One Last Thing Before I Go

within a week, the apartment will have been repainted, and some other poor loser already moved in, still falling asleep every night to the hum of the thruway, reassuring himself that it’s only temporary, a minor setback. There is a fair amount of turnover at the Versailles, and when it happens, it happens fast. He briefly pictures Jack and Oliver sitting at the pool, Jack watching the college girls, Oliver napping, Silver’s empty chair between them as a memorial.
    He goes for a walk as the sun is setting. There’s a faint chill in the air, barely noticeable, but he can feel the ghost of the colder season to come. He nods a greeting to everyone he passes, returning any smiles that come his way, overcome with sentimentality. He would like to be remembered, he thinks, and then panics that he won’t be. Now that he’s decided to live, he’s terrified that he will die. He is painfully aware of his every heartbeat, wondering if this will be the one that tears his aorta, draining his heart as it floods his organs. He realizes that he didn’t shave today, and wonders if they shave you postmortem. The idea of being buried with stubble is disconcerting.
    He turns onto a block, just prior to the business district, with a long row of two-family town houses. Lily is sitting on her porch beside a decrepit-looking dog as she waits for him. She smiles as he comes down the block, not the radiant smile that he hopes she will one day hold in reserve for him, but it’s still a warm smile, and he welcomes it.
    “Hey,” she says, coming down the stairs.
    He wonders if they’re at the stage where a kiss hello is called for, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he remembers that he might be dead tomorrow, and he leans in to kiss her mouth, softly and decisively. He feels her lips part beneath his, and knows he’s made the right choice, so he stays there for a while, until the need for oxygen becomes imperative.
    She looks at him inquisitively. “So, what’s new and exciting?”
    “I don’t want to die.”
    “Good, because the ability to breathe is definitely something I look for in a man.”
    “Anyway, I can’t really stay. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to have that operation. And that I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
    She nods, and then takes his hand in hers. “I know we just met, really, but do you have people?”
    He was right about her. It’s nice to be right about something like that. “Yes,” he says. “I have people.”
    “OK, because, you know, I’m around.”
    “I appreciate that. But I think I need to do this part on my own. I just came to tell you that that’s the only reason I won’t be calling for a few days. But if you’re up for it, I’d really like to call you once I’m back on my feet.”
    She fixes him with another warm smile. “I’m up for it.”
    “Good.”
    He kisses her again, and feels momentarily reborn when her fingers gently graze the side of his face. He steps back and stupidly kisses her hand before backing away. She laughs. “You’ve really got no game at all, do you?”
    “Maybe. Or maybe having no game is my game.”
    “Well, whatever it is, it’s working for you.”
    He grins and takes in the sight of her one last time. There’s very little he knows about her, and the whole thing could either fizzle or go up in flames, or he could die tomorrow and never find out. But right here, in this moment, he feels himself falling in love with her, and that feeling alone is a perfect little miracle.
    “Hey,” she calls out to him as he heads up the block away from her. “Are you going to be OK?”
    He turns back to her and smiles. “That’s the plan,” he says.

CHAPTER 56
    I n order to fix Silver’s heart, they first have to shave his groin. He didn’t see that coming. He lies in bed while an Asian nurse shaves him, first with an electric trimmer and then with a disposable razor. He finds the whole process a bit of a violation. The nurse wears a surgical mask as she shaves him, which seems somewhat extreme, but he doesn’t mind, since he really doesn’t want to know what she looks like.
    He leans back on his pillow and counts his heartbeats. Yesterday he watched his wife marry another man. Today, the groom will insert a catheter arthroscopically into Silver’s freshly shaved groin and guide it up to his damaged aorta, where Rich will repair it by inserting a stent in precisely the right spot. Done correctly, this will save his life. Done