She Loves Me Not (10 page)

“It was so nice to have the chance to chat with
another adult without the kids underfoot,” Rose tells her neighbor.

They've spent the last forty-five minutes in fluid
conversation, mostly about Laurel Bay, and small-town life versus the city, and
what the Kirkmayers should expect when the summer people arrive on eastern Long
Island in a few months. Rose described to her how Bayview Books goes from being
quiet and empty to jammed with out-of-towners seeking local maps and postcards,
bestseller beach reads, the occasional obscure, intellectual title— and any
number of things no year-rounder would expect to find in a small-town
bookstore.

“Well, feel free to call me any time you're
around,” Christine says. “Like I said, I'm home most of the time.”

“I wish I were.”

“But you seem to like working at the store.”

“I do. It's good for me to get out and see people,
and I really like Bill—he's the guy who works with me.”

“The cute one with the blue-green eyes? I've seen
him when I've gone in there to browse.”

“He's the one.”

“He's so good-looking. He reminds me of the actor
who plays Chandler on
Friends.
Is he married?”

“Uh-uh. He's gay.”

“Too bad.” Christine takes a last nibble of her
toast. “And too bad your boss is such a pain in the—”

“Luke?” Oops. Did she make him sound that way?
She'd better be careful about venting when she's in earshot of the locals. The
last thing she wants is for it to get back to Luke that she was bad-mouthing him
in the diner. “He means well, and he knows what he's doing. He's just
. . . he's all business, you know?”

“I definitely know. I'm married to someone exactly
like that.”

Rose searches her memory for Christine's husband's
name. She only met him once, on the day they moved in. Is it Brian?
No . . .

No, Ben. That's it.

“Ben works in the city, right?” she asks Christine,
who nods.

“He's an accountant, and it's tax season, so
. . .”

“So you won't be seeing him until mid-April?”

“If then. He's always pretty busy.”

“My husband was usually busiest in the summer,”
Rose tells her. “He was a contractor.”

“I didn't know that.”

Rose wonders what else Christine doesn't know. The
other woman looks slightly uncomfortable.

“Did I tell you he was electrocuted?” Rose asks,
knowing perfectly well that she didn't. But she feels the sudden need to
explain—or maybe, just to talk about her loss for a change with somebody who
doesn't share her grief. Somebody who will just listen.

“I didn't know that. I'm so sorry.” Christine
shakes her head. “Was he on a job?”

“No. He was in our own backyard.”

“Oh, God. That's so . . . How long ago
was it?”

Rose doesn't have to stop and think. She is
perpetually aware of just how long it has been since the cozy walls her
husband's love had built around her came crashing down. “Thirteen and a half
months.”

“I'm sorry,” Christine repeats, as heartfelt as
before. “I can't imagine what it must be like for you. It's hard enough to lose
somebody, but that young, and so suddenly . . .”

“The thing was . . . I never expected it
to be him.” The words escape Rose before she realizes that she may have revealed
more than she meant to.

It's too late to take them back.

Instant understanding radiates from Christine's
Wedgwood eyes. “You thought it would be you? Were you with him when it
happened?”

“No, it isn't that . . . he was out there
alone. Not that I haven't thought a million times that if I had dragged myself
out of bed and gone with him—or stopped him from going out in the first place—I
could have changed things.”

“You can't do that to yourself, Rose.”

Yes, she can. She can, and she frequently does.

Ignoring Christine's comment, she takes a deep
breath and says, “I was sick. A few years ago, right after I had Leo. It was my
heart—hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It's a genetic condition. My mother had it
too.”

And it killed Mommy, out of
the blue, when she was only in her forties . . .

But that's too much information. She doesn't have
to share that. She doesn't have to share any of it, really. Strange that she
finds herself wanting to.

“Oh, Rose . . . “ Christine reaches
across the table to touch her trembling hand. “You've been through so much.”

She nods. “It got so bad they didn't think I was
going to make it. Then I had a heart transplant, and . . . here I
am.”

