Now I stood on the balcony wondering how much longer we had. Days? Weeks? The doctor hadn’t been able to say. Just that it was coming faster now.
I inhaled deeply for air that didn’t fill my lungs, that didn’t erase the stone lodged beneath my sternum.
How long had I been standing here? The city below pulsed with oblivious life—people laughing, gambling, falling in love for one night, unaware that somewhere above them a man was counting minutes I couldn’t afford to spend.
I needed to check on her. I walked past the living room, and headed straight to the bedroom.
I twisted the knob, dread already clawing up my spine.
The bedroom was empty.
I looked around, my body tensed anxiously, that familiar dread spiking through my chest. The sheets were thrown back, her side of the bed cold like she’d been gone for a while. The bathroom door stood open, light off, clearly empty.
“Claudette?”
No answer. Just the hum of the air conditioning and my own pulse thudding in my ears.
I moved faster now, checking rooms with mounting panic. Kitchen—empty. Living room—empty. Guest rooms—empty. Each doorway a small devastation.
Then I saw it.
The study door stood closed.
I walked toward it slowly, dread building with each step. I pushed the door opened and the world stopped.
Claudette sat in my desk chair, surrounded by devastation—the truth laid out around her like wreckage. The file cabinet hung open behind her. Papers scattered everywhere—medical files, brain scans, treatment plans.
The magazine with Hannah’s engagement announcement lay on the floor, crumpled at one corner. And there, clutched in her trembling hands, was the bucket list journal.
Her face was what destroyed me. Her eyes swollen and red from crying, she looked up at me and the expression there—raw grief mixed with something that looked like betrayal—made my chest feel like it was caving in. As if the ground had opened up beneath me and I was still falling.
“Why did you lie to me?” Her voice was barely a whisper, but it hit like a blade. “At the hospital. Why did no one tell me I was dying?”
I’d known this moment was coming. But nothing could have prepared me for the impact.
I started to walk towards her. My feet echoing in the panelwood below. “We couldn’t bear to hurt you,”
“Stop.” She pressed back into the chair. “Don’t come any closer. You can drop the act now.” She pressed back in the chair, and the way she looked at me—like I’d hurt her in ways words couldn’t describe.
“It’s not an act.” I spoke but I might as well have said nothing, she wasn’t listening now, she’d already drawn her conclusion.
“I know everything now. About Hannah. About the tumor. About this.” She held up the journal, hand shaking so badly the pages rustled like dry leaves. “Every perfect moment was just you checking off a list,” she said, voice breaking. “The carnival. The baking. The ferris wheel. All of it.”
“No.” The word came out too fast, too desperate.
“Then what was it?” Her voice cracked down the middle. “I can’t figure out which parts were real and which parts were just you being kind to someone who didn’t have much time left.”
I crossed the room and dropped to my knees in front of her before she could recoil.
“No, that’s not true” I said.
“Then tell me the truth,” she whispered, tears streaking down her face. “Tell me what was real.”
“You remember everything now,” I said softly. “So you must remember what I told you. In the desert. Before the seizure took it all away.”
She went still, but her hand trembled violently in mine.
“I told you I loved you,” I said, my voice rough, scraped raw by everything tearing through me. “Not because you were dying, but because I’d loved you for years and finally had permission to say it out loud.”
