It's Relay for Life in Periwinkle County today, from 1 pm until 1 pm tomorrow. Survivors' lap is at 7:30 tonight. Randall and Claire Nathan will be walking it, alone with too many other people. Thinking about surviving has Randall remembering the morning after his high school reunion last week.
Will Sparks was staying at the same motel, so they had breakfast together. Claire was sleeping in, so it was just Will and "Randy." That's what the "kids" called him in high school, "Randy." It didn't last long. Randall was never one to inspire dimunitives. But Will still calls him that.
"I didn't say anything last night at the reunion, Randy, but I want to tell you. I'm dying. The docs say I've got maybe 3 months."
"I thought you looked bad, Will, but you've always looked bad, so I didn't think anything about it."
[That's the way men talk to one another, especially when the subject is deep.]
"Yeah, it's a blessing, always looking bad. Nobody bothers to ask me how I am. But I got to thinking about your speech last night. I know you didn't get to say much when the restaurant told us we had to be out in 3 minutes and they hadn't even introduced you yet, but that thing you said about how in our class we're all in that final stage, when we have to write the conclusions to our stories, and we have to decide if the conclusion will be despair or integrity, being able to look back at our stories and say they were okay because they were ours, even though we made a lot of mistakes..."
"I said all that in 3 minutes?"
"I read your book. That helped."
"So, you've got to write the conclusion of your story fast now, Will. What will you write?"
"I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm not afraid to die. The situation is, I'm ready to go, but I'm not ready to leave..."
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