Undying Love (22 page)

Unshaven and unkempt, I stumbled into the Hemingway Bar. It was seven o’clock in the morning; no one else was there but me. I slumped into an armchair, the first one I came upon. I didn’t know if I needed a drink or an espresso. I ordered both from the only waiter working the early morning shift. After I drained the drink, a whiskey straight up, I emptied the contents of the bag onto the table facing me. I ran my fingers over the jewelry and had the burning desire to see that photo of Allee as a toddler that was encased in the locket. I flicked it open. To my surprise, a tiny photo of Allee and me embracing on our wedding day had been placed over the other photo. Memories of that unforgettable day whirled in my head and then others came back to me with the force of a rockslide. Each one hurt more than the one before. Our time together had been so short, yet it felt like a lifetime. I held her wedding ring and band in the palm of my hand and glared at them in a trance. The word
“toujours”
flickered in my eyes. “
Toujours”…
some bullshit French word for “always.”

“Ryan.”

A familiar voice catapulted me back into the moment. I looked up, and my heart skipped a beat. It was my father. What the hell was he doing here? Only three people in the world knew about Allee’s condition and our trip to Paris other than Marcus—Duffy, a lapsed Catholic, who was heartbroken over the news and promised to go to Church to pray for her, and my sister Mimi and her partner Beth, who were equally stunned and saddened.

I stood up and faced him squarely. “How did you find me?”

“Your sister told your mother what was going on. The minute I heard about Allee’s condition, I hopped on the corporate jet.”

Fatigue sent a chill through me. Or was it grief? Or my father’s presence?

“Ryan, I want to see her.” There was compassion in his voice and steely eyes.

“Allee’s gone.”

“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I should go back. Would you like to fly back with me, son?”

I shook my head. “I have things to take care of here.”

“Then I’ll say goodbye.”

I don’t know what made me do it, but I repeated what my beautiful Allee had told me the other night on the Bâton Mouche. “Father, with love, there are no goodbyes.”

He did something a Madewell was never allowed to. He cried.

And in his arms, I cried too.

Alone again, I sat down to read Allee’s letter, careful not to let tears spill onto the ink. She must have written it while I was away from her; the words were sprawled on The Ritz’s elegant ivory stationary. Her penmanship was just like her—quirky, curvaceous, and beautiful.

Madewell~

By the time you read this letter, I will be gone. I have no clue where I’m going or why this is happening to me. I only know I will miss you.

Your name, Ryan, comes from the French word “roi” which means “king.” My name Allee is almost identical to the French word “allée” which means “gone.” LOL. When I am gone, Madewell, I want you to rule with your heart and live your life. You have so much potential, so much to live for—with or without me.

Please don’t mope around mourning me. Why mourn what you can’t have? One day you will fall in love again. I know you don’t think you can, but I’m counting on it. So, do it for me. I’m sure whomever you meet will be someone I’d
like.

There’s one other thing I want you to do. Make up with your father. He is the only father you will ever have. We’ve all erred in our lives, but we all deserve the chance to be forgiven. I hope you will forgive me for leaving you too soon. It’s not your fault, my Superman
,
I could not be saved.

Go on living, my sweet superhero. Although our time together was so short, it was the best time I ever had. You gave me everything
—
love, laughter, Paris, and all of you. Just because I’ve stopped living my life, don’t stop living yours.

One last thing… Write, Madewell, write. Write for me. I’ll be reading every word from wherever I am. Always remember…

I love you more~

Allee

I folded up the letter and let my tears fall.

TWENTY-FIVE

I
n the morning, I steeled myself to pick up Allee’s ashes from the Père Lachaise crematorium. The bitter irony that we’d both ended up here despite not wanting to visit this Paris landmark was not lost on me. It sent a shiver down my spine as I collected her remains. They were sealed in a small, elegant urn that reminded me of her once curvaceous body. I had thought about leaving them here, but this was not their final destination. They belonged somewhere else.

Marcus drove me back to the Ritz to pick up my laptop. Then by foot, I headed over to the Jardin des Tuileries where Allee and I had sat watching children play.

The magnificent gardens, though across the Seine, faced the Musée D’Orsay. Clutching the urn, I came upon a beautiful patch of French lilies that reminded me of flowers in one of the Monet paintings we had admired at the D’Orsay. While the day had started out sunny—the kind that defined springtime in Paris—storm clouds now threatened. Taking a deep breath, I removed the lid and scattered the ashes among the flowers. A clap of thunder… and the sky began to weep with me. I was reminded of that night I had kissed Allee in the pouring rain on the steps of the Met. I squatted down and pressed my lips to her wet ashes, sealing them with my tears to the earth. Wherever she was going, my Allee would always have this final kiss… and her dream of becoming a curator at the Musée D’Orsay in sight.

The pouring rain reduced to a fine drizzle. And soon, the sun again began to shine. Collecting myself, I walked slowly along the Seine over to the Café de Flore on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was one of the few places Allee and I missed going to.

The place was bustling, filled with all types—from attractive fashion models, whose stares I ignored, to old men wearing berets. I took a seat at one of the bistro tables. Dozens of great American writers had probably sat in this very chair… including Fitzgerald, Stein, Joyce, and my favorite of all, Hemingway, who wrote much of his first novel here.

After ordering a cappuccino, I pulled out my laptop. I closed my eyes.

She was sexy and sassy. And had the voice of a goddess.

She loved Degas, Seurat, Picasso, and me...

Not necessarily in that order.

She also loved superheroes. She believed they could save the world.

I asked her once if she loved me more than she loved Superman.

