Cures for Heartbreak (16 page)

By the time we reached the end of the trail the sky was dark. He got his flashlight out of his backpack and led me to a clearing.

“Here,” he said. “This is what I wanted to show you.” I looked up. There were millions of stars above us. We stood there, staring at the sky, my hand still in his.

“I like you very much,” he said after a while.

No one had ever come out and said that to me before. I didn't know what to say in return.
Me too
sounded wrong, as did
So do I.
Finally I said, “I like you.” I thought we might kiss, though he made no move to lean toward me—but that was fine too.
I could stay here, silent, my hand in his always,
I thought.

In romance novels this would change everything. A hand
holding on page fifteen and you knew for certain, no matter what, that the couple would end up together, that not even 350 pages of pirates, wars, family deception, or evil twins could keep them apart.

That's what I liked about those books. I wanted to believe when I read them that that kind of love was possible and real, that it truly existed.

And it wasn't only romance novels, either—I'd read
A Room with a View
after seeing the movie with Kelsey. We'd copied an E. M. Forster quote onto the back cover of our denim notebook binders:
It isn't possible to love and to part.

I didn't want to go, but he turned, still holding my hand, and said, “Are you hungry? Should we stop and get something in town?”

“Okay.” I didn't care about food or anything. We walked toward town, still holding hands.

We found a small restaurant called Billy's Steaks and Chops, which had red-checkered plastic tablecloths and bright red booths. We sat in one and ordered hamburgers and Sprites. The conversation switched to lighter things—TV shows, the worst subways, his mother's obsession with their cat.

On the Metro-North home I leaned on his shoulder and slept. Pretended to sleep. He kept his arm around me, and I was sure I'd never felt so happy. I thought of
A Room with a View
again, of George and Lucy leaning over the river Arno,
and George saying,
Something tremendous has happened.
And George's father telling Lucy later:
He is already part of you.

At Grand Central he walked me to the 7 train—it was pulling into the station, and we ran to meet it. He held the door open; we hugged quickly, he kissed me swiftly on the cheek, and I hopped inside the car.

The doors closed and the train barreled home.

I sat on the gray seat and replayed the whole day in my mind. On the back of a loose-leaf sheet where I'd written the time we were meeting, I transcribed everything in my head—the “I like you very much,” the hand holding, the philosophy. I wanted to remember it, all of it, to not forget a single moment of the whole day. I was certain I'd never felt so happy before. My body was singing with it.

My dad and Sylvia were in the kitchen when I walked in. “How was your day? And evening?” my dad asked.

“Fine.”

He was cleaning up from dinner, rinsing off plates and loading them into the dishwasher. Sylvia was seated at the kitchen table, drying off a gaudy flowered bowl—an engagement gift, I figured.

“Gigi called,” my dad said.

“Yeah?”

“She said Sasha left his lunch at home today. He forgot it.”

“Oh.” So I'd lied—so what? I didn't care—I was flying.

“You had a nice time hiking?” my dad asked.

I took my knapsack off my shoulder. “I had a nice time.”

“Why didn't you tell us you were going on a trip with him?”

“It wasn't a
trip
—it was just a hike. It's not a big deal.” I started to walk out of the kitchen.

“We'd like to talk about it,” he said. “Sylvia and I have been discussing it.”

I paused. Sylvia got up from the kitchen table and started packing leftovers into Ziploc bags. She didn't make eye contact with me.

“You've been
discussing
it?” I asked.

“We don't think this is wise,” he said.

“What?”

“We don't think it's wise to be dating Sasha.” He said this more to the dishwasher than to me.

“What are you talking about?” This wasn't dating—dating was stupid girls and boys twittering in TV sitcoms. It couldn't be more different from what had just happened between Sasha and me. “We're not
dating.
And why do you care?” I scratched my bruised leg.

He noticed the gash on my hand, the hole in my pant leg. “What happened there?”

“Nothing.”

Sylvia put her Ziploc bags into the fridge. “He's quite a few years older than you, and he's—it's just not healthy,” she said, not looking at me.

