Chapter Two
George Gallagher still couldn’t believe he’d said yes to coming to Paris, a decision that was entirely out of character for him. He wasn’t a man who took chances; he had spent a lifetime playing everything as safe as possible.
But when Lou Robinson had called two months earlier, asking George to join him on a trip for Vietnam veterans who wanted to see where the peace accords ending the war were signed, George had agreed before he could stop himself, even though he hadn’t traveled more than a couple of hours from home since his wife, Sally, had died a decade before.
She’d always been the one to plan their vacations.
“Come on, when’s the last time we had an adventure?” Lou had said over the phone. “Besides, I can’t imagine taking a tour for Vietnam vets without you, George.”
The other Vietnam vets in their tour group were strangers to them—two Army nurses who’d served together; three combat vets and their wives, and a fourth combat vet, widowed like George and Lou, who seemed to be on a mission to throw himself at every woman in a one-hundred-foot radius.
The fact that the man—who had introduced himself as Cliff—was also wearing a black beret on his balding head was just the icing on the cake of his ridiculousness.
Now, as George and Lou brought up the rear of their little tour group, they were having a hard time keeping straight faces as the bereted widower tried once again to hit on the two nurses in their group.
George looked at Lou and rolled his eyes. “Imagine having that much confidence,” he said in a low voice.
“Not to mention that much belief in your appeal to the opposite sex,” Lou replied with a chuckle. “So are you like that around the ladies of Gainesville?”
“Oh, yes,” George said with a grin. “I seduce them left and right while wearing my beret.”
As Lou laughed, George fought to keep the smile on his face. The truth was, he would have loved to have the widower’s brazen self-assurance.
“He’s shameless,” Lou said. “What a way to go through life, huh?”
“What a way,” George agreed with a shake of his head.
“What’re you brooding about over here?” Lou asked a moment later, elbowing him as they walked.
George could still remember meeting Lou—one of only four Black men in their unit—for the first time in the spring of ’69.
Lou Robinson, Lou had said, extending his hand to the fellow beside George as he went down the line, but the jackass had refused to shake Lou’s hand.
I don’t need no Negro friends, the boy had said, spitting in the dirt, and George had turned to the boy and said, Too bad for you, you moron, since Lou here might one day have to choose whether or not to save your life.
George had shaken Lou’s hand, firmly and pointedly, and the two had been friends ever since.
“Oh, just wondering if Romeo over there ever lets up,” George said, jerking his head toward the man, who was now peacocking for yet another group of women passing by.
“You got to hand it to him.” Lou grinned. “Isn’t Paris the City of Love?”
“I imagine every city that man visits is the city of love,” George replied with a smile.
Lou laughed but didn’t say anything for a moment. “Was your marriage to Sally that way?” he asked. “Romance and all that?”
George chuckled, then sobered. “Nah.” He was being honest, and the words made him feel like a failure.
He had never been unfaithful, but that didn’t mean he’d been the husband Sally deserved.
She’d been a fine woman. “How about you? Is that the way you were with Lavonda?” Lavonda had died two years after Sally had, and like George, Lou—a retired financial advisor—had never remarried.
“Not hardly.” Lou frowned for a second and seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but then the moment passed, and he nudged George. “Anyhow, looks like the joke’s on us. While Monsieur Beret over there tries his luck with everyone, you and I are here growing old together.”
“Hey,” George said, bumping Lou with his shoulder. “Who’re you calling old?”
“My apologies. We’re obviously a couple of spring chickens.”
The men chuckled and then quieted down as their young French tour guide raised his flag to summon the group’s attention and suggested stopping for a quick spot of lunch at an Anglo pub he knew near Notre Dame.
Julia had booked a hotel on the rue G?t-le-Coeur in the Latin Quarter, the same narrow, medieval street on which she’d lived during that perfect summer twenty-seven years earlier, a street that had also famously been home to several 1960s Beat poets, including Allen Ginsberg and William S.
