The Photograph

How had they gotten to this? Lucien always wondered.

It was silent between them, as it had been every time they sat at their circular dining table to eat, and it was not uncomfortable for either of them. The only sound was the clink of forks gathering food from their plates.

He didn’t know when or how he was going to tell her. It suddenly dawned on him that he shouldn’t—he should procrastinate, as he always had—but he couldn’t. Time was watching him, controlling him and everything he did.

Christina was nervous, scared of how she was going to tell him and how he would react. She believed it was the best thing for them. She decided she would wait for the right time. Fear had held her back, but it was about time she told him.

Lucien and Christina had been married for five years. The first three years had been their best; their last two years had been their worst.

They had argued and fought with each other, getting on each other’s nerves more times than they could count, and Christina had hated it. Lucien, on the other hand, believed and was sure they were going to get better. They would find time and go for marriage counselling, or they would have kids who would bring them back together.

They dreaded that evening more than they would ever care to admit. They both had something to say.

“I have to tell you something...” they said at the same time.

It was strange, and they laughed it off. For a second, it felt like everything was normal.

“You go first,” Christina told him.

She was sure what she wanted to say was way more serious than anything he would ever say. In her head, she played the guessing game, even ranking the top three things she was sure he was going to say.

“What if we say what we want to say at the same time?” Lucien suggested, feeling inwardly uneasy.

She had always made him nervous—in the most romantic way, and in the scariest way. They had met when they were in college. He was the guy who only dreamt of her; she was the girl everyone wanted, the unachievable goal. Yet somehow, they were married.

“Okay, on three...” She flinched. “One, two, three...”

“I want a divorce...”

“I have cancer...”

It was suddenly quiet.

Lucien immediately felt better. Quinn had been right. He had told him every day to tell her, saying it was a good thing and that it meant he was not living in denial.

Lucien had sworn he wasn’t in denial. It was just something he didn’t want to talk about. Him now confirming it for Christina was proof he wasn’t.

Christina was dumbstruck, her mind racing. Fear gripped her, and her heart raced.

How had she missed it?

They had been together, sleeping in the same bed, having one-sided conversations, with him doing all the talking and her giving the shortest replies possible so that he would stop.

“When?” she finally managed to ask.

She hadn’t said anything for thirty minutes since they had said what they wanted to that night.

“Last month,” he said.

Christina knew him so well, especially when he was lying.

“You are lying!”

“Last November, the 25th,” he told her.

How could he ever forget that day? It had changed everything for him. It was an open wound that was never going to heal.

Christina sat silent again for a minute, puzzled, frightened, motionless.

Lucien didn’t say anything. He continued eating slowly.

“I know about the divorce.”

He remembered what she had said earlier, which was why he wasn’t surprised. He already had an idea of what she was going to say.

“What?” Christina was all the more surprised.

“Your mother told me, not on purpose. I also talked to your lawyer a lot. It was something he wanted to rub in my face,” Lucien said, avoiding any eye contact with her.

A tear slowly slid across her cheek, as though it had been waiting for the right time. Her eyes were already watery.

Lucien didn’t notice her start to cry. It was silent.

He had already started taking the plates back to the kitchen and putting them in the dishwasher. He suddenly remembered the brownies he had brought for her. They were her favourite dessert.

When he got back to the dining room with them, she was weeping silently, her eyes dark with the eyeliner she had put on in the morning.

“No, no, don’t cry. It’s fine.”

He immediately placed the plate down and moved next to her, hugging her.

She wrapped herself around him, crying all the more.

They stayed like that for almost an hour. Christina was sobbing while he gently patted her back, saying nothing.

When she finally stopped crying, she went silent again, not saying anything. She didn’t know how to process what was happening.

Lucien shifted and sat in the chair in front of her.

“About the divorce, it’s fine. If it is what you want, I understand. I have failed you, and you deserve more,” Lucien muttered.

He had been thinking about it ever since he found out, and there was nothing he could do. For him, the divorce would make her happier, which was what he had always wanted for her.

“What did... How? What...” She couldn’t bring herself to ask.

It scared her just to know, or even think about it. The thought was floating in her head, and she had tried her best to make it go away.

“Seven months. But if the treatment works, then I survive,” he answered.

He understood what she wanted to ask.

This was the worst day of her life, and she started regretting everything she had done to arrive at that dining table. She was scared, speechless, wanting to cry her heart out even more, motionless and unsure of what to say or do.

---

The next morning, when Lucien woke up, she wasn’t next to him.

He had left her, hoping she would eventually move from there and come to their room. He hurriedly went downstairs, hoping to find her sleeping on the couch, but she wasn’t.

She was in the kitchen, making breakfast.

“You’re awake. Great! Sit!” she told him.

She looked different from the previous night—happier, less anxious.

