Two Hearts Forever

by Harper Bliss

  “Okay.”

  Zoe jumps out of bed and throws on a robe. “Come on, Chico,” she says, because she still insists on calling him that, while Brooklyn and I have long resorted to calling him Shadow—Hemingway’s tiny shadow.

  I listen to them hurry down the stairs and revel in the sound of our two dogs’ enthusiasm at getting their breakfast. I listen to Zoe talking to them as if they can understand what she’s saying. These are the sounds of my home now, whereas I used to wake up to utter silence. But ever since Zoe and Shadow moved in, these sounds have replaced that silence. These sounds are my source of comfort now. The light pitter-patter of Shadow’s paws on the stairs. Hemingway’s cheerful bark when Shadow comes into the living room in the morning. Zoe addressing them as if they are her replacement children, now that Brooklyn’s at Columbia, doing the arts program I was never able to complete when I was a student.

  I hear Zoe climb the stairs and she winks at me before heading into the bathroom. As instructed, I haven’t moved an inch. I’ve just been lying here, waiting for her, listening to the sounds of life in my house—sounds I never could have guessed I would adore so much.

  “The kids are happy,” Zoe says, as she slips out of her robe, and crawls back into bed with me. “Now, let’s focus on you. Code Pink, you said.” She smiles down at me and even though I’m nervous, when Zoe smiles her Zoe smile at me, in this bed in our house, I can feel the worst of my nerves melt away in the warmth of her smile. Not only because that smile always makes me feel loved, but also, because I can now fully accept that I’m a woman worth every bit of her love. I no longer need to negotiate with myself about that and list my flaws against my strengths. It’s no longer a question of keeping score, of adding up something here because I subtracted something there. I love Zoe and she loves me. Most of the time, it’s as simple as that. And one of these times is now, when she wants to do this for me, for us. When she just wants to express her love for me and, when I look at her in all her morning glory, it’s all I want as well. Because I can switch off the endless list of complications my brain is always ready to generate. Because I’ve chosen to love myself more instead of always doubting myself. Because I know that what Zoe is about to give me will make me feel so good about myself, it will give me a much-needed dose of extra confidence that will carry me through the day and into the evening, when I have to face a bunch of people I wouldn’t usually face. But sometimes—and nobody needs to even remind me of this anymore—a small step out of my comfort zone does me the world of good.

  She kisses me and I can feel all her warmth in that kiss. She drapes her body over mine and the pressure, the weight of its softness on mine, relaxes me. I can go from the thought of wanting to have sex to actually having it so much faster these days. I know Zoe’s body inside and out and she knows mine.

  She slips off me and holds me close to her, while her hands roam softly across the front of my body. Her gentle touch, and all the love and patience I can recognize in it, ignites a series of tiny fireworks inside me, and with every cell that is lit by her touch, a knot of nerves uncoils.

  18

  Zoe

  “Who’s that?” Anna asks, and points at a woman I don’t know either. “You said I would know everyone here.”

  “What can I say, babe?” I know how to keep this light. “My little old bookstore is so popular. Must be because of the owner.” I smile at her, then give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Anyway, your mother’s here. You know what that means. Show time.”

  Sherry walks over to us, arms spread wide. Unlike her daughter, Sherry attends every single book club, even if she hasn’t read the book, which is often the case because she isn’t that much of a reader. She’s too busy being the unofficial mayor of Donovan Grove to do much reading.

  “What a beautiful book,” Sherry says, surprising both Anna and me. “I devoured it.” She hugs Anna first, then me. “But I’ll keep my other comments for later.”

  “Do you know who that is?” Anna asks Sherry, discreetly pointing her chin in the direction of the woman neither of us know.

  “Not yet,” Sherry says, and bounds over to the woman, much in the way Chico hurries to Hemingway’s side when he first clasps eyes on him in the morning.

