Page 22 of Mourner for Hire
I roll my eyes, and she points a bony finger at me.
“Don’t you roll your eyes at me. And don’t let this situation change the course of your whole life.” She gestures to her bedside table, littered with orange pill bottles. “You had dreams, Dominic. Big ones. You dropped them for me, and when I’m gone, I need you to pick them back up.”
My throat feels like it’s closing in as I swallow. “That’s unfair. You know why I came home.”
She nods once. “And you have let that eat you up for years.”
I won’t deny that. But I never got the chance to say a final goodbye to my dad. That’s the problem with optimism—you believe everything will be fine, until it isn’t. And by then, all you’re left with is regret.
“Dad wasn’t mad, honey. He understood. Really, he did.”
I grit my teeth. “I know he wasn’t mad, but I am. I could havehad just a few more days, minutes with him, and I didn’t. I put myself before him, and I shouldn’t have.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to do! You’re our child, Dominic. Parents raise their kids to have more and be better than we ever were. And I’m not saying I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done for me over the last three years and all the extra time we’ve gotten, but when I’m gone, live for yourself a little bit.”
My gaze drifts to the floor. I hear her, but I don’t know how to.
She pulls a manila folder from her bedside table and puts it on the quilt covering her legs.
“What’s this?” I ask, already reaching for it.
“Your future,” she says. “Your dreams.”
I stare at her.
“Oh my God, open it, for heaven’s sake!”
I do as I’m told and find three packets of applications for residency programs all over the US.
I run my fingers over the emblems, wondering how I went from being a medic in the Air Force to a college student, to training to be a doctor, to making cocktails in a run-down bar.
Scratch that—I know exactly how. Time moved on without me. Five years after Dad died, Mom was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma. I quit everything. My residency. The career I’d spent years building and preparing for. By then, I’d already completed my four years of active duty and transitioned out of the Air Force, trading in my commission for medical school.
But when Mom got sick, none of it mattered anymore. I packed up, moved home, and bought Leonard’s old bar—hoping that if I planted roots here, maybe I’d finally have a stake in this town that went beyond family.
“When I’m gone, I want you to go back to doing things for yourself, okay?” she says with red-rimmed eyes.
My jaw clenches, and tears burn my eyes. “It all feels so trivial and unimportant.”
She grabs my face. “Youare important. You are not trivial. Yougo and do whatever you want to do and be whoever you want to be… or I’m going to haunt you.”
A small laugh tumbles out of me.
“No one wants that from their mother.” She winks, and I shake my head.
“What about the house? The beach cottage? I?—”
She waves me off. “Don’t worry about the cottage. It’s all taken care of. And the bar doesn’t have much life left in it, and you know it.”
She eyes me knowingly. I’ll admit buying the bar was merely my way of planting seeds in a town I’ve always loved, hoping they’d take root. But it was already going under when I bought it from Leonard, and with the lack of patrons wanting to stop on the side of the highway for a drink, I’m barely breaking even.
“Apply.” She nods at the folder. “You will make an amazing doctor one day.”
I stare at the papers. “You know all the applications are online now?”
“Oh, shut up and appreciate the symbolism,” she teases, and I laugh, wiping my eyes.
She sits and leans forward, forcing me to look at her. “Quit marching in the past, Dominic. Life isn’t there anymore. It’s here.” She points to my heart. “Let life change, okay? Promise me. Even when I’m gone.”
