The Life That Mattered (Life Duet 1)

I wasn’t feeling on top of the world—yet. However, I knew I’d pretend that was the case if it meant making my wife deliriously happy.

“I am.” Okay, I wasn’t feeling better, but I was out on my own, testing the waters to see just how functional I could pretend to be.

If Evelyn could go back to work, in spite of her dying mom, best friend in the hospital, daughter with stitches in her head, and me with my fucked-up issues, and pull her shit together enough to keep going, then I had to make the same effort.

“Lila messaged me. She’s feeling a little better today too.”

Of course, she was feeling better; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to drag my ass to the shop.

“They probably have her drugged up.”

Evelyn kissed the angle of my jaw. “No,” she murmured. “Per your suggestion, I talked to Graham about alternative treatments for pain.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Yes, you told me that. You also said he seemed pretty skeptical.”

On a shrug, she released me and turned back toward her display, arranging bars of soap into tidy little rows. “Well, he must have had a change of heart because he arranged for her to have acupuncture this morning, and she said it cut her pain in half.”

Her revelation and the optimism over Lila’s recovery made it easy for me to second-guess telling her the truth. Why mess with a good thing? Maybe Lila was an exception to the rule.

“That’s great.”

“It is.” She sighed, glancing over her shoulder at me. “I think I’m ready to finish our conversation.”

“Our conversation?” I knew what she meant, but if there was a one-percent chance I was wrong, I wasn’t going to shit all over her good mood by addressing something that maybe … just maybe no longer needed to be discussed.

“The voices in your head.”

I rubbed my eye. “That uh … makes me sound crazy, Evie. Do you think I’m crazy?”

She laughed. “Of course not. I just want to understand, and we got interrupted, so now I want you to finish telling me everything.”

Understand.

She wasn’t going to understand. I didn’t understand it. I thought I did, but then my heart stopped beating.

“I fear understand isn’t the best word. I’m not sure you’ll be able to truly understand.”

“Well, try me. Make me understand.” She clasped her hands behind her back, waiting for my magical explanation.

I cleared my throat. “O … kay. Just go with me for a second. As an example, if you saw a pig flying, you wouldn’t be able to dispute what you saw, nor would you be able to explain it. But it wouldn’t mean that the pig didn’t fly. Right?”

Evelyn laughed a little more, returning her attention to the display. “Yes. I suppose. Did you see a pig fly?”

“If I did, would you believe me?”

“Sure.”

“No!” I laced my fingers behind my head and paced back and forth. “You wouldn’t believe me. I can tell from your laughter you wouldn’t believe me.”

When she faced me again, her smile was gone. I didn’t mean to take away her smile. After days of tragedy and grief, she had earned the right to have a moment that wasn’t so damn depressing. “I’m not laughing at you.”

My chin dropped to my chest on a long sigh. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just so hard to tell you this because it’s not going to make sense. It’s going to be completely unbelievable and utterly confusing.” I glanced up at her again.

“Then don’t try to explain the voice. Just tell me what it means for your life now. Tell me if you know why your heart stopped beating, and I promise I will believe you.”

“I don’t know what it means anymore. I didn’t know what it meant for many years after the accident. Then I performed CPR on an actual person for the first time. I heard a ringing in my ears that intensified as I compressed the person’s chest. And I heard that voice telling me the same thing. Hinder not the soul’s intended path unto the light, lest shards of darkness shed upon thee.

“The person never regained a heartbeat. Once I stopped CPR, the ringing in my ears stopped. The next time I performed CPR, the same thing happened, only we did revive the woman. I heard the ringing, the voice, and I felt her injuries from the accident, her pain and suffering. She died less than twenty-four hours later. But that was the first time I ended up in the hospital too—feeling like I was dying, but having no signs of injuries or ailments. Come to find out, I miraculously recovered at the same time the woman died.”

My brain told me to keep going, but my heart told me to let her take over and decide where she was ready for me to go with the rest of this revelation.