Life's Too Short

by Abby Jimenez

  I tucked her throw blanket around her and kissed her forehead. “There. Was that so bad?”

  She crossed her arms defiantly. Grace had started to do this too. I was outnumbered, two to one.

  Grace stood at my feet, opening and closing her little fists. “Dada.”

  I picked up our daughter. “Do you see how stubborn Mommy is?” I said, tickling her tummy, and she giggled, little blond curls bouncing.

  “I am not stubborn,” Vanessa huffed, trying not to let me see her smile.

  “Don’t even get me started with you,” I said, grinning. “You could have had this done months ago and you wouldn’t have nerve damage in your hand.”

  The issue hadn’t been ALS.

  Six months after I’d come to find her at Drake’s, Vanessa was still struggling with tingling fingers and weakness—but it never progressed past her arm. She’d finally agreed to some doctor’s visits and they found a benign cyst had been pressing on a nerve. She’d just had it removed this morning. It was an outpatient procedure and she was still loopy from the anesthesia.

  Since she hadn’t been using her hand, she’d lost muscle tone in her arm, but a little physical therapy and she’d get that back.

  She got a lot of things back when she got this diagnosis.

  She was thirty now. She’d officially outlived her grandmother, her aunt, her mom, and her older sister.

  That didn’t mean we were out of the woods. We’d never be out of the woods. ALS could always strike, at any time. She would always be a potential carrier of the gene. But every day that passed without the onset of symptoms, we felt more hopeful. And every day that passed we treated like a gift.

  It was Christmas Eve tomorrow. We were home for the holidays—among other things. Namely her surgery, her birthday, and the big one—our wedding.

  Our apartment was decorated for the holiday. The tree was up. Vanessa’s artwork hung on our walls, plus a few new pieces we’d picked up on our travels. Our bedroom ceiling had glow-in-the-dark stars and our junk drawer was chaos. My office had been turned into a nursery—not that we were here very often to use it. At the age of one year old, Grace had visited more countries than most people do in their lifetime.

  I grabbed my laptop and settled on the couch next to my wife.

  She peered up at me as I attached a file to an email to Malcolm. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “There’s a lot of private stuff in there.”

  I leaned in and kissed her. “I’m sure.”

  Our entire life was in this file. Videos of the last ten months. Our emotional first week back together, reconnecting on Drake’s island. Our trip to India, our cruise on the Baltic Sea, me kissing her in front of the Eiffel Tower. Grace saying mama for the first time, Grace saying dada for the first time. An emotional freak out by Vanessa at a resort in Hawaii after she couldn’t paddle board with her bad arm. I’d calmed her down and kept her still. Bushwhacking in Colombia, slow dancing on a promenade in Rio de Janeiro, Grace’s first steps. Back to the United States to see Mom and Grandma and Richard. Thanksgiving with Gerald and Annabel and Brent. Then my surprise wedding proposal in the hallway of our apartment building on the one-year anniversary of the day we met. Our engagement photo, our feet with a chalkboard between us with SHE SAID YES (TO TAPAS).

  We made the last video in the series last week. It was our wedding, on Vanessa’s thirtieth birthday, a private affair at the Sunken Garden in Como Park in St. Paul.

  Drake had officiated—he even put on a shirt for the occasion. My cousin Josh was my best man, and Gerald gave her away.

  Vanessa’s dad was doing well. Staying in therapy, holding down his job, and keeping the house clean. Vanessa was really proud of him.

  Brent and Joel were engaged. BoobStick was a huge success—as we knew it would be. It helped to fund most of our travels.

  Annabel…

  She left rehab early and relapsed. She had a hard couple of months after that. When she eventually returned to treatment, she was finally ready to get clean. She’d been sober since May and she was doing really well, working for Brent doing graphic design and taking classes online. She Skyped with Grace now and then and had spent lots of time with her since we’d been back in town.

  We’d decided that we’d tell Grace about her birth parents as soon as she was old enough to understand, but Annabel made it clear she only wanted to be an aunt. So even though our daughter would always know the truth about where she came from, Vanessa would always be Grace’s mommy.

  Annabel was Vanessa’s maid of honor at our wedding.

  This whole year had been our honeymoon, even if we weren’t officially married until a few days ago. And now we were going to share us with the world.

  There hadn’t been any updates on my wife or her condition since our reunion video. Laird had gotten the whole thing on camera. We’d posted it in response to the Where’s Vanessa Price hashtag that was trending on Twitter. Then we went back underground.

  There were rumors and sightings, but nothing that would take away what would likely be a thunderous roar for the fight against ALS by the release of this series. We’d be donating all the proceeds to research. If it would bring us closer to a cure, then I was perfectly happy to give the world our most intimate moments.

  I’d given up a lot of things for Vanessa, and I did not regret any of them.

  I still practiced law, but I focused my efforts exclusively on fighting for disability rights. It was something I’d become very passionate about over the last year.

