The Days I Loved You Most

In June 2001, Evelyn and Joseph Myers, a married couple in their late seventies, gather their three adult children at their home, the former Oyster Shell Inn in Stonybrook, Connecticut, to deliver devastating news. Joseph tells Jane, the eldest and a local news anchor; Thomas, their only son and a finance executive; and Violet, the youngest, that he and Evelyn plan to end their lives together the following June. They do not want to face a future in which one must live without the other or endure a prolonged decline. Thomas is furious and calls the plan selfish. Jane demands a rational explanation. Violet is devastated but finds something romantic in her parents' devotion. Under pressure, Evelyn reveals a secret she intended to keep: She has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, advancing unusually fast, with early signs of dementia. Joseph admits he has no diagnosis; his decision to die alongside Evelyn is his own. Evelyn confesses she has tried to dissuade him and asks the children to help change his mind. Thomas storms out without saying goodbye.

The novel unfolds in alternating chapters that move between the present-day final year and key moments across six decades of Evelyn and Joseph's life. These flashbacks trace the full arc of their relationship and reveal the roots of the family's deepest conflicts.

Joseph, Evelyn, and her brother Tommy grew up as inseparable neighbors in Stonybrook. When Evelyn is fourteen, her mother sends her to live with her aunt Maelynn in Boston. She returns a year later transformed and poised, and Joseph is stunned by the romantic feelings that overtake him. He begins bringing Evelyn wild violets from the meadow between their houses, a gesture that becomes their lifelong symbol of love. Tommy gives his blessing, and on the dock at Bernard Beach, Joseph and Evelyn share their first kiss.

Their idyll shatters when Tommy and Joseph enlist in the army in 1942. At the train station, Joseph tells Evelyn he loves her for the first time. She cannot say it back, superstitiously believing that withholding the words will force him to return safely. He does return two years later, but alone, with a permanent limp and the news that Tommy was killed in Italy. Evelyn blames Joseph for breaking his promise to bring Tommy home, refuses to speak to him for weeks, and then leaves Stonybrook without telling anyone where she has gone.

Months later, unable to live without her, Joseph follows Evelyn to Boston. Maelynn reveals Evelyn's whereabouts, and over months of shared lunches and cautious conversation, they rebuild trust. On a snowy evening, Evelyn finally tells Joseph she loves him, and he proposes. They marry in 1945, but grief follows: Joseph's parents die in quick succession, and he grows restless, longing to return home. Evelyn resists, clinging to Boston as a place free of painful memories. Eventually she confesses she wants a child and agrees to go back, despite her terror of more loss.

In Stonybrook, they reopen the inn. Jane is born in 1951, Thomas in 1953, and Violet a few years later. Motherhood overwhelms Evelyn, who feels trapped and disconnected from her dreams of music and travel. Joseph discovers a hidden dream list whose final entry reads, "Perform with the Boston Symphony Orchestra." In 1955, Evelyn secretly drives to Boston intending to audition for the BSO, but misses her slot, possibly on purpose. Standing by the Charles River, she sees wild violets and breaks down, realizing she cannot leave her family. She drives home and never tells anyone.

In the summer of 1969, the family hires Sam, a charismatic Yale law student, to help at the inn. His attention rekindles something restless in Evelyn. On the night of Jane's eighteenth birthday, Sam propositions Evelyn, asking her to run away with him. She firmly rejects him, but Jane witnesses only the proposition and believes her mother had an affair. The misunderstanding drives Jane's years-long estrangement. She moves to California, where Joseph eventually finds her emaciated and living with a heroin addiction. She refuses to come home. Two years later, Jane calls the inn and returns with her fourteen-month-old daughter, Rain. The family begins its slow healing, and Joseph and Evelyn eventually confront the truth about Sam, reaching a painful understanding after years of silence.

In the present-day chapters, spanning June 2001 through June 2002, the family struggles under the weight of the announcement. Thomas, married to Ann, avoids his parents for months until the September 11 attacks bring him racing to Stonybrook. He was supposed to be in a meeting at the North Tower that morning but rescheduled for a doctor's appointment Ann insisted on. The near-miss gives him a visceral understanding of his parents' terror of losing each other. Violet confides that her parents' love has exposed the emptiness in her own marriage to her husband, Connor, and she considers divorce. Evelyn reveals to Violet that she herself once tried to leave Joseph, urging her daughter to fight for her marriage before making an irreversible choice. Rain announces she is pregnant, due in May, and hopes the baby will give her grandparents a reason to stay.

Through the final year, Evelyn and Joseph cross items off her old dream list: a biplane ride, a sunset sail, messages in bottles tossed into the sea. Jane, despite her objections, agrees to help fulfill her mother's greatest dream. With the help of Marcus, a former journalist she is quietly falling in love with, Jane arranges for herself and Evelyn to perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 10 at the BSO's community concert in January 2002. The performance is transcendent, Evelyn playing flawlessly, the entire family in the front rows.

As the months pass, Evelyn's decline accelerates. She burns a Christmas cake and cannot recall her granddaughter's name. She falls in the garden. Thomas and Ann announce they will move closer, and Evelyn and Joseph offer the inn to Rain and her husband, Tony, ensuring the home stays in the family. In May, the children throw a celebration-of-life party in Joseph's garden. Evelyn presents Joseph with a carved box containing sixty years of unsent love letters. Each child delivers a speech, and the family dances under string lights.

Days later, on a clear morning, Evelyn picks a violet and tucks it behind her ear, raises her hands to the sky without trembling, and tells Joseph what a beautiful garden he has made. Then she suffers a massive stroke and collapses into the violets. She dies in the hospital with Joseph and the children at her side, one month before their planned date.

Joseph is devastated. The family scatters Evelyn's ashes at Bernard Beach. Rain gives birth to a daughter named Eve, and holding her, Joseph is shattered and renewed at once. At home, he opens the piano bench to retrieve the farewell letters and the stockpiled pills. He finds an envelope he did not expect, written secretly by Evelyn on Christmas Eve. She tells him that if she has died before their planned date, he must not follow her. She writes that he saved their family, that their life together was her greatest dream, and that she will wait forever for him.

On a June afternoon, Joseph spends a final day with the family at the beach. He walks home alone, places the farewell letters on the counter, and opens the pill bottle. Then he turns on the faucet and pours every pill down the drain. He steps into the garden, lies down among the violets, and breaks the last promise he made to Evelyn, the promise she never wanted him to keep. He whispers a new promise: a tomorrow without her. He tilts his face to the setting sun, choosing to live.