One Last Call Before Goodbye Chapter 01
Five years after I broke up with Marshall Hendrix, the doctors told me there was nothing more they could do about my cancer.
On the day I was discharged, I accidentally knocked over the little ceramic figurine Marshall had once given me.
As I picked up the broken pieces, I found a folded slip of paper hidden inside.
The handwriting was his.
“Summoning Ticket: This ticket entitles the bearer to summon Marshall Hendrix once. No matter where he is, he will come to Darlene Connell.”
I stared at the note for a long time.
For five years, I had never called him. Never looked for him. Never let myself disturb his life.
But now, I was dying. I didn’t want to ask him for anything. I just wanted to see him one last time.
After hesitating for what felt like forever, I finally dialed the number I still knew by heart.
After a few rings, a clear female voice came through.
“Hello?”
***
For a moment, Darlene was too stunned to speak. She pulled the phone away from her ear and double-checked the number.
It was right.
“Hello? Hello? Why aren’t you saying anything?” The woman’s voice on the other end grew louder, full of confusion.
Darlene’s voice came out stiff. “Hi… Is Marshall there?”
The woman said yes, followed by some rustling on the line.
A few seconds later, a voice Darlene had only ever heard in her dreams these last five years came through.
“Hello? Who is this?”
Her breath caught. She fought to keep her voice steady.
“It’s Darlene.”
Marshall went quiet, as if trying to process the sudden call.
Only after a long pause did he speak again, “Why are you calling me all of a sudden?”
Staring at the slip of paper, she said, her voice trembling just a little, “Are you free anytime soon?”
The soft shuffle of slippers across the floor came first. Then Marshall’s voice, more distant now.
“Yeah,” he said.
Darlene’s grip on the phone tightened slightly. “I’m in New York. Where are you right now?”
“Washington, D.C.”
She swallowed, the words unsteady as she forced them out.
“You gave me a ceramic figurine for my twentieth birthday… I just found the slip of paper inside.
“Marshall, can you come—”
Before she could finish, that same female voice cut in, urging him on.
“Hurry up, Mardy. The movie’s about to start.”
Marshall’s voice shifted, apologetic now. “Sorry, I’m a little tied up at the moment. Can we talk later?”
The call went dead.
Darlene stared at the darkened screen. Her gaunt reflection stared back, bitterness tugging at the corners of her lips.
A creak broke the silence.
The hospital room door swung open. Her sister, Louise Connell, walked in carrying a large bag of medication.
Louise took in the scene—Darlene sitting there in a daze, staring at the phone in one hand and the slip of paper in the other. Her gaze fell to the shattered ceramic figurine, the one Darlene had carried everywhere for years, and she frowned.
She walked over and stroked Darlene’s pale cheek, her touch aching with tenderness. “Still thinking about Marshall?”
Darlene’s eyes reddened. After a beat, she said, “No.”
“Yeah, right.”
Louise reached up and gently wiped the faint tears from the corners of Darlene’s eyes.
“You two dated from high school all through college. You don’t just let go of a seven-year relationship like that.
“Despite his parents’ protests, he stuck by you. He really did love you back then. But it’s been years. He’s probably moved on by now. New life, new people, you know?”
Darlene’s lashes trembled.
Back then, Marshall had loved her to his very core. His mother, Tabitha Hendrix, had looked down on her family background and fought them relentlessly, but still, he held her hand, firm and unshakable.
He’d told her, “Unless I’m dead, Lena, I’m never leaving you.”
With that solemn promise, she had stayed by his side without hesitation, no matter what came at them.
That was, until Tabitha stepped in and made sure Marshall couldn’t even land a job as an outpatient doctor, top of his class at medical school or not.
Tabitha had said to her, “I raised Marshall for greater things. For glory. Not to throw it all away on some no-name girl with nothing to her name.
“If he wants to keep playing the fool and won’t come to his senses, then as far as I’m concerned, I have no son.”
Between Marshall’s repeated setbacks, Tabitha’s relentless pressure, and then—to make everything infinitely worse—Darlene’s stomach cancer diagnosis, she simply couldn’t hold on anymore.
After leaving behind a single line, “Let’s end it”, she vanished from Marshall’s world completely.
She heard he went half-mad looking for her. Once, behind the wheel, he’d spotted a woman with the same build and got into a crash that nearly killed him.
As time passed, she lost all news of him, tortured for five years between longing and the ravages of her illness.
A soft patter broke the silence.
Darlene’s tears dropped onto the phone screen, smearing her own reflection.
Sobbing, she said, for the first time since leaving Marshall, “Louie, I miss him. I miss him so much…”
She looked at Louise. “Louie, I want to go see him.”
Since he couldn’t come to her, she’d go to him.
But Louise shook her head firmly. “No. In your condition, a trip like that is just too much.”
She held Darlene’s hand, her own eyes reddening, and pleaded, “Lena… You’re all I have left. Even if it’s only a few more days, please… Don’t leave me.”
Darlene fell silent. But her gaze only grew more resolute.
Louise knew that stubbornness. Once Darlene made up her mind, there was no turning her back, just like when she’d left so decisively for Marshall’s sake all those years ago.
After what felt like an eternity, Louise let out a helpless sigh. “Fine.”
Eyes red-rimmed, Darlene slowly leaned into her shoulder. “Louie, I’ll come back soon… I want to spend these last days by your side.”
The words cut Louise to the heart. She drew a deep breath, just to hold herself together.
Once the discharge paperwork was done, Darlene went home with Louise.
She didn’t rest. Instead, she took out some glue and carefully pieced the ceramic figurine back together, then packed her bags.
Her phone pinged just as she closed her suitcase.
It was a message from Marshall.
A screenshot of a flight from Washington, D.C. to New York. And one line.
“I’m coming.”