Dearest Ivie (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #15.5)

by J.R. Ward

“Just so you know, I pay my cousin to make me feel like a two-day-old truck-stop sandwich. It’s a bizarre relationship, but it keeps her off the streets and my ego in check.”

Death can be a release and a relief for the person, and that is a blessing. The thing is, a lot of times, it is work to die. It requires physical and emotional effort. What sucks is that for most, particularly if they’re dying out of sequence, it’s a job they don’t want. It’s about loss of control, loss of function, loss of identity and independence…loss of choice and decision, of family and friends. But if you can let go of all that, what comes with it is freedom. A soaring freedom, the soul released from its temporary prison of mortality.”

“Yeah, except here’s the thing.” She put her hands up. “Ya dead, either way. So it’s a win/win. You get eternal life with calorie-free M&M’s and fettuccini Alfredo—or, you’re worm food with no consciousness so you won’t know and won’t care. Might as well assume the best because it’s less likely to drive you crazy with a depressing distraction while you’re whooping it up on this side, right?”

“I would like to pay for this.” Silas motioned around their table, which had been cleared of eighty percent of its contents. All that was left were their coffee cups and the half of a cannoli he hadn’t eaten. “I respect you as a modern female and don’t want you to feel—” “Hell yeah, you can pay. This was your idea and I’m not blowing part of my rent money this month just to prove I’m a feminist. I can do that for free by demanding respect and getting it.” He threw his head back and laughed. “Fair enough.”

The reality is that the dying are still living just as everyone who is living is in the process of dying.

And later, much later, she would reflect that it was then that she became an adult. Standing in that corridor, in her father’s embrace, she fully came into her maturity. The thing was, when you were young, and you went to your parents for support, nine times out of ten, they could fix whatever was wrong. They could glue the broken rudder back on your sailboat. Throw a Band-Aid on a cut. Feed you when you were hungry, put you to bed when you were exhausted, hang out with you when you were alone. They could help you find what was lost, make the storms go away, buy you an ice cream when someone was mean to you for no good reason. Parents, when you were a child, were the source of it’s-gonna-be-all-right. But as Ivie leaned on her dad, it was as an adult. He couldn’t fix this, and she knew better than to even ask.

Sometimes just showing up in person meant everything.

Sometimes the miracle people prayed for was nothing more exotic than “normal.”

Ivie smiled and giggled—yes, giggled. Because sometimes, even hard, tough females like her had too many champagne bubbles in their bloodstream to keep them inside.