Bleeding Heart

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “Do you remember the name of it?”

  “What do you want with her really?” Eleanor asked, giving me a hard look. “You going to turn her over to the police? I don’t know for sure what that girl did or why she might have done it, but I don’t want to see her in jail.”

  “I don’t either,” I said. “At the same time, it was you who said that Mr. M didn’t deserve what he got. Nobody has the right to take another person’s life.”

  “There are all sorts of ways of taking a life,” Eleanor replied. “You don’t have to kill someone to do it.”

  30

  The town was called Shalesburg, Eleanor told me reluctantly before I left. When I got home that evening, I printed out driving directions from Google Maps. Shalesburg was more than two hundred and fifty miles from Woodhaven, in the heart of Pennsylvania farming country. I decided to get a good night’s sleep and make an early start the next day. But sleep wouldn’t come. It hadn’t put in much of an appearance the night before either. I knew why. Though I did everything I could to push them away, Tom’s angry words were keeping me awake. I need you to think about how you feel. I need you to decide what you want. I’m sorry, but I just can’t go on like this anymore. I must have dozed off finally, because the alarm clock shocked me awake around six o’clock. I pulled myself out of bed, my eyes grainy, my head throbbing.

  Though the windshield misted up as I drove through town, it didn’t start to really rain until I hit the turnpike, heading west. I turned on the radio to get the weather report, and then kept it on for company. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts—and Tom’s words, which, in my weariness, had taken on a hectoring, plaintive quality. I need . . . I need . . . I just can’t go on. . . .

  But soon enough another voice whispered in my ear, I’m afraid, and I found myself brooding again about Gwen. She still hadn’t tried to contact me. Had she taken up again with Sal already? If so, was it going to be possible for us to remain friends? I’d actually started to call her the night before to tell her what I’d learned about Mara. I’d been so relieved to think that if Mara had indeed poisoned Mackenzie, then at least my fears about Gwen’s involvement were unfounded. But I’d hesitated. I knew there was something Gwen wasn’t telling me. Some reason she lied about being at the house the morning of his death. Something that was driving her to make such bad decisions. No, it was Gwen who owed me a call and an explanation, I’d decided. And I’d put the phone down again.

  I was well past Albany before the repetitious news cycle began to get on my nerves, and I turned the radio off. After a while, I realized that the swish, swish of the windshield wipers was actually having a calming effect on me. I felt the tension in my shoulders start to loosen. It had been months since I’d been more than fifty miles away from Woodhaven. Though this was hardly a vacation, there was something about being on the highway—in steady forward motion, cut off from daily routines and demands—that helped free up my mind. And, as was happening more and more often these days, I found my thoughts turning toward my husband. Not the Richard who’d destroyed my marriage, and almost my life. Not the fraud and the cheat. No, for some reason, the Richard whose betrayal had damaged my sense of trust almost beyond repair had, over the last couple of weeks, started to recede into the background. And the man I had loved for more than twenty years—my best friend, my passionate lover, my daughters’ father—had begun to reemerge.

  “Wait, no, hold on, let me guess,” he said, smiling down at me. He was several inches taller than me and, jammed together as we were in the bar area, I was forced to crane my neck to look up at him. I usually didn’t go in for this sort of pickup nonsense, but there was something about him that made me hesitate. He looked more serious than flirtatious, and he had a kind of relaxed, good-natured handsomeness that seemed out of place in a Tribeca watering hole frequented by savvy, up-and-coming Wall Street types. My roommate from Brown had dragged me there to meet a boy she was dating, and then had melted away with him into the happy hour crowd. I’d been unsuccessfully trying to find my way to the nearest exit when I had—quite literally—run into my inquisitor.

  “Guess . . . what?” I asked, surprising myself that I had even responded.

  “Kansas,” he said, nodding as he gazed down at me. “You’re from Kansas. Like Dorothy.”

  “Oh, you are so not right!” I said, blushing a little. What was this? I had to ask myself. I was certainly used to my share of come-ons and had learned how to deftly deflect unwanted attention. I would usually never encourage small talk with a stranger in a noisy bar that, just a minute earlier, I’d been intent on leaving.

  “Iowa,” he said, watching my reaction, then, “—No, hold on, sorry, but it’s definitely an ‘I’ state. Illinois or Indiana.”

  “What’s with the Midwest?” I asked. “Do I have straw in my hair or something?”

