Second Hand Heart

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  There’s really no answer, anyway. I really have no idea. If I hadn’t gotten distracted, all I could have said was something like, Good question, damn you.

  Maybe it’s because I never shared any personal visits with Lorrie’s eyes while she was asleep.

  From: Myra Buckner

  To: Richard Bailey

  Dear Richard,

  I think college made a huge difference for Lorrie. When she was living at home, her sisters seemed always to overshadow her. They both had strong personalities. And I guess Lorrie did, too. But by the time she came along, they’d had so much practice. It’s almost like she couldn’t compete with them.

  But at the same time she had that strength modeled for her.

  It felt like the minute she stepped out of the house and started living on her own, she became the strongest of the lot. It’s as if she’d been saving it. Like it was there all along, just waiting to be activated.

  I always forget you didn’t know her until she was in her twenties.

  I wish I could give you what you missed.

  Love, Myra

  PS: Take care of yourself, Richard. I’m worried about you.

  From: Richard Bailey

  To: Myra Buckner

  Dear Myra,

  What if Vida smokes?

  I was up almost all night last night. I dozed off for about an hour or so, and then I woke up, and I started thinking there’s no way to assure that Vida is taking good care of that heart. What if she smokes, or eats nothing but deep-fried foods?

  I didn’t give her the heart to abuse.

  But then I lay awake the whole rest of the night because I knew that even if she were taking very bad care of the heart there would be nothing I could do about it.

  Does that sound like a normal concern to you? Or am I really swan-diving into the deep end here? I swear I can’t even tell any more.

  It’s scary.

  With love, Richard

  PS: I’m worried about me, too.

  The Maybe Place

  Vida called me from home. I could see the difference in the number on the caller ID. It was late. After 1 a.m.

  “I’m home now,” she said.

  “So I gathered,” I said.

  “You never came to see me in the hospital again. You told my mother you’d come.”

  “Actually, I didn’t promise. I said I’d make an effort.”

  “So?”

  I was sleepy, and it sounded like a hard question. “So … what?”

  “So, did you make an effort?”

  A long pause while I decided whether to be irritated, intimidated, or guilty. Or some part of each.

  “There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you, Vida.”

  “OK. Ask.”

  “Do you smoke?”

  “No. I don’t smoke.”

  “Did you ever smoke?”

  “Not once. Not one cigarette. Can’t really afford it, you know? Have enough problems with the system as it is. Besides, I’ve never been out from under my mother’s thumb long enough to sneak anything.”

  That was a good point. One I’d never thought of before. I lay in bed with the phone in one hand and the other hand behind my head. Staring at the ceiling and feeling oddly relieved. Almost satisfied.

  But then it hit me that I was only taking her word. And it was the type of issue a person would lie about. Especially someone who smokes when she can’t afford it.

  “Let me ask you another question, then. Do you ever lie?”

  “No. Never. I always tell the truth.”

  “Nobody always tells the truth.”

  “I’ve definitely gotten the sense that it’s unusual,” she said. “But I always tell the truth. I don’t know why I’m different from just about everybody else that way. But I always tell the truth.”

  A break. A silence. During which I pondered the idiocy of asking someone if they lie. And assuming their answer will be the truth.

  “OK,” she said out of nowhere, startling me. “Maybe not every bit of the whole truth every time. I can think of one thing, but it’s pretty small. That day you came to the hospital. And I was showing you the worry stone. I said I wore that smooth spot on it with my thumb. But that was only partly true. Esther wore most of the smooth spot when she was on the boat to America. But I’ve been rubbing ever since I went into the hospital this last time. So some part of that smooth spot was me. It must be at least a little smoother because of me. But maybe if I really always told the truth, I would have mentioned Esther’s part in that. In the smooth spot.”

  I still had no idea who this Esther was. “You’re right,” I said. “That’s pretty small.”

  “I can’t believe you thought I would smoke. I have a heart condition. I mean, I had a heart condition. But then, I guess that was the old heart, wasn’t it? I guess now I have a different kind of heart condition. The kind where it’s somebody else’s entirely. Anyway, I wouldn’t smoke.”

  “I have a nephew who has asthma. And he’s a chainsmoker.”

  “Wow,” Vida said. “That’s amazingly stupid. Anyway, this is a weird conversation. Why are we talking about this again?”

  “OK, never mind. We’ll talk about something else. Let me ask you another question. What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

  A long pause on the line.

  “This is weirder than the last thing we were talking about.”

  “It’s just a simple question,” I said. Though it wasn’t.

  “I didn’t have any breakfast.”

  “OK. What did you have for lunch?”

  “Chicken soup. With one matzo ball. Esther made it for me.”

  I suppose I could have stopped the line of questioning long enough to find out who this Esther is, since she kept coming up, but I didn’t care enough to pursue it.

  “How about dinner?”

  “I had a carrot and a hardboiled egg. I wasn’t hungry. But my mother won’t let me off with eating any less than that for dinner.”