She zipped down my fly and blew me so hard I was flying.

“You, Ryan Madewell, are my Superman.”

Except I couldn’t save her.

What do you write…?

I didn’t need an outline. Just my heart.

A tear spilled onto my keyboard as I typed the first word…

EPILOGUE

Three Months Later…

I
 fidgeted with my hands as I sat in the sleek waiting room of Dr. Ethan Moore’s world-renowned fertility clinic. Ethnically diverse, young couples, all longing and desperate for a child, surrounded me. Most were reading a magazine or watching the “Story of My Baby” video that played on the flat screen monitor on the wall above the reception window. I was too anxious to do either. Butterflies swarmed my stomach.

As it did often, my mind flashed back to that unforgettable day in Paris when Allee revealed that she had harvested her eggs before undergoing chemotherapy in college. I wished I’d known that earlier. I would have attempted the experiment I was doing now while she was still alive. How I wished I could have told the love of my life that we might have a child of our own. Whether she was with me. Or without me. On second thought, perhaps it was for the best. Maybe the sadness of knowing she would never have the chance to see or love this child would have been unbearable. Or even worse, knowing that the experiment had failed. I sucked in a deep breath. I was about to find out.

This was my fourth visit to Dr. Moore’s fertility clinic since Allee’s passing. The first took place upon my return from Paris. I learned that Allee had left me custody of her frozen eggs soon after we’d gotten married. It made me wonder if Allee had foreseen her destiny, and that in leaving me her eggs, she was asking me to perpetuate her life in some way. They were mine to do whatever I wanted. Dr. Moore, a warm, ruggedly handsome man in his early forties, spent an hour with me, discussing the options, including the viability of fertilizing them with my sperm.

Though sensitive to my grief-stricken state, Dr. Moore was honest with me. It was risky. The success rate of fertilizing frozen eggs wasn’t high, but the good news was that it was doable, and babies born from this process had no risk for increased birth defects. I just had to prepare myself for the consequences: was I ready to be a single father if the procedure worked, and would I be able to deal with disappointment if it failed? Even though Allee had harvested many eggs that had been frozen in batches, allowing the option of trying again, Dr. Moore warned me that, for some people, the grief that followed failure was too much to bear. He told me to go home and think things over and to make another appointment with him when I had come to a decision.

I had been an utter zombie since Allee’s death. I forgot to eat; I didn’t want to wake up in the morning; I didn’t want to leave my loft or see a soul. The only thing that helped me was my writing. Within my own written words, I found myself reliving my life with her. Her breathtaking face, that raspy voice, the memories of us filled my head every waking moment of the day. Even when I slept, I dreamt of her. Of us. And of our baby. I never knew if it was a boy or girl. I saw only a beautiful face. A rosy-cheeked, tiny face that resembled Allee’s with twinkling espresso eyes and a tuft of ebony hair.

I decided to go forward with the procedure, blocking out the additional grief that might ensue if it didn’t work. I owed it to her to try; I owed it to us. One month later, I met with Dr. Moore again to tell him my decision.

“Have you arranged for a surrogate?” he asked.

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t given that much thought. When Dr. Moore told me that the process of securing a surrogate could take from six months to a year, I asked him if there was any alternative. For my own survival, I needed to go through the procedure as soon as possible. He told me that he could he freeze any resulting embryos while I searched for a surrogate and mentally readied myself for fatherhood. To my relief, the pregnancy success rate with frozen embryos was approximately the same as non-frozen embryos.

Two weeks later, I was back at Dr. Moore’s clinic. A batch of Allee’s eggs had been thawed. A bittersweet smile spread across my face when one of his nurses told me that they were of superior “A” quality. “Magnificent!” she exclaimed.
Just like my Allee
.

The smiley, buxom woman escorted me down a hallway, lined with adorable photos of “success story” babies, to a small, sterile room. Besides a sink and disinfectant, there was a rack of plastic cups and test-tubes labeled “Lubricant” as well as a rack of men’s magazines, featuring seductive, big-breasted, naked models on the covers. There was also a flat screen TV.

“You may want to read one of these to help you,” said the nurse with a wink. “Or watch the DVD.”

I didn’t need a porn magazine or video to help me jerk off. Closing my eyes, I wrapped my as-instructed, washed hand around my scrubbed cock, sliding it up and down with single-minded intensity; it swelled and stiffened quickly. All I had to do was think of my Allee. “Come for me, Madewell,” I heard her rasp as my hard, thick organ exploded. I watched as my release trickled into the plastic cup I was holding in my other hand. Tears of relief and remorse snaked down my face. Sealing the cup with a lid, I slumped back down the hall and handed it to the nurse. She grinned ear to ear when she saw my specimen.

The next day I got a phone call from Dr. Moore’s office—good news, three out of the five eggs thawed had fertilized. Now, it was just a waiting game. Two days later I got another call from a nurse in his office, asking me to come by in the afternoon. Dr. Moore wanted to speak with me. Every muscle in my body tensed. The memory of rushing to Dr. Goulding’s office to receive Allee’s prognosis flashed in and out of my head. My stomach clenching, I braced myself for bad news as I sat in the waiting room of the fertility clinic.

“Is your wife trying to have a baby?” asked the attractive redhead sitting next to me. A chill crept down my spine; I was taken aback. Before my mouth could move, the nurse who had collected my sperm stepped into the waiting room. My already rapid heartbeat accelerated.

A wide smile spread across her face. I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or put on. “Follow me, Mr. Madewell. Dr. Moore would like to talk to you in his office.”