Chapter 2
Two
“Love is lovelier, the second time around.”
—Sammy Cahn
Max had no idea what to say to that. “You came back for me.”
“You were the only one I really wanted to see, and if you hadn’t come to the reunion, I was going to try to find you tomorrow.”
He shook his head as he tried to figure out what she was saying. “You’ll have to fill in some blanks for me.”
“Before I do… Could I ask you… You said Caden’s mom isn’t in the picture, but is there anyone else?”
“Nope.”
“How’s that possible? You’re Max Abbott.”
He laughed. “Who does nothing but work and take care of his kid, with family stuff rounding out my life. Other than that, this is pretty much it.” He gestured to the house where he and his son had made a home.
“I used to worry that one of the many other girls who wanted you for themselves would take off with you. That’s why I was afraid to look for you online. I wouldn’t have been able to bear seeing you with someone else.”
“Back then, I wasn’t going anywhere as long as you were an option, which you surely knew.” He was surprised to see tears in her eyes after he said that. “Come in, Lexi. Let’s talk.”
He got out of the truck and went around to open her door, holding out a hand to help her down and keep her from slipping on any hidden ice. It was already freezing in the mountains, with the first snow of the season forecasted for the weekend.
When they were inside the warm house, coats off, Max gestured to the sofa. “Can I get you anything? I make my mom’s hot chocolate as well as she does, and I’ve got some Bailey’s, too, I think.”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
Max sat next to her and reached for her hand like a decade hadn’t passed since the last time he did that. All the anger he’d felt about her disappearing had vanished like mist the minute he set eyes on her again. “Lex… Talk to me.”
She looked down at their joined hands and then up at him. “You know I went to UC Berkeley.”
“Yes, and I got the emails and texts you sent that first semester. I kept responding to you, but you quit writing back after the holidays.”
“I got really sick in the spring semester.”
“What kind of sick?”
“The leukemia kind.”
“What?” he asked on a long exhale. “You had cancer?”
“Have. I have cancer, and yes, it’s taken a lot of therapy to say those words without breaking down.
I’ve been battling it for ten years. Eighteen months ago, I had a stem cell transplant and have been in remission ever since.
But until I hit the five-year mark in remission, I’m not considered cured.
And even then…” She shrugged. “It can always come back. I moved to Houston to be treated at MD Anderson. My parents and grandparents moved there, too, and took care of me.”
Max was astounded. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were going through?”
“I didn’t tell anyone, and I asked my family not to either. I didn’t want everyone making a big deal of it. I just didn’t have the capacity to deal with all that concern while fighting to stay alive. I hope you can forgive me.”
“I already have. How’re you feeling now?”
“Better than I have in years, and I’m finally allowed to be back out and about, among people.
” She turned to face him, curling her legs under her the way she used to do.
A million memories overtook him as he looked at her, so familiar and yet so different, too.
“About what I said about coming for you…”
“Yeah, about that.”
She smiled and took his hand again. “During the worst of my illness, I held on so tightly to the memories of us. You kept me going. So many times, when I would’ve given up, I’d think of you and find the strength I needed to keep going.
And I promised myself that if I survived the transplant and achieved lasting remission, the first thing I would do was come see you.
Then the invite for the reunion was forwarded from the post office box we keep here, and I took that as a sign.
Now or never. I was surprised you were there after I heard you didn’t come to the last one. ”
“There was no one I wanted to see that I don’t see around town from time to time.”
“Why’d you come this time?”
“I’ve become such a bore that my parents and grandfather really wanted me to go. My mom even bet me a hundred bucks that I’d have a good time and stay out until midnight.”
“I love that,” she said, laughing.
“I’ll win the bet because I left before midnight, but I’m glad my mom made me go. Seeing you again is worth all the other awkwardness.”
“That’s nice to hear. I wasn’t sure you’d have anything to say to me after I disappeared for so long.”
“I’ll always have something to say to you. I never forgot you either. I wondered all the time where you were, but no one had heard from you. I figured that’s how you wanted it.”
“It was necessary at the time.”
“I understand that now, and I’m so sorry for what you went through.”
“I really can’t believe you’re still single,” she said with a grin. “I figured you’d be married with four kids by now.”
“Nah, never came close to getting married. I haven’t had an actual girlfriend since Caden’s mom, and that was a disaster, other than getting him out of it.”
“I still can’t believe she left her child.”
“I couldn’t either, but with hindsight, I wasn’t as surprised as I should’ve been. She was always a bit shallow, which didn’t bother me until it affected my son.”
“I’d love to meet him.”
“I’d love for you to meet him. How long are you here?”
“Until Monday.”
“We’re having his birthday party at the barn on Sunday if you’d like to come.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude on a family thing.”
“They’d love to see you.”
“I’ll only go if you tell me something I can get for Caden.”
“He loves to ski more than anything. A day pass to the mountain would thrill him.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
“I can’t believe you’re sitting in my house talking about what to get my son for his birthday.”
“It’s really nice to be home.”
After Max drove her back to her car and she returned to the cabin her parents had rented when they gifted her the weekend in Butler, Lexi sent a quick email—since cell service was still nonexistent in her hometown—to her parents and grandparents in Houston to let them know the reunion had been fun, she’d seen Max and had a great time catching up with him.
He invited me to his son’s 7th birthday party at the barn on Sunday (he’s a single dad).
Looking forward to seeing all the Abbotts.
It’s nice to be back in Butler where nothing ever changes—except the inn!
It’s been completely rebuilt after a fire a few years ago.
It’s been modernized, but still retains the historic feel of the original.
