I swallowed hard against the heavy lump in my throat.
“I know this is a lot to take in, and I want you to know that I’m here for you. We’ll formulate a plan you’re comfortable with, one that makes the most sense.” He paused. “You must have questions for me. Please, what can I tell you?”
“How long,” I whispered. “I want to know how long I have.”
“It’s impossible to say for sure,” he replied. “A few months, or…maybe a few weeks. I’m so sorry.”
I decided not to tell Millie, choosing, instead, to keep the news to myself for as long as possible. But the burden was too heavy, and on a rainy Thursday morning, I told my best friend that I was dying.
She held me for a long time, and we wept in each other’s arms, but after that, she promised me that there’d be no more tears.
“Sorrow isn’t what you need,” she said. “We’ll find reasons to celebrate every day.”
Her recent retirement from the law firm allowed her more time to help at the store. We agreed to keep my condition quiet; there was no sense in worrying our longtime customers. I refused to let a cancer diagnosis change the fact that the Book Garden was a place of joy. It was also where Edward found me.
He came into the store one morning and it almost took my breath away. “Do you have any books on eternity?” he asked. “I’ve waited for you at least that long.”
Customers were browsing the shelves, so I did all I could to remain cool and collected, even though my heart nearly leaped out of my chest and straight into Edward’s hands. I played along, collecting every relevant book and brought them to the counter. His presence breathed new life in me.
“St. Augustine’s Confessions. Slaughterhouse-Five. The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” I said, showing him my selections.
As I pressed each book into his hands, our fingers brushed lightly. “How did you…find me?” I asked, searching his eyes.
“How could I not?” was his only response.
“Thank you for the flowers.”
He smiled, purchased all of the books I’d selected, then asked if he could take me to dinner that night, and just like that, we continued the conversation that had been broken off so abruptly all those years ago.
But while my heart was as strong as ever, my body wasn’t. Dr. Hester’s cocktail of prescription pills helped manage the pain. It was enough to conceal my illness from our customers and, I hoped, Edward. We’d only just reunited, and I didn’t want my diagnosis to spoil our happiness. I’d hoped to keep the truth to myself for as long as possible, but as it turned out, I didn’t have a choice.
One evening, when we met for dinner at Café Flora, I set out on the familiar three-block path from the store, but something strange happened—it was as if my legs stopped working. By the time I reached the café, where Edward was waiting under the awning, I was weak and winded. As I stepped across the sidewalk to take his hand, I felt faint, and my knees collapsed from under me.
“Eloise!” he cried, catching me before I fell.
“Once a klutz, always a klutz,” I said, smiling up at him.
But Edward wasn’t smiling. His eyes were filled with worry. “When were you going to tell me?”
I paused a long moment, my eyes brimming with tears as I finally told him about the diagnosis. For all those weeks, it hadn’t seemed real—like a tragic novel I’d read once, a long time ago, then tucked away on a far shelf. I didn’t want to read it again or think about its characters’ grim lives. But fiction became fact as Edward stood beside me, his face grief-stricken.
“My darling,” he whispered, taking me into his arms. “How much time do you have?”
“Not much,” I said as he pressed his head against mine.
He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again with a burst of certainty. “Then we’ll make the most of every moment.” He carefully lifted me into his arms and carried me through the door of Café Flora. “Starting now.”
And we did just that. Edward took me to the park for picnic lunches, insisting that the fresh air would do me good. He carried me up multiple flights of stairs to the theater and requested the most comfortable booths at London’s finest restaurants. It was if he was officially courting me, the way I’d dreamed he would back in 1968. And when my health worsened, Edward remained close, holding vigil on the couch so he could be on hand to make me cup of tea, or find an episode of Gilligan’s Island on TV.
Millie was equally devastated. I staved off her offers to help, directing her energy to the store, where she took over in my place. I told her that I had a full-time caregiver, which, in fact, I did—one who loved me.
Like it always had in Edward’s presence, time passed rapidly, but I longed to slow its pace. I wanted to savor every second. We talked about anything and everything, especially the past. I reminded him of the declaration he’d made the night we’d first met at the Royal Automobile Club.
“Nature, God, whatever you want to call it—it’s bigger than us. Bigger and more powerful than anything we can do or dream.”
I nodded. “So you’re saying what will be, will be, not because we willed it, but because it was a part of a plan?”
“Yes, or a really good novel.”
One night, as the sun began to set its sights on the horizon, Edward stroked my disheveled hair. “You can’t deny that our lives, apart and together, have been beautiful, in their own strange and stubborn ways.”
I looked into his eyes, signaling my agreement.
“Millie helped me prepare a will,” I told him.
He looked away, not wanting to talk about the end, but I continued.
“I’m leaving everything to my daughter, Valentina. Promise me you’ll find her.”
“I promise.”
I gestured to a paper bag on my bedside table. “And promise me that when you do, you’ll give her this.”
He nodded.
“I pray that the store will give her as much joy as it’s given me, and that the Book Garden will live on to see the next generation of readers, but what she decides to do with it is entirely up to her. All that matters is her happiness.”
Edward held a glass up to my lips, and I took a small sip from the straw. The liquid felt good on my dry throat.
“Please look out for her,” I continued, “and Millie, too.”
He nodded. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be there for as long as I can, behind the scenes. They won’t even know it.” He paused for a moment. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
I listened as he cleared his throat. “A long time ago, I…owned this building. I was all set to sell it when a particularly interesting duo approached my agent with the dream of…starting a bookstore.”
I gasped.
“You see, some might have considered the venture a losing proposition, but I thought otherwise. Primrose Hill needed a bookstore. You needed a bookstore.”
I smiled between labored breaths. It was him. It was always him.
“Oh, Eloise,” he cried, tears running down his face.