  “We’ll soon find out,” I say to Anna. “Sherry’s on it.” Then the door of the store opens and Janet, Jamie, and Cynthia walk in together.

  “I didn’t know Jamie was coming. Isn’t book club for women only?” Anna says.

  “Of course not. What kind of club would that be, if we excluded men? Not many turn up, but they’re most certainly welcome.”

  “Next you’ll tell me Sean—” Just as Anna says his name, as if summoned, Sean opens the door. He’s followed by his wife Cathy. I made an executive decision not to tell Anna that all her friends and family were coming tonight; I didn’t want to stress her out more than she would already be. She might not have turned up.

  “Sean has read this book?” is all she says, her eyebrows arched all the way up.

  “Of course he has.” I’m surprised he hasn’t told Anna—or maybe he had the same thought I had, about keeping it from her. Sometimes, it’s simply easier to not give her all the details of an event beforehand. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be here.” I pull Anna close. “He’s your best friend, babe.”

  “I didn’t think this was going to be so focused on me,” she says.

  “It’s not,” I assure her. “It’s about the book.”

  “Yeah, right.” She narrows her eyes. “The biggest surprise would be if my dad turned up.”

  “I think that would be one step too far, for you as well as him.” We both chuckle.

  “He’s probably making a birdhouse,” Anna says, as though, she too, would rather be in her painting studio right now. That’s usually where I find her when I come back from book club.

  “Shall we start?” I look her in the eye.

  She nods. While I beckon everyone to the table we’ve set up, I notice Sherry is still in conversation with the mystery woman—Sherry seems to be doing most of the talking. They head to the table and take a seat.

  Drinks are poured and I welcome everyone to tonight’s book club. I hold up the book we’re here to discuss: No Stranger to the Dark by Marion Webster-Welsh.

  Anna read it first and as soon as she told me I should read it too, I understood why. Not only because it’s written in the kind of language with never-ending, page-long sentences that Anna likes so much, but also because the protagonist is a woman coming to terms with a later-in-life Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis.

  When I suggested the book for the Bookends book club, Anna thought it was a good idea, because anything that increases awareness of something that can be so invisible in women is worth supporting. She only balked when I asked her to join us for this particular book club. Nevertheless, here she is, sitting next to me. Because it’s important to her. She may think she’s doing this for me, but I’m actually doing this for her.

  In the discussion that follows, it’s difficult to keep Sherry from speaking all the time, until Jamie gives her a look that he must have given his mother many a time, and she takes it down a notch. But Sherry being so vocal about this book is her way of showing how much she loves her daughter, how proud she is of Anna, so it’s not something I can hold against her.

  “It was such an eye-opener,” Janet says. Because of my friendship with her, she and Anna have grown closer over the years. They’ve both made an effort to approach each other. “Wiley goes through so much below the surface and no one ever knows.”

  “I don’t think that’s the point of the book at all,” Anna says. Despite their increased closeness, she and Janet disagree on many topics. Their taste in everything—from clothes, to wine, and movies—is vastly different and they’re both, in their own way, incredibly opinionated.

  “You’re saying the point of this book is not to open the reader’s eye to how Wiley has suffered?” Janet asks.

  “Not the main point.
The main point is the story,” Anna says. I know the inflections in her voice so well. I know it will take her time to find her footing in this conversation, just as well as I know that she will never convince Janet of her point. But that’s not the goal of this book club. The only goal is to have a chat about a book.

  “I have to disagree with you there, Anna,” Janet says, keeping her tone respectful. She and I try to make it to Cathy’s Friday night Pilates class every week, while Anna’s out with Sean and Jamie. Afterward, we often end up at Lenny’s, much to Anna’s dismay at first, but she has adapted to that, too. “Because what’s the difference between what I mean by ‘the book’ and what you mean by ‘the story’?”