Today was a great day. Thanks for surprising me with the trip to the reunion.
And yes, I feel FINE. Go to bed and quit worrying.
Love, Lex
Her illness had been such a nightmare for so long that they suffered from anxiety that required medication to control.
Lexi took hers and pictured her four-person support team in Houston taking theirs.
Nothing like a potentially fatal illness to mess up a perfectly lovely life.
The five of them were suffering from post-traumatic stress as they transitioned from active treatment to what they hoped would be a long-term remission.
Her transplant doctors had told her they had every reason to believe she would live a long and healthy life, but of course they couldn’t make any promises.
Recurrence was always possible, and that was the reality she and her family now had to live with.
She’d be forever thankful to her parents and grandparents, who’d packed up their lives and moved to Houston to support her through years of harrowing treatments. Her parents had rented out their home in Butler, and those tenants had given notice that they were moving out at the end of the year.
Depending on how this weekend went, Lexi was thinking about returning to her childhood home for a year or so to regroup and see if there was anything left to salvage with the only man she’d ever loved.
While she was thrilled to have seen him and caught up with him, she didn’t want to put pressure on him to pick up where they’d left off.
A lot had changed for both of them in the ten years they’d spent apart.
She ran a brush through hair that had grown back curly, after the third time she’d lost her hair during chemo. Lexi was digging the curls and had no desire to straighten them. She was so thankful to have hair again that it could stick straight up, and she wouldn’t care.
Snuggled into old flannel pajamas she’d bought years ago at Max’s family’s store, Lexi pulled a down comforter over herself and then added the throw blanket from across the foot of the bed.
The legacy of treatment was that she was always cold, which might be a problem if she moved back to Vermont.
But even that would be worth spending more time with Max.
After seeing him, she couldn’t stop smiling.
He was even more handsome than he’d been in high school, and that was saying something.
Every girl in school had wanted to date him, but he’d shocked the hell out of her when he asked her out in tenth grade and never looked at anyone else for the rest of high school.
Leaving him to go to college out West had been brutal, but she’d been determined to chase her own dreams. Getting into Berkeley had been her goal since middle school when she’d visited the campus with an older cousin, and when she’d been accepted, she’d been excited and scared and despondent over leaving Max, who’d gone to UVM.
For a time, she’d thought about declining Berkeley. UVM was a great school with an excellent psychology department, but her parents had intervened, convincing her she’d be crazy to give up the chance to go to Berkeley for any boy, even one as wonderful as Max.
He’d broken her heart into a million pieces when he gently suggested they see other people while in college.
It wasn’t what he wanted, he’d said, but trying to hold a relationship together with three thousand miles between them for four years didn’t seem feasible.
She never forgot what he said the night they made that painful decision.
“What we have is special, Lex. If it’s meant to be, it’ll still be there when we’re ready for it.”
Those were the words she’d clung to during the worst days of her life, when everything had seemed bleak and hopeless. She’d clung to him and the years of memories they’d made together while in the throes of first love.
When she left Butler the August after they graduated, she’d never imagined she wouldn’t see him again for more than a decade.
That first Christmas, her family had gone skiing in Aspen and then to visit her paternal grandparents in Florida, so she’d never made it home to Vermont.
By January, she was fighting for her life.
Lexi wasn’t sure when or why she’d decided to keep her battle private.
All she recalled was asking her family not to tell people so she wouldn’t have to manage an outpouring of concern.
It was all she could do to deal with the worries of her parents and grandparents, who’d aged before her eyes as Lexi got sicker and sicker.
Years had passed in a blur of treatments, painful bone marrow biopsies, mouth sores, unrelenting nausea and other hideous side effects.
She was too sick most of the time to talk to anyone, let alone keep up with social media or anything other than the battle to stay alive.
Her life was now a decade off schedule. Her goal was to start back to school a class or two at a time, beginning in January.
She was looking at online programs since she avoided crowds out of habit after having to protect her fragile immune system from germs for so long.
Depending on how this weekend went, she could work on school from here or Texas or anywhere, really, while she found a job.
She’d encouraged her parents and grandparents to revisit the travel plans they’d abandoned when Lexi got sick, and they were going to Spain, France and Italy in the spring.
Her mother didn’t want to go. She was still in trauma mode after seeing her only child through a near-fatal illness. They’d been to family therapy to cope with the post-traumatic fallout, and everyone was better than they’d been, but her mom was still struggling.
That’s why Lexi had promised to check in during this weekend away, even though she was twenty-eight.
She would always check in with them after what they’d sacrificed for her.
Her dad had sold his successful HVAC business in Vermont and put a big chunk of the profit from the sale into saving her life.
After she aged off their insurance when she was twenty-six, he’d paid out of pocket to keep her covered.
Everything had been a struggle, and they’d been right by her side through it all.
While she was in treatment, she’d befriended a young woman named Gillian, who’d had no family support.
Lexi’s parents and grandparents had rallied for her, too, making her part of holidays and other events.
They’d mourned together when Gillian passed away two years ago.
That loss had been a setback for them, a shocking reminder that even after everything they’d been through, Lexi could still die.
“But you’re not going to die today or tomorrow, and you finally got to see Max Abbott,” she said with a giddy feeling inside.
“Today was a very good day, and tomorrow will be even better.” During long weeks of isolation during her treatments, Lexi had been driven to talk to herself when she hadn’t been permitted to have visitors.
That habit had lasted into remission and would likely stay with her forever.
“Max has grown into a gorgeous man, as if there was any doubt about that.” But could they recapture the magic of young love after all the living they had done in the last ten years?
“Only time will tell.”