Heart of the Matter (4 page)

I asked
how
he knew.

“I’ve been there,” he said. “Of course, I wasn’t on my way to the altar. But still. . .”

I laughed through an unattractive sob.

“Maybe it will be okay,” he said, looking away, as if to give me privacy.

“Maybe,” I said, finding a Kleenex in my purse and gathering myself.

A moment later, we were stepping off the train at 116
th
Street (which I would only later learn wasn’t Nick’s true destination), the crowd dispersing around us. I remember how hot it was, the smell of roasted peanuts, the sound of a soprano folksinger crooning from the street above. Time seemed to stand still as I watched him remove a pen from the pocket of his scrubs and write his name and number on a card I still have in my wallet today.

“Here,” he said, pressing it into my palm.

I glanced down at his name, thinking that he looked like a Nicholas Russo. Deliciously solid. Sexy. Too good to be true.

I tried it out, saying, “Thank you, Nicholas Russo.”

“Nick,” he said. “And you are ... ?”

“Tessa,” I said, feeling weak with attraction.

“So. Tessa. Give me a call if you ever want to talk,” he said. “You know. . . Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who’s not. . . vested.”

I looked into his eyes and could see the truth. He was as vested as I was.

***

The next day I told Ryan I couldn’t marry him. It was the worst day of my life to that point. I had had my heart broken once before him—granted, on a much more adolescent level—but this was so much worse. This was heartbreak
plus
remorse and guilt and even shame over the scandal of calling off a wedding.

“Why?” he asked through tears I still can’t bear to think about too closely. I had seen Ryan cry before, but never because of me.

As hard as it was, I felt that I owed him the truth, brutal though it was.

“I love you, Ryan. But I’m not
in
love with you. And I can’t marry someone I’m not
in
love with,” I said, knowing that it sounded like a canned breakup line. Like the sort of unsubstantial, shallow excuse middle-aged men give before divorcing their wives.

“How do you know?” Ryan asked. “What does that even
mean?

I could only shake my head and think of that moment on the train, with the stranger named Nick in the blue-gray scrubs, and say again and again that I was sorry.

Cate was the only one who got the full story. The only one who knows the truth, even today. That I met Nick
before
I broke up with Ryan. That if it weren’t for Nick, I would ve married Ryan. That I’d probably
still
be married to Ryan, living in a different city with different children and a different life altogether. A watered-down, anemic version of my life now. All the same downsides of motherhood, none of the upsides of true love.

Of course, there was speculation about infidelity among some of our more partisan friends when Nick and I started to seriously date only a few months later. Even Ryan (who at the time still knew me better than anyone, Nick included) expressed doubts about the timing of things, how quickly I had moved on.

“I want to believe you are a good person,” he wrote in a letter I still have somewhere. “I want to believe that you were honest with me and would never cheat. But I have a hard time not wondering when you and your new boyfriend actually met.”

I wrote him back, despite the fact that he told me not to, declaring my innocence, apologizing once again for the pain I caused him. I told him that he would always have a special place in my heart, and that I hoped, in time, he would forgive me and find someone who loved him the way he deserved to be loved. The implication was clear—I had found what I wanted for him. I was
in
love with Nick.

It is a feeling that has never wavered. Life isn’t always fun, and is almost never easy, I think, as I return to the kitchen in my troubleshooting mode, ready for my second cup of coffee, but I am in love with my husband and he is in love with me. It is the constant in my life, and will continue to be so, as our children grow, my career changes, friends come and go. I am sure of this.

But I still find myself reaching out and knocking twice on our wooden cutting board. Because you can never be too sure when it comes to the things that matter most.

4

Valerie

The
following morning, Charlie is moved across the street, from the ER at Mass General to Shriners, which Valerie has been told repeatedly is one of the leading pediatric burn centers in the country. She knows they are in for a long, uphill struggle when they get there, but she also feels relief that Charlie’s condition is no longer a life-or-death emergency, a feeling that is bolstered by the sight of Dr, Russo waiting for them in their new room.