As if it were that simple.

As if she never struggled through the dark, endless
months of illness, waiting for-the call that seemed as if it would never
come . . .

Then, when it did come, the unexpected guilt that
she was given this chance to live only because somebody had died. A woman her
own age, tragically, unexpectedly. Rose never knew her name, only that she had
been on life support after a Christmas Eve hit and run in Manhattan. Sam said
they could easily find out who she was, but Rose didn't want to know. Somehow,
that would make it harder.

She still vividly recalls that day, the one that
started out so normally and ended in a flurry of preparations. It was dusk when
Sam rushed her to the hospital; the city's skyline a stark silhouette against a
surprisingly bright winter sunset. Sitting silently in the passenger seat, Rose
stared at the fading light, wondering if she would ever see another sunset. The
day, the month, the year itself were drawing to a close; perhaps her life was,
too.

She still gets a lump in her throat when she
remembers the traumatic good-byes at the hospital, just in
case . . .

Then, the surgery.

The recovery.

The realization that she was going to be okay. That
she and Sam were going to get their happy ending after all.

Or so she naively believed.

It was Sam's idea for her to write to the donor's
family. He thought the woman's husband would want to know about her.

It was the hardest letter Rose ever had to write.
She labored over it for days.

In the end, she kept it simple.

She thanked the donor's family, and promised that
she'd take good care of her heart.

She never received a reply.

And after she lost Sam, and experienced paralyzing
grief first-hand, she understood why.

Even after a year, it's all she can do to make it
through each day.

“A heart transplant?” Christine is gaping at her.
“You went through a heart transplant, with two small children? That's
incredible.”

“It was a few years ago.” As if that makes it any
less extraordinary.

But you get used to it. You get used to
anything.

Rose shrugs, unwilling to accept Christine's
admiration, or worse, her pity. “I'm fine now. I just get tired sometimes, and I
have to be careful. You know, physically.”

“And emotionally. Because if you let yourself,
you'll be afraid every second that it's going to happen again.” Christine meets
Rose's gaze with unexpected empathy. “You never really get past that threat, do
you?”

“You sound as though you're talking from
experience.”

“I've been there. I'm still there, actually.
Mentally, if not physically. It was breast cancer. Stage two, an aggressive
form, with nodes involved. But I'm clear now. Nothing left but a jagged scar
across my chest to remind me every day of how lucky I am to be alive.”

“Oh my God.” Rose gapes back at her, at this
kindred spirit who's been right under her nose for months.

“So you see, I get it,” Christine says. “I know
where you're coming from. I don't have kids—and I do have my husband—but I know
what it feels like to be . . . well, a survivor. That's what they call
it, right? At least with cancer.”

Rose nods. “That's what they call it. And that's
how it is with me, too.”

Whenever she sees a tragedy on the news—some global
disaster: an earthquake, a terrorist attack, a plane crash—she relates to the
bruised, bleeding people who stagger, dazed, from rubble and smoking ruins.
Survivors. Shaken, battered, but so damn lucky to be alive.

“I had no idea you'd been through so much,”
Christine tells her.

“Same here. I guess we have a lot in common.”

The waitress silently drops the check as she
passes.

Christine picks it up. “If you ever need to talk
. . .”

“You, too,” Rose says, sensing that it's time to
leave. She pulls out her wallet, grabs some bills.

“No,” Christine says. “It's my treat. You get it
next time.”

Rose smiles. Next time. That would be good. She
could use a friend. A friend who understands.

“Thank you, Christine.”

“No problem. I think I'm going to wait and get Ben
a coffee and a bacon and egg sandwich to go. But don't tell my mother-in-law.
According to her, he should be watching his cholesterol and eating kosher. But I
always say, let the poor guy live a little. He's getting over the flu and he's
probably hungry.”

Rose smiles. “What a nice wife.” She used to do
things like that for Sam. Bring home a little something for him after she'd been
out, or pick up his favorite ice cream as a treat . . .