Lucien thought it was an act. She wasn’t fine.

He sat down, and she handed him a plate of muffins.

Christina had woken up on the couch, and she had done the first thing that crossed her mind: bake.

For her, it had always made things clearer.

“I think we should try again,” she said, now starting to drink the coffee she had made for herself.

Lucien had been eating for almost ten minutes and had not said anything.

“What?”

He was surprised. Of all the things she could have said, that was the last one he expected.

“Our marriage... We should try again,” she smiled.

“Why?”

“Because I want us to—”

“No,” he cut her off. “That is not what you want.”

“How do you know?”

“You only want that because I am dying. You feel guilty, and you pity me.”

“You are wrong.” She was hurt. How could he?

“It was what you wanted yesterday, Christina!”

“I changed my mind.”

“You didn’t. It is what you still want!”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, more than you know. Let’s just get it over with.”

“Lucien, stop being impulsive, okay? Finish your breakfast!” she told him.

He continued eating and didn’t say anything else. She controlled him, and he followed.

Christina’s cooking and baking knew no limits. He thought it was his kryptonite.

Christina stood, staring at him.

The cup she was holding suddenly slipped from her hands and broke. Tears were starting to well up in her eyes.

The sound of the cup startled him. He was just about to stand when she immediately left, going upstairs.

He cleaned up after her, removing all the pieces of the cup and drying the floor.

Upstairs, Christina broke down on the bathroom floor, admitting to herself that she was not fine. She even blamed herself for everything that was wrong.

Whatever resolve she had when she woke up had all disappeared with the tears she could not stop. She hurriedly got herself ready, sure of where she was going to go.

Downstairs, Lucien added himself more muffins, oblivious to what had happened or to what his day would bring.

He had work until eight in the evening, and he was in no rush to go. He was resigning, after all.

He would take his time, like he had every morning since he found out about his cancer.

As much as he denied it, he was unintentionally giving up. The hope he had every day left him as time moved on, uncaring of whatever he was going through.

The things he had lied to himself mattered didn’t matter anymore.

Soon, none of it was even going to matter.

When she heard him come upstairs to the room, she immediately shut the door. She hated him seeing her the way she was.

“Christina?” he called her.

“Yeah, I am almost done,” she lied.

She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror.

It was embarrassing for her. She had had everything figured out, and now everything was staring back at her—empty, afraid and crushed.

She mustered up the little strength she had and actually got herself together while in the bathroom.

When she came outside, she found Lucien asleep on the bed, his legs hanging over the side onto the floor.

She slowly put them on the bed, placed the blanket over him and continued to get herself ready, not wanting to wake him up.

She left quietly, after debating for a long time whether she should get into bed with him and stay there the entire day.

---

“What do you mean he’s dying?”

Hela was confused and all the more surprised, even when Christina had mentioned it for the third time since she entered their family house.

She lay on the couch, looking at her sister.

It was late in the afternoon. The sun broke through slowly, still tender from the not-so-light rain an hour before four.

Christina had left work and come to their house. The best solutions to many of the problems she had faced had come from that house.

If not her sister, then it would be her mother, who was not around when she came.

“He has cancer...”

“You have already said that. Have you told anyone else? Has he?” she interrupted.

“I don’t know. He told me yesterday.”

“Did he get the news yesterday?”

“No. Last November...”

“Christina! It’s June.” Hela was already judging her.

“I know.”

Christina suddenly felt like crying. The whole thing was destroying her and making her resent herself.

“Does he know about...”

“He does,” Christina confessed. “Even before I told him, Mom failed to keep quiet, as always.”

Hela smiled briefly. They knew their mom and how she hardly kept anything to herself, no matter what it was.

“I’m sorry,” Hela told her sister, moving over to her and settling her legs on her lap.

“I don’t know what to do,” Christina almost whispered, more to herself than to her sister.

Just then, their mother walked in through the front door, distracted by her phone and complaining on a call.

She was frustrated, but seeing her daughters in front of her made it all go away. She beamed, but not for long.

She immediately felt there was something wrong and ended the call. She would take out all her frustration on her friend later. She had to fix whatever was wrong for her children, like she always had.

“Hey... what’s wrong?” she asked them.

“Hey, Mama.”

“He’s dying, Mom,” Christina cried.

She couldn’t fight back her tears anymore.

Her mom embraced her, still surprised. She looked at Hela, who almost had the same look she did.

“Everything is going to be fine,” she whispered. “Everything is going to be fine!”

---

“Why?”

Karson was puzzled.

“I... it’s personal stuff. I can’t really explain. It’s...” Lucien stammered.

“What do you mean you can’t? You can’t! I forbid you to!”

He burned with frustration. He had a plan. They had a plan.

“I have to. It’s for the best,” he said softly.