It has not even been a full day since their first conversation, but she already trusts him as much as she’s ever trusted anyone. As he steps toward her, clipboard in hand, Valerie notices how striking his features are, admiring the curve of his bottom lip, his elegant nose, his liquid brown eyes.

“Hello,” he says, forming each syllable carefully, his manner and posture formal. Yet there is something familiar, even comforting, about him, too, and Valerie fleetingly considers whether their paths have crossed before, somewhere, in a much different context.

“Hi,” she replies, feeling a twinge of embarrassment for crumbling the night before. She wishes she had been stronger, but tells herself he has seen it all, many times, and will likely see more tears from her before they are finished.

“How are you?” he asks with genuine concern. “Did you get any sleep?”

“A little,” she says, even though she spent most of the night standing beside Charlie’s bed. She wonders why she’s lying—and further, how any mother in the world could possibly sleep at a time like this.

“Good. Good,” he says, sustaining eye contact with her for several seconds before dropping his gaze to Charlie, who is awake but still heavily sedated. She watches him examine Charlie’s cheek and ear, with the efficient aid of a nurse, the two exchanging instruments, ointment, gauze, and quiet commentary. Then he turns to Charlie’s hand, using tweezers to peel back a dressing from the charred, swollen skin. Valerie’s instinct is to look away but she does not let herself. Instead, she fights a wave of nausea, memorizing the sight of his mottled skin, red and pink in places, black in others. She tries to compare it to her visual from a few hours before, when his bandages were last changed, and studies Dr. Russo’s face for a reaction.

“How does it look?” she asks nervously, unable to read his expression.

Dr. Russo speaks quickly but kindly. “We’re definitely at a critical juncture here . . . His hand is a bit more swollen from all the fluids he’s taking in ... I’m a little worried about the blood flow, but it’s too soon to tell whether he’ll need an escharotomy.”

Before she can ask the question, he begins explaining the foreboding medical term in simple detail. “An escharotomy is a surgical procedure used on full-thickness, third-degree burns when there is edema—or swelling—that limits circulation.”

Valerie struggles to process this as Dr. Russo continues more slowly. “The burns have made the skin very rigid and hard, and as Charlie becomes rehydrated, the burned tissue swells and becomes even tighter. This causes pressure, and if the pressure continues to build, the circulation can become compromised. If that happens, we’ll have to go in there and make a series of incisions to release the pressure.”

“Is there a downside to the procedure?” she asks, knowing instinctively that there is always a downside to everything.

Dr. Russo nods. “Well, you always want to avoid surgery if you can,” he says, an air of careful patience to his words. “There would be a small risk of bleeding and infection, but we can typically control those things . . . All in all, I’m not too worried.”

Valerie’s mind rests on the word
too,
analyzing the nuances and gradations of his worry, the precise meaning of his statement. Seeming to sense this, Dr. Russo smiles slightly, squeezes Charlie’s left foot through two layers of blankets, and says, “I’m very pleased with his progress and hopeful that we’re moving in a great direction . . . He’s a fighter; I can tell.”

Valerie swallows and nods, wishing her son didn’t have to be a fighter. Wishing she didn’t have to be a fighter for him. She was tired of fighting even
before
this happened.

“And his face?” she asks.

“I know it’s difficult . . . But we have to wait and see there, too . . . It will take a few days to determine whether those burns are second or third degree . . . When we declare those injuries, we can devise a game plan from there.”

Valerie bites her lower lip and nods. Several seconds of silence pass as she notices that his dark beard has come in since the night before, forming a shadow across his jaw and chin. She wonders whether he’s been home yet, and whether he has children of his own.

He finally speaks, saying, “For now, we’ll just keep the skin clean and dressed and keep a close eye on him.”

“Okay,” she says, nodding again.

“We
will keep a close eye on him,” Dr. Russo says, reaching out to touch her elbow.
“You
try to get some sleep tonight.”

Valerie musters a smile. “I’ll try,” she says, lying again.

Later that night, Valerie is wide awake on her rocking chair, thinking of Charlie’s father and the night they met at a dive bar in Cambridge, mere days after her big fight with Laurel. She had come in alone, knowing that it was a bad idea even before she saw him sitting in the corner, also alone, chain-smoking and looking so mysterious and beautiful and thrillingly angst-ridden. She decided that she needed a mindless hookup, and if given the chance, she would leave with him. Which is exactly what she ended up doing, four glasses of wine and three hours later.

