Ульяна Солнечная – Its Never Too Late - As Long As Youre Alive (страница 10)

On the fourth day, when she had finally stopped waiting, his reply came.

She saw the notification on her phone screen, and her heart still lurched.

She had to sit down — her knees nearly gave out.

The message was long.

Much longer than she had expected.

Kate,

I didn’t sleep all night after reading your letter. I must have read it ten times. I still couldn’t believe it was really you. That you remembered me.

Do I remember? Kate, I remember everything. I remember you sitting at the third desk by the window. The way you bit your lip during tests. The way your hair smelled — apples, I think, or maybe just children’s shampoo. I remember your laugh. I remember the day you said to me, “Jacob, you dream too much.” And I remember thinking: “Kate, it’s you who dreams too little.”

You ask if I remember Hemingway? Of course I do. I also remember the day you gave me back A Farewell to Arms and said, “Sad. But beautiful.” You looked at me then, and I almost said what you wrote to me now. I almost told you I loved you. But I was scared. I was seventeen, and I was a fool.

Then life split us apart. I left. You stayed. I got married, divorced, got married again, and divorced again. Photography became my wife, my home, my everything. I traveled the world. I photographed war, peace, people. But I never photographed you. And I think that may be my greatest regret.

I don’t know why you wrote. Maybe just because. Maybe because of fate. But I’ll tell you this, Kate Morgan from Oklahoma: you are still in my heart. Not as a memory. As a question I never managed to answer.

I live in New York now. I have a small apartment in Brooklyn and a large dog named Oklahoma. Ridiculous name, isn’t it? But every time I call him, I think of you.

If you are ever in New York, come see me. I’ll show you the city. I’ll photograph you. And we’ll finally have that coffee we never had at seventeen.

And if you never come, that’s all right too. Just know this: you were right. It was love.

Always yours,

Jacob

Kate finished reading and began to cry.

Not from happiness.

Not from sorrow.

From fullness.

From the overwhelming realization that life, apparently, does not end neatly at all.

That somewhere in New York there was an old man with a dog named Oklahoma who still remembered the smell of her hair.

She sat there for a long time with the phone in her hands.

Tears dropped onto the screen.

Then she stood up, walked to the refrigerator, and looked at the map of Paris.

“Well then,” she said softly.

“Paris first. Then we’ll see.”

And for the first time in many years, she wanted to live for as long as she possibly could.

The Ticket

The decision did not come like a lightning strike.

It came as a quiet knowing — low in her stomach, in that same place where anxiety used to settle.

Only now it was not anxiety.

It was readiness.

Kate woke on Tuesday, made coffee, fed the birds outside the window (an old habit she had inherited from Tom), and sat down at the table.

Across from her, the map of Paris was pinned to the refrigerator.

Beside it lay her phone, with Jacob’s letter still open — the one she had reread at least twenty times by now, and each time it made her heart turn over in some strange little somersault.

She picked up the phone.

Found the airline website.

And froze.

“Lord,” she whispered. “I don’t even know which airport Paris has.”

She called Barbara.

“Which airport is in Paris?” she asked without preamble.

Barbara, judging by her voice, was not fully awake yet, but she answered instantly.

“Charles de Gaulle. Or Orly. Why? Are you doing it?”

“I think I am.”

“Stay where you are. I’m coming over.”

Fifteen minutes later, Barbara was standing on her porch — bathrobe thrown over a tracksuit, laptop tucked under one arm, and two croissants in a paper bag.

“Breakfast,” she announced. “French-style. For atmosphere. Hand me your phone — I’ll look everything up. Your hands are shaking.”

Kate didn’t argue.

Her hands really were shaking.

They sat at the kitchen table, eating croissants (not real French ones, of course — supermarket croissants — but Barbara had warmed them in the oven, and they were almost fresh), while Barbara clicked her way through websites.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s see. Oklahoma City to Paris. With a layover. Eight hours there. Eight hours back. How long do you want to stay?”

Kate paused.

How long?

She had never thought about Paris in practical terms.

Paris had always belonged to the category of someday, not how many nights.

“A week?” she said uncertainly. “Is that too much?”

“That’s fine,” Barbara nodded. “For your first time, a week is perfect. Long enough to see the essentials, short enough not to wear yourself out. Let’s look at dates. May. Paris is beautiful in May. And not too hot.”

Kate watched Barbara move confidently between pages, comparing prices, reading conditions, switching tabs with the ease of someone who spoke fluent internet.

On her own, she never would have managed this digital sorcery.

“There,” Barbara said at last. “May tenth. Morning departure, and by local evening — Paris. Return on the seventeenth. Price is… well, not cheap. But for your dream? Manageable.”

She turned the screen toward Kate.

There it all was:

the dates,

the flights,