Chapter Nine #3
After breakfast in the hotel’s dining room, Julia and Piper strolled down to the Seine and then turned left to walk along the river.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Piper asked with concern after they’d strolled for five minutes, Notre Dame behind them and the enormous Louvre rising far ahead on the Right Bank.
“I’m fine, sweetheart. It feels good to get out and walk.
” And she meant it. The problem with chemotherapy treatments is that they knocked all the wind out of you, made it hard to draw a breath, and depleted your body such that merely getting off the sofa took a Herculean effort.
Without the treatment drugs coursing through her system, she felt lighter and full of energy. She felt almost like herself again.
The problem was that now that the chemo was no longer attacking the cancer cells, they were growing unchecked. Soon, the balance would tip again, and the exhaustion would return, and this time it would be because her body was beginning to give up the fight.
But that day wasn’t here yet. Today, Julia was in Paris, and the sun was shining, and the breeze was blowing, and her daughter was beaming, and she could almost believe that she had all the time in the world.
Piper slipped her arm through her mother’s and leaned her head on Julia’s shoulder. “I’m so glad we’re doing this, Mom. I wish we’d traveled more.”
“I do, too,” Julia said. The truth was, there were so many things she wished she’d done differently.
She’d been basically a single mom since getting divorced thirteen years ago, when Piper was in fourth grade, and money had been tight for a while.
She had been so busy putting away funds for a rainy day that she’d forgotten to live in the present.
So much wasted time. So little sand left in the hourglass. But they were here now.
“So,” Julia said as they walked, a large boat full of tourists slicing through the water on their right. “What time are you meeting that cute waiter?”
She glanced at her daughter in time to see Piper’s cheeks turning pink. “Uh, he’ll be on break around two, he said.”
“And you’re dragging around with your old mom instead of getting ready?”
Piper gave her a small smile. “I wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world, Mom. I swear.”
“I know.” Julia nudged Piper as they walked. “But you’re in trouble if you don’t go see him. I’ll need a nap before dinner, anyhow.”
Piper didn’t say anything for a moment, and Julia took the opportunity to take a deep breath, pulling the Parisian air into her lungs, feeling the sunshine on her face and thinking how lucky she was to be alive in this moment. “You know, sweetheart, when I’m gone—”
“Please, don’t.” Piper cut Julia off, and when Julia looked at her, she could see her daughter’s face painted with sadness.
“Honey, we have to talk about—”
“I know,” Piper said, interrupting her again. “But not in Paris, okay? Here we can pretend that we’re just a mother and a daughter visiting the most beautiful city in the world together, can’t we?”
Julia swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yeah.”
They didn’t speak again for the next fifteen minutes, as they walked slowly toward the Musée d’Orsay, the impressionist museum housed in an old railroad terminal on the Left Bank.
The building had stood here, looking out over the Seine, for 125 years.
It had survived two world wars and had evolved from a train station to a wartime post office to a museum.
But it had weathered all the changes and still, here it was, as beautiful as ever.
As she and Piper crossed the street from the promenade along the river, Julia snuck a look at her daughter. Piper would weather the changes, too. It wasn’t fair to lose one’s mother at such a young age, especially with a father she’d only seen every other weekend, no grandparents still alive.
But just like the soaring building before them, Piper would survive. She would remake herself; she would rebuild; she would become something amazing that Julia couldn’t even envision yet. That’s what life was, a constant opportunity for reinvention, for change, for transformation.
Maybe it wasn’t entirely too late for Julia to change a bit, too.
After all, she was here, wasn’t she? She had flown across an ocean with her daughter to a place she’d always longed to come back to.
Maybe she would even become a Jackson Quick fan this week, while she was at it.
The thought made her choke out a small laugh.
“Mom?” Piper looked at her with concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Julia smiled. It made her ache to know that Piper would continue to change into someone Julia didn’t yet know.
But it was also a balm to her soul to be reminded that, eventually, her girl would molt, shedding the layers of her pain.
There would come a day that Piper would no longer be defined by the loss; it would merely be a piece of her.
And that was a good thing. “I’m okay, kiddo. ”
Piper took her hand, and together, they strode into the museum to lose themselves for a few hours in paintings from another age, which would live on long after Julia was gone.