His name was Lionel, but everybody called him “Lion,” which should have been a red flag. For starters, he looked like a lion, with his striking gold-toned skin and green eyes, his thick mane of curly hair, and huge, callused hands. Then there was his temperament—remote and languid with flashes of anger. And like a lion, he was perfectly content to let the lioness in his life do all the work—be it his laundry, the cooking, or taking care of his bills. Valerie chalked it up to his preoccupation with his work, but Jason insisted his laziness stemmed from a sense of entitlement typical of beautiful women. She could see her brother’s point, even in the throes of infatuation when most women are blinded by their attraction, but she simply didn’t care, and in fact, found his flaws compelling, romantic, befitting a sculptor and painter.

“He’s an artist,” she told Jason repeatedly, as if it were a blanket excuse for all his shortcomings. She knew how she sounded, knowing that Lion was something of a cliché—a temperamental, selfcentered artist—and she an even bigger cliché for falling in love with him. She had visited Lion’s studio and seen his work, but had not yet seen him in action. Still, she could perfectly envision him splattering red paint on giant canvases with a flick of his wrist. The two of them together, reenacting the Demi Moore-Patrick Swayze pottery scene in
Ghost,
“Unchained Melody” playing in the background.

“Whatever,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “Just be careful.”

Valerie promised that she would. But there was something about Lion that made her throw all caution to the wind—and condoms to the wind, for that matter, as they had sex everywhere, all over his studio, her apartment, the cottage at the Vineyard where he dog-sat (which turned out to be his ex-girlfriend’s house and dog—the source of their first significant argument), even in the back of a taxi. It was the best sex Valerie had ever had—the kind of physical connection that made her feel invincible, as if anything was possible. Unfortunately, the euphoria was short-lived, replaced by jealousy and paranoia as Valerie discovered perfume on his sheets, blond hair in his shower, lipstick on a wineglass that he hadn’t even bothered to put in the dishwasher. She interrogated him in fits of rage, but ultimately believed his stories about his visiting cousin, his professor from the art institute, the girl he met at the gallery who he swore up and down was a lesbian.

All the while, Jason did his best to convince Valerie that Lion wasn’t worth the angst. He was just another troubled, not very talented artist, a dime a dozen. Valerie pretended to agree,
wanted
to agree, but could never really make herself believe those things were true. For one, Lion wasn’t
that
troubled—he didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem, had never been in any trouble with the law. And for another very unfortunate thing, he
was
talented—“brilliant, clear-eyed, and provocative,” according to the critic in the
Boston Phoenix
that reviewed his first exhibit at a Newbury Street gallery, incidentally a gallery owned by a saucy, jaunty young socialite named Ponder, the very girl Lion would next conquer.

“Ponder?
How pretentious can you get?” Jason said after Valerie spotted Lion kissing her on the street outside his apartment and rushed home, devastated, to give her brother the news.

“Lion and Ponder,” Jason continued. “They deserve each other, with names like those.”

“I know,” Valerie said, taking some solace in her brother’s scorn.

“Ponder
this,”
Jason said, flipping off the pair with both middle fingers.

Valerie smiled, but couldn’t bear to tell Jason the real bitch of the breakup. She had taken a pregnancy test the day before, and was pregnant with Lion’s baby. She wasn’t sure why she was hiding it from her brother, whether from shame, grief, or the hope that it wasn’t true—that she had the first false positive pregnancy test in the history of pregnancy tests. Days later, after the blood test at the doctor’s office confirmed the fetus growing inside her, she wept in her room and prayed for a miscarriage—or the strength to go to the clinic on Commonwealth Avenue that several of her friends had visited in college. But deep down, she knew she couldn’t do it. Maybe it was her Catholic upbringing, but more likely it was that she really wanted the baby.
Lion’s
baby. She vehemently denied that it had anything to do with wanting him back, but she still called him, repeatedly, imagining a change of heart, a transformation of character.