Copyright 2012, Avery Brown
All rights reserved, Lyrical Press, Inc.


“How long? Do you know?” Carol asked.

“Six months,” Lee said. “Ten at most. Apparently I’ll be fine for three or four months as long as I keep taking the tablets. After that my sight will deteriorate. Then other things will start to go. Motive power or hearing, maybe. It’s hard to say. It all depends on what the tumor presses against.”

“Is it so certain?”

Lee nodded. “Ninety percent.” She sank into the chair. “I can’t risk it, Carol. That’s a living death. I don’t think you would, either.”

“Maybe not.” Carol shook her head. “I just don’t think I could be as calm about it. I’d be crying...hysterical, I’m sure. How can you take it all so...so passively?”

Lee smiled. “I’m not sure. I’ve wondered about that myself. I think maybe it’s because, deep down, I don’t believe it. I can tell myself I’m going to die but it’s still just words. The human mind is capable of imagining anything except its own extinction.”

Carol nodded, grinning back. “You’re right there, Lee. We’re all very good at excusing our own shortcomings.”

Amy returned and plumped down in her chair, picking up a magazine and glancing idly through it. “Hey, listen to this.” She read aloud. “Enjoy the holiday of a lifetime. Cruise the Great Barrier Reef for five glorious weeks. Discover coral reefs and white sands. Flexible itinerary. This eighty-foot schooner has luxury en suite cabins and an experienced skipper and crew. Dive, swim or just laze the days away.” She sighed and sat back in her chair. “Now that’s what I call a holiday. Pity I don’t have twenty thousand to blow.”

Lee took a damp cloth from the draining board and began wiping off the table. The glossy page of the magazine caught her eye. It showed a sleek-lined, two-masted schooner at anchor in a bay with a backdrop of white sands and palm trees. Two bikini-clad beauties were sitting on the gunwale, their feet dangling above an impossibly blue sea.

It all looked too good to be true and yet it probably wasn’t. She’d always dreamed of going on a cruise, although the crowds and organized games had put her off a bit.

This was different. Just a small group of people. The peace of drifting under sails. Like the advertisement said: the holiday of a lifetime, for five whole weeks. For a holiday like that, twenty thousand wasn’t really that much. Assuming, of course, one had that sort of money to splash out.

She sat up suddenly.

“What’s the matter?” Carol came over anxiously. “Not another headache?”

“No.” Lee looked up at her, smiling broadly. “I’ve just realized something. I don’t have to worry about the future.”

Carol looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Lee shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s just I hadn’t realized it until now. I don’t have anything or anybody to worry about anymore. I’ve got three months to enjoy myself and all that money. I can do anything I like. A person can work and strive for years saving up for something they want. I’ve heard them. ‘We’re going to buy a boat’ or ‘we’re going to get a weekend cottage as soon as we’ve paid off the mortgage’ or ‘when we’ve got a nice bit of money in the bank.’ Then they go out one day and get killed in a car crash and all those dreams are gone. But I know how long I’ve got. I’m completely free.”