A few minutes later, the café door creaks open, letting in a blast of cold air. I shiver as I glance at the door. Eric sees me immediately and smiles, slowly unwrapping his wool scarf.
“Hi,” he says, pausing to order a coffee from the counter before sliding into the chair beside me.
“Hi,” I say. His green eyes glisten under the café’s lights.
“How’ve you been?”
I tell him about the bookstore, my mother’s letters, then ask him about his time in France, which he describes as equal parts beautiful and lonely. The Times put him up in a flat in Montmartre to write an eight-part series about English-French relations. I don’t divulge that I’ve been reading his columns.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asks suddenly.
I smile. “Absolutely nothing.”
“I don’t know, maybe we could…walk—take in the snowstorm?”
“I’d like that,” I say, my smile widening.
We bundle back up and head out to the street. It’s nearly sunset, and even with the dense swirl of clouds overhead, the air has a pink, ethereal hue to it.
“I hear that Daniel’s coming home soon,” he says. “I bet you’re looking forward to seeing him.”
I nod vacantly.
“Maybe you guys will pick things up where you left off?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“No reason in particular,” I say. “I mean, he’s great, but we just—”
“Didn’t work,” we both say at the same time.
I nod, with a laugh. “I guess that’s the beauty of getting older. We learn to listen to our instincts.”
He grins. “I wish I’d done that years ago.”
“Me too.”
We walk in companionable silence, glancing over at each other every few moments as if waiting for the other to say something. Eric finally does. “Have you ever been to Feng Shang Princess?”
I shake my head.
“It’s a Chinese restaurant on a floating, three-tiered pagoda houseboat,” he explains. “There’s nothing like it anywhere in London.”
“A houseboat and a princess?” I ask. “That sounds like a combination I need to experience as soon as possible.”
“It’s along Prince Albert Road in the Cumberland Basin of Regent’s Park. We can walk there from here. Are you free for dinner?”
I give him a coy smile. “Are you asking me out?”
“Why, yes…yes, I am.” He grins. “I mean, it’s not the Royal Automobile Club, but—”
“I’d love it.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’re seated in black leather chairs at one of the circular tables inside the floating restaurant. Festive red lanterns dangle from the ceiling.
Eric orders dim sum, and when the waiter recommends duck and a wine pairing, I nod in agreement. From the table, we can see a few small boats passing along the canal. Daylight is waning and the temperature is dropping by the second, but the lantern light casts a warm glow in the air.
“You sure Daniel won’t throw a swing at me for taking his girl out?” Eric asks, and I realize that his old friend is the elephant in the room.
“First of all, I’m not his girl, and second of all, no. I assure you, each of us has moved on.”
He nods, still thinking. “How did you two meet, again? I can’t imagine he was a bookstore customer. I mean, he’s a great guy, but he’s not—”
“A reader,” I say, finishing his sentence. “And that was, well, part of the problem.” I reach into my bag and hand him my treasured copy of The Last Winter before telling him the whole story.
He looks at the book, then back at me. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s really a story about me and my mother, actually,” I say, explaining our connection to the novel and how I’d found this particular copy with the notes in the margins.
I point out the inside cover where Daniel’s name is written. “I just had to find him, and I did.” I sigh. “But, alas, though this was his book, the notes inside weren’t—and it took him a while to admit that to me.” My cheeks feel warm, and I’m suddenly worried that I’m talking too fast, or too much. “Am I making any sense?”
Eric quietly flips through the pages. “You’re making perfect sense.” His face turns utterly serious, as if he’s about to make a confession. “Valentina, this book…it belongs to…me.”
My eyes get big, and then I shake my head, laughing. “That’s very funny, but I’m afraid I’m not that gullible.”
“I’m not joking,” he continues, his face drawn and serious. “I don’t know how Daniel’s name got in there—maybe he borrowed it from me, maybe he bought it used at the student bookstore? It was a long time ago. Anyway, I can assure you that the book, and the notes inside, are definitely mine.”
My mouth gapes open. “Are you serious?”
He nods. “I am.”
“It was you, all along.”
He nods again.
Our wine and dim sum arrive, and the waiter fills each of our glasses.
“Tell me,” he adds. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad are the pontifications of my twenty-one-year-old self?”
I pause for a long moment. “They were…beautiful,” I say. “Everything you wrote was…so beautiful.”
Our conversation meanders over dinner, and after Eric pays the bill, he offers to walk me home. I link my arm in his, and it fits like a key in a lock.
“Aha,” he says, looking up at the sky as we fall into step together on Prince Albert Road. “Did you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
He touches his cheek. “It just started to snow!”
“Wait,” I say, glancing up at him. “Do you like snow?”
“Do I like snow? What kind of question is that? Of course I do. Is there any other answer?”
“No,” I say, smiling so big my cheeks hurt. “No, there isn’t.” I slide my grip down his arm until my hand touches his. We weave our fingers together, and it feels natural, like we’ve done this a thousand times before.
“I’m so happy,” I whisper, looking up at him, “that it was you.”
One Month Later
Millie was helping a customer when the phone rang.
“The Book Garden, how may I help you?”
“Yes, this is Dr. Hester. I’m calling for Eloise Baker.”
“This is Eloise.”
He cleared his throat. “I was hoping to speak with you in person, but you missed your follow-up appointment. We received your test results, and I’ve reviewed the ultrasound images in consult with the radiologist, and…Eloise, this is difficult news, but we found something.”
“You found something? What do you mean?”
“Are you with anyone right now?”
“Millie’s here, yes,” I said, sitting on the stool behind the counter. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to be alone after what I’m about to say.”
My heart beat faster.
“Eloise, you have ovarian cancer, and I’m afraid that it has spread undetected for some time.”
As I watched Millie smiling cheerfully from across the room, conversing with a customer beside the new-release section, my heart sank. I wished I’d never visited Dr. Hester. I wished I’d let my body run its course. I wished I didn’t know what was happening inside of me.
“You have options,” he said, “and we’ll get you connected with an oncologist immediately, but I fear that the associated side effects of treatment would be a high price to pay for very little extra time.”