“What? What's not healthy?”

“We want to protect you,” she said. “He's very sick. Leukemia is not a joke.”

“I don't give a shit about that,” I said.

She winced. “And he's very reckless—”

“We don't want to see your heart broken,” my father said.

“Well, it already is broken, all right? Permanently. There's nothing you can do about
that.
” I was thinking of my mother, and thinking of her made me angrier.

“You've had enough tragedy for your sixteen years,” he continued. “Enough loss for your age.”

“So what? Who gives a fuck? I can lose whoever I want!” I couldn't believe I was saying this. What was I saying? What were
they
saying? And what did any of it have to do with Sasha? I gaped at them, half doubting that this was actually going on.

“Please. Don't get upset. We just don't think you should go on another date with him again. That's all,” my father said.

“We?
We
?” I glared at Sylvia's back as she silently packed vegetables into Tupperware containers. I knew this was all her doing. My father liked Sasha—I knew that.

“You're being crazy.
You
like him. What does it matter what
she
thinks?” I asked him.

He banged the dishwasher door closed. “That's enough.”

Sylvia continued to pack the vegetables. “We both don't trust him with you,” she said calmly. “He's going to take advantage.”

“What?” I sputtered. “You don't know
what
—I mean, Sasha is—and compared to—” I wanted to tell her about Felix, and the difference between Felix and Sasha, but I didn't want to bring that up. “And Mommy would've loved Sasha! I know she would! And this is none of
your
goddamn business!”

My father turned sharply and yelled, “Oh it's very much her business! You listen to her. She's a member of this family now, of this house. What she says goes!” He pointed an accusing finger at me.

That got me.
Our
house. Spooky House.
My
house. The house she'd invaded and ruined.

“Fuck you!”
I screamed, and the next thing I knew I was at the hall cabinet with Just Sunshine in one hand and Keep on Truckin' in the other, and I smashed them both on the kitchen floor as hard as I could.

Silence.

We stared in shock. I thought I should say
Fuck you!
again for emphasis, though I felt sorry seeing Sylvia's bare, hurt face, watching her gather up the shards and pieces, examining them, seeming like she might cry. I couldn't look at her. I ran upstairs and shut the door to my room. I cried a few tears, which I told myself were over my mother. And it didn't matter what they'd said about Sasha, I told myself. I'd see him anyway. They had no control. They didn't run the subway system. I could see him whenever I wanted.

But as I lay there thinking, a flicker of doubt rose in me: the fear that the romance novels and E. M. Forster were
wrong, that in reality it was very possible and in fact likely to love and to part. Not from being forbidden to see him, or his disease, but a million other countless, endless ways—traveling to other countries, meeting other people, going to college, growing older. He could simply change his mind; he could wake up one day and feel differently. And that would be that.

I took out the loose-leaf paper, my transcription of the day, my tiny writing, wavy from the rocking subway, and read it, and reread it, to remember what I'd felt with his arm around me on the train. I kept reading until I fell asleep.

My father woke me up in the middle of the night.

“I'm taking Sylvia to the hospital.”

“What's wrong?”

“I'm not sure. Don't worry. I'll call you when we get there. Go back to sleep.”

Sylvia died at four in the morning. My father called me at six and told me over the phone. He was still at the hospital. She'd had a stroke. “An ischemic stroke,” he said. There was a possibility it had been caused by her drug treatment; no one was sure.

My throat dried up. “It's my fault,” I said.

“It's not your fault. You had nothing to do with it.” His voice sounded dry and crackly, impatient and exhausted. “I'm going to go to Sylvia's apartment to make the calls. You can
come over when you're ready. I called Alex—she's taking a bus home this morning. Felix was just here—he left a few minutes ago.”

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“Not so good. He's on his way to a friend's.”

“Daddy—I feel terrible.”

“I do too.”

“It's my fault.”

“Stop it. I'll see you later.”