“You cannot resign. We still have so much to do.”

He was on the verge of begging.

Lucien was the only person he trusted there. He thought everyone else were snakes waiting to bite him.

“Come on,” Lucien told him.

Karson was his friend. Even if he didn’t want to accept it, their relationship was both personal and professional. The two of them had an understanding, and it carried them.

It made him all the more unhappy to resign, yet he knew it was for the best.

How could he continue?

Everything was unpleasant. He was hopeless.

The two of them sat in long silence, Karson already figuring out what to do next, being the man he was, while Lucien was somewhat afraid of what he would say to him.

“I pray this is not the last time I am seeing you, Parr,” Karson admitted.

Lucien only smiled.

“We will meet again,” Lucien told him.

Deep down, he didn’t believe it. For him, it suddenly felt like a goodbye.

The two of them stood up and held a firm handshake for almost a minute before Karson hugged him strongly.

He had always struggled with and hated the times that felt like goodbye, and this was certainly one of them.

Lucien placed the resignation letter on the table.

He stared at him one last time and then walked out.

“The greatest of times...” Karson said as he watched him walk out of the door.

He turned and faced the window, waiting for Lucien to leave, wanting to see him, hoping what he imagined would happen.

Lucien picked up the box, looked at his office and then left.

Many people stopped what they were doing to see him walk out. Some nodded, others only wondered, and very few were sad about it.

But everything continued as if nothing had happened.

He slowly walked to the car outside, turning to face Karson’s window, where Karson was staring at him.

He waved his hand at him, and Karson did the same, grinning briefly before they turned away at the same time.

---

“How was it?” Quinn asked immediately after Lucien opened the car door.

“You know... sad,” Lucien told him as he entered and sat down.

He immediately started the car and began driving.

Quinn drove without saying anything, his mind lost in how it would feel for him and Lucien to part ways for good.

He didn’t want to think about it because he believed his friend was not going to die.

Yet he did.

It frightened him.

Lucien meant so much to him.

“What time is tomorrow’s treatment?” he asked Lucien, who was looking out the window.

“In the afternoon. At two.”

“Do you feel better?” he asked, worried.

“Since when did you get so soft?” Lucien joked.

It was not like Quinn to be sensitive, even warm.

Ever since he found out about Lucien’s leukemia, he had changed. It was one of those things that happened to bend you, especially when you thought it could never be you.

“Come on. Is it working? Do you feel any better?” Quinn asked him.

“I guess the pain is less. I do feel better,” Lucien lied.

His body was slowly starting to ache. He hadn’t taken the afternoon dose of his medication.

Quinn figured out he was lying. Lucien’s legs were slowly shaking, and even he hadn’t noticed.

It often happened on cold days like this.

Quinn turned on the heater immediately.

“Did I tell you? I talked to Christina yesterday,” Lucien smirked.

“Thank you! You did the right thing. Plus, it was kind of eating you up. So, how did it go?”

“Bad. She told me she wanted a divorce, then she cried when she found out and felt really awful. Today, she didn’t want the divorce, so I don’t know now.”

“You already knew she wanted a divorce, though, for some time now. Why did she suddenly change her mind?”

“Because I am dying.”

He said it, and the air inside the car immediately turned heavy.

Quinn remembered that their time together was forever coming to an end.

“Why would you think that?” he told him. “The treatment is going to work, and you are going to be fine!”

He was not yet ready to accept it.

Lucien didn’t respond. He only kept quiet, his mind roaming through what it would feel like when he died.

Would it be painful or not?

Would anyone who talked about what happens when you die be right?

It frightened him, not knowing.

He hadn’t cried at all ever since he found out.

It was denial—the kind that you hide at the bottom of your soul.

---

“He is right, you know,” Christina told them.

“About what?” her mom asked.

The three of them were in their mom’s room, lying on her bed.

It was already eight in the evening, and the moon was out, its glow trying to fight the darkness that enveloped the place.

Christina had decided she was not going to go back until she figured things out, if not everything, then at least some things.

She would stay at her parents’ place until she did.

The three of them had already ordered takeout and eaten. Christina had wanted to sleep in her mom’s room, and Hela did too.

They had been lying on the enormous bed for almost thirty minutes, talking about everything and nothing, laughing and reliving everything.

It was comforting.

It was the best of times.

“I only didn’t want the divorce today because I feel guilty. I pity him.”

“And to feel less guilty, you want to stay because he is dying,” Hela uttered.

She was a therapist who consciously and unintentionally enjoyed judging her sister.

Christina knew, and she had never complained. From the time they were young, she had always ignored her.

Most of the time, Hela was right.

Their mom, on the other hand, didn’t enjoy it. She immediately pinched Hela’s arm.

“Mom!” Hela complained.

