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Show Blue Run/93 Of course, the will never saw an attorney-Stepwells aren't attorney kind of people Dense as gumbo, but we've got good hearts-nobody says a word about our hearts. We planned everything out, my service, how Joey'd deliver the eulogy for the family, and what peckerhead Brother Dell was allowed and not allowed to say. We talked through who got what. I read my husband my will, a love letter really, and O.W. sat their nodding. He's not a word man. But he was sweet, even cried some when I got to his part. By the time Dr. Casket cut me open, my ducks were in a row. I was ready, save the briefcase left leaning beside my night stand That's how the world stood before they put me under Only, I didn't die Dr. Coffin met me in recovery With a big smile on his face "You're going to make it, honey. Honey? You're going to live, Josephine Stepwell. Ain't that the shits? You're alive " Beside me, O.W. nodded. But he wasn't looking it me, more like some me laying beside me Joey says he got real wacky on the phone, that he'd call up and say the most amazing things in a funny voice. He'd pretend he'd called earlier, forget whole conversations. I didn't know why Who knows a damn thing about men, really? Their crooked insides? What they're capable of dreaming up in an eighteen-wheeler dragging dead birds across Tennessee? The hell of it~not only did I not die, I got better Better and better and better. Dora'd call at three a.m. She had the dirt on Brother Dell and Deacon Meloy-we'd be in stitches till the sun came up. For the first time in sixteen years my lupus went into full remission. The swelling went down in my knees so walking didn't kill me. Honeysuckle bloomed all May and songbirds went crazy for every sunrise, or so it seemed. I kept thinking, I am alive. I am alive. What do you do |