One Last Thing Before I Go

his life in its entirety, laid out before him between the crunching beats of the music; all of the joy and pain and anger and lust and love and song and sex and regret. All of the points at which he should have turned right but instead went left, the places he should have stopped but instead kept going, and the cost of it all. A deep sob escapes him and he opens his eyes. He sees the ceiling, high and ornate, a painted fresco, spinning above him, making him dizzy. And then he sees it: a cluster of bad spackle work to the side of the chandelier fixture, a sand-swirl finish that reminds him of the ceiling in his childhood bedroom. And just before everything goes down, Silver remembers God, and surprises himself by offering up a lightning-quick but no less heartfelt prayer. Then he closes his eyes and surrenders to the incessant buzzing in his ears, which continues to rise to an ungodly decibel until everything goes dark.

CHAPTER 53
    H e opens his eyes in a hotel bed. The room is dim, and the first hints of morning are starting to come through the window. He rubs his eyes, feeling the incipient throb of a hangover behind them. He had some wild dreams last night, intense and vivid, only now fading into vapor. He turns onto his side to study the woman asleep beside him. Denise. The wedding. He remembers now. He smiles.
    She stirs beside him, her arm sneaking out from underneath the comforter, flailing until it finds his chest, where it comes to a rest, and he savors the warmth of it as he relives the night. His cousin Bruce’s wedding. She was the slightly sad bridesmaid. They had danced and laughed, then come up here and had much-better-than-expected sex. And now she’s asleep beside him, and he has a chance to study her face. She’s prettier than he remembers, a rare feat in these situations. There was something about her, a warm wit that he had enjoyed. He runs his fingers gently up her back. He likes the way her skin feels beneath his fingertips, hot and so incredibly smooth. He does it again. She makes a sound, like purrring, and rolls herself closer to him, nestling into the curve of his body.
    “Silver,” she whispers to him.
    “Yes.”
    “Keep me warm.”
    Something about the way she says it moves him profoundly. He wraps his arms around her, her back pressed against his chest, and presses his lips against her shoulder, and, as he listens to her soft, shallow breathing, decides that that is exactly what he will do.

CHAPTER 54
    W hen he opens his eyes again, he is lying on a couch in the small back office of the restaurant, and Rich is taking his pulse.
    “I’m OK,” he says.
    Rich shakes his head, trying to conceal his anger. Or annoyance, really. “You are a lot of things, Silver, but OK is not one of them.”
    Silver sits up, to prove him wrong, or to prove to himself that he still can. He feels a wave of dizziness and almost lies down again, but he fights through it.
    “Where’s Denise?”
    “She’s outside. You know, at her wedding.”
    “I’m sorry,” Silver says. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” He could be summing up the moment, or his entire adult life.
    Rich fixes him with a hard look, and then sighs, his expression softening. “I know you didn’t.”
    “Get back out there. You can’t miss your own wedding. I’ll be fine.”
    “Casey went to get you a drink. I could use the break anyway.”
    They sit in silence for a moment. The office is small and musty and smells of dog, with messy stacks of paper on every available surface. Silver can’t imagine any real work getting done in here, but then again, what does he know from offices? Or work.
    “Hey, congratulations,” Silver says.
    Rich smiles archly. “Thanks.”
    “I thought I was dead.”
    “You’re not too far off.”
    Silver smiles grimly. He has run out of time, he can feel it. “You’ve got a wedding full of doctors here. Why are you the one in here with me? You should be out there, enjoying yourself.”
    Rich gives him a funny look. “Because you’re family,” he says. “You’re a colossal pain in the ass, but you’re family.”
    Silver nods. He still feels the urge to hit Rich, and maybe on some level you never stop wanting to inflict some kind of pain on the man your ex-wife loves, no matter how decent a man he is. But beyond that, he feels the simple, effortless generosity of Rich’s statement, including him in the family he has lost any right to claim. He doesn’t like to be pitied, will go to