The Twenty-Three 3 (Promise Falls) Read Online Free PDF

it down in one gulp.
    Pondered breakfast.
    Most days he had cereal. But if Emily was making bacon and eggs or pancakes or French toast—anything that required more effort—he was always quick to get in on that. But it did not appear that his landlady was going to any extra trouble today.
    “Emily?” he called out again.
    There was a door off the kitchen that led to the backyard. Two if one counted the screen door. The inner door was ajar, which led Victor to think perhaps Emily had gone outside.
    Victor refilled his glass with orange juice, then swung the door farther open, took a look at the small backyard through the glass of the screen door.
    Well, there was Emily.
    Face-planted on the driveway, about ten feet away from her cute little blue Toyota, car keys in one hand. She’d probably been carrying her purse with the other, but it was at the edge of the drive, where, presumably, she had dropped it. Her wallet and the small case in which she carried her reading glasses had tumbled out.
    She was not moving. From where Victor stood, he couldn’t even see her back rising and falling ever so gently, an indication that she might still be alive.
    He put his juice glass on the counter and decided maybe it would be a good idea to go outside and take a closer look.

THREE
     
    Duckworth
     
    I have a routine for getting on the scale in the morning.
    First of all, I have to be in the bathroom alone. If Maureen’s in there and sees me step on the scale, she’ll peer around and take a peek, say something like, “How’s it coming?”
    Of course, if it were coming along well, I wouldn’t mind her sneaking a look, but the odds are it won’t be going well at all.
    Second, I have to be naked. If I have so much as a towel wrapped around me, once I’ve seen the readout on the scale, I’ll tell myself I should allow five pounds for the towel. It is, after all, a thick one.
    I can’t have had anything to eat, either. On rare occasions, I’ll have some breakfast before attending to my morning ablutions. Those days, I do not bother to weigh myself.
    Once those three conditions have been met, I’m ready to actually step on the scale.
    This must be done very slowly. If I pounce on the thing, I fearthe needle will shoot up too quickly and stick there. Maureen will wander in later and ask if I’m really 320 pounds.
    I am not.
    But if I’m being honest with you, I’m at 276. Okay, that’s not exactly true. It’s more like 280.
    Anyway, I put one hand on the towel rack as I step on, not just to balance myself, but to give the scale a chance to prepare for what’s coming. Once I’ve got both feet planted firmly on it, I carefully release my grip on the bar.
    And face the music.
    Maureen, in the kindest, most supportive way, has been trying to get me to lose a few pounds. She hasn’t expressed the slightest disapproval about how I look. She claims to love me as much as ever. That I’m still the sexiest man she’s ever known.
    I’m grateful for her lies.
    But she says more fruit and vegetables and grains, and fewer donuts and ice cream and pie, might be good for me.
    She doesn’t know the half of it.
    I’ve been to the doctor. Our regular GP, Clara Moorehouse. Dr. Moorehouse says I am borderline diabetic. That my blood pressure is dangerously high. That I am carrying extra weight in the worst place a man can—on my gut.
    It really hit home for me the other day, at the drive-in. A woman who served over in Iraq as a bomb deactivator was helping us out, trying to figure out how the explosive charges had been rigged to bring the screen down, and it was all I could do to keep up with her as she moved about the rubble like a mountain goat scaling a cliffside.
    I was out of breath. My heart was pounding.
    Which I told Dr. Moorehouse yesterday.
    “You have to make a decision,” she told me. “No one can make it for you.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “Do you know why you do it?” she asked.
    “I like to eat,” I said. “And