Second Hand Heart (25 page)

I gently placed the worry stone in her hand.

She didn’t close her eyes, or become trance-like. Nothing stereotypical. She just held it. Curiously. As if it were talking and she were listening with some detached interest.

“This belongs to a lot of people,” she said. “At least three.”

“It’s Vida’s. Really.”

“But it has three distinct energies. One is yours.”

“Yes.”

“So I’ll put yours aside for now. You said she was nineteen?”

“That’s right.”

“Good. Then she’s not the one who’s dead.”

“Dead? Somebody’s dead?”

“The person who first put her energy into this stone is dead. Yes.”

“I don’t think Esther is dead,” I said. “She’s old …”

“She’s dead.”

“Really? How long?”

“That’s not the type of thing I could really say for sure. It doesn’t feel like ancient history, though. I’d say it’s recent.”

“That’s awful. I wonder if Vida knows.”

“She does. She’s very sad about it.”

“Oh. Wow. I had no idea. That must be awful for Vida. She was close to Esther, I think.”

“Yes. She was. Very close. But she’s OK. She’s strong, this Vida. Stronger than she looks. Stronger than anybody gives her credit for. But it’s hit her very hard. I’m not entirely sure, but it feels like this might even be her first deep loss. So she feels it very strongly. But she’s OK.”

“So … do you know where she is?”

“Wheres are also very hard. I do get that she’s been moving. Traveling. And it feels like there’s someone with her. A young man is how it feels.”

I could barely speak. I had no idea how to express my shock. I stumbled over my first words, and she waited patiently. Tiredly.

“She’s with a guy?”

“I’m not positive, but it feels that way.”

“How could she have a boyfriend? That doesn’t make sense.” Had she really gotten over loving me, just like that? Was Connie right about the first few months? “She was so clear that … that she thought she loved me.”

“I didn’t say he was her boyfriend. The sense I get is that he wants to be her boyfriend. But it doesn’t feel like he is. And she doesn’t think she loves you. She loves you. With all her heart. That’s the one thing so far I can tell you with complete confidence. That’s coming through loud and clear.”

I held still for a long time while nothing more was said on that score. If I was thinking, or feeling, it was nothing I could identify. Maybe I was feeling so many things simultaneously that no one reaction could rise to be recognized.

One of the ancient dogs, a mastiff type, stuck his head into my lap and I stroked his ears absent-mindedly.

“This is very confusing,” she said. “This is the most confusing reading I’ve ever done. Even putting aside you and the dead woman, there are two completely different energies here, but I don’t think it’s two different people. I don’t understand this at all.”

“Maybe the worry stone has been in too many hands. Here. Try this.”

I pulled the postcard from Independence out of my pocket and handed it to her. I waited while she communed with it in her way.

“Still two distinctly different stories. Like, for example, I’m getting that she met you many years ago. And you said she’s nineteen. Which means that you were romantically and sexually involved with her when she was …”

“No, of course it isn’t like that.”

“Better not be, or you’re out of here on your ass. And then I’m also getting that she’s just known you for a few months. It’s very strange. And I’m definitely getting that she has something that belongs to you. No. Not to you. It belongs to your wife. Wait. I thought she was your wife. No, she couldn’t be. Your wife passed away, didn’t she? But this Vida has something that used to belong to your wife. But you still feel like it belongs to you. But it doesn’t. It’s Vida’s now. And you have to let it go.”

She looked directly into my eyes. I froze.

“It’s something very personal,” she said. “So I can understand that it’s hard. But you have to. It belongs to Vida now. You have to let it go.”

I felt my own heart groan under an actual physical strain in my chest. As though someone had run it through with a weapon of some sort. So I guess Connie was right about at least one thing. We don’t receive all information through our brains.

“What does she have of your late wife’s?” Isabelle asked. “Maybe that will help me make sense of this jumble.”

“Her heart.”

She received the news more impassively than I expected. It seemed so monumental to me as I said it.

“Literally? She received it in a transplant?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that explains a lot. That explains why she’s known you for many years, and also for just a few months. It also explains why you’re having so much trouble letting it go.”

I had thought — assumed, really — that this session would be all about Vida and her whereabouts and nothing about me and my own shortcomings. But I didn’t say so.

“So … she’s moving,” I said instead. “Do you know where she’s going?”

“No.”

“Oh. Too bad.”

“She doesn’t know. If she decided, then I might know, or I might not. Hard to say. Things like how she feels are easier than things like where she is and where she’s going. She’s looking for something. But she doesn’t quite know what it is or where to find it. So I can’t tell you what she doesn’t know.”

“Do you get anything that could help me with where she is now?”

Isabelle breathed for a long time. I watched her, thinking how far I had driven to get here. It was nobody’s fault but my own, though.

“It’s hot. I can definitely feel the heat. Has to be the desert. She’s looking for you,” she said. Suddenly. Firmly. As if that were the solid answer I had come here to unearth.

“How could she be? She knows where I am.”

“Yes. She knows where you are. But she feels there’s another place to look for you. And maybe for part of herself at the same time. I wish I could be clearer, but like I say, I can only be as clear as she is. And a lot of this hasn’t quite revealed itself to her yet. But one thing I can say for sure: what she’s looking for has a lot to do with you.”

And, through the emotional backlash of that rather general information, I had to pull myself together one more time and go after something solid. Something that would actually help.

“Can you tell me anything about where she’s going? I mean, you said it was hard to be specific about where she was. But then you told me it was hot, like the desert. Can you give me any detail like that about this place she’s trying to find?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Vast,” she said.

“Vast?”

“Right. Someplace huge and beautiful.”

“So, someplace really big.”

“The word vast keeps coming up. Vast and beautiful.”

