Chapter 86: Making it work

NATE

"Did I ever tell you the story of our first Christmas together, after your mom and I were married?"

I frowned as my dad sat down at the other end of the sofa. We'd finished our makeshift Fourth of July picnic about half an hour before, and he'd been in the kitchen, helping my mom, Quinn and Carrie clean up. The red checkered picnic cloth was still spread over the coffee table; the idea of making my way outside to the backyard exhausted me, and no way in hell was I going to give in to my dad's suggestion that he carry me there. I might have been dying by degrees, but I could still do my best not to look like a cripple in my wife's eyes.

Yeah, I knew it was stupid and pigheaded of me. But since I was dying at the age of twenty-two, I figured I was owed a little latitude.

My father's opening line was random, but he was shrewd and more often than not, came around to his topic by the backdoor, as my mom liked to say. So I decided to see where he was going with this.

"I don't th