Free Live Like You Were Dying by Michael Morris Page A

distant places she would clip from the Sunday travel section of the Valdosta newspaper. Smelling the pages, I hoped that the strawberry scent of her perfume was still locked inside.
    â€œWhat are you smelling?” Malley asked.
    â€œThe past,” I said, never taking my nose from the pages. I started to flip through the book of my mother’s dreams. Articles on the Empire State Building, Miami Beach, and the Oregon coastline stretched before me. “These are all the places that I want to see,” my mother would say as she clipped the newspaper pages. “When we going, Mama?” I’d ask. “One day,” she’d say, never taking her eyes from the exotic pictures that teased us. “Maybe one day.”
    But one day never arrived in time for my mama. A tumor on her pancreas had caused a detour, and by then the journey was too far off in the horizon. Flipping through the pages that were dedicated to the Grand Canyon, the weight of regret felt as heavy as the clay-colored mountains in the photograph. That was the trip that came the closest to becoming reality. Mama had already made the reservations at a campground that she promised would be just as exciting as the one the Brady Bunch had visited on TV. But a new tractor took precedent over an extravagant trip. “We got to use common sense around here,” my father had said the night he came home with the tractor. “Besides, that big old hole in the ground will still be there later on,” he added as he flicked a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. My mama only winked and forced a smile as I folded my arms and leaned back against the vinyl chair. “Maybe one day,” she whispered while reaching for my plate. “Maybe one day.”
    â€œWhat do you remember most about Grandmama?” Heather asked, smiling at Malley. Emotion hung in the back of my throat, and for a moment I feared that it might choke me. A sentimental journey with my father was not what I was wanting. Not as I was holding the book of my mother’s lost dreams.
    â€œCornbread,” Malley said and laughed. She brushed the hair from her eyes and said, “It was sweet like cake or something.”
    â€œWhat about you, Grand Vestal? What do you miss?” Heather searched Grand Vestal and then looked at me. How could Grand Vestal offer up only one thing that she missed about her firstborn child?
    â€œSweet smiles.” Grand Vestal said. “That little smile of hers warmed my heart the first time she let me see it. The day I was sitting over yonder, nursing her. Then that smile warmed my heart all over again the last time I saw her, the day she drifted away. The Lord’s been good to me.”
    The sounds of chirping birds rolled into the house, but no one else stirred. We just sat there staring at a scrapbook that they all saw as sweet reminders. I saw the book of clippings only as lost opportunities. Malley looked over at the scrapbook in my hands.
    â€œWhat’s that a picture of, Daddy?”
    I snapped the book closed.
    Rising, my father coughed before standing to his feet. The conversation was too much for him; he didn’t want to talk about my mother any more than I did.
    â€œIt’s a picture of the Grand Canyon,” I said before he could make it past the hall table that held the phone and the figurines.
    My father stopped, and for the first time I saw the back of his neck. It was lined with wrinkles as deep as those of an old man. His jeans dropped lower, and part of his denim shirt hung free from the waist of his pants.
    â€œThere was this trip we planned one time. Back when I was a little boy. Mama sat up late planning that trip to the
    Grand Canyon for days on end. She even had me to draw the colors that I thought we’d find spread out across that big open space.”
    â€œWere they the colors you thought they’d be?” Malley asked.
    Shrugging, I flicked the corner of my mouth with my