For One More Day by Mitch Albom Read Free Book Online Page A

me down? I could still taste blood in my mouth, and sharp pain came over me in waves; one minute I was neutral, the next minute everything ached. But here I was, walking down my old block, carrying my mother's purple vinyl bag of hair supplies.
    "Mom," I finally mumbled. "How ...?" "How what, honey?"
    I cleared my throat. "How can you be here?" "I live here," she said.
    I shook my head.
    "Not anymore," I whispered. She looked up at the sky.
    "You know, the day you were born, the weather was like this. Chilly but nice. It was late afternoon when I went into labor, remember?" (As if I should answer, "Oh, yeah, I remember.") "That doctor. What was his name? Rapposo? Dr. Rapposo. He told me I had to deliver by six o'clock because his wife was making his favorite supper, and he didn't want to miss it."
    I had heard this story before. "Fish sticks," I mumbled.

    "Fish sticks. Can you imagine? Such an easy thing to make. You'd think if he was rushing so much, it would at least be a steak. Ah, well, I didn't care. He got his fish sticks." She looked at me playfully.
    "And I got you."
    We took a few more steps. My forehead pounded. I rubbed it with the ball ofmy hand.
    "What happened, Charley? Are you in pain?"
    The question was so simple, it was impossible to answer. Pain? Where should I begin? The accident? The leap? The three-day bender? The wedding? My marriage? The depression? The last eight years? When was I not in pain?
    "I haven't been so good, Mom," I said. She kept on walking, inspecting the grass.
    "You know, for three years after I married your father, I wished for a child. In those days, three years to get pregnant, that was a long time.
    People thought there was something wrong with me. So did I. "
    She exhaled softly. "I couldn't imagine a life without children. Once, I even ... Wait. Let's see."
    She guided me toward the large tree on the corner near our house.
    "This was late one night, when I couldn't sleep." She rubbed her hand over the bark as if unearthing an old treasure. "Ah. Still there."
    I leaned in. The word PLEASE had been carved into the side. Small crooked letters. You had to look carefully, but there it was. PLEASE.
    "You and Roberta weren't the only ones who carved," she said, smiling.
    "What is it?"
    "A prayer." "For a child?" She nodded. "For me?" Another nod. "On a tree?"
    "Trees spend all day looking up at God. " I made a face.
    "I know." She lifted her hands in surrender. You're so corny, Mom. "
    She touched the bark again, then made a small bmm sound. She seemed to be considering everything that happened since die afternoon I came into the world. I wondered how that sound would change if she knew the whole story.
    "So, " she said, moving away, "now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted."
    She straightened and smoothed her coat. I wanted to cry. A wish granted? How long had it been since anyone referred to me as anything close to that? I should have been grateful. I should have been ashamed of how I'd turned my back on my life. Instead, I wanted a drink. I craved the darkness of a bar, the low-wattage bulbs, the taste of that numbing alcohol as I watched the glass empty, knowing the sooner it got in me, the sooner it would take me away.
    I stepped toward her and put my hand on her shoulder; I half expected it to cut right through, like you see in ghost movies. But it didn't. It rested there, and I felt her narrow bones beneath the fabric.
    "You died," I blurted out.
    A sudden breeze blew leaves off a pile. "You make too much of things," she said.
    POSEY BENETTO WAS a good talker, everybody said so. But, unlike a lot of good talkers, she was also a good listener. She listened to patients down at the hospital. She listened to neighbors in beach chairs on hot summer days. She loved jokes. She would push a hand into the shoulder of anyone who made her laugh. She was charming. That's how people