Living With No Regrets Read Online Free

way, he knew he’d been right.  Leigh was sick.
    “How was the flight?” he asked as soon they reached him.  Mark picked Randy up, but he immediately squirmed to get down so he could hold Leigh’s hand.  Leigh kissed Mark’s cheek as he grabbed her carry-on bag.  “Did shorty here get to have the window seat?”
    “I shat there, but the plane got too high, sho Momma changed with me.”
    Mark listened as Randy rambled on and on about their trip, but couldn’t stop glancing periodically at Leigh.  He was saddened by how much weight she’d lost and how different she looked just in the week that he’d been down in Pine Grove. 
    He would make sure she got the rest she needed and was stressed as little as possible; considering one of the first things she was going to be taking care of while being here was confronting her past.
     
    *****
     
    “He’s finally asleep.”
    Leigh had just put Randy to bed for the night, and she joined her mom and Mark in the kitchen for some hot chocolate.  Since Mark had come early, there was not much for her to do; everything was all set up.
    “Did you schedule us in to talk to Doc Kennedy tomorrow?” she asked.  She wanted to talk to the doctor herself and make sure her mother wasn’t trying to downplay how serious the cancer was this time.  The doctor happened to be Russell’s Uncle.
    “Yes, but he’ll just tell you the same as he has me,” Mary Leigh sighed.  “Just like last time, he feels like with removing the tumor and radiation, that it will kill off the new cancer with-out me losing…”
    Putting her hand over her mother’s on the table, knowing why she had paused in what she was saying, and Leigh just smiled.  “I just want to hear for myself.  For my piece of mind.”
    “Will you let the doc look you over?” Mark asked.
    “No Mark.  I’m fine.  I just had all the tests done last month, you know that.”
    “I know by looking at you that something ain’t right.  You’re not telling me something.”
    “Look Mark,” Leigh was getting exasperated with having to explain to him.  Especially in front of her mother; who had enough problems of her own.  “I am okay.  Right now my focus is on Mom and the situation with Russell and how to handle that.  Anything else can and will wait.”
    Mark clenched his jaw in effort to drop the subject, but Leigh knew it was taking every ounce of self-control he possessed.  He didn’t want to make it more difficult for Leigh or her mother.
    “Have you decided when you’re going to pay Russell a visit, and how you’ll tell him?” her mom asked.  “I asked him to hear you out this one time.”
    “And you promised me back then to never interfere.”
    Sitting up, straightening her back, Leigh could tell her mother had taken offense to what she said, but it was the truth.  Leigh felt like everything should be discussed between her and Russell only, seeing as they were the parents; and no one else should put their two cents in.  Even her mother, who only had the best intentions.
    She felt righteous in the fact that she had tried for all of these years to reach him by letter, once his phone number changed, but he was the one ignoring her.  She had done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve what she’d been though, but Leigh believed that everything in life happened for a reason, so she just went with it.  Any time guilt crept up on her; she would push it back down and silence it.  Her philosophy was to not look back.  No Regretting things you couldn’t change.
    That never stopped the knowledge in her heart that she had been selfish and had kept Randy to herself for all this time.  Especially this last year.  She had a feeling time was becoming a more precious commodity than it was before, and she had taken advantage of every moment given her to be with her son.
    “I am not going to force my company on Russell,” she told her.  “I figured sending a package with all of the photos of Randy, and the