To Live Read online

  To Live

  C. G. Cooper

  Contents

  From The Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Also by C. G. Cooper

  About the Author

  “TO LIVE”

  Copyright © 2018 C. G. Cooper Entertainment, LLC.

  All Rights Reserved

  Author: C. G. Cooper

  GET A FREE COPY OF THE CORPS JUSTICE PREQUEL SHORT STORY, GOD-SPEED, JUST FOR SUBSCRIBING AT CG-COOPER.COM

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations and events are all products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual events or real persons are completely coincidental.

  Any unauthorized reproduction of this work is strictly prohibited.

  A HUGE thanks to my beta readers: Mary, Kathryn, Michael S., Sue, Colin, Susan, Maggie, Michael F., Connie, Nancy, Sandy, Kim, Paul, Andrea, Melissa, Don, Gail, Richard, Len, Julie, Bob, Anne, Alex and Donald. Thanks for watching my six…

  And to my literary guardian angels, Paul and Glenda, thanks for everything :)

  From The Author

  "TO LIVE" is a novel that came about after a handful of emotional conversations with my readers on Christmas Day 2017. What started as an outreach program to make sure no one spent Christmas alone, turned into a story in my head, and then a journey of soul searching that I hadn't intended to take. This novel is a work of fiction, but I hope it encapsulates the fear so many of us face in living up to our potential, and more importantly, I hope it highlights the brave life so many choose to live after the loss of a loved one. Because it is a choice; a hard choice with so many possible endings.

  This novel is for the readers who have shared their stories, and for those who have yet to tell. Thank you for your honesty, your bravery and your incredible will to live. I've learned so much from you all. God bless.

  - C. G. Cooper

  Prologue

  Cancer.

  Cancer.

  Cancer?

  “Sorry, Ted, it sounded like you said cancer.”

  “I did.”

  “Oh.”

  Too many thoughts, most of all, relief. Strange.

  “No time to waste. There are preparations to be made, things to talk about…”

  The rest of the doctor’s words faded into the background.

  Just like that, it’d happened. A farewell physical on his last day of work, and here it was.

  Elmore Thaddeus Nix rose from his chair. The doctor, his old friend, Ted Baker, handed him a pile of pamphlets. More platitudes.

  “Sure, sure,” Elmore said absentmindedly.

  He passed by the nurse practitioner, the receptionist – even the other patients looked like they pitied him.

  The pamphlets went into the waste bin next to the elevator doors.

  It’s better this way, he thought, pressing the button to go to the ground floor. Yes, it was better this way.

  Chapter One

  The house was stone quiet when he creaked in from the garage. That single step hurt. It was the knees. Who knew a step could send such pain streaking up a leg? There was a time when… well, that was another time.

  Elmore Nix slipped off his shoes and set them next to the neat pile by the door. It’s how Eve liked them, like soldiers on parade. Neat and tidy. Always tidy. Four pairs of his and only one of hers. The pair he’d bought at the discount place, the outlet mall she liked to go to on the way to Asheville. He couldn’t remember the name.

  “Mr. Nix, is that you?” came the voice from the kitchen.

  “It’s me, Martha.” He followed the smell of chili. Martha was part caregiver, part cook. Good thing because the best Elmore could do was peanut butter sandwiches on white. Or burgers, if it was a Sunday and he was feeling gastronomically adventurous.

  He padded into the kitchen, thinking that he should’ve slipped into his slippers, the ones he’d gotten two Christmases back. But there’d been that fall. (When had falls on hardwood started to hurt so much?) He huffed it away like so many things.

  “How was your appointment?” Martha asked, stirring the pot on the gas stove.

  “You know, another year, another physical.” He glanced at the newspaper on the table. No interest there. “How is she?”

  Martha let out one of those exhales. Elmore Nix had come to find that there were all manner of exhales. There was the exhale that marked exhaustion. There was the exhale that told you a person had had enough of a conversation. And then there was the current variety, somewhere between pity and hope.

  “She’s been tossing around a bit.” Martha’s southern accent rang clear when she spoke of her patient. “She’s comfortable. Been askin’ for you.”

