Maybe that’s what links these winged statues—they’re a new form of connect-the-dots in this city. I smile as I hop back on my bike, pleased that I’ve figured out this little riddle.
I’ll miss discovering oddities like this, puzzling them together to learn what they mean. I’ll miss many things about this city, I realize as I ride along the river. The bread, for starters. I don’t know that there has ever been better bread in the entire world. I’ll miss the streetlamps, the cafés, the sidewalks themselves. I’ll miss that everywhere around me there is beauty, even if it’s simply in a shop window.
I’ll miss the people. Marie at the bakery, Julien by the river, even Jean-Paul and his absurd stories. I’ll definitely miss Christian and his devil-may-care spirit.
Most of all, I will miss the woman I’ve spent so many hours with over the last few months. As I ride aimlessly along the Seine, I think back to the day many weeks ago when I was ready to take off and explore Indonesia before the marathon, finishing my training on the island. Instead, what frustrated me at the time gave me three months with Joy.
Three unexpected months I wouldn’t ever want to give up.
I only wish it were longer. I wish we’d started sooner. I wish it were fair to ask for something from her that I know in my heart is wholly unfair. Even so, there’s a part of me that longs to ask Joy what she’ll be doing six months, maybe twelve months from now. If she might want to somehow make a go of this. But I honestly don’t know when I’m coming back, or if my journeys will take me elsewhere. Is that even fair? To ask someone to wait for you when you don’t know how long you’ll be gone?
I slow my pace as I near Julien’s green stall by Notre Dame. Hopping off the bike, I lean the metal frame against the stone wall by the river. He raises his chin and barks at me. “Where is your lovely woman? I’d rather look at her pretty face than your ugly mug.”
Yeah, I’ll miss his gruffness, oddly enough.
“Nice to see you, too.” I clap him on the shoulder. “And to answer your question, I’m taking her out tonight. I’m meeting her friend, and she’s meeting one of my mates.”
He huffs, parking a weathered hand on the faded green wood on one side of his stall. “She likes you more than you could know.”
I tilt my head. “Why do you say that?”
“You must have charmed her. That’s all I can figure. She was here the other day.”
“She was?” I smile, picturing Joy here, perusing the wares.
“She bought some postcards. She asked me questions. How long have I worked here, how I was doing?”
The grin spreads as I imagine Joy practicing her language skills. “Were you nice to her, old man?”
He scoffs. “She was about ready to have a nightcap with me.”
I laugh, amused. “Don’t steal my girl.”
“Does she know how much you’ll miss her when you do your stupid run in some stupid country that isn’t France?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”
“You’re a fool.”
“You’re extra salty today.”
“You have a woman you love, and you want to leave. You’re a fool.”
“Love?” I ask, narrowing my eyes, surprised at his quick verdict. “The woman I love?”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Young people. You don’t realize what you have.”
He’s wrong. I do realize it. I see it plain and clear.
But there are choices that aren’t mine to make. There are promises I made more than a year ago.
That day will never fade.
“What can I do? Anything. Just name it. I’ll do it for you,” I told Ethan when he took his last turn for the worse. The infection had done irreparable damage to major organs and the doctor had just told us there was nothing more they could do. The fighting was over. The infection had won.
“You don’t have to do anything for me.”
“Let me,” I pleaded, desperate to be his voice, his legs, his last chance.
“You want a bucket list?” There was the faintest laugh in his voice.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You’ve gone mad.”
“I mean it. We were going to do everything. We had plans. What would you do if you could? I’ll do it for you.”
“You mean it?”
I nodded savagely. “Yes, I’ll do anything. Except skydiving. Anything but skydiving.”
Silently, he watched me for a long moment, studying my eyes as if searching for something in them. He found whatever he was looking for, perhaps the permission to ask me to do what he couldn’t. Because then he smiled amidst the tubes and beeping machinery of his hospital room. “Okay. Let’s do it. One last list.”
I scrambled for a pen and paper, and he started to write. The pen wobbled in his weak fingers. My heart splintered, and I choked back a tear. “I’ll do it.”
Ethan shook his head, his grip tightening, harder than I’d seen him hold a pen.
The lump thickened in my throat. “I need to get some water.”
I excused myself for a moment, ostensibly to head to the water fountain. Jamming the heel of my hand against my eye, I wiped away the evidence, then returned to his room, and watched as he managed to write it all down. Ten items, and a final postscript.
I blink away the harsh memory, and gesture to the shelves of books and small notecards. “Anything here she wanted?”
Julien surveys his goods, then taps a notecard with a photo of Monet’s garden. “She liked this picture. She bought it for herself. Maybe she doesn’t need you to buy her things.”
My shoulders tense. His words clang around in my head.
He’s right. He’s ridiculously right, but not about buying things. About Joy needing me. She doesn’t need me, not truly.
