THE LAST SUMMER WE SHARED

CHAPTER ONE: THE MAN BY THE WINDOW

The day I met Ethan, it was raining.

I remember it clearly.

Rain covered the little town in a silver-gray veil. The stone streets were wet, the old rooftops glistened beneath the clouds, and I stood outside the iron gate of a house I had never seen before, clutching my worn canvas bag and wondering whether I should simply turn around and go home.

My name is Lena Carter.

I was twenty-six years old.

I had just lost my job at a small bakery, my savings were barely enough to last a few weeks, and my mother had begun reminding me almost every morning that I needed to find something “stable.”

So when I saw an advertisement for a private caregiver, I applied immediately.

I had no experience.

I didn’t know how to take care of a disabled man.

But I needed the money.

And sometimes, that is the only reason a person needs to enter a life completely different from their own.

The woman who opened the door was Ethan’s mother.

She looked me up and down.

“Have you ever cared for anyone before?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Can you cook?”

“I can make eggs.”

She stared at me for several seconds.

“Only eggs?”

“I can learn.”

For some reason, she laughed.

Then she led me upstairs.

The bedroom door opened.

And I saw Ethan.

He was sitting beside the window in a black wheelchair.

Three years earlier, Ethan had been the kind of man I could only imagine from photographs.

A mountain climber.

A traveler.

A man who had driven across Europe alone, dived into distant seas, and appeared in magazines with wind-tangled hair and a confident smile.

Then came the accident.

A truck lost control on an icy road.

One afternoon.

One moment.

And everything changed.

Ethan could no longer feel his legs.

He looked at me.

His eyes told me immediately that I wasn’t welcome.

“This is Lena,” his mother said.

Ethan said nothing.

“She’ll be working with you for the next six months.”

“I don’t need her.”

His voice was cold enough to make the room feel colder.

His mother sighed.

“You need someone.”

“I need silence.”

I spoke before I could stop myself.

“I can be very quiet.”

Ethan looked at me.

“Good.”

“But I talk when I’m nervous.”

His eyebrow lifted.

“Then we’re going to have a problem.”

That was our first conversation.

And it was the beginning of six months neither of us would ever forget.

The first few days were awful.

Ethan didn’t like me.

I didn’t particularly like him either.

He complained about everything.

The soup was too salty.

The coffee was too weak.

The music was too loud.

My shoes made too much noise.

I talked too much.

I laughed too loudly.

One afternoon, I put a yellow pillow on the sofa.

Ethan looked at it.

“Take it away.”

“Why?”

“I hate yellow.”

I frowned.

“Do you hate yellow, or do you hate me?”

“At the moment, both.”

I picked up the pillow.

“Fine. But I’ll leave it outside your door.”

“Why?”

“So you can see it every morning.”

For the first time, I saw him smile.

Barely.

But he did.

I carried that smile with me for days.

One afternoon, I found Ethan staring through the window.

Outside, the garden was filled with flowers.

“Do you like spring?” I asked.

“I used to.”

“Used to?”

“Before the accident.”

I fell silent.

He continued staring outside.

“I used to think my life would last forever.”

I didn’t know what to say.

So I asked:

“Where did you travel?”

He told me.

Paris.

Rome.

Iceland.

New York.

Tokyo.

Places I had only ever seen on my phone.

He told me about tiny streets, restaurants that tourists never found, sleeping on trains, and waking up in cities where he didn’t know a single person.

I listened for hours.

By the time I realized it, the sun had already gone down.

Ethan looked at me.

“You’ve never been anywhere?”

“No.”

“Why?”

I shrugged.

“I always thought there would be a day.”

“What day?”

“I don’t know.”

He stared at me for a long moment.

Then he said:

“Don’t wait too long.”

I didn’t understand those words then.

I would understand them much later.

A week later, Ethan asked me to take him outside.

I thought I’d misheard him.

“Outside?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

I laughed.

“Are you serious?”

He looked at me.

“I am.”

And so, for the first time in years, Ethan left his room simply because a stubborn young woman kept telling him that there were still things in the world worth seeing.

We went to a little café.

Then the park.

Then a movie theater.

Every time we went out, Ethan pretended to be annoyed.

But I knew he was changing.

Just a little.

And so was I.

I began to realize that behind his coldness was a man hiding a pain he didn’t want anyone to see.

And Ethan began to realize that I wasn’t someone he could easily send away.

I had entered his life.

Neither of us knew that we would never leave it the same way we had entered.