Harry grabs my shoulders and looks me straight in the eyes. “I never thought I was going to get you back. Whatever happens from now on, I’m going to be there. I’m going to make the time we have together the best time of your life. No matter what.”
He kisses me again. At this moment, I don’t feel like I’m dying. I feel happy. I’m so glad I get to spend this time with him. I’m so glad I found him a month ago.
When he pulls away, I trace my finger along the curve of his collarbone. “I wonder why I did it.”
“Did what?”
“Why I found you.” I raise my eyes to meet his. “After all that time, why did I suddenly start looking for you a month ago?”
A lot of my memories have come back to me, but not that one. There was a reason I started looking for him. I had been living this way for over a year, but all of a sudden, one day I decided to find Harry. Why?
The memory is there. Just beneath the surface. Sometimes I almost feel like I could catch it, but then it escapes me.
“Does it matter?” he asks. “We found each other again. That asshole Graham is out of your life. That’s all that’s important.”
He’s right, of course. But it still bothers me. There must’ve been a reason I tried to find Harry. It’s there, buried somewhere in the recesses of my tumor-ridden brain. Will I ever remember? I don’t know. As I get sicker, the memories may fade altogether.
I may never know why I decided to reach out to Harry.
But I’m glad I did.
Epilogue
ONE MONTH EARLIER
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This can’t be right.
“Are you serious?” I ask.
Dr. Wang nods. He is a middle-aged Asian man with white threading through his black hair, wearing a royal blue tie. I just met him today. No, actually, I’ve met him many times before. He’s my neuro-oncologist—a doctor who deals with brain cancer. But considering I woke up this morning unable to remember much of the last several years, it feels like I just met him today.
“I’m very serious, Mrs. Thurman.” He folds his arms in front of him. “The MRI of your brain not only showed no growth of the tumor, but the tumor burden was significantly reduced following the chemotherapy. We thought you weren’t responding, but apparently, we were wrong.”
Graham told me my diagnosis this morning. It was hard to hear. He said he only told me because we had to go to this appointment together, but after today, I wouldn’t have to remember ever again.
And then we hear this.
I look over at Graham, who is sitting in this chair beside me. His jaw looks like it’s about to become unhinged. “How can that be?” he asks. “You said this was terminal. You told me when we got the diagnosis that she had a year to live.”
Dr. Wang spreads his hands apart. “We were wrong. She’s had a remarkable response to the chemotherapy.”
My head is buzzing. I reach out to touch the scar on the right side of my scalp. My souvenir. “So what does this mean?” I ask.
“It means,” Dr. Wang says, “your cancer is currently in remission.”
Everything he says after that is a blur. He’s going to have the pathologist review the slides to see if they over-called my diagnosis. Maybe I was never stage four after all. If that’s true, I could have a major lawsuit on my hands. But I don’t care about any of that. I only care about one thing.
I’m not dying. I’m okay.
I can finally get my life back.
_____
We had already given Camila the evening off, so I cook dinner tonight. Nothing too fancy—just some spaghetti with tomato sauce. But while I’ve got it on the stove, Graham comes down to the kitchen and frets over me. He looks down at the burner and frowns.
“Are you sure it’s safe for you to do that?” he asks.
I stick out my tongue at him. “I can handle boiling some pasta, Graham.”
But he still looks worried. “I better stick around.”
I keep the spaghetti in the boiling water for ten minutes. As I stir it with a spoon, I hum softly to myself. I can’t believe what Dr. Wang told me today. I’m not dying. It’s like I’ve been given a gift.
Maybe I should take a cooking class. I’ve always wanted to become a better cook. There would have been no point if I only had six months left to live, but now…
The options are mind-blowing. I could do anything.
Except for some reason, all I can think about is Harry Finch. Even though he’s long gone from my life. It somehow doesn’t feel that way. Now that I’ve got a new lease on life, he’s the one I want to spend it with. But that’s crazy. I haven’t seen Harry in years. He’s almost certainly moved on.
After ten minutes, I remove a single strand of spaghetti from the water. I throw it against the wall to see if it sticks. That’s a trick my mother taught me before she got sick. I’m going to use her spaghetti trick, but I’m not going to end up like her after all. Thank God.
“Two plates of spaghetti, coming right up!” I announce.
Graham smiles at me. “It looks delicious. I’ll get us drinks.”
I douse the spaghetti in a healthy amount of red sauce with big clumps of tomato. Okay, I’m not exactly Julia Child. But there’s time to learn. There’s time for everything now.
I bring the two plates of food out to the dining table. Graham follows a minute later with two glasses of water. After the doctor’s appointment, he changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and I can’t help but think that my husband is pretty attractive. I can see why I might have fallen in love with him, even though I can’t technically remember it.
And now we get to spend the rest of our lives together like a real couple. I can make up for all the time he had to spend taking care of me and dealing with my business.
“How about candles?” I suggest.
Graham laughs. “Wow, you are in a really good mood.”
But he indulges me by getting out a pair of candlesticks from one of the drawers. We light them and then dim the overhead chandelier in the dining area. I love the atmosphere and the way Graham’s handsome face looks flickering in the candlelight.
“So what do you think of the spaghetti?” I ask him.