The Day He Asked For Divorce Was The Day I Was Dying Chapter 8
Juliette came to see him on the third day.
She stood at the front door, holding a bag of fruit, her face thinner and paler than the last time he
had seen her.
Sam opened the door, and she looked past him into the empty living room.
“I heard,” she said quietly.
He leaned against the doorframe and didn’t let her in.
Juliette bit her lip and tried to smile. “I just wanted to check on you. How have you been these last few days?”
Sam didn’t answer.
He looked at the bag of fruit she was holding, apples, pears, oranges. Ordinary things.
I used to buy the same fruit. I would wash it and cut it into small pieces and put it in a glass bowl.
I would cover it with plastic wrap and leave it on the corner of his desk in his office.
He had hardly ever eaten it.
Sam turned, picked up a manila envelope from the entryway table, and pulled out the stack of forms, holding them out to her.
“Did you know she applied for patient assistance for you?”
Juliette froze.
He handed her the forms. “Five weeks ago, the day after she was diagnosed. She got your
antidepressants covered by the assistance program.”
Juliette took the papers, her fingers trembling. She turned to the last page and saw my signature.
Grace Holloway.
“I didn’t know…” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and frightened. “Sam, I swear I didn’t know.
She never told me.”
“She came to see you, didn’t she?”
Juliette’s lips moved, and after a moment, she nodded once.
“Three weeks ago, she came to my studio and only stayed ten minutes.”
“The wind was strong that afternoon, and her color wasn’t good. I thought she had come to confront me, but she didn’t.”
“She said your knees were bad in winter and not to let you work late on the studio floor because it was cold.”
“She said you were allergic to shellfish, not that you didn’t like it, but that you would break out in hives and were too proud to admit it.”
She stopped for a long time.
“When she left, I went after her. I asked her why she was telling me all of this. She stood at the top of the stairs, turned around, and smiled. She said, ‘Someone has to remember for him.””
The hallway was so quiet that the rain against the window sounded like static.
Sam’s throat moved, but no words came out.
Juliette looked at him and started to cry. “Sam, I didn’t know she was sick. If I had known, I never would have… I wouldn’t have asked you to come over or called you all those times.”
She reached for his hand, but stopped halfway.
Sam stepped back. “You should go.”
Tears spilled down Juliette’s face. “Sam…”
“Go.”
He closed the door.
He heard her stand outside for a long time, then the soft thump of the fruit bag being set on the ground, then footsteps slowly fading.
Sam leaned against the door and slid down until he was sitting on the floor.
Grace knew she wouldn’t live to see the thirteenth. And she had spent her last days arranging his
future.
She worried he would be cold. She worried he wouldn’t take care of himself.
She worried he would eat something he was allergic to and tough it out. She worried about his
knees in the winter.
She didn’t hate Juliette. She didn’t even hate him.
She just said everything she needed to say, and then she walked into that room and waited for the
leaves to fall from the sycamore tree.
Sam remembered her last phone call. She had said, “Sam, say happy birthday to me.”
She had known she wouldn’t live to see that day. She had been asking for one happy birthday in
advance.
And he hadn’t even given her that.
That night, Sam went to the hospital. He used his medical credentials to pull my complete file.
The initial diagnosis had come from a routine physical, abnormal blood work, then scans, then
confirmation.
In the doctor’s notes: [Patient is emotionally stable, no visible distress. Has repeatedly refused
notification of family. States she does not want to be a burden to anyone.]
Sam turned the pages one by one.
Every follow up visit. I had gone alone. Check in. Payment. Blood draw. Waiting for results. Every time, alone.
One time, I had waited four hours in the oncology waiting room. I had gotten sick three times. The nurse suggested I call a family member. I said he had surgery that day.
Sam hadn’t had surgery that day.
That day, he had been helping Juliette pick out frames for her gallery show.