Riggs Park
October 2000
Until Marilyn called, I had no thought of being flung back into the warm and rushing stream of my own youth. I was having enough trouble with the present. Staring out at the sea without really seeing it, I had spent the last hour mentally snatching petals from a daisy — he loves me, he loves me not. Subtract fifty years, add an actual flower, and I might have been eight. I hardly heard the phone. Two rings. Three. The answering machine could take it. Then I got curious and picked up.
"Well, it's back," Marilyn announced. Pert and casual. Not even a hello. Her same peppy self.
"What's back?" As if I didn't know. "The decent fall weather's back?" My heart always skipped a beat or two when I lied, but as much as it scared me, I fibbed on. "Washington's always pretty in the fall."
"No, no. Not the weather. The beast."
Slay the Beast had been our motto.
"Oh, Marilyn, no. When did you find out?"
"They told me for sure this morning. I swear, I always get cancer on Thursday and then I have to wait the whole damn weekend for the test results."
"But Thursday! That was a week ago yesterday. Wh ... read full excerpt from: Riggs Park ebook
