“YOU CAN COME WITH ME; OR YOU CAN STAY. BUT WHICHEVER YOU CHOOSE, I’m going.” Despite frustrations and confusions Lucy had never quarreled with Alex: but she was close now. She was very emotional about this decision. It had taken her weeks to get permission, and everything was in place. She was back at work part-time and had to juggle her own schedule now. She had booked a room to stay from Friday to Sunday, and was ready intellectually for the experience. More than that, something drove her to the necessity of going. It had to be now.

Alex was distraught. He’d worked a month straight every hour he wasn’t with students or at the hospital to get his thesis in—which in itself had been a mountain to climb—but what had driven him was the desire to free up some time in the future as a by-product. Lucy had mentioned a fortnight before that she was going to Chartres for the spring equinox. She was particular as to the time, and had arranged with the cathedral to walk the labyrinth before the season officially started, after closing hours. He knew she’d gone to a lot of trouble and used her television credentials to help make it happen. Will’s postcards had intrigued her. She wanted to see whatever it was that Alex’s brother had seen at first hand. She wanted to dance the ancient Rite of Spring at the proper moment.

While he was surprised it meant so much to her, Alex was in fact quite curious himself and concerned about her going alone. So he told her simply at lunch a few days prior: “I’d like to come with you.” Delight and relief flooded her senses. She hadn’t expected this.

They’d grown closer since her birthday, considering the usual frustrations of time. “It’s not advisable,” she had sighed to Grace, “to start feeling anything for a man who is divorced, with a son I still haven’t met, a full-time job, and a research degree to complete.” Secretly, though, she had a deeper worry, questioning for weeks whether Alex’s failure to get intimately involved with her had anything to do with the uncertainty of her health. She knew he’d lost his mother and brother in less than a year. He didn’t talk about it, and never let his mask slip, but she understood without explanation that the pain was still raw. Could she blame him for holding back on starting a full relationship that might end at any time? Heart transplants were achieving better and better results for survival beyond the first crucial year, but there were certainly no guarantees. But now she’d hoped she might be able to put her doubts to rest. She would find out what there was between them and settle the uncertainties, and she’d been able to think of hardly anything else for weeks now.