and go without your beloved. You cry and hate yourself because you’re not the one who is dying.
My name is John Bodine. I’m twenty-nine years old. I’m married to the love of my life. And no matter what it takes, or how far I have to go, I’m not going to let her die.
Eight weeks earlier . . .
I’m like a dog. Soon as I heard the sound of keys jangling in the front door lock, my heartbeat kicked into overdrive. I got all excited. Five years of marriage hadn’t dulled my pleasure. The sound of keys meant Ruby was home. I glanced at the electric stove, the only working clock within eyesight. Twenty minutes until midnight. Poor Ruby. Poor sweet, tired—no, make that utterly exhausted—Ruby. God, I was glad she was home.
I greeted Ruby in the cramped entranceway of our one-bedroom apartment with a mug of mint tea at the ready. Ruby’s strawberry blond hair, cut stylishly and kept shoulder length, glistened from a light nighttime rain. She shivered off the cold and inhaled the sweet mint smell emanating from the steaming mug.
“My hero to the rescue,” Ruby said.
Ruby cupped the mug in both hands and let the aroma warm her bones. She kissed me sweetly on the lips. Her eyes, the color of wan sapphires, flashed her desire for a more prolonged kiss with a lot less clothing. But her shoulders, sagging from the weight of her backpack stuffed with textbooks, told me otherwise. For an acupuncture and herbal medicine school that taught the healing arts, Ruby’s education took an extraordinary physical and mental toll.
“Hold this,” Ruby said. She handed me back the mug of tea, slung her backpack from off her shoulder, and then knelt down to unzip it on the floor. From within she pulled out a brown paper bag. The second I saw it, my eyes went wide.
“You went to Sinful Squares?” I asked, feeling my mouth already watering.
“That’s why I left so early this morning. I’m sure you forgot, but it’s your mom’s birthday on Thursday. I mailed her a dozen of her favorite brownies, and it just so happens that I knew they were your favorite, too. Don’t eat them all at once.”
She gave me a soft kiss on the lips.
“Ruby, Sinful Squares is way out of your way. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Well, I love you, and I love your mom. So, happy birthday to us all.”
We shared a brownie. Heaven.
“Want to watch TV?” Ruby asked.
“You know it.”
We didn’t have cable, way too expensive on our limited budget. We had cut back on most all expenses now that we had tuition to pay. But I like to please Ruby, so I rigged Hulu up to our thirty-inch television. Now she could watch her favorite shows anytime she wanted. Ruby didn’t have much time for TV, but after a late-night study session, it helped her clear the brain, decompress.
As I expected, Ruby wanted to watch her favorite HGTV show, Designed to Sell. She sank deeply into the soft sofa cushions, almost vanishing between them. I always watched with Ruby, even though I’m an ESPN sort of guy, and this episode, one we’d never seen, featured a three-million-dollar Beverly Hills mansion in desperate need of a makeover before going on the market. Ruby spread her long and beautifully toned legs across my lap.
“Wait,” I said, after watching a minute of the show. “The challenge is to redesign an enormous mansion with a few-thousand-dollar budget?”
“Yeah. Cool, isn’t it?” Ruby said. Her voice drifted off, as if she was already in a dream.
“Well, it seems a little bit odd,” I said. “I mean, they live in a mansion. You’d think they could spend a bit more, is all.”
“That’s not the point of the show. The point is to teach people how to do more with less.”
“So if our one-bedroom got featured, they’d redesign it for what? Fifty bucks?”
Ruby dug her toes between my ribs until I cried out in mock pain. Actually, it felt pretty darn good.
“The show doesn’t use a sliding scale, darling. And besides, our place doesn’t need to be redesigned. I like it just the way it is.”
“Small,” I said.
“I prefer to think of it as conducive to closeness.”
“Oh, in that case . . .”
I changed position and kissed Ruby, long and deep. Ruby responded in kind as best she could, but tonight her romantic mood had the life span of a mayfly.
“Baby, I want to,” Ruby said. Her voice sounded as