen years creating could come to a grinding halt—and that was if all went well. As Dr. Malone had once explained in more eloquent terms, a second cancer diagnosis was often particularly dire, because it meant those damn cells were determined to colonize.

But then I looked at Shiloh—the fine lines around his eyes, which crinkled when he smiled, the freckle above his lip, his salt-and-pepper curls. “I love you,” I told him. “I’m here for you, no matter what happens. We’ll get through this.”

He buried his face in my hair. “I don’t want to die,” he said, crying softly. “I don’t want to leave you here all by yourself to raise the girls without me. I want us to grow old together, Libby. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’m not ready for that to end.”

I wasn’t, either, and the thought of losing him filled me with sorrow. “Me neither,” I admitted. “That would be awful. But we’re going to play this as it lays, right? And the one thing I can tell you is that as long as I’m alive, I’ll be here for you.”

Because hadn’t that been the commitment we’d made before God, man, and a whole bunch of random people walking down the beach where we’d gotten married? The good, the bad, the unbearable.

But it was bearable when there was another person at your side.

His choking sobs had slowed to a quiet cry, and after a moment, his breath normalized. He gazed at me with bloodshot eyes. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“For what?” I said.

“Listening,” he said. After a moment, he added, “For letting me say what I needed to say.”

Better late than never, I thought. “I’m only sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”

I don’t know how long we sat like that, wrapped around each other. When I finally looked up, I realized Shiloh was gazing at me. Instead of saying anything more, he put his lips to mine.

He tasted like tears. But after I ran and locked the door, then returned to him and let him tug off my clothes with the same urgency I was using to undress him, and he entered me and I bit my lip, lest I cry out and risk scarring our children for life . . .

Well, he felt just like the man I’d fallen in love with in Puerto Rico thirteen years earlier.

THIRTY-THREE

I could have thought of seventy-three different ways to spend Labor Day weekend, none of which involved burying my father. But I could no longer justify delaying the inevitable, and the cemetery had been able to fit us in that Sunday. And so we were in the Detroit suburbs until the holiday, when we would head back to New York.

“Well? How was the drive?” I asked. It was Saturday night, and Paul, Charlie, and the boys had just joined us at the hotel restaurant where we’d decided to have dinner.

“Better than a stick in the eye?” said Max. He had my coloring, but otherwise looked just like Paul, if Paul were constantly grinning and cracking jokes. Toby, on the other hand, had Charlie’s broad shoulders and easygoing personality. Unlike Isa and Charlotte, I couldn’t remember ever having heard the boys argue with each other.

Toby laughed. “Barely.”

“Us, too,” said Isa, rolling her eyes.

“Should we get our own table?” I said jokingly.

“Why don’t we?” said Charlie.