Near Death Read Online Free
Author: Glenn Cooper
loved. As much as the day you told me about. I’m loving you, little girl. I’m loving you. Your mother isloving you. I know you can hear me. I want you to go to her now.”
She could see the strain in his bulging eyes, almost empathize with the exquisite pain he must be feeling in his shuddering hands, and in her final moments she was aware he was doing his best to make the last words she’d hear sound silky.
“Go to her. Go to her. Go to her.”
Then, in her last moments, she saw a man suddenly gripped by something exquisitely wonderful, something that made his face go soft and his eyes moist. “You’re the lucky one,” he said dreamily.
What are you thinking
, she wondered as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Four
England, 1988
Alex was huddled beside his older brother in the backseat of the family’s Vauxhall Cavalier. Neither dared open their mouths. He was beyond disappointment, but his father was in a different state of angry, mute agony. His mother had remained uncomfortably stiff-bodied since the moment Dickie snapped at her twenty miles back. Her crime: meekly offering her husband a packed sandwich as the dusk was overtaking them on the northbound carriageway of the M6.
The warm spring day had begun with all the hope and promise of a glorious and certain outcome. When Dickie Weller stamped into the boys’ bedroom before dawn they were already decked out in a kit of Liverpool red and white and were chafing to get on the road for the long journey to Wembley to see mighty Liverpool, league champions, go up against lowly Wimbledon for the FA Cup title.
Wimbledon
for God’s sake! Complete joke, that! How they’d managed to beatLuton to get to the finals was anybody’s guess, but the matchup’s result was a foregone conclusion.
Still, the Wellers and scores of Liverpool supporters weren’t itching for drama. They were happy with the certainty of biding their time till their lads were cleanly victorious and forever in the record books at the end of regulation play.
In the Liverpool stands before match time, the boys had shouldered against each other, straining on their toes to get a good view of the beautiful green pitch. They listened with delight to the catcalls and opprobrium raining down on the pathetic Wimbledon blues massed on the other side of the vast, roaring, heaving stadium. Their father, big and brawny in his red cap, had waved his arm like a general surveying the opposing army and shouted loudly enough for them to hear, “Proud of your Dad, then?” and they were. “You won’t forget this day anytime soon!” he yelled.
He’d scored the four coveted midfield tickets from Boddingtons for pulling more pints of Cain’s best bitter than any other Merseyside bar owner. His Publican of the Year award hung over the mantel at the Queen’s Arms, beside the photo of a smiling brewery executive from Manchester handing him the tickets envelope. The boys always enjoyedthe butter-churn frothiness of living over their wildly popular pub, and in the run-up to Wembley they had sparked from the electricity of their father’s celebrity status.
As halftime approached, ten-year-old Alex stooped to pick up his dropped pennant just as Wimbledon’s Sanchez headed in a free kick from Wise to take a 1–0 lead. Alex jerked at the roar and saw his father’s water-freezing look of rage and his mother’s hen-clucking pout. His brother, Joe, five years senior, punched him hard in the shoulder as if the goal were his fault for looking away.
In the nervy second half, at the one-hour point, Wimbledon’s Beseant secured a place in history as the first keeper in cup finals to block a penalty shot. That was the killer. Instead of reaching a momentum-grabbing tie, Liverpool faltered and couldn’t mount enough pressure in the remaining half hour to avoid a bone-crushing loss.
At the final whistle, his father’s fists were clenched in furious disbelief at how a perfect day for the Weller clan had been
She could see the strain in his bulging eyes, almost empathize with the exquisite pain he must be feeling in his shuddering hands, and in her final moments she was aware he was doing his best to make the last words she’d hear sound silky.
“Go to her. Go to her. Go to her.”
Then, in her last moments, she saw a man suddenly gripped by something exquisitely wonderful, something that made his face go soft and his eyes moist. “You’re the lucky one,” he said dreamily.
What are you thinking
, she wondered as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Four
England, 1988
Alex was huddled beside his older brother in the backseat of the family’s Vauxhall Cavalier. Neither dared open their mouths. He was beyond disappointment, but his father was in a different state of angry, mute agony. His mother had remained uncomfortably stiff-bodied since the moment Dickie snapped at her twenty miles back. Her crime: meekly offering her husband a packed sandwich as the dusk was overtaking them on the northbound carriageway of the M6.
The warm spring day had begun with all the hope and promise of a glorious and certain outcome. When Dickie Weller stamped into the boys’ bedroom before dawn they were already decked out in a kit of Liverpool red and white and were chafing to get on the road for the long journey to Wembley to see mighty Liverpool, league champions, go up against lowly Wimbledon for the FA Cup title.
Wimbledon
for God’s sake! Complete joke, that! How they’d managed to beatLuton to get to the finals was anybody’s guess, but the matchup’s result was a foregone conclusion.
Still, the Wellers and scores of Liverpool supporters weren’t itching for drama. They were happy with the certainty of biding their time till their lads were cleanly victorious and forever in the record books at the end of regulation play.
In the Liverpool stands before match time, the boys had shouldered against each other, straining on their toes to get a good view of the beautiful green pitch. They listened with delight to the catcalls and opprobrium raining down on the pathetic Wimbledon blues massed on the other side of the vast, roaring, heaving stadium. Their father, big and brawny in his red cap, had waved his arm like a general surveying the opposing army and shouted loudly enough for them to hear, “Proud of your Dad, then?” and they were. “You won’t forget this day anytime soon!” he yelled.
He’d scored the four coveted midfield tickets from Boddingtons for pulling more pints of Cain’s best bitter than any other Merseyside bar owner. His Publican of the Year award hung over the mantel at the Queen’s Arms, beside the photo of a smiling brewery executive from Manchester handing him the tickets envelope. The boys always enjoyedthe butter-churn frothiness of living over their wildly popular pub, and in the run-up to Wembley they had sparked from the electricity of their father’s celebrity status.
As halftime approached, ten-year-old Alex stooped to pick up his dropped pennant just as Wimbledon’s Sanchez headed in a free kick from Wise to take a 1–0 lead. Alex jerked at the roar and saw his father’s water-freezing look of rage and his mother’s hen-clucking pout. His brother, Joe, five years senior, punched him hard in the shoulder as if the goal were his fault for looking away.
In the nervy second half, at the one-hour point, Wimbledon’s Beseant secured a place in history as the first keeper in cup finals to block a penalty shot. That was the killer. Instead of reaching a momentum-grabbing tie, Liverpool faltered and couldn’t mount enough pressure in the remaining half hour to avoid a bone-crushing loss.
At the final whistle, his father’s fists were clenched in furious disbelief at how a perfect day for the Weller clan had been
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