If I Die Before I Wake Read Online Free

swaggers past me, followed by Juanita. They reek of cigarettes and beer. Juanita pulls me to her. I stiffen. As soon as Ruthie steps through the door, I launch myself into her waiting arms. The little girl who so wanted to be loved, for someone to tell her everything would be okay, emerges from me, and the tears I normally swallow in front of others pour down my face. Suddenly, I realize the woman holding me is half the woman she used to be. I pull back, unable to reconcile Ruthie's weight loss and the thick salt-and-pepper hair reduced to thin straggling wisps of fine, nearly completely gray hair with the woman I had known. The chemotherapy has really taken a toll on her. She'sdying, and she's consoling me. Making the excuse that I need to get dressed, I run to my bedroom.
    Collapsed across the unmade bed, I push my face into the pillow. Strange sounds erupt from the deepest part of me. I can't do it. I can't lose another person I care about. I can't go out there and act like nothing is wrong. Why Aunt Ruthie? I don't know how she does it … smiles through her pain, all the while knowing she's dying. It's not like she's had a good life. Her husband, my mom's brother and a drunk who gambles and chases anything in a skirt, never treated her right. She raised their three kids in spite of him, working long hours at a shoe factory until she had a hump in her back from bending over a sewing machine. But still, she's loving, kind, and sober. I don't get it.
    Ruthie steps through the door, perches on the side of the bed, and takes my hand in hers. I see tears glistening in her eyes. “Soon,” she says, “I'll go and take care of your Jon, but you'll have to stay here and look after my kids. Can you do that?” Unable to speak, I nod, but in the deepest part of me, I know it's a lie. I'm the last person anyone would want looking after their kids. “You are more than you think,” she continues. “God has a plan for you.”
    After some stilted conversation and a few snide remarks cloaked behind false concern for me from John and Juanita, the need for a drink drives them out the door. I'm sure they have a cooler of beer waiting for them in the car. I focus on Ruthie's face through the backseat window of the big Buick as they back out the drive. Will this be the last time I see her?
    A plan for me? God? More than I think I am? What did she mean? Given her circumstances, how can she believe in a God, some imaginary plan? I puzzle over this. The shrill ring of the telephone brings me out of my reverie. It's the local sheriff. He's getting a group of people together to speak at schools and churches about drug and alcohol addiction. I owe him one because he identified Jon after I had his body flown home. I didn't think I could live through seeing another one of my children dead. He wants me to speak from a parent's point of view. I agree, but before I hang up the receiver I know it's a mistake.
    ——

    “Another day in paradise,” I say to the empty kitchen and pour myself a large glass of wine. It's going to be one hell of a day. I need to write a letter to the young man who killed my son with his truck. It wasn't his fault, and I want to tell him that there is no reason his life should be destroyed by what was clearly an accident. As I lay in bed awake last night, staring out the window at the stars and wondering where my son is, I considered what to say. I imagined how I would feel if I killed another person. I would wonder about him … who he was, what he was like … and then my answer came. Now, I pull pen and paper out of Mary Jo's desk.
    When I'm dressed, the ready-to-mail envelope clutched in one hand, the phone rings again. I hesitate, then answer it. It's Tom, the last person in the world I want to talk to at this moment. I can't decide if he's a blessing or a curse in my life. I justknow that since the age of 20 I haven't been able to get him out of my mind. Our on-and-off relationship for over ten years has been