41. Piper
forty-one
piper
What Heartbreak Is
Two Months Later . . .
M y hand rises to knock on their bedroom door, currently ajar, but halts when I hear Deepak’s murmured words. He’s speaking to his wife as she lays on her bed, his voice a broken whisper, filled with a lifetime of love.
“Claire, my love,” he whispers, his voice thick and raw. “God . . . I wish I could go with you.”
A throaty sob rumbles softly through his chest. “Please, sweetheart, take me with you. I can’t live without you. I can’t—” His forehead drops to her shoulder, his body quaking. “I can’t fathom a day without you. You’re my whole life.”
The teacup shakes in my hand, the tea I’d made for Claire almost spilling over the sides. The lump I usually have in my throat at the sight of my beautiful, nurturing mother-in-law doubles as I desperately hold back a sob. A curtain of hot tears blur my vision, pooling inside my lids.
I knew our time was coming to an end . . .
But I didn’t think it would be here already.
Not when we should have had so many more moments to share, to live.
“Deepak,” Claire says weakly, running her shaking fingers down the back of his head. “Love of my life.” She pauses, taking a labored breath. “Don’t make this harder for me than it already is. We’ll see each other again, sweetheart. I’ll be waiting for you, but I’ll be patient.”
“No.” Deepak shakes his head, his desperate plea begging for his fate to change.
“I have loved you,” Claire continues, her fingers still running through his hair, “since we met all those years ago at the museum in Santa Fe.” Her chest rattles with another breath. “Remember how we marveled at that painting of roses for so long?”
“It’s when I found out you loved them so much,” he murmurs, a ghost of a smile in his voice.
“And you sent me a bouquet of them for months until you finally convinced me to move to California.”
“Because I knew then what I knew every day with you . . .” He sniffs. “That I couldn’t live without you. Not a moment and not a lifetime.”
A strangled sound erupts from his throat, and I place a hand over my lips to muffle my own cry. I shouldn’t be here to witness such a private moment between them, but their love and heartbreak keeps me frozen in my spot, my heart both begging me to leave while urging me to stay.
Claire sighs, and I don’t have to see her face to know her cheeks are lined with tears. “I’ll give you all my lifetimes, Deepak Menon. Take them all. But I need you to live, to thrive, for our children. I know Dev has found Piper, but he still needs you. He still loves you. And Deena needs you more than ever to be both her mom and her dad.”
Deepak’s shoulders continue to shake as he reluctantly and heartbreakingly accepts his fate.
For the past two months, Dev and I have been living here with Deepak and Claire so that we don’t miss a moment with her. Because God knows, we’ll miss all the moments after this . . . Every shared smile, the peaceful moments in her garden when she’d reach for my hand, and each adoring look toward her husband and children. They’re all slipping away.
I lean against the wall, needing it to hold me upright. The tea grows cold, long forgotten, as tears run down my face. My heart shreds inside my chest, breaking for this family I’ve come to love as my own and for my proud and stoic father-in-law—a man I’ve come to care for as a father—crumbling and helpless at the feet of his dying wife.
“Promise me you’ll be there for our kids,” Claire pleads softly. “Promise to show them love daily. They need you, Deepak?—”
“They need you ,” he cries, his voice cracking. A tear slips from his eye and drops to her chest when he lifts to look at her. “I need you.”
Claire’s shaky finger finds his chest. “You have me, right here. You will always have me, my love. Always.”
There’s a moment of silence, broken only by Deepak’s sobs, and I realize that there have been very few moments over the past couple of weeks where Claire has been lucid enough to hold a conversation. And while I bring her tea every day, most of the time it lies untouched on her nightstand. It’s both gut wrenching and relieving to see her be conscious.
But I know it won’t last . . .
Suddenly, Claire’s head turns gently on her pillow and her pale eyes connect with mine. And even as a tender smile turns up her lips, my heart drops to my stomach, as if knowing we’re in our final moments together.
“Piper . . .” she says, reaching out her hand as I rush to her side.
Leaving the teacup on her nightstand, I tangle my fingers with hers, my tears flowing in endless streams over my face. My throat is so tight, I’m not sure I’ll ever find my voice again.
It’s then that I understand what heartbreak is.
It isn’t just an emotion, it’s a state of being and a reluctant realization that your world is about to be altered forever. It’s both a deafening silence and a quiet cacophony that somehow weighs more than anything else you’ve had to carry.
“Call Dev and Deena, honey,” she says softly, but her words thunder inside my ears, pulling a sob out of my chest. “I . . . I think it’s time for me to say goodbye.”