  I saw the world through a different lens now. I noticed how hard it was to get wheelchair-accessible taxis and hotels. How rare it was in some places to find things I’d always taken for granted, like sidewalks. How so many restaurants and souvenir shops didn’t have ramps. On our last trip to New York, I saw blatant violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act with subways lacking elevators in most of their stations.

  If Vanessa ever did get sick, I wanted her world to stay as big as possible. I didn’t want there to be anywhere she, or others like her, couldn’t go and I’d spend the rest of my life fighting to make that a reality. It was rewarding and fulfilling—and I finally had my balance.

  I kept up with my therapy sessions and I was in an online support group for people living with terminal loved ones. I took care of my mental well-being with the same commitment that I took care of my family—because I couldn’t do one unless I did the other.

  Vanessa snuggled up to me and I put an arm around her. Grace leaned into me on the other side, holding her favorite stuffed bear.

  I told them I loved them every day. I never took tomorrow for granted. Aaaaand I read the horoscopes Becky texted me without exception.

  “Are you ready?” I asked, hovering my finger over the button that would send the file through. “We can’t get it back once it’s gone.”

  Vanessa grinned. “I don’t think ALS will know what hit it.”

  My lips twisted up into a smile. “Good.”

  {Send}.

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  Author’s Note

  While Vanessa’s character is fiction, I went into this book in awe of the inspirational real-life activist and YouTuber Claire Wineland.

  Claire lived with cystic fibrosis, an illness she refused to let define her. She used her platform to inspire and educate, traveling the world to speak to others about her life and encouraging those with chronic illnesses to find fulfillment and live proudly. A documentary about her life titled Claire can be found exclusively on YouTube.

  Claire passed away in 2018 at twenty-one from complications after a lung transplant. She donated her organs to those in need.

  She was a beautiful soul.

  Discussion Questions

  Would you have given your baby to a strange man at 4:00 a.m.?

  Would you help friends and family suffering from addiction? At what point is it enabling, and when should you stop?

  How difficult is it for you to live in the
moment and enjoy life to the fullest today versus saving and investing for the future? Can you do both?

  How do you feel about Vanessa’s decision not to seek treatment?

  Do you believe that couples in a relationship should make decisions about end of life and medical care together? Or is that for the dying person to decide?

  Could you enter a relationship knowing your partner might have only a year to live? Is it better not to know?

  If you had the platform, what issue or cause would you raise awareness for? What can you do now to make a difference today?

  Adrian’s Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

  3½ 32-ounce cartons chicken broth (or 112 ounces)

  14 ounces mirepoix mix (or 2 carrots, 1 stalk of celery, 1 large white onion—chopped)

  2 cups sliced mushrooms (optional)

  Fresh poultry bouquet (two stems each of rosemary, sage, thyme)

  1 pound cooked shredded chicken

  2 boxes of Rice-A-Roni Long Grain & Wild Rice with seasoning

  Salt to taste

  Roux:

  ¾ cup butter

  1 cup flour

  3 cloves minced garlic

  ¼ cup cooking sherry

  1 pint heavy whipping cream

  Directions:

  Put broth, onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms (if using), herbs (on the stems), chicken, and rice and seasoning packets into a large stock pot and simmer until the rice is cooked and the carrots are soft, approximately 20 minutes. Remove the herb stems and any loose sage leaves. Add salt to taste.

  Make the roux:

  In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and garlic, whisking constantly until the mixture boils. Boil for one minute. Slowly pour in the sherry and cream, mixing constantly until thick. Add the roux to the soup and serve.

  Note: If soup is too thick, it can be thinned with more broth or milk.

  Makes 12 servings

  Tastes extra yummy in bread bowls. Can be frozen up to three months for later.

  Vanessa’s Horseradish Mashed Potatoes

  3 pounds quartered russet potatoes, skins on

  8 ounces cream cheese

  ¼ cup butter

  4 tablespoons creamy horseradish or horseradish sauce, plus more to taste

  Salt to taste

  Directions:

  Bring water to boil in a large stockpot. Add potatoes. Boil the potatoes until soft, approximately 15 to 25 minutes. Drain.

  Use a handheld mixer to combine all ingredients, adding the horseradish 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired flavor.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to pharmacist Tracy Nelson for helping me get the narcotics and the details surrounding addiction in this book right.

  A big thank-you to attorneys Lisa and Katie Tuntigian-Ringer and attorney Larry Hales for your legal prowess. Thank you, Terri Saenz and Dan Schoonover, and as always a huge thank-you to my group admins, who make so much of what I do possible. Jeanette Jett, Terri Puffer Burrell, Lindsay Van Horn, and Dawn Cooper, you guys rock.

  Thank you to beta readers Kim Kao, Lyndse Kay, Amy Edwards Norman, Trish Gee, Lisa Stremmel, and Leigh Kramer. To my agent, Stacey Graham; my editor, Leah Hultenschmidt; my publicist, Estelle Hallick; cover designer Sarah Congdon; production editor Mari Okuda; production coordinator Marie Mundaca; and the whole Forever Romance team. I can’t believe I suckered you guys into another three-book deal—haha!

  Additional thanks to these fabulous supporters!

  Kristina Aadland

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