Free The Life of Glass by Jillian Cantor Page B

time that I woulddo what she said and see if it got better on its own in a few weeks. And each time I held my breath, waiting for something to subside: stomach pain (appendicitis or an ulcer), sore throat and swollen glands (lymphoma), pain in my chest (a clogged artery).
    The pains all went away, some slowly, some quickly, but the fear did not, the knowledge that a terrible disease could creep up on you at any second, that it could blindside you and take everything, swiftly and all at once.
    So you would think after all the worrisome information I’d found on the internet, I might have thought twice before Googling Sally Bedford. But I didn’t. Her name burned my brain, and it made my head hurt. I sat there, my throbbing head in one hand, the scrap of paper with her name in the other, and I debated whether I should try to figure out if I could have a brain tumor or if I should try to figure out who she was. I picked the second choice.
    It seemed like it would be a common name, but the first entry that popped up was for a Sally Bedford who worked at Charles and Large Accountants. No, that couldn’t be right. She couldn’t have worked at the same accounting firm as my dad. I would’ve heard of her before.
    I clicked on the website, and it took me to the C & L site, with a page that had pictures of their employees. Sally Bedford, it read under her name, senior office manager. The picture of her was grainy and small, so it was hard to see what she really looked like, but she wasn’t beautiful, not even close to my mother.
    Her hair was a mousy brown. She had olive skin and green eyes and this pointy little chin and a button nose that looked a little small for her face. It was as if someone had taken all of her features and squashed them incorrectly, because she looked entirely out of proportion. I wondered what her story was—and if it was interesting enough for my father to include in his notes, or if it was something he’d decided to pass up on. It was the only reasonable explanation I could think of for why he would have a note to call her in his journal.
    What Grandma Harry said still gnawed at me. But she must have gotten confused. Or maybe Sally Bedford was the name of a girl he’d dated in college and she’d ended up working at the same accounting firm, which didn’t really explain why he had that note in his book.
    I felt this anger at him, my father. It boiled up in my chest and burned my throat, giving me this terribleacidic taste in my mouth. It wasn’t fair that he wasn’t here for me to ask him, for him to make the worry subside. I imagined the way it might have gone:
    “Hey, Dad. Can I ask you something?”
    “What is it, Melon? You know you can ask me anything.”
    “Well, who’s Sally Bedford? Grandma said you dated her and I found her name in your book.”
    He’d laugh—I could still remember the sound of his laughter, big and roaring in a way that reminded me of a lion. “Dated her? Why, if you consider doing someone’s taxes dating them, I’d have racked up quite a few women over the years.”
    But that didn’t make any sense; why would Grandma Harry know about her then?
    “Dated her? Her parents own Sunset Vistas, and she helped us get Grandma Harry in. You know how easily she gets attached to people.” He’d laugh again and shake his head, as if to say that Grandma Harry was a nut job, but still he loved her all the same.
    But he wasn’t here. So there was no one to ask, no easy explanations.
    I crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it in my trash can. What difference did it make now anyway? Icrawled into my bed, climbed under the covers, and put the pillow over my throbbing head.
     
    I fell into a deep sleep, and I had a dream about him. He was riding on my bike down the wash, and I was trying to keep up with him on foot, but he was just out of my reach, just ahead of me. I stopped running and put my head down to catch my breath. “Don’t give up,” he said to me as he kept