Heartwood (10 page)

“Really? Because I think he has lots of room for improvement,” Laura joked.

Christina didn’t laugh. “I don’t. Not at all. Stevie is a great man. What he does is … well, it’s downright noble!”

Laura wished her mother could see Christina at that moment. Her small jaw was set and her big eyes looked fierce. Steve might have started out as her protector, but for as long as they were together she would protect him even more.

–—

They had reached the city; Christina swung the car onto the West Side Highway. “By the way, if you can do it, you need to get your mother out of that hospital,” she said as she deftly avoided a large station wagon that had crossed into her path without signaling. “She spent all last night there and she won’t go home and she gets mad when anyone suggests it.”

I
ris sat in the hospital waiting room and braced herself. Soon, one or more of her children would come in and try once again to convince her to go home—her family and the doctors all wanted her to do that. “You have to sleep,” they kept saying, as if sleep was a possibility. “Theo wouldn’t want you exhausting yourself like this.”

They walked into the room, and they pulled up chairs next to hers—heavy metal chairs that dragged noisily over the bare linoleum floor—and they leaned into her with their worried faces and they gave her all the reasonable arguments for leaving. But this thing that had happened was beyond reason. It was beyond thinking. This called for screaming and fists driven into walls with howls of pain. Theo had had a heart attack. Theo could die. He could die before she did. She’d always known that one of them would go before the other but she’d never considered the possibility that it might be him. Even though he was
older than she was. Because she didn’t know how to live without him. That was what she wanted to tell her sons and her daughter-in-law and the doctors in their white coats when they stuck their faces so close to hers and made all their reasonable arguments.
I don’t know how to live without him, do you understand?

He had come into her life when she was twenty-eight years old. When she thought she was too old to get married, and had resigned herself to it. And then the miracle had happened and he had fallen in love with her. He’d been wounded past endurance, but he had seen something to love in her. And if a part of that love was gratitude for a safe haven, and if she had loved him more than he had loved her, so be it. He had loved her. And he had given her the only life she’d ever wanted; he’d made her his wife. And even now, when she had so much—a career, and children, and grandchildren—she still needed to be his wife. She knew that because there had been times in the past when she’d thought she’d lost him. And she’d felt that she’d lost her reason for being.

My mother wasn’t like that
, she thought, as she stared at the hideous tan walls of the waiting room.
Mama loved Papa, she was a perfect wife. But there was always something she was holding back. Papa knew it too. He was like me, he finally accepted being the one who loved more
.

There was a sound behind her. The waiting room door was opening. Next, someone would sit next to her, leaning in and taking her hands, speaking gently. Would it be Steve, looking bewildered because he’d never known her to be so stubborn? Or Jimmy in his rumpled white doctor’s coat offering a sedative to take the edge off? Janet would offer that too, only her white coat would be crisply starched. Or maybe it would be Philip, with his
charming smile trying to coax her to take a nap like a little child. It didn’t make any difference which one of them it was, they had nothing to say to her.

The person who entered the room did not sit next to her. She felt a presence standing over her and looked up. For a second she thought it was Anna who had come back. But her mother had been gone for years. She looked up again at the face that was so like Anna’s. “Laura,” she said.

“Mom, you’ve got to go home for a few hours.” Laura didn’t reach for Iris’s hand and her voice was not gentle. “Everyone is spending too much time worrying about you. And it’s not good for Dad to see how frightened you are.”

I can’t leave him!

“It doesn’t matter what you want,” her daughter went on, reading her mind. “Get some sleep so you don’t look so exhausted, then come back and let Dad see you smile. You have to seem strong even if you’re not. That’s what we all need from you right now.”

Once, years ago, when she was in despair over her marriage and could barely move through the days, her mother had come to her. She’d given a command—go out and get your hair done and put on a pretty dress. “You must learn to act,” Anna had said. “Put a smile on your face. Put one on if you have to paste it on.” Iris had been furious, but she had done what Anna said, and she and Theo had patched up the marriage that was so worth saving. Laura was looking at her exactly the way Anna had on that day.

Iris drew in a deep breath. “Jimmy … and Theo’s cardiologist … they want to tell your father that his heart … that it’s been …” She stumbled over the words.

“That his heart is damaged.”

“I don’t want them to say that to him.”

“Do you think he doesn’t suspect it? He’s a doctor.”

“But it doesn’t have to be said. Not yet.”

“Maybe for you it wouldn’t. But for him … have you ever known him to keep the truth from a patient? He always tells them the worst right away. He says they deserve that respect. That’s what he wants for himself now. And you know it.”

Laura’s young face looked so much like that other one, the one Iris had resented and loved so very much. She was saying exactly what Anna would have said. And Anna had been right—almost all of the time.

“All right. Yes. I know that is what he would want.”

It didn’t matter how you felt; her mother had said that too. You put on a show for the people you loved. Iris had never been much good at that. But now it was time to start.

“I’ll go home and change,” Iris said. “But I won’t have time to lie down. Tell Jimmy to wait until I get back and then they can give Theo the news. I want to be with him when he hears it. But I need to change my dress and fix my hair first. And I’ll put on some rouge so I’m not so pale.”

“Good. Dad always likes to see you at your best.” But suddenly there was a quiver in Laura’s stern voice. Her eyes were filling up and she turned away quickly to hide it. She was as scared as her mother. She needed Iris to pretend to be brave too.

“Laura,” Iris heard herself say, “I will never fall apart again. No matter what happens. I promise.”