  This is not going to be a question that Anna will be able to answer just like that, although the reply might very well be already formed in her mind. I know from experience this is the kind of question she needs to take her time with. But I don’t step in for her—I don’t reply for her. I do find Janet’s gaze and we exchange a glance that lingers long enough for her to get it, to give Anna the time she needs.

  “If you put it like that,” Anna says, “they’re the same, but what I’m trying to say is that the main point of the book is not to make us feel sorry for Wiley, but to take us on the journey with her.”

  “I didn’t say I felt sorry for her,” Janet says. “But I could feel her pain.”

  Next to me, I hear Anna sigh. “Okay,” she says, nipping in the bud what could quickly spiral into a stubborn argument on semantics—one of Anna and Janet’s favorite ways of butting heads.

  “I agree that the book was an eye-opener,” Sean says, cutting Janet off from making a further comment. “I understand neurodiverse people better now.” I see him shoot Anna a furtive glance. Anna had been in therapy for over a year before she told Sean about being on the Autism spectrum. “Which is very helpful.”

  Cynthia concurs, and the conversation livens up and I tune out for a few moments to lean back and get a good look at Anna, who is listening intently, trying to absorb every word that is said here tonight. Tomorrow, she’ll be exhausted, but that’s all right, because I’ll be there for her to help her relax.

  19

  Anna

  I only have to visualize the T-shirt Zoe’s wearing underneath her blouse, for moral support, a few times during the course of the evening. It’s the one I had made for her when we’d just got together, that I had to keep at my house because she didn’t want to get it mixed up with Brooklyn’s laundry. The one that says Queen of Licking Pussy.

  Since then, it has evolved from a private joke between us to a lucky garment that Zoe wears when I need an extra boost to do something.

  “I’ll wear my T-shirt,” she says, and I always know which one she means, because Zoe’s not a woman who owns a lot of T-shirts. I always know exactly what she means to say as well. That she’s there for me—as if I didn’t know that already. As if she doesn’t show me a million times every single day.

  “Good book club,” Zoe says, now. “Thank you all for coming. Feel free to stick around for some more wine and a chat.”

  Chairs scrape against the floor and a buzz of murmurs starts up.

  “Well done, babe,” Zoe says, and kisses me on the cheek.

  “I really didn’t do that much.”

  “Of course you did,” she says.

  Then my mother is standing next to me, accompanied by the mystery woman. She didn’t speak during the discussion about the book but I could tell she was very interested in what was being said.

  “Anna, this is Jenny,” Mom says.

  “Hi, Jenny.” I hold out my hand and Jenny shakes it briefly.

  “I’ll let you talk,” my mother says, completely against expectations.

  Then it’s just me and Jenny at this side of the table, because Zoe has turned away from me to chat with Janet.

  “Did you enjoy book club?” I ask.

  “Yes, um, I follow Bookends on Facebook and when I saw which book was being discussed at tonight’s book club, I just had to come. I mean, it was hard to make it here, to find the courage to actually come in, but I’m glad I did.”

  I nod my understanding. “I almost didn’t make it myself.” I send Jenny a smile.

  “I really appreciate you speaking up,” she says. “It’s hard to express why exactly, but it really means a lot to me.”

  “I appreciate you saying that.” These days, I can actually see the funny side of two neurodiverse women in a stilted conversation like this. What I can also see, however, is the energy it must have taken Jenny to come here tonight. I recognize it easily, because I know exactly how she feels.

  A short silence falls, and I’ve learned to be okay with that. Even though I haven’t been in therapy for a while, I can still hear my therapist’s voice in my head at times like these. “Not every silence exists to be filled,” April’s voice whispers in my ear now.

  “It’s good to not feel so alone once in a while,” Jenny says.

  I nod.

  “It’s important, I mean,” she says. “I didn’t use to think that it was, but I see things differently now.”