I swallowed several times, wondering if we were done.

“Leave me with your phone number,” she said. “If I get more, I’ll call you.”

“Thank you. Have you got a pen?”

I pulled my wallet out of my back pants pocket and drew out my one remaining card. It had only my home number printed on it, and I wanted to write my cell phone number on the back of it as well. It would be a long ride home, and I was on the fence about seeing Myra before leaving, and I wanted to hear news as soon as possible. I mean, on the off-chance that there might be any.

She lumbered heavily to her feet, and all three dogs rose to follow her into the kitchen. She emerged holding a pencil with a bright purple eraser glued to the top end.

“Thanks,” I said, and wrote my cell number on the back of the card. “I really appreciate your taking the time to do this. I get the sense that it takes a toll on you.”

She eased herself back on to the couch again.

“You have no idea,” she said. “But this one was easy. Not like the next one. The next one will be hell. I already know their child is dead. I wish there was some way out of this next one. But I committed to it, and now there’s no way out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“As am I. As will they be.”

I had no idea what to say, and found myself anxious to leave.

“I guess I should have asked in advance …” I trailed off, hoping she would finish the sentence for me. Spare me from having to ask. But she showed no evidence of knowing where I was going. “… what you charge for this.”

She seemed genuinely taken aback. “Charge?”

“You don’t …”

“I don’t do this for money.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I just assumed …”

“I do it because it needs doing, and not many people can.”

“I’m sorry. I just … how do you make a living, then? Not that it’s any of my business.”

“I work at the phone company. This is my day off.”

I was speechless. And quite tired of my repeated forays into speechless, a territory so recently unfamiliar to me. Once upon a time words were my strong suit. A specialty.

“I’m getting a big thermometer,” she said. “But I don’t guess that helps you much.”

I stared at her blankly. I thought she meant she was planning to purchase a large thermometer. Had I been right, it could easily have qualified for non sequitur of the century.

“I’m sorry?”

“Where she is. There seems to be a big thermometer. But I’m not really sure what that is or how it gets you closer to where you need to be.”

“Oh. Well, then. I really owe you a debt of gratitude,” I said, not positive if that was entirely true or not. The whole thing still hadn’t put me any closer to where I so desperately needed to go.

“You’re welcome. Best thing you can do to thank me, not to be rude, but I could use a good rest before this next couple shows up.”

“Of course,” I said. “Thank you again.”

“I’ll call you if I get more information.”

“Thank you.”

Isabelle and her ancient dogs walked me to the door.

It had begun to rain again. Quite hard this time.

I was just breaking into a run in the sheeting rain in her driveway when I heard her call my name.

“Mr. Bailey.”

I stopped, and turned. Against my better judgment I just stood there, with no hat or coat, getting drenched.

She stood in her open doorway, one hand on the door. The dogs stood beside her, watching me with measured enthusiasm. Still wagging amiably.

“Yes?” I said, hoping to hurry this up.

“Not to pry, but what’s the connection with this other woman? Not the woman we’ve been discussing. Someone else. The recent one. What is that?”

I stood watching her a moment, having long since given up staying dry.

“I don’t know what that is,” I said at last.

“Interesting.”

“I don’t even know if it’s interesting.”

“We never really know what’s interesting, do we? Seems like part of the human condition, how we always guess wrong about that. Even me sometimes.”

“Really? Even you? That seems surprising.”

“Yes, I guess it would seem surprising, from the outside. It’s easier to see for somebody else than it is to see for yourself. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

I stood, getting soaked, for another brief moment. Wondering if we were done. Questioning myself about whether I’m too polite for my own good.

“OK,” I said. “Thanks.”

Then I trotted to my car and jumped in.

There I sat, soaked to the skin, shivering slightly, and one hundred per cent unsure of my next move.

The World’s Tallest Thermometer

“O
h, my goodness,” Myra said. “You’re soaked. Come in, Richard. Come in and get dry.”

She briefly left me standing in her foyer, dripping on to the mat, while she rummaged around in the master bedroom and came back with an oversized soft towel, and a dark blue man’s bathrobe that I could only imagine belonged to her late husband. Unless she was seeing somebody these days.

Either way it made me uncomfortable to take it. But I did.

I closed myself into the bathroom off the hall, peeled out of my wet clothes, dried off, and put on the robe, carefully transferring my car keys, wallet, and Vida’s worry stone into its big terrycloth pockets.

Meanwhile Myra put on a pot of coffee, and when I came out of the bathroom, she took my wet clothes from me and loaded them into her dryer. During all of this, she did not ask.

But when we sat on the couch together, looking at the pewter coffee pot and cups and cream and sugar servers, sitting on their pewter tray, she asked.

“So at some point,” she said, “I’m trusting you’ll tell me.”

I believe that qualifies as asking.

When I had called earlier to ask if I could come by and see her, I had pointedly avoided answering the obvious question, which of course is why I would be in Portland without having mentioned anything about the plan in advance.

“Very short-notice trip,” I said.

She poured two cups of coffee, because all I was doing was staring at coffee.

“You had the whole long drive up and a cell phone, though.”

“Yes. I did. Look, Myra. This brings me to what I came by here to say. I mean, I guess I mostly came by here because I can’t imagine being in town and not seeing you. But I did have something on my mind. Which is this. It should be obvious by now that the reason I’m not telling you why I came up here is because it’s one of those things you wouldn’t approve of. And I’m wondering … maybe this is too much to ask … but I’m wondering if maybe you could just let me go off in these directions that seem ill-advised to you. Even if it’s a mistake. Even if you’re right about that. But maybe you could just …” I wasn’t sure if I could say this last bit. But I felt I had to try. “… love me anyway.”