Burroughs. When their car pulled up, her breath caught in her throat at the familiarity of it all.
The restaurants on the corner had changed, and the bikes propped alongside buildings were sturdy, neon-green rentals rather than beat-up ten-speeds, but the street looked mostly as she remembered it, and there was comfort in the idea that it had been here all along, waiting for her to return.
“How are you feeling, Mom?” Piper asked as the driver pulled their suitcases from the trunk. “Are you in any pain?”
“Nope,” Julia said brightly, and it was only a small lie.
Her belly hurt all the time now, and she knew it would only get worse as the months passed.
But the ache was manageable—especially with the help of the steroid pills her doctor had prescribed—so much so that sometimes, for a fleeting second here or there, Julia forgot she was sick.
She wasn’t supposed to be, after all, was she?
People weren’t supposed to be diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer in their midforties.
For a time, chemotherapy had worked. Julia’s cancer hadn’t grown, hadn’t spread. And though she felt exhausted and ill all the time, she was still alive and still around to be Piper’s mother. Those years of treatment had at least allowed her to see her daughter through her college graduation.
But as her oncologist had warned her might eventually happen, her cancer cells grew too clever, too evasive.
The cancer was in her liver now, too, and in her bones.
“I’m sorry, Julia,” Dr. Drayton had said gravely when he’d met with her last month during what she thought was simply a routine appointment.
“We’ve exhausted all the standard chemotherapy options that are available to us, and we’ve reached the point where your treatments are no longer a benefit.
It’s up to you, of course, but it’s my recommendation that we discontinue them; the side effects aren’t worth it if your tumors are no longer being kept in check. ”
“Okay,” Julia had said. “So what do we do now? A clinical trial? Immunotherapy?” Maybe there was even something new on the horizon that she didn’t know about yet. She was young. She was in good shape, all things considered. She was supposed to have so much more time.
But Dr. Drayton looked away. “Julia, as you know, we’ve applied to every potential trial, but your particular disease progression hasn’t been a fit for any of them, unfortunately.
I still have a few feelers out, just in case.
At this point, though, while we’ll do our best to support your quality of life, I’m afraid that my recommendation is simply to do your best to enjoy living in the time you have left. ”
Her eyes had filled, and she had asked, just in case she’d misunderstood, “You’re saying that I should stop treatment altogether?”
“I’m saying it’s your choice. But chemotherapy doesn’t seem to be helping anymore.” He held her gaze. “I truly am very sorry.”
She’d immediately gotten a second opinion, but the answer had been the same. She had reached the end of the road and had been very lucky to have survived with the disease as long as she had.
She supposed she should be thankful for the extra time she’d gotten. For the opportunity to see Piper leave the nest. For the time she’d had to get her affairs in order and to ease Piper into what was coming next.
But it wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot.
And whenever she looked at her daughter—her bold, brilliant, beautiful daughter—she wanted to scream and curse and rage at the universe.
How could it be that she wouldn’t be here to see Piper fall in love for the first time?
To marry? To perhaps even have children of her own one day?
Even if a miracle happened and a clinical trial came through, it would only prolong her life by months, not years.
The cancer had already spread like wildfire through her body.
When Julia had finally summoned the courage to tell Piper what Dr. Drayton had said, Piper had hugged her and held on so tightly that Julia was certain her ribs would crack.
“At least I don’t have to go through chemo anymore,” Julia had said with as much brightness as she could muster, trying to convince herself as much as Piper that there was any possibility of making lemonade from the rotten lemons they’d been given.
“Dr. Drayton said I’d feel better for a little while before I feel worse. ”
Piper had wiped a tear away and then declared, “Then we’ll go to Paris. As soon as possible.”
“Paris?”
“You’ve always wanted to go back, Mom, haven’t you? Now’s our chance.”
Piper was right; Julia had always imagined that she and Piper would have an adventure in the City of Light one day. And if cancer had taught her anything, it was that there was no time like the present. “All right, then, Paris, here we come,” she had said as cheerfully as she could.