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For a time, she’d thought about declining Berkeley. UVM was a great school with an excellent psychology department, but her parents had intervened, convincing her she’d be crazy to give up the chance to go to Berkeley for any boy, even one as wonderful as Max.
He’d broken her heart into a million pieces when he gently suggested they see other people while in college. It wasn’t what he wanted, he’d said, but trying to hold a relationship together with three thousand miles between them for four years didn’t seem feasible. She never forgot what he said the night they made that painful decision.
“What we have is special, Lex. If it’s meant to be, it’ll still be there when we’re ready for it.”
Those were the words she’d clung to during the worst days of her life, when everything had seemed bleak and hopeless. She’d clung to him and the years of memories they’d made together while in the throes of first love.
When she left Butler the August after they graduated, she’d never imagined she wouldn’t see him again for more than a decade. That first Christmas, her family had gone skiing in Aspen and then to visit her paternal grandparents in Florida, so she’d never made it home to Vermont. By January, she was fighting for her life.
Lexi wasn’t sure when or why she’d decided to keep her battle private. All she recalled was asking her family not to tell people so she wouldn’t have to manage an outpouring of concern. It was all she could do to deal with the worries of her parents and grandparents, who’d aged before her eyes as Lexi got sicker and sicker. Years had passed in a blur of treatments, painful bone marrow biopsies, mouth sores, unrelenting nausea and other hideous side effects. She was too sick most of the time to talk to anyone, let alone keep up with social media or anything other than the battle to stay alive.
Her life was now a decade off schedule. Her goal was to start back to school a class or two at a time, beginning in January. She was looking at online programs since she avoided crowds out of habit after having to protect her fragile immune system from germs for so long. Depending on how this weekend went, she could work on school from here or Texas or anywhere, really, while she found a job. She’d encouraged her parents and grandparents to revisit the travel plans they’d abandoned when Lexi got sick, and they were going to Spain, France and Italy in the spring.
Her mother didn’t want to go. She was still in trauma mode after seeing her only child through a near-fatal illness. They’d been to family therapy to cope with the post-traumatic fallout, and everyone was better than they’d been, but her mom was still struggling.
That’s why Lexi had promised to check in during this weekend away, even though she was twenty-eight. She would always check in with them after what they’d sacrificed for her. Her dad had sold his successful HVAC business in Vermont and put a big chunk of the profit from the sale into saving her life. After she aged off their insurance when she was twenty-six, he’d paid out of pocket to keep her covered. Everything had been a struggle, and they’d been right by her side through it all.
While she was in treatment, she’d befriended a young woman named Gillian, who’d had no family support. Lexi’s parents and grandparents had rallied for her, too, making her part of holidays and other events. They’d mourned together when Gillian passed away two years ago. That loss had been a setback for them, a shocking reminder that even after everything they’d been through, Lexi could still die.
“But you’re not going to die today or tomorrow, and you finally got to see Max Abbott,” she said with a giddy feeling inside. “Today was a very good day, and tomorrow will be even better.” During long weeks of isolation during her treatments, Lexi had been driven to talk to herself when she hadn’t been permitted to have visitors. That habit had lasted into remission and would likely stay with her forever.
“Max has grown into a gorgeous man, as if there was any doubt about that.” But could they recapture the magic of young love after all the living they had done in the last ten years?
“Only time will tell.”
ChapterThree
“The future for me is already a thing of the past. You were my first love and you will be my last.”
—Bob Dylan
The silence woke Max in the morning. Accustomed to the enthusiasm with which his son began each day, everything felt off without Caden in the house. Max got up, changed into workout clothes and hit the home gym he’d installed in the house’s third bedroom, since he had no time to go to an actual gym. He was in the shower by eight and on his way to the barn by eight thirty, eager to see his son after a night apart.
He knew he ought to be thankful for the break, but he vastly preferred being with his little boy than being without him, even if he was in the best possible hands with Molly, Linc and Elmer.
In between thoughts of Caden and what they might do that day, Max relived the night with Lexi and picked over the things she’d told him as he drove toward the covered bridge that led to Hells Peak Road.
Cancer, of all things.
And he’d had no idea she was going through such a harrowing ordeal.
That was by design on her part, but he wished she would’ve made an exception for him. What could he have done, though? With college and Caden to consider, it wasn’t like he could’ve moved to Houston to be on Team Lexi. But he could’ve called and visited and supported her from a distance.
Knowing he would see Caden in a few minutes, Max felt a surge of excitement as he pulled into the driveway at the barn, threw his truck into Park and killed the engine. He walked into the mudroom, where the walls were covered with hooks from the original Abbott ten and now their many children. Caden loved that his hook was first on the second row and took his job as a role model to his younger cousins very seriously.
Max stopped on the way into the kitchen to listen to his son’s excited chatter as he talked to Elmer about something that’d happened at school and how funny it was when the teacher found out about it.
“She wassomad,” Caden said, giggling, “but we couldn’t stop laughing.”
Elmer’s low chuckle made Max smile. His grandfather took endless pleasure in Caden and vice versa. “Well, it’s not very nice to put something that makes fart sounds on the teacher’s chair.”
“I know, but it washilarious,” Caden said. “You should’ve seen her face.” He lost it laughing all over again while Max desperately hoped the whoopee cushion hadn’t come from his house. He assumed he would’ve heard from Mrs. Langtree by now if it had.
“What goes on around here?” Max asked when he stepped into the kitchen.
Caden let out a shriek followed by “Daddy” as he ran to him, nearly toppling his chair at the table in the process.
Elmer reached out to grab it.
