Heart of the Matter, Page 3

  “Your anniversary,” she says expectantly, hungry for me to describe the perfect romantic evening, the fairy tale she clings to, aspires to.

  On most days I might hate to disappoint her. But as I listen to my daughter’s escalating sobs, and watch her attempt to roll her toast into a Play Doh–like ball in order to prove that I am wrong, and that food can indeed be reassembled, I delight in telling Cate that Nick got paged in the middle of dinner.

  “He didn’t switch his call?” she says, crestfallen.

  “Nope. He forgot.”

  “Wow. That sucks,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you didn’t exchange gifts? Not even when he got home?”

  “No,” I say. “We agreed not to do presents this year . . . Things are kind of tight these days.”

  “Yeah, right,” Cate says, refusing to believe something else I tell her about my life—that plastic surgeons aren’t loaded, at least the ones who work at academic hospitals helping children rather than in private practice enhancing breasts.

  “It’s true,” I say. “We gave up one income, remember?”

  “What time did he get home?” she asks.

  “Late. Too late for s-e-x . . .” I say, thinking that it would be just my luck for my gifted daughter to memorize the three letters and spout them off to, say, Nick’s mother, Connie, who recently hinted that she thinks the kids watch too much television.

  “So what about you?” I ask, remembering that she had a date last night. “Any action?”

  “Nope. The drought continues,” she says.

  I laugh. “What? The five-day drought?”

  “Try five weeks,” she says. “And sex wasn’t even an issue . . . I got stood up.”

  “Shut up,” I say, wondering what man would stand her up. Beyond her perfect figure, she is also funny, smart, and a huge sports fan, rattling off baseball trivia the way most women can recite Hollywood gossip. In other words—she is most guys’ dream. Granted, she can be high-maintenance and shockingly insecure, but they never glean that at the outset. In other words, she’s break-up-able, but not stand-up-able.

  Ruby preaches from the next room that it’s not nice to say shut up as Cate continues, “Yeah. Before last night, I always had that going for me. Never been stood up and never dated a married man. I almost thought the former was my reward for the latter. So much for karma.”

  “Maybe he was married.”

  “No. He definitely wasn’t married. I did my research.”

  “Wait. Was this the accountant from eHarmony or the pilot from your last trip?”

  “Neither. It was the botanist from Starbucks.”

  I whistle as I peek around the corner and catch Ruby taking a surreptitious bite of French toast. She hates to lose almost as much as her father, who can’t even make himself lose to her at Candy Land.

  “Wow,” I say. “You got stood up by a botanist. That’s impressive.”

  “Tell me about it,” she says. “And he didn’t so much as text an explanation or apology. A simple, ‘Really sorry, Cate, but I think I’d rather curl up with a good fern tonight.’ ”

  “Well. Maybe he just . . . forgot?” I offer.

  “Maybe he decided I’m too old,” she says.

  I open my mouth to refute this latest cynical tidbit, but can think of nothing particularly comforting to say other than my usual standby that her guy is out there somewhere—and she will meet him soon.

  “I don’t know about that, Tessa. I think you might have gotten the last good one.”

  She pauses in such a way that I know what’s coming next. Sure enough, she adds a wry, “Correction: the last two good ones. You bitch.”

  “Any idea when you’re going to stop bringing him up?” I ask, both of us referring to my ex-fiancé. “Just a ballpark estimate?”

  “Hmm. How about never?” she says. “Or . . . let’s just say when I get married. But wait—that’s the same thing as never, isn’t it?”

  I laugh, and tell her I have to run as my memory is jarred back to Ryan, my college sweetheart, and our engagement. And by engagement, I don’t mean that Ryan had just proposed. Rather, we were mere weeks away from our wedding day, knee-deep in honeymoon itineraries, final dress fittings, and first-dance lessons. Invitations had been mailed, our registry completed, our wedding bands engraved. To everyone in my life, I was a typical, glowing bride-to-be—my arms toned, skin tanned, hair shiny. Literally glowing. Everyone but my therapist, Cheryl, that is, who, every Tuesday at seven o’clock, helped me examine that blurry line between normal wedding anxiety and commitment issues stemming from my parents’ recent, bitter divorce.

  Looking back, the answer was obvious, the mere inquiry suggesting a problem, but there were so many factors clouding the issue, confusing my heart. For starters, Ryan was all I really knew. We had been dating since our sophomore year at Cornell and had only ever slept with each other. I couldn’t imagine kissing anyone else, let alone loving someone new. We had the same circle of friends with whom we shared precious college memories I didn’t want to taint with a breakup. We also shared a passion for literature, both of us English majors turned high-school teachers, although I was about to start grad school at Columbia with the dream of becoming a professor. In fact, just a few months before, I had talked him into moving to the city with me, convincing him to leave his job and his beloved hometown of Buffalo for something more exciting. And although it was exciting, it was also scary. I had grown up in nearby Westchester, making frequent trips to Manhattan with my brother and parents, but living in the city was a different matter, and Ryan felt like my rock and safety net in the uncertain, scary real world. Reliable, honest, kind, funny Ryan with his big, boisterous family and parents who had been married for thirty years and counting—a good sign, my mother said.

  Check, check, check, check, check.

  Finally, there were Ryan’s own sweet assurances that we were perfect for each other. That I was just overthinking things, being my usual neurotic self. He truly believed in us—which on most days was enough for me to believe in us, too.

  “You’re the kind of girl who will never be completely ready,” he told me after one session with Cheryl, the details of which I always divulged to him with only the most minor edits. We were sitting at an Italian restaurant in the Village, waiting for the gnocchi special, and he reached his long, lanky arm across the table and patted my hand. “It is one of the things I love most about you.”

  I remember considering this as I surveyed his pragmatic expression, and deciding, with a certain degree of sadness and loss, that he was probably right. That maybe I wasn’t hardwired for the sort of all-consuming, unconditional passion that I had read of in books, seen in movies, even heard some friends, including Cate, describe. Maybe I would have to make do with the cornerstones of our relationship—comfort and compatibility and compassion. Maybe it was good enough, what we had, and I might look for the rest of my life and never find better.

  “I am completely ready,” I said, finally convincing myself that it was the truth. I still wasn’t sure whether I was settling, but in my mind at least the issue was settled. I was going to marry Ryan. Final decision, last word.

  Until three days later, that is, when I first laid eyes on Nick.

  I was on the subway, during my crowded morning commute to school, when he walked onto the train two stops after mine, holding a tall thermos of coffee and wearing blue-gray scrubs. His dark, wavy hair was longer than it is now, and I remember thinking he looked more like an actor than a doctor—and that maybe he was an actor playing a doctor, on his way to a TV set. I remember looking into his eyes—the warmest brown eyes I had ever seen—and feeling overcome by a crazy, gut feeling that can only be described as love at first sight. I remember thinking that I was saved by a moment, by a person I didn’t know and probably would never know.

  “Hello,” he said, smiling, as he reached out and held the same pole I was gripping.

  “
Hi,” I said, catching my breath as our hands touched, and we rattled our way uptown, making small talk about topics we’ve both, remarkably, forgotten.

  At one point, after we had delved into a few personal matters, including my Ph.D. program and his residency, he nodded down at my diamond ring and said, “So when’s the big day?”

  I told him twenty-nine days, and I must have looked grim when I said it, because he gave me a knowing look and asked if I was okay. It was as if he could see straight through me, into my heart, and as I looked back at him, I couldn’t stop myself from welling up. I couldn’t believe I was crying with a complete stranger when I hadn’t even broken down on Cheryl’s tweed couch.

  “I know,” he said gently.

  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 116th 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 bui
ld, 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.