Read Online The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman - Free Book Online

“She looked pretty.”
    â€œMaybe you should get her a vat and some black dye. She deserved better.”
    Maddy tried to get him to drink some more, but he waved her away.
    â€œDo you know why I'm really mad? Because I knew this would happen and it has. I can't move my legs, little sister. I can't see you.”
    Maddy put the drink down, and took up the watery soup. “You should eat.”
    â€œThat's enough,” Paul said after three spoonfuls. “I'm throwing up blood.”
    Maddy put the tray away and came to sit beside him on the bed; she leaned her head against his chest. There was his heart, still beating.
    â€œPoor Allie,” Paul told Maddy. “Her childhood repeated all over again. A life spent in someone's sickroom. I wound up doing exactly what I vowed I'd never do to her. She's fucking terrified.”
    â€œAllie was never terrified of anything,” Maddy said.
    Paul laughed and then began to cough. “You don't know her as well as you think you do. She's terrified all right.”
    â€œStop talking. You need to rest up.”
    â€œI don't have to rest up to die. And don't tell me I'll be well again.” Paul closed his eyes. “Let me have one person who's honest with me.”
    â€œThe way you were honest with me?”
    â€œI never lied. You lied to yourself. If you're going to be here in my last hours, the least you can do is entertain me.”
    Why did she not hate him anymore? If anything she hated herself for being stupid, for being duped, for betraying Allie. There was a blue vein across Paul's skull that Maddy had never even noticed. “Here's a true story,” she began. “There's a ghost in my hotel.”
    Paul laughed again, then turned his head toward her, interested. His eyes were leaking fluid.
    â€œSeriously,” Maddy went on. “He's haunting a fellow who spends all his time in the bar.”
    â€œDear Maddy. You are so innocent. You believe anything anyone tells you. Next thing you'll tell me the devil is beside me.”
    The man in the first bed had started to moan.
    â€œClose the fucking curtain,” Paul told her. “People are so damned noisy when they're dying. You'd think they'd give the rest of us some peace.”
    Maddy went and drew the curtain more tightly; in the process she glimpsed an old man doubled up in pain. A shiver went through her. She turned back to Paul. On the other side of his bed there was a curtain as well. She couldn't see the patient behind the curtain, just a stream of light filtering through the fabric. Paul was curled knees to chest. It was almost as though she could see through him. It wasn't until that moment that she realized Paul truly was dying. He was half there and half not.
    She'd never been good at dealing with illness. She'd always wanted to run away when it got anywhere near this point. Maddy thought of the horrible things she'd said to her mother when she was younger—if it wasn't cancer, it wasn't considered a problem. It was nothing. She had never hated herself as much as she did at this moment. Paul didn't look like the same person as the man she'd slept with in the spring. She didn't even know him. She would have liked to have gone out into the hall. She could have kept on going, out the door, continuing on until she reached the white rose garden in the park. Instead, she forced herself to pull a chair close to the bed. She was afraid she might hurt him or spill something.
    â€œI think after what happened between us, I should be the one to take care of you,” she said.
    Paul laughed, a short dry laugh that quickly faded. “Are you mad? I'm a desperate fucking narcissist in the jaws of death. You don't want me.”
    He had to stop talking; he began to struggle for air. He turned his head from Maddy; his body was limp, as though his muscles were no longer connected. The cancer was along his spine. When the end came, it was ridiculously fast. The bones were