  Old Anna, the person I was before I met Zoe, the woman who had resigned herself to a life of strict routines and a set number of relationships, would end the conversation there and then. But I know what opening up about having ASD has done for me, even though, I too, believed it wasn’t necessary at first. I always considered myself too non-verbal for therapy, until Jamie dragged me to see April. I was always convinced I wouldn’t tell anyone outside my family about my ASD. But then I told Sean and Cathy, and the relief of it was so inexplicably overwhelming, I felt like shouting it from the rooftops for a while.

  “My partner, Zoe, owns Bookends,” I say. “Would you like to stop by another time? When it’s quieter and we can have a proper chat?”

  Jenny nods. “I would love that.”

  “Here’s my card.” I fish my wallet out of my pocket and hand her a business card. “It’s a bit faded. I don’t use these very often. But my email address is on there. Let me know when you’d like to meet up.”

  “Thanks.” Jenny meets my gaze for an instant.

  It’s in the very short moment that passes between us that I think I finally understand what Janet means when she talks about her second mountain.

  “You’ll hear from me soon,” she says.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” I give Jenny my widest smile.

  “I’d better get back. I’m driving.”

  We say our goodbyes and as I stand there basking in the dim glow of having met another woman with ASD, Zoe walks up to me.

  “Were you chatting up another woman?” she asks. The smile in her eyes tells me that she’s joking.

  “I most certainly was.” I look at her fully buttoned up blouse. “You must be so warm in that.”

  “No hot flashes today, babe,” she says.

  “Maybe you should let your blouse hang loose,” I offer.

  “If you want your mother to have a heart attack.” Zoe grins.

  Janet joins us, followed by Cynthia, who’s holding a bottle of wine and refills our glasses. The three of them do their conversation thing. I’ve talked enough for one evening.

  As Cynthia tilts her glass to her lips, I spot the diamond ring she wears these days. She and John are getting married in a few months’ time. After I apologized to her for being the impossible person I was at the end of our relationship, and took full responsibility for its break down, she has become as close to a female friend as I’ll ever have.

  I have more of a love-hate relationship with Janet, who quickly assumed the role of Zoe’s best friend in Donovan Grove. After Brooklyn left for college, and I asked Zoe to move in with me, Janet had the most annoying habit of coming to our house unannounced for a chat with Zoe. It might very well have been what she used to do when Zoe still lived above Bookends, but Zoe isn’t living there anymore. Zoe lives with me, in my house—our house now—and unannounced guests are the
stuff my nightmares are made of. This caused a bit of friction between us, until Zoe sorted it, the way she does. She explained it to Janet in a short, matter-of-fact conversation, and that was that.

  “I do understand what you were trying to say, Anna,” Janet says to me now. “Earlier, during the discussion.”

  I don’t doubt that she does. She’s married to my brother, after all. Jamie knows better than anyone that all I want is to be treated like everyone else and that the very last thing I want from anyone is pity. “I know that you do, Janet.” My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I take it out, half-expecting it to be Jenny, saying something via text that she couldn’t express earlier. But it’s a message from Brooklyn.

  Good luck tonight! it says, accompanied by a picture of her and Jaden. I show Janet the picture of her son and Zoe’s daughter.

  “Excellent timing.” Janet smiles at me.

  “They’re on college time, I guess.”

  “Is that Brooklyn?” Zoe asks.

  I show her the picture and the message and I see her gaze go all gooey at the sight of her daughter. Even though I always thought I’d never share a house with another person, I asked Zoe to move in with me after Brooklyn left for college. The thought of her sitting in an empty apartment late at night was more appalling to me than having her take over part of my house.

  “It’s the thought that counts.” Zoe curls an arm around my waist and draws me near.

  20

  Zoe

  On Sunday afternoon, after lunch at Anna’s parents, we open the sliding kitchen doors, and sit outside, in the red Adirondack chairs that have been in Anna’s backyard for as long as I can remember.

  Chico chases after Hemingway, his short legs no match for the speed Hemingway can achieve when he puts his mind to it—or just wants Chico to leave him alone.