“Ignore her. You are scared of leaving him. That’s why.”

Angelica patted her daughter’s back as she lay beside her. She was between the two of them.

“Why did you want a divorce in the first place anyway? Honestly, Lucien is perfect. I don’t know how or why you don’t see it,” Hela told her sister.

“I can’t remember why I wanted the divorce in the first place. I just... I should have known he was sick. Maybe things would be better.”

Her throat tightened. She was on the verge of crying again.

“Are you still in love with him?” Angelica asked her softly.

Christina didn’t know the answer to her mom’s question.

She could not find it.

She lay there in silence, confused, feeling worse about herself.

They were all starting to fall asleep when Christina’s phone suddenly rang.

It woke all of them up.

“Pass me my phone,” she told her sister.

“No, ignore it. We are all asleep,” Hela complained.

“Hela!” Angelica ordered.

She listened.

Christina was surprised to see the caller.

It was Quinn.

They had barely talked ever since they met.

“Are you going to go back tonight?” he asked her immediately.

“No.”

“What?”

She was confused.

“He’s alone. I have just left your place. Are you going to sleep there tonight?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” she brushed him off.

She had always found Quinn irritating and didn’t like how close he was to Lucien.

“Do you even care?”

Quinn was angry at her.

She didn’t respond.

There was a long silence between them before she hung up.

“Who was it?” her mom asked her.

“No one,” she lied, slowly going back to her mom’s side.

It didn’t take long before she broke down, trying to keep her crying silent, but she failed.

Whatever was happening, she didn’t understand.

Hela and Angelica wrapped their arms around her, gently patting her until she fell asleep.

Eventually, they all did.

---

Christina woke up later that night.

She slowly broke free from her mother and sister and went to the kitchen, where she poured herself some water.

She slowly drank it, her mind not entirely awake. She still wanted to go back to sleep.

As she climbed the stairs to go back to bed, her eyes met a photograph, perfectly framed like the rest on their photo wall.

She walked closer and looked at it for a long time.

It was Lucien.

They had gone to India for half of their honeymoon, and there had been a ritual for newlyweds: the husband carried his wife in his arms and climbed the stairs to the temple at the top.

Lucien had carried her until they were at the top.

They were the only couple of the ten that made it there.

She remembered being happy, and how everyone at the top had told her he was going to be there with her for the rest of their lives.

And she had believed it.

He was going to be enough.

He was enough.

She continued looking at the picture in bewilderment.

She was struck, and it all came at once, like a reminder.

She immediately knew what she had to do.

---

It was comforting, even peaceful, how the show he was watching made him forget everything.

For that time, it was only the next episode that mattered, and he hadn’t stopped, not even to check the time.

Lucien had only stood up occasionally to use the bathroom, drink water or get more ice cream.

Quinn had left at nine after they had eaten food he had cooked.

After he had left, Lucien was sure he was going to sleep, but he failed to.

He stopped waiting for Christina to come back and switched on the TV, starting a random show Christina was already watching.

Since then, he hadn’t even felt sleepy, even after taking his medication, which had always made him drowsy.

He was just about to go and refill his ice cream when he saw a car in their driveway.

It was Christina.

He checked the time on his phone.

It was just coming up to five.

It didn’t take her long before she was inside, standing in front of him, panting, her heart racing.

“I told you not to eat strawberry ice cream when I am around,” she smiled, catching her breath.

Lucien was baffled.

It was dark and freezing, and she was in her pajamas.

“I will... It’s...” he stammered.

“I love you,” she stopped him. “And I am sorry, and I don’t want a divorce because I am in love with you, Lucien. I need you to listen to me, okay?”

He only looked at her, not saying anything.

He was speechless.

“I am sorry you are sick, and I should have known. I want you to know that I am not going anywhere. And you are not allowed to divorce me, and you are not going to die,” she told him, tears trying to force their way out. “Please forgive me. Lucien, I love you. Please...”

She started crying uncontrollably.

He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her.

She sobbed slowly, now wrapping her arms around him.

The two of them stood still, not saying anything, until she stopped crying.

Things would go back to how they were.

It was going to be old times again.

It was going to be just him, and it was going to be just her.

---

“Hi!”

Christina grabbed him when he woke up.

She had been looking at him sleeping ever since she woke up. She didn’t want to leave.

“Hi.”

He kissed her forehead.

They stayed looking at each other until Christina’s alarm buzzed.

“No,” she said irritably as she turned to switch it off.

“What time is it?” he asked her.

“Ten. We don’t have to go. We can stay like this the whole day.”

She turned back, pulling him closer to her.

“My treatment is at two.”

“Fine. We’ll go together,” she beamed.

Whatever fears she had, and whatever sadness she had felt before, had left.

She believed everything was going to work out for the two of them.