We packed light. One suitcase each, one carry-on each, plus one extra empty suitcase each. I’ve rented a flat in the 4th Arrondissement, Le Marais: trendy, hip, close to all the best of everything Paris has to offer…or so said the travel agent I hired to set this all up. Not knowing any better, I went with her expertise. I mean, she did have a French accent, and her name was Eloise Gautier, and her office is in Paris, so it stands to reason she’d know.

She told me our flat is a top-floor corner spot, with the most romantic view of the Eiffel Tower you can ask for. I paid extra to have it stocked with hand-picked red wine and champagne, stuffed to embarrassment with profusions of roses and bouquets of wildflowers, to have the fridge filled with cheese and strawberries and blueberries and yogurt and charcuterie meat and baguettes in the breadbox. Candles everywhere—I send a text when we’re leaving the airport, and the agent will send someone to light the candles. We have a car service, available to us twenty-four seven for the duration of our stay. I’ve scheduled a personal shopper for Nadia, and took out a credit card with an eye-watering credit limit.

I’ve also got essentially a bucket of high-dose painkiller narcotics, not just the good stuff but the best stuff. I sampled them a few days ago, when I first got them, and whoa. Seriously whoa. I have to be careful, judicious. Mainly at night, so I can sleep, or only during the day if it’s too much to bear.

I’ve gone all out for this trip. I cashed out a bunch of investments to pay for it, and did some financial jujitsu with the rest, moving them to less risky, more stable portfolios, and all solely in Nadia’s name. I’ve done a lot, the past couple months. My final book is done. The arrangements have all been made.

The entire reason I booked this trip in the first place is because I met with my oncologist, Dr. Jerry Lowell, not that long ago.

“All we can really do at this point, Adrian,” he’d told me, “is try to make you as comfortable as we can. We can keep doing chemo if you want, it’ll push things out a few more weeks, maybe a few more months at most. But…in the end, there’s really nothing else we can do.”

“Say I stop all chemo, all treatments,” I’d said. “How long?”

“Two, maybe three months. Three and a half on the outside.”