Most people who walk into The Umstead Hotel and Spa are there for an occasion. Patrick Stapleton has been there since June of 2022, working as a banquet server and perfecting the art of being present for people during their most meaningful moments — weddings, celebrations, and other important milestones — while quietly working toward one of his own.
That moment arrived this summer with the publication of his debut novel, years in the making and months in the writing. It is a work of fiction about love, loss, grief, and whether you’d change the past if you could, but it is also a love letter.
“I would take this book and throw it in the water if it meant Danielle would appear right here,” he says, swallowing hard. “But we are where we are.”
Patrick and sister Danielle. Contributed photo
Danielle was Patrick’s oldest sibling — one of five children who, along with their parents and other relatives, moved to Cary from the New York suburbs as part of what he jokingly calls “a mass migration.” Danielle was, by every measure, extraordinary: a graduate of Boston College, then Georgetown, then Texas A&M, then prestigious Tufts Medical School, where she met her husband and eventually became an internist working nights — a nocturnist — at Duke Regional. Danielle had two children, Patty and Nolan, and was, according to Patrick, “the smartest person I have ever met.”
She was also living with Loeys-Dietz syndrome, a rare connective tissue disorder that affects the heart and major vessels and causes constant uncertainty. She had survived a collapsed lung, twice. She had rebounded from numerous procedures and setbacks that would have stopped most people, but “she had a warrior side to her,” Patrick says. “She was a strong woman.” He describes his sister Dani as “a force.”
Which is why, when she passed unexpectedly in 2021 after a surgery that she’d seemed to be recovering from, the shock was total. “She had been through so much and always bounced back …” Patrick says.
The Last “I Love You,” he explains, isn’t directly about Danielle, though there are characters in the book who carry her warmth, her directness, and her instinct to help people. Believing that “the memory of a person doesn’t die as long as their name is still spoken,” Patrick names a doctor character in the book Dr. Danielle Richardson.
Patrick’s debut novel, The Last “I Love You,” was released in June 2026.
He started writing in April 2025 and finished roughly nine months later, with a gap in the middle when the words just wouldn’t come. Tracking his progress in Google Sheets didn’t preclude moments where he genuinely thought he wouldn’t be able to finish. “I felt like sometimes I was so far away,” he says. “When you’re writing, you put so much into it. You expend a lot of energy … but you’re also like, I don’t know what else I’ve got.”
What kept Patrick going was in large part Danielle herself. “If she was able to get through a collapsed lung twice — and the fear of everyday life and not knowing what you’re dealing with — I can finish a book,” he says. “And it’s in her memory, so I have to finish it.”
Alongside his family, Patrick credits his coworkers at The Umstead with playing a critical role, admitting, “I would not have finished the book if it wasn’t for them.”
He hopes the novel helps readers navigate grief, brings more awareness to Loeys-Dietz syndrome (only identified in 2005), and hopefully proves something to young English majors who are told their degree isn’t practical. “I felt some of that coming out of college,” he admits. “I hope this book shows that writers, English majors, you can be a success after college.”
The book, he adds with a contemplative smile, is also his response to a conversation Dani had with him years ago after a cousin’s wedding, when she and another brother sat him down and gently but directly told him that they were worried about him not yet finding his feet. Patrick told them he’d figure it out.
“This book is kind of my answer to that,” he says.
One that would surely satisfy Danielle.
@thelast_iloveyou
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