Chapter 23: Be Happy

Damian was out of the ICU in four days and walking the hall in nine.

On the tenth, Perry asked to see us both on the dialysis floor.

He didn't ask in private. He asked in the ward, with the chairs full and the machines humming.

A dozen patients sat in recliners with their lines running.

The nurse who had known him for five years stood by the supply cart with her arms folded.

Perry came in on a walker, thinner than ever and standing straighter than I'd seen him in years.

His mother walked behind him with a hand out, not touching.

Damian and I stood by the door. He had a hand pressed to his side, where the stitches pulled.

"I'm not staying," Perry said to the room.

"I wanted to be here, because this is where I spent most of it."

He took a folded paper from his cardigan pocket.

"Five years ago I made a bad bargain, and I let a good person pay on it."

"I called it wishes, so it would sound like love."

Nobody in the ward looked away.

"I wrote a list of ninety-nine. It was a joke at first."

"Then it stopped being a joke."

He looked at me.

"Jo. I took four sessions I didn't have to skip. I took your sleep and your savings. I took a funeral."

"Perry."

"Let me finish."

His voice was thin but steady.

"I also have your husband's kidney, and it's working."

"I will spend whatever I have left being worth what he did."

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