Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Le Maison Grog was mostly empty, and Julia sat at the bar, sipping a glass of champagne and trying to steel her nerves for what she knew was inevitable. She had to tell Sam the truth. It was time to let the chips fall where they may.
She turned, pulse racing, when the door banged open a few minutes before five, sending a man into the room in a burst of afternoon sunshine.
Sam, she thought, but as the door closed, she realized that the man striding toward her was the bartender who’d been so pleasant to them.
She forced a smile at him, and he returned the smile with an expression that looked false and strained.
She was just about to ask him if he was all right, but then the door opened again, and in the next flood of sunlight, Sam appeared like a vision, and her heart went from hammering to fluttering.
He spotted her at the bar and broke into a grin, crossing the room toward her and then awkwardly pausing before hurriedly kissing her on the cheek, as if he couldn’t decide where to aim his lips and had settled for the safer option.
“Hey,” he said, his deep voice making the hair on her arms stand on end.
“Hey,” she replied, gazing into his honey-colored eyes and wishing she could stop time, could make this moment last forever. It was her last few seconds of the Before. Before he learned about her cancer. Before he knew that she was dying. Before he changed his mind about her.
She didn’t realize that tears had sprung to her eyes until he reached up and wiped a teardrop away, his smile melting into an expression of concern. “Hey now,” he said in that deep, rumbly voice. “What is it? Are you all right?”
This was the moment that she should have said, No, as a matter of fact, I’m not. But she opened and closed her mouth and when nothing emerged, she chickened out. “Um, want to grab a table?” she said, mentally kicking herself as she backed away from the perfect opening.
“Sure.” Sam put a hand on her arm to steady her as she hopped down from the barstool and grabbed her champagne.
A moment later, they were settled in a corner booth, and the pleasant bartender had delivered a beer for Sam and a second glass of champagne for Julia, who was banking on liquid courage.
“I wrote a song today,” Sam said abruptly after they’d toasted, and Julia was momentarily thrown. “Verses and chorus and everything.”
“Sam,” she began, but she couldn’t seem to force words out, and after a second, he smiled.
“It’s not very good. But you, ah, you inspired me.” He looked down. “Sorry, that was corny. It’s just—I’ve tried writing before. And I can never find the words. But now that I’ve met you…” His voice trailed off and he looked back up at her. “Sorry, am I making this weird?”
She shook her head, so moved that she temporarily forgot what she’d come here to tell him. “I inspired you?”
“I wasn’t even going to tell you. I was going to surprise you when—” He abruptly cut himself off. “I just wanted you to know, Julia. And I wanted to say thank you.”
“I’d love to hear the song sometime.”
“I’ll play it for you,” he said, reaching for her hand. “But first, there’s something I need to tell you.”
All at once, she was yanked back down to earth. She pulled her hand away. “There’s something I need to tell you, too, Sam.”
Something undecipherable flickered across his face. “Oh. Okay.”
She looked down and then forced herself to look him in the eye. “The thing is, I’m sick.”
“Oh, man.” A shadow of concern crossed his face. “Do you think it’s food poisoning, or are you coming down with something?”
She could feel heat rising in her cheeks. She really, really didn’t want to do this, but she had to.
“No, not that kind of sick.” She took a deep breath, bracing herself. “Sam, I have cancer.”
His mouth fell open, and though the pause only lasted a few seconds, it felt like an eternity. “Julia,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Have you known for long? How are your doctors treating it? Are you on chemo, or…”
“I was.” She let the words sink in, hoping he would understand without her having to spell it out, but she could tell from the tender, concerned way he was gazing at her that he hadn’t gotten it yet. “I stopped.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, as if he was trying hard to process what she was saying.
“The chemo wasn’t working anymore. I’m dying.”
There. The words sat between them, cold and stark and impossible to take back.
She’d said it. She’d done the right thing.
And now, Sam looked like a deer in the headlights as he stared at her, and the seeds of doubt that had been planted in her mind began to sprout and blossom.
He wasn’t telling her it was okay, that it didn’t change anything, that he still wanted to write songs for her.
Instead, he was looking at her like she had the plague.
“Julia, I—” His voice cracked as he cut himself off. “My God, I don’t know what to say.”
She forced a wobbly smile. What had she expected him to say, that he was still interested in her?
That he would come home to the States with her and be by her side as she wasted away?
That he’d hold back her hair when she threw up and take her to the bathroom when she couldn’t do it herself?
God, she was delusional. This was a guy she’d met at a dive bar in Paris, for goodness’ sake.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “You actually don’t have to say anything.
I just wanted you to know, you know?” She could feel tears in her eyes, and she wiped them quickly away.
“I understand if this is too much. I—I should have told you sooner.”
“I—” His voice cracked again. “Julia, I’m so sorry. What kind of cancer is it?”
“Pancreatic.”
“My God…” He blinked a few times. “Are you in pain?” The look of concern and sadness in his eyes almost broke her.
“Sometimes. It comes and goes. Mostly… Mostly I’m just devastated to be leaving my daughter behind. It will shape at least a portion of her life, and it’s my fault.”
She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he looked at the table. When he looked up again, his eyes were glistening. “It’s not your fault, Julia. Are you sure there’s nothing more the doctors can do? A study you can get into, maybe? Or what about immunotherapy?”
She shook her head. “It’s too late for all of that. Believe me, I asked my doctor all these same questions. I’ve been fighting this for more than two years and now, well, the road has run out. To be honest, I got way more time than the doctors told me I’d have when I was diagnosed.”
He swallowed hard. “How long do you have left?”
She smiled sadly. “Best guess? Two or three months. It’s why we’re here, Piper and me. We wanted to take one last trip while I still felt like myself.”
Sam put a hand over his mouth and sat back in his chair. “Julia,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“It’s a lot, I know. And it’s not fair that I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry. I didn’t expect… I didn’t expect to feel for you what I feel for you. But then you kissed me, and I…” She coughed. “I had to tell you.”
He blinked rapidly and wiped at his eyes.
“Would you… I’m so sorry… Would you excuse me for a moment?
” And then, before she could answer, he stood from the table so abruptly that he almost knocked it over.
His beer sloshed out of the glass, and he mumbled an apology as he hurried away, toward the stairs to the restroom in the back of the bar.
She watched as he disappeared quickly down the stairs.
“Right,” she said aloud, finally allowing the tears to come. “Right. I did the right thing.”
She grabbed a tissue from her purse and quickly wiped her eyes. What was she getting so emotional about, anyhow? She’d long since digested the reality that she was dying; how could she let one guy’s reaction thrust her back into heartbreak again when she’d worked so hard to focus on the positive?
And it wasn’t exactly that Sam had reacted badly. The compassion in his eyes had been real. But then he’d hurried off like he couldn’t get away from her quickly enough. And as the minutes ticked by and she drank the rest of her champagne, she began to wonder if he was coming back at all.
Five minutes later, with a sad wave to the friendly bartender, who was glancing over at her with concern, she slipped a twenty-euro note under her empty glass and, with one more look at the staircase leading down to the bathrooms, she headed for the door.
Sam would resurface eventually, but it was clear he was avoiding the ticking time bomb she’d dropped on his lap. And who could blame him?
Still, as she walked away, she had the strange sense of leaving something important behind, of closing a door on something she hadn’t fully realized she wanted until she’d lost it.