The Lives of Rocks by Rick Bass

Author:Rick Bass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

She had only one more week left of treatment. Millions of patients had been through it before—they would nearly all call it the most physically grueling and spiritual thing they’d ever done, and would often speak of the hidden blessing of the cancer, of the way it awakened in them incredible awareness of even the simplest pleasures. But such testimonials irked Jyl, for she did not feel she had ever taken those little moments for granted in the first place. On the contrary, she had always been acutely aware of them, even worshipful of them. It wasn’t fair.

The treatment had been calibrated to reach its toxic peak during its last week, but she felt in every way that she had already turned the corner, that the worst week was just behind her, and that despite the increasing radioactive and chemical bombardment her body was growing stronger again. And when she told the doctors this, they shrugged and said that it was possible, that different patients responded in different ways.

She sent forth another boat, relating her saga of having seen the big deer, and inviting the children to return when they could. She told them she looked forward to it, and that she would bake a cake, that she had gotten rice and pineapple at the store. She told them she wished the current would flow both ways, like a tide, so that they could send her messages.

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