I didn't go to Sylvia's. I got dressed and took the F train to Brooklyn, to the Carroll Street stop near Sasha's house. I cried on the subway, which was empty except for one man who said, “Doll, if he's that bad, you did the right thing to leave him.” I was still crying when Sasha opened the door.

“What happened?” He blinked; he'd been asleep. His hair was matted to his face and he had a crease from a pillow, like a scar, running down one cheek.

“Sylvia died. I killed her.” Through tears I told him about the fight, leaving out the parts about him; I said it was a spat that had gone out of control. I didn't want him to know what my father and Sylvia had said, but I hoped he might comfort me, or calm my fears, or just listen.

He sat down on the stoop and put his arm around me. It was chilly out, but he was in shorts and a gray sweatshirt, and his feet were bare. I stared at his wide naked toes.

The front door opened and Gigi joined us on the stoop. She held her yellow satin robe closed at the front. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Sylvia died,” Sasha said.

“Oh, my God.” She leaned on the railing. “Jesus Christ. I'm so sorry. What—what can I do? Does your dad—?”

“I think he's okay,” I said. “I mean, he sounded . . . I think he's okay. He's making phone calls.”

“Oh, God.” She shook her head and hugged her elbows. “I'm going to get dressed. Sasha—make the poor girl some coffee. I'm so sorry, hon. Jesus. Come inside, okay?” She bent and kissed my head, rubbed her hand on my back, and disappeared into the house.

“Do you want some coffee?” Sasha asked.

“No. Thanks.”

Then he said, “You didn't kill her because you smashed her figurine.”

“Yes. I did. Figurines—two figurines. Just Sunshine and Keep on Truckin'. The Just Sunshine actually wasn't that bad. The bear was sort of cute.”

What I didn't tell him was that deep inside, a part of me had secretly wished her death—I'd never come right out and admitted that to myself, but hadn't I had a nagging hope that their marriage might not happen, that something would interfere and stop it? Hadn't I resented her living with cancer while my mom had died? And the wish had come true.
I stared at my new maroon sneakers, the mud still caked on from our hike.

“I'm sure the medication had something to do with it, like your dad said—those chemo drugs can kill you.”

“No. It was me. I mean, the stress from the fight—and maybe all those feelings I had. I mean, she knew I didn't like her—and I think deep inside I wanted—”

“Believe me, you don't have that much power.” He shook his head and made a strange sound, a muffled, mournful laugh.

I felt shamed then. He was right—it was presumptuous to think I was the sole culprit, that I could give life or take it away. How self-important. How obnoxious. But I was certain I'd played some part in it . . . and I deserved punishment. Something would be taken from me.

“My dad,” I said, thinking aloud. The doctors had been frightened for his health after losing one wife. And now he'd lost two.

He squeezed my shoulder. “Your dad will be okay,” he said softly.

“How do you know that?”

He didn't answer.

Even if my dad was okay, he wouldn't forget this. “He says he doesn't blame me, but he's never going to forgive me for that fight. I mean, it was her last night.” I wiped my nose and tried not to cry again.

“He'll forgive you. I did.”

“What? For what?”

“I wasn't going to tell you this.” He paused, took his arm off my shoulder, and gazed across the street. “I overheard, at NYU once, you and your sister calling me ‘the cancer guy.' I think you thought I was sleeping and couldn't hear you.”

I inhaled and held my breath. It was confirmed, it was true: I was a horrible person. I remembered the derogatory way we'd said it.
Cancer guy.
Funny. Ha ha ha. Unlucky him.

“It's all right. I've heard worse,” he said.

“Oh my God. You must hate me.” My face flushed with humiliation.

“I was annoyed at the time—but I know that's not who you are.”

I wanted to sink under the stoop, to disappear. A door opened across the street; a man came out in boxer shorts, his huge belly flowing over his waistband. He picked up his newspaper and waved at us. Sasha waved back.

I noticed goose bumps on Sasha's legs. “I should go,” I said. “You're cold, you should go inside, and I—”