“Yeah, well, he doesn't deserve it considering how
cranky he was while he was sick,” Christine says. “But there's nothing in the
house for breakfast anyway and I shop on Mondays so that I can clip the coupons
from Sunday's paper . . . oh, here I go again. I've got to let you go.
Can you tell I don't get out much? I'm talking your ear off.”

“It's okay. I know how it is. And I'm just glad I
got my grocery shopping over with yesterday.” Yes, along with piles of laundry
and some dusting and vacuuming.

Rose realizes that the whole blessedly
unconstrained day stretches ahead of her. Tomorrow, too.

“Enjoy the rest of the weekend, Christine.”

“You, too, Rose. And you know, I always see you
dragging your kids into the car to run errands—like I said, I'm around every
day, and it gets lonely with Ben working so much. I can babysit anytime.”

“Oh, I wouldn't ask you to do that.”

“Why not? It would give me something fun to do. I
love children, and yours seem very well behaved.”

Christine's smile seems a shade wistful.

“Well, thank you. You never know, I just might take
you up on that offer someday,” Rose says. With a wave, she makes her way out of
the diner, past a line of churchgoers waiting for tables.

She gets into the car and turns the key in the
ignition.

“—and you're listening to
Sunday Morning Oldies
on WLIR,” a DJ's voice greets her. Driving the
few blocks back to Shorewood Lane, she finds herself singing along with an old
Neal Sedaka song.

A few thin rays of winter sunshine stream down
through a fracture in the clouds.

“Dum dooby doo dum du-um . . .”

Leslie and the kids aren't here yet. Good. She'll
have time to change into some comfortable jeans before they arrive, and maybe
even read a chunk of the thick Sunday
Newsday.

Feeling almost carefree, she pulls into the
driveway and bounds up the front steps, still humming. She can hear Cupid
barking from somewhere inside as she turns her key in the lock.

“It's okay, buddy, I'm home. I'll take you for a
walk,” she calls, wondering why he isn't scampering to the door to greet her as
he's been doing since they got him last week.

She steps over the threshold. As she wipes her
boots hastily on the mat, she realizes that Cupid's barks sound oddly
muffled.

Then, as she closes the door behind her, she
becomes aware of another sound.

A deafening sound that sends a cascade of arctic
chills down her spine.

The entire house reverberates with the steady,
unmistakable rhythm of a beating heart.

Y
ou
never know how busy a Sunday morning at Millpond Realty is going to be. At
least, not at this time of year.

In warm-weather months, hordes of young Manhattan
couples are guaranteed to venture to northern Westchester County on weekend
mornings with real estate ads and paper gourmet coffee cups in hand, pushing
toddlers down the leafy suburban streets in Peg Perago strollers. More often
than not, the wife is pregnant and has just realized, in a panic, that there is
no way to fit another child with all the trimmings into a Junior Four on the
Upper East Side.

Isabel Van Nuys was once that woman, about two
decades—a lifetime—ago.

Now she's the one seated behind a desk in the
realty office in the heart of Woodbury Hills, discussing new and potential
listings with the other agents between occasional phone calls.

Her hair, once a long, mousy brown, is frosted
ash-blond and styled in a simple pageboy. A recent Botox treatment helped to
smooth the tiny wrinkles around her mouth and her hazel eyes. She wears a smart
navy suit, medium-heeled pumps, and simple silver studs at her ears, looking
every bit the classic Westchester matron she never thought she'd want to be.

“Did you hear that Jason Hollander is getting his
place ready to sell?” asks the similarly coifed, similarly attired Mary
Mitchell, taking a sip from her black coffee, which is the only thing Isabel has
ever seen her ingest in the four years they've been working together.

“Jason Hollander? The record producer?” Cameron
Josephson, twentysomething and having just passed her brokerage exam, looks up
from the phone she was dialing. “Where does he live?”