  I was thinking that explained a lot about her abnormally low weight.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, “I just got it. You’re trying to figure out if I’m taking good care of the heart.”

  My brain flew in a dozen directions, nearly at once, like a wild animal suddenly trapped in a cage. I was all prepared to say I was doing no such thing. How ridiculous of her to think so. My real point was …

  I thought I’d get a perfect idea any second. A perfect finish for that sentence. My mouth completely betrayed me.

  It said, “Well … do you blame me?”

  “Oh, no,” Vida said. “Of course not. I don’t blame you for anything. I love you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Never say that to me, Vida. That is the one thing you must never, never say to me.”

  Without so much as a beat of silence she said, “OK, fine. I just won’t say it, then.” Then the expected pause. Then, “But it’ll still be true.”

  “That’s just another way of saying it.”

  “OK. You know what? You seem a little upset tonight. So I’ll just call you some other time.”

  I pulled a deep breath and steeled myself as best I could. I’m low on steel these days.

  “No, Vida. I really think … Maybe … Maybe … it would be best if you didn’t call here any more.”

  “OK, talk to you later,” she said. And then I heard the click.

  I lay staring into the receiver for several seconds. Until the dial tone startled me out of my coma.

  I hung up the phone and tried to get back to sleep. I suppose it goes without saying that I had very little success. If any.

  • • •

  Vida called again from home. Two nights later.

  It was a little earlier than her usual. Eleven-something.

  It still woke me up.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

  “Do you?”

  “You think I don’t listen to you. That I didn’t hear wh
at you said at the end of our last talk. And that I’m going against what you asked.”

  “That actually sums it up pretty well, yes.”

  “What would you say if I told you I listen to you better than you listen to yourself?”

  “Sounds a little off the wall so far, but go ahead and make your point.”

  “You think you told me you never wanted me to call you again.”

  “That’s what I said. Yes.”

  “No. It isn’t. You didn’t say that. You didn’t say you never wanted me to call. You said “Maybe” it would be best. You said the “maybe” twice. And you never said whether you wanted me to or not. You said “maybe” it would be best if I didn’t. So I’m calling you again. To see if you ever made up your mind for real about that. Or if we’re still in the maybe place.”

  A silence fell.

  It was my job to fill it. I failed miserably.

  It was a long, long silence. I’m not going to say it was minutes or any ridiculous exaggeration like that. I wasn’t really counting, but if I had been, I expect I would have made it all the way to ten. Doesn’t sound like much, but try counting out ten beats of silence sometime in a phone conversation. Particularly when there’s a lot riding on your prompt response.

  “OK,” she said. “I’ll see you, then.”

  Click.

  This time I didn’t wait for the dial tone.

  I also didn’t pretend I would get back to sleep.

  From: Myra Buckner

  To: Richard Bailey

  Dear Richard,

  I think the care she’s taking of the heart is a normal thing to wonder about. I’m not sure it’s normal to lose sleep obsessing about it. Then again, to judge what’s normal for a person assumes that the person is in normal circumstances. I would tend to give you a lot of extra slack for what you’re going through right now.

  I certainly do that for myself these days. I’m not sure how I’d survive otherwise. And I would hope you would do the same for yourself.

  It does seem, however, that the situation inside your world might be getting worse rather than better. While I wouldn’t expect it to get better very quickly, I would hope that if you really feel yourself falling into a hole, you might want to talk to somebody.

  I don’t mean somebody like me, although you’re welcome to anytime. I think you know that. I also think you know what I mean.

  You might want to talk to a professional.

  But maybe first you could try being more patient with yourself. You seem to expect yourself to be functioning normally, and I think you’re the only one who does.

  Only, if you’re going to wait and watch before seeing a professional, promise me you’ll say something if things seem to be spinning out of control.

  I do worry about you.

  Much love,

  Myra

  PS: Is this about Vida?

  From: Richard Bailey

  To: Myra Buckner

  Dear Myra,

  No. Not really. At least, I don’t think so. It’s really about me. I think. But Vida isn’t exactly helping.

  Love,

  Richard

  Green

  Vida showed up at my house without notice. I hadn’t heard from her for ages. I hadn’t expected to ever see her again.

  I’m not sure why not. She hadn’t shown any special evidence of letting go, and clearly letting go was not her strong suit. But it seemed, in some odd way, final. As if she’d simply moved on. Reached the end of her likely short attention-span and just kept moving.

  Now that I really stop to think about it, I was practically delusional to think so. But that’s what I’d managed to believe.

  And I was OK with that. So far as I could tell.

  Then there was the knock on the door. And the way it filled me with dread. Not because I thought it would be Vida, or any other variety of tragedy. Just because it represented a situation. Something I’d probably have to deal with.

  I opened it anyway. I’m making progress.

