LITMIR.BIZ

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      Frank Walton was dying. He had suspected it for some time, but only last month his suspicions had been confirmed. And while he would have preferred to stay on this earth longer, he had accepted his fate just as he’d faced and dealt with every other adversity that had been thrust at him.

      Deal with it, then get past it. That was his motto.

      Or at least it had been until now. He would deal with his upcoming demise later. For now, uppermost in his mind had been the need to go home—to go back to the place of his birth and see the people and hear the language and the music. Just once. Before it was too late.

      Only he couldn’t. To them, he was already dead.

      Still, he’d had to know if what he’d done had been worth it. He’d needed to look at it again with a fresh view. Maybe then he would know if it had all been worthwhile.

      But to do that, he’d had to leave Montana for the state of New York, then head to Brooklyn and Brighton Beach. It was as close as he could possibly come to his homeland—to eat the food of his childhood and hear the language of the place he’d called home. Now, after two weeks in Brighton Beach, he’d come to a grudging acceptance that it was too late to turn back time.

      He exited the small café with a smile on his lips. The warm, dark-red borscht and savory bread he’d just had for his lunch had reminded him of the meals his mother had served during the short winter days and long cold nights in his Russian homeland. The food had been sparse but the love within his household overflowing.

      Even though the September day was almost balmy, he knew if he would but close his eyes, he could recall every nuance of that time: his father sitting near the fireplace with his musette, smoking cigarettes that he’d rolled on his own and sipping vodka between songs, he and his brothers and sisters dancing wildly, mimicking the high kicks of a Cossack dance while his mother’s laughter rang out above the din.

      Ah, God. He’d given it up—all of it—and for a higher cause. At least that was what he’d told himself for the past thirty-odd years. But now that he’d come to the end of his days, he was starting to question whether the sacrifices had been worth it. What had he accomplished? What had any of them accomplished?

      A trio of gulls squawked noisily as they circled overhead, breaking Frank’s concentration. Squinting against the afternoon sun, he tilted his head, anxious not to miss their feats of derring-do as they dive-bombed the beach beyond the boardwalk. One did not see seagulls in Montana.

      The sun was warm against his balding head. He inhaled briefly, then exhaled on a sigh, for the first time in his life, wishing he believed in a power higher than that of mortal man. Sunshine could not reach where he was bound.

      A woman leaned out from a third-story window and yelled down into the street. A man just coming out of the building paused and looked up, then called back to her, their voices mingling with the sounds of traffic and people and the noise of the day. Steam from beneath the streets rose upward from the sidewalk grates, blending with the guttural mingling

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