Laura nodded.

“Now, can someone drive me home?”

“Yes. I’ve already asked her.”

–—

“I can’t believe you told Christina to drive your mother back to the house!” Janet exclaimed later. “Of all people!”

“They seem to be getting along, don’t they?” Laura said. Iris had gone home as promised, and returned to the hospital wearing Theo’s favorite dress. Now she and Christina were sitting together in the waiting room talking quietly.

“But Mom doesn’t even like her,” Jimmy said.

“Mom and Christina are the same kind of woman.”

“You can’t be serious,” Janet protested.

“I am, and they are. In the way that counts.”

“You’re a magician,” Jimmy said.

“No,” Phil said. “She’s just smarter than the rest of us.”

–—

Iris kept her word that day. She stood by calmly while the cardiologist told Theo how much and what kind of damage there had been to his heart muscle. She listened as the man outlined the kind of care her husband would need when he came home. She never flinched or cried. She remained serene. She knew her daughter was proud of her; she thought her mother would have been too.

–—

Theo sat up in his hospital bed, and listened to the cardiologist give him the news he’d already known—that he was a very sick man. The specialist was using technical terms—the words “myocardial infarction” were thrown around a few times—but what it all boiled down to was Dr. Theo Stern was sick. And he wasn’t going to be getting better. Not really. Oh, he’d live a while longer if he took all the precautions his distinguished colleague
from the cardiology department was now laying out so carefully, but he wouldn’t be the man he had been. Never again. Theo shifted in the bed—he’d made the nurses crank it up as high as it would go, because there was no way he was going to take this news lying down—and watched Iris. She was sitting upright too, her spine was as straight as a board. Her hands were clasped lightly in her lap. She was nodding and she looked perfectly calm. Inside, he knew she wanted to scream. Or maybe she wanted to curl up in her bed like a child and close out the world; he’d seen her react both ways in a crisis. But someone had told her she must be strong—probably it had been Laura—so she was wearing a pretty dress and lipstick that matched it, and she was sitting upright and listening to the cardiologist.

She was trying to behave as her mother would have, Theo knew. Anna would have been the rock everyone else could lean on today, and now Iris was trying to be that. Iris would always try to live up to her mother’s standards and she would always feel that she had failed. Theo knew that too. He looked again at his wife.

Ah Iris
, he thought.
I wonder what you would do if you were to learn that your mother was a far more complicated woman than you ever dreamed. Because your mother had a secret, my darling. The perfect wife and mother, Anna Friedman, had a dark secret that I happen to know. And I will always wonder what it would do to you if you knew …
Theo shook his head impatiently. What on earth had made him start thinking about all of that at this moment? He must be losing his mind! Iris saw the movement and thinking that he was upset about what the cardiologist was saying, reached over to stroke his hand comfortingly. Oh yes, Iris was
determined to be strong for all of them today. She was going to be Anna all over again.

–—

The doctors said that it would be at least three weeks before Theo would be ready to leave the hospital. And as word of what had happened to Dr. Stern spread to his friends and colleagues, there was a stream of guests to his room, all making the same suggestion to Theo and Iris about the wisdom of moving to a … facility. Not a nursing home, everyone hastened to reassure, but some lovely retirement community where they could still have their own apartment. There would be a kitchen that would cook their meals in accordance with Theo’s new restricted diet. And, above all, although no one mentioned this, there would be a staff trained to handle heart attacks if Theo should have another one.

“It would be the smartest thing they could do,” Janet said. “If they’d agree.”

Iris might have, but the Stern children knew their father never would. So their parents’ home had to be adapted to the needs of a man who was now ill. Actually, the house was ideal for the purpose. During the years when Theo was retraining himself and the family hadn’t had much money, he and Iris had sold their big beautiful home, and purchased this one, which was small and laid out for practical use rather than for show. When Theo was launched again, they’d thought about moving to a more luxurious place, but they’d come to love their neighbors, so they never did. And thank heaven for that, Laura thought. Because if they had, they’d be downsizing again. Instead, with a few modifications, their compact little house could
be set up to accommodate Theo’s needs and they could continue to live independently. Laura couldn’t imagine her proud father existing any other way.

They’d been told by the cardiologist that Theo shouldn’t climb stairs—at least not for the foreseeable future—so he and Iris would need a bedroom on the first floor. Laura suggested using the sun porch on the side of the house, which had been closed in and insulated years earlier.

“If you have any ideas about putting it together, please tell me,” said her mother.

Of course Laura had ideas; after all, she’d been fixing up her own home for years. She called Robby and asked him if he could manage on his own with Katie for a while longer. She’d be home in time for Christmas, she assured him. Robby said she should stay as long as she needed to. He and Katie would decorate the house and he would even finish up the Christmas shopping on Laura’s list. When Laura looked back later, she thought his voice had sounded a little odd and overly cheerful when he said all of that. But she told herself that he was just trying to be positive because he knew she and her family were worried about Theo.

Christina stayed on in New York too, and for the next two weeks she helped Laura paint walls, stencil woodwork, and sand floors. Even Iris got into the act, and while Laura knew her mother would never actually enjoy tufting a headboard, they did laugh a lot. And at night when they were finished working, Laura would whip up a meal for them.

“How do you do this?” Christina demanded one night as they sat down to dinner. “You just started cooking half an hour ago. You should write a book.”

“Yes,” Phil said. He’d been coming out to the house almost every night while Laura was there. Once he had brought a couple of friends and asked her to make her famous chestnut torte.