  She stood in my doorway in a shabby, oversized trench coat, her feet bare, her bright-red toenail polish half-chipped away, the worry stone in her right hand, her thumb working it — theoretically — smooth. Behind her I watched a cab draw away. I wondered if Vida even drove. If she’d ever had a chance to learn, like a healthy teen.

  “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “I’m almost twenty years old. You act like I’m a child. Can’t I even come in?”

  I stepped back away from the door and she did.

  She cut a straight path to the opposite wall, where the pictures of Lorrie loomed like a shrine. I think I’d been adding nearly one a day, purposely not counting the balance of Myra’s new additions as I wore the pile down.

  “Wow,” she said. “That’s weird. She doesn’t look at all like I expected. I thought I knew just what she would look like. I guess I thought she’d look familiar. Not like a stranger, you know?”

  I wanted to say, “Now you know how I felt when I first saw you.”

  I didn’t.

  She went on. “Lorrie, right? My mom told me her name was Lorrie. That’s an OK name. I hate my name. It’s weird.”

  “You know what Vida means, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” she said.

  “Then I would think you would like it.”

  “Know why she gave me that name? Cause I tried to die the first night I was born. From all my heart stuff. She was trying to make sure I never pulled anything like that again.”

  Transplant statistics rattled around in my brain. How many patients, by ratio, would still be alive in five years. How many in ten. Quite possibly I was remembering the numbers all wrong. But the message in my brain felt clear.

  “Tell me something about her,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t care. Anything.”

  “That doesn’t help me narrow it down much. She was a whole person. A fairly complex person, at that. There were a lot of ‘things’ about her, and I have no idea how to separate out which one you want to hear.”

  “What was her favorite color?”

  I paused briefly in that odd moment. Felt it. Which was odd in itself. Just to feel a moment, right there in the moment.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Her mouth fell open. Almost laughably so.

  “How can you not know your own wife’s favorite color?”

  “It’s just not the sort of question I would ask her. This is not high school, Vida. That’s more like a teenager’s dating question. It’s like asking someone, ‘What’s your sign?’ It’s not an important detail about someone. It’s not significant.”

  We stood awkwardly for a moment. I was becoming more aware of the fact that we were both still standing, and had been for a long time. It was growing more awkward by the moment, but I didn’t want to ask her to sit. I didn’t want to issue any invitations.

  She pulled her coat more tightly around herself, which I took as a sign — the only sign she betrayed — that I had hurt her slightly. Or maybe more than slightly.

  “But you know her sign,” she said. “Right?”

  “Yes. I know Lorrie was an Aries.”

  “Well, good. Then you’re not totally hopeless.”

  She began to wander around my living room, looking a bit aimless. Gazing up at each wall and window treatment. Running her hand over the back of the couch and the two big recliners.

  “Did she decorate this place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then her favorite color was green.”

  I looked around at my own living room as if for the first time. The rugs and the furniture all carried a color theme of deep hunter green. It seemed absurd that someone from outside the house, outside the marriage, needed to point that out to me.

  I didn’t answer. All answers felt like snares.

  “That’s weird,” Vida said. “Green. I wouldn’t have thought green. I would’ve guessed blue. My favorite colo
r is blue.”

  “Not surprising,” I said.

  “Meaning what?”

  But I just shook my head. Never answered.

  I knew what I meant, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Couldn’t put it into words. There’s a big grouping of people who like blue, and they have something in common, but I couldn’t get a verbal bead on what that was.

  “OK,” Vida said. “So colors aren’t important to you. They’re not significant. Fine. Tell me something about her that’s significant. Just one thing. Tell me the one thing about her that you think is the very most important thing.”

  I didn’t even have to take time to consider the question.

  “She was calm,” I said.

  “Calm?”

  “Yes. Calm. Peaceful. Serene.”

  “That’s important?”

  “It was to me. Because I don’t have that. I would get all spun out on the smallest details. The most insignificant complications of my day. But then when I got home and we had dinner, I could borrow some of her calm. She actually had enough to spare. I could breathe it in. Drink it. And then I’d be grounded again.”

  “OK,” she said. “That’ll do.”

  I felt vaguely insulted, as if my most important memories shouldn’t have to pass muster for her purposes.

  Vida turned off the light. I thought maybe she just didn’t want to see the pictures of my late stranger-wife any more. The only light left in the room was the lamp in the corner, more of a glow than a light.

  Vida let her coat drop to the floor. She was naked underneath.

  I wasn’t entirely surprised. Part of me was. The part of me that was surprised seemed to be under scrutiny by the part of me that wasn’t. I registered no genuine feeling about it. One way or the other. I think it mostly just bumped me back into a state of numb.

  I just want to clarify that it was unwelcome. But I’m not sure I registered that as a genuine feeling, either.

  She looked painfully thin. Her breasts were small and hard, like unripe fruit. So different from Lorrie, whose breasts had been full and soft, a little drooped, like over-ripe fruit, sweeter and more promising.

  After that comparative observation all I could see was the scar.

  I walked to where she was standing, picked up the coat, handed it back.