  Elmore nodded. “Should probably get something to eat before I see her.”

  “I’ll have it ready when you come back.” Sweet Martha. Always knew what was best.

  “Okay. I’ll be back.”

  Elmore stepped lightly as he made his way to the other end of the house. The master bedroom had originally been a tiny thing, more of an afterthought than a real room. But, they’d knocked down a wall and combined it with the bedroom next door. She liked the view of the backyard. No less than four bird feeders and a birdbath out there.

  The door was open, and he tried to ignore the harsh sounds of man-made machines used to keep his loved one alive.

  He peeked inside, feeling like a teenager again, nervous and far from his sixty-seven years of age. She did that to him.

  And there she was, sleeping peacefully. She’d lost weight, but she was still beautiful to him. Always beautiful. His gorgeous Eve.

  He stepped to the bedside, throwing a cursory glance toward the monitors. Interlopers. How many of these would he have? Ma
ybe he could pull another bed into the master bedroom and they could lay their days away.

  “Elmore?” Her eyes were fluttering open. She had that uncanny ability to always know when he was near. Even in a dead sleep, she’d wake and give him that little smile, like she did now.

  God, she’s beautiful, he thought.

  “Hey Honey,” he said, stroking her forehead, careful to avoid the oxygen tube.

  “How was your last day, Elmore? I wanted to be there but Martha said I should get some rest.”

  She hadn’t left the house in weeks. Still, she talked like she left every day. Not a shred of self-pity.

  “It was good,” he said. “They had cake.”

  “What kind?” she asked, the familiar sparkle coming to her eyes.

  “Caramel.”

  She picked her head up. “From Benecke’s?”

  He nodded.

  “Your favorite.”

  “Yep.”

  “Someone fudge the numbers in accounting to procure that?”

  “Either that or there was a bank heist in town. Check the papers.”

  “Seriously though,” she said hoarsely, “since when did those ‘cheapos’ ever shell out for a bakery cake for someone’s last day?”

  He wanted to tell her the good news. For some reason he didn’t.

  “I brought you home a piece.”

  She nodded, pretending along with her high school sweetheart. She hadn’t had a bite of real food in five days – or was it seven?

  I need to remember these things, he thought. She would.

  “Did you put it in the microwave? Ten seconds?”

  How did she do that? Remember every last detail of his life, right down to his peculiar affinity for slightly gooey caramel cake? She remembered things like that and he’d struggled to remember her shoe size. Now, he thought, he’d cling to these minutiae like the last piece of driftwood in a swirling sea.

  “And was it perfect?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The cake. Was it perfect?”

  “I should’ve had a second piece. Would have if you’d been there.”

  She nodded, knowing him better than he knew himself.

  “Tell me everything,” she said, placing her hand on his.

  “Well, if you can believe it, I actually put all my stuff into a box.”

  A slight smile on her drawn face. “You didn’t.”

  “Scout’s honor. It was just like in the movies. They actually gave me a box. And so, I put in all my stuff – pictures, Post-its, my Elvis Pez dispenser, all of it. Plus a box of paperclips – I had to take something, after all. And I walked out of that place with fifteen years of toil and tears crammed into a cardboard box. All I needed was a big ol’ spider plant sticking out the top and I would’ve been the undisputed king of cliché.”

  He realized as he spoke that he would like to have stayed for a full day of work. He hadn’t missed a day in his life, not even when Eve got sick (she wouldn’t let him). They went to the doctor on his lunch breaks or on the weekend. They were lucky enough to have a nearby seven-days-a-week place.

  And as he spoke, he filled his soul with the sight of her. His wife. His beautiful Evelyn. The light of his life. His everything.

  Chapter Two

  Eve died two days later, but not without imparting her final morsel of wisdom.

  How had she found the strength, the will, to get the words out?

  There he’d sit, trying to find the words. What could he say? How could he distill a lifetime of love into insignificant words?

  Eve knew how. She’d done it.

  But she’d messed up his plans in the process. She really had. But wasn’t that how she’d lived? There were the dance lessons they’d paid for with the money he had put aside to restore his dad’s old Pontiac. There was the trip to Paris with the money from the house extension.

