“Charlotte, I am so selfish for doing this to you.” I shook my head, but Adam continued. “For telling you all of this when I could be leaving you so soon. Until then, I promise to be the best husband I can. Until death do us part,” he said with a lopsided grin.
I was not amused. “Don’t be a quitter, Bramwell,” I said straight-faced. I captured his face in my hands and looked deep into his cozy brown eyes. “Till death do us part is for quitters. I promise to love you forever. As long as there is love in this world, we will be a part of it.” I meant it. No matter what happened, I would always love him. I know to others it would seem odd that we fell for each other so easily, even under the worst circumstances, but Adam was exactly the right person for me.
We kissed, and after several seconds, the priest cleared his throat. We let him finish his ceremony. Adam and I walked down the aisle, side by side, holding hands while soft music played overhead.
“Wait,” Adam said. He looked up to the dome-shaped ceiling and window blasting light down onto us and just stared for several moments.
“What is it, Adam?” I said.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
We headed out to the taxi waiting for us. Dr. Mark let us ride alone but he caught the next one and followed close behind. We held hands the whole way, but we were quiet.
“Adam, I’m afraid you’re going to do something really stupid,” I said, worried that his silence meant he was making decisions in his mind.
“Like what? I’m not going to kill myself, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I know that. I don’t want you to give me any of your possessions or try to take care of me after you’re gone. I just realized . . .”
“What, that you’re my wife now?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“I’m not. I’m just going to give you my last million so you can have some fun with it.”
“You don’t have a million dollars . . . do you?”
“Yeah, probably not. I stopped keeping track of that stuff a long time ago.”
“Whatever you have, donate it to cancer research or something. You can’t give me your money, Adam.”
“Sure I can.”
“Adam, I will be so mad at you. Promise me you will not give me a penny.”
He laughed. “Okay, I promise you I will not give you a penny.”
“I don’t want to talk like this anymore. I want to talk about the trial and what we’re going to do when we get back and what our plan is.”
“I promise we’ll talk about that, but not right now.”
I shook my head.
“I promise, Charlotte. We’ll talk about it.”
24. Time to Talk
In our hotel later that night, with Dr. Mark a room away and all of Adam’s medications sitting on a bedside table, we made love, slow and sweet. It was sacred. Afterward, Adam was weak but he seemed content. Sometime in the middle of the night, I startled awake, a wave of paranoia racing through my chest. I rolled over and put my hand over Adam’s heart to make sure it was beating.
He whispered, “I’m not quite done yet, if you don’t mind.” He laughed quietly, and I wanted to punch him.
“Not funny. I think we should talk about our plan.”
“We have already,” he said as his hand moved between my legs.
He was touching me and kissing my collarbone and I was losing all sense. “Don’t try to get out of this, Adam.”
“This is the best I’ve felt in a while.”
“Ahhh.” I couldn’t stay quiet. He was moving faster and kissing harder.
It was dark in our room except for the light from the tower. The window looked like a painting. Everything was still except for us. I could feel myself coming undone. I held his mouth to mine, trying to stifle the moans.
He pulled away and whispered, “I can feel you coming, Charlotte. Let go.”
I did, and for several minutes he held me close to his chest. We should have been having the conversation but Adam was doing everything to distract me, even making jokes.
“I can’t drive a car, but I can make a woman come in less than five minutes.”
I ignored his joke. “When we get back, you’ll do the treatment—”
“I think the story goes, we get married, have children, go to concerts together, read in the park, watch our children grow, get old, and sit in rockers on the porch. Sound good?”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I. Worst-case scenario, I die tonight in your arms, which wouldn’t be so terrible.”
I started crying. “Stop, please. I have a tiny bit of hope to hold on to now.”
He pulled me to him and kissed my nose. “You’re getting very attached. I can’t stand the thought of you being in pain.”
I nodded into his chest.
“When you said you’ll love me forever—”
“I meant it,” I said.
“I want you to say to me that you will be fine and you’ll move on and love someone and make a life.”
“I’ve told you that already.” My voice broke.
“I need to believe you this time.”
It was quiet for several moments.
“I’m afraid if you believe it, then you’ll let go.”
I know he could feel my tears on his skin.
“I don’t think it works that way, doll-face.”
“You know what I mean.”
“It’s for me, Charlotte. It’s so I can stop feeling guilty about giving you something and possibly taking it all away. You seemed genuine when you said forever. It scared me a little.”
I sat up and straddled his body. “I’m going to kill you myself if you don’t stop acting so resigned and feeling guilty. I’m here because I want to be. And I meant it when I said I’ll love you forever.”
He shook his head.
“Don’t shake your head at me.”
“Say it,” he demanded.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Say it, Charlotte.”
“I will go on.”
“That’s the only way you can really love me forever; you know that, right?”
“Yes,” I whispered, and then cried some more. He pulled me back down to lie on his chest. Moments later he was asleep. I stayed awake thinking about how in the world I would make good on my promise to him if I had to.
I woke to a spear of sunlight shining over my face. Adam was awake already, lying on his side, watching me.
I turned to face him. “How are you feeling?”
His one-sided smirk appeared. “Most commonly asked question of a dying man.”
“You’re obviously well enough to make jokes, although your speech is worse this morning than it was yesterday.” He was getting harder to understand as he continued to lose feeling on the left side of his face.
“Can you just be my wife today and leave the examinations to Mark?”
I kissed him. “Fine. What should we do with our day, husband?”
He glanced at the clock. “We’re traveling. We need to be ready in an hour.”
Adam arranged a private plane to fly us an hour and a half away to the C?te d’Azur, aka the French Riviera, where we checked into a room looking right out onto the perfectly blue harbor freckled with sailboats.
I stood on the balcony while Mark examined Adam on the bed behind me.
“What do you see, Charlotte?” Adam said.