  Eve was always doing that – living in the moment. He was the planner. She was the free spirit, the light to his… well, to his life.

  Those last moments he would never forget. Lucidity had been a fleeting thing for that last day. The meds kicked and swirled through her body. He could almost see it, smell it.

  In those last moments, Eve just stared at him, with all the love and warmth of their forty years together. Then came the moment of burning intensity, the glee for life she’d always shown. Those eyes burned right through him, filled him with hope that she was coming out of it. Maybe it had all been a mistake. There she was. There was his Eve.

  Her hand tightened on his, lips moving, warming up for something.

  “Live,” she said, still locked onto his gaze.

  “Okay,” he said.

  How could he break his promise? He had never lied to her. Never. He had never broken a single promise to her. Never.

  Her eyes fluttered closed. Off she drifted. To sleep at first.

  Devoted husband. Entranced partner. He sat, watching her chest rise and fall, until it fell for the last time.

  Live.

  Chapter Three

  He only left his house one time over the next week. The visitation was a small thing. Elmore didn’t remember much, just faces he couldn’t place, well wishes from strangers who had once been friends.

  Then he retreated home. Her room was empty, but he could still smell her. He spent one day cleaning and purging. And then another, just sitting, staring at the bed.

  And the rest of the time he slept.

  And she came to him.

  “Live,” she said, and her voice was a whisper on his heart. “Live.”

  Chapter Four

  A week after his wife’s funeral, Elmore Nix finally emerged from his home. He was sick of refrigerated food. At least that’s what he told himself. But deep down, it was Eve’s words that haunted him. As the prisoner days passed, he felt that single word gain strength.

  Live.

  What had she meant?

  Elmore tried to write it off as the last words of a dying woman, his dying woman, his love, his life. She’d gone and taken his life along with her. Their days together, their walks through the neighborhood. Not only had Eve been the center of every action he’d taken for the past forty years, she’d been the impetus behind meeting new friends, contacting old friends, and traveling near and far.

  The sun spiked down, highlighting his exit as he pulled the car out of the garage. He’d forgotten his sunglasses. Too late now. Better get going.

  He needed food. The stuff he’d received from well-wishers was almost gone.

  Not that it mattered. Hunger was merely a biological communication from his body to his brain. From his mind came a different message altogether: just wither away.

  But there were two factions within Elmore Nix. While one faction would have him drown, the other would have him extract every last bit of oxygen he could from the water. And that was that. Giving up wasn’t in the cards. Especially after the promise he’d made to Eve.

  Live.

  He ignored the turn for the grocery store. Too many memories. Shopping for summer vegetables for Eve’s famous stew. Making a pharmacy pit stop for her weekly pile of meds. No. Too many memories.

  He drove across town to a store he’d never been in to shop. It was a relatively new place, all clean aisles and fresh scents. Carts that went straight and not like Ouija board planchettes. A manager greeted him at the entrance.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said cheerily, stacking plastic baskets.

  “Morning,” he said.

  They were the first words he’d uttered in days. His voice was coated in fuzz.

  “Can I help you find anything?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  She gave him a nod and went back to her task of running the store.

  It took Elmore a few moments to orient himself. The place was huge, a sprawling center of American capitalism. Stacks of soda pop announced a merry weekend of revelry. A cooler of steaks and potatoes proclaimed the perfect meal for a God-fearing American family.

>   Eve would’ve liked the place. Fresh bread. Much more than their usual grocer. He almost asked for a pair of glazed donuts, something he’d done every Sunday. One for him...

  Live.

  He passed the bakery and kept moving. Still the memories. How was that possible?. Every single thing brought images of her smiling face, her constant adventurous flirt. Eyes only for him. The images came like nuclear blasts blotting out the landscape.

  He rolled past produce, wine, snacks.

  Maybe a magazine, he thought. He liked the history ones, the ones packed with nuggets that he liked to chew on for days.

  Yes, there it was. Aisle 12.

  He scooted past a young family with a swaddled baby. The butcher gave the young child a tiny wave with a meaty hand.