  “No, but I see you on a farm,” he said. “Or is it a ranch? Somewhere green and peaceful with mountains and—”

  “Mountains in the Midwest? Your sense of geography is even worse than your guesswork.”

  “But I’m getting closer, right?” he asked, undaunted.

  What is it about human chemistry? This was certainly one of the sillier conversations I’d had over that busy Christmas break my senior year at Brown, and yet I found myself enjoying it more than any other. Over the noise and under the rather lame repartee, there were far more interesting and exciting questions being wordlessly asked and answered. We lasted another ten minutes in the bar as he worked his way through most of the western and southern states.

  “I know what the problem is,” he said after he’d tried and failed with both Hawaii and Alaska. “I can’t hear myself think. I need someplace quieter to concentrate. There’s a nice little Japanese restaurant right down the block. Would you mind?”

  I didn’t mind in the least. It was utterly unlike me to be so daring and impulsive, but, in the beginning at least, that’s what Richard Hyatt brought out in me. I felt carefree and adventurous and fun that night. We laughed a lot, even as we started to trade personal information. He was in the training program at Lerner, Reese, and Hamilton and going for his MBA at Columbia at night. He told me this with obvious pride, though he tried to couch it in a little self-deprecating humor.

  “And LRH is paying the freight. I think it’s their way of buying my soul. What kind of person would accept a free MBA and then take another job? I’m probably a lifer.”

  “Well, they must think you’re worth it,” I said. “That’s quite an investment.”

  “And you?” he asked. “What are your plans post-Brown?”

  “This is only going to confirm your first impression of me as a farm girl,” I told him, “but I’m thinking of getting a certificate in landscape design. I know it doesn’t sound particularly ambitious, but I’ve always loved gardening. There’s a great program at the New York Botanical Garden, so I could live in the city with my folks and save money.”

  “New York! Of course! It’s the one place I missed, right? But it’s not exactly the garden capital of the world.”

  “My grandparents have a house in the Berkshires with the most amazing gardens. It’s like a second home to me.”

  He looked at me with what seemed almost like longing, though we’d known each other for less than two hours.

  “You’re lucky,” he said, “to have a place in the world that means so much to you. To have something in life you really want to do.”

  “And you don’t? Accounting doesn’t make your heart beat faster?”

  “Not really, but making a decent living does. Getting ahead in business does. But that’s only so that I can provide for a family someday. I’m sorry, I know this is going to sound like too much information, but the truth is that’s all I really want in the world. A family I can call my own.”

  The rain began to let up around Oneonta. I stopped for gas and a vente cappuccino f
or the road. A few miles after I got back on the highway, the sun broke through the clouds—almost blinding me—and I had to scrabble with one hand through my bag on the passenger seat for my dark glasses. It still felt odd at times driving by myself. I’d spent so much of my adult life accompanied by Richard and my daughters that even now—after years of being on my own—I could occasionally feel overwhelmed by their absence. One of the biggest mysteries for me about Richard’s disappearance was the fact that he’d walked away from us—the family we’d created together and that he’d told me from the beginning he’d longed for most in life. And I’d believed him. It was actually one of the few things about him that I still believed.

  He was an orphan, adopted as a toddler by an older couple, but he’d always felt more dutiful than loving toward them, and never at ease in their orderly, modest, mostly silent Maryland home. They died, a few months apart, when Richard was nineteen and a sophomore at Georgetown. He’d sold the house less than a year later and never went—or seemed to look—back. I’ve often wondered if it was that early lack of connection and identity, of not knowing who he was or where he’d come from, that was behind what happened later. Yes, I’m sure he wanted love and security, but obviously other forces were driving him, too. There had to have been some remote part of him—a cold, closed chamber of his heart—that he kept from us. A place where he nursed his anger and pain, where he made his awful plans. But never once in our entire marriage, even during our last days together, did I sense that Richard Hyatt was anything more—or less—than he seemed.

  “Why not come with me?” he asked the night he told me about the company sending him to Hong Kong for the global conference. “It’s supposed to be an amazing city. You could explore it while I work—then we could take it all in together at night.”

  “Oh, I’d love to,” I said. “But I just don’t think I should leave the girls right now.” We were getting ready for bed. I was about to drop my nightgown over my head when I felt Richard come up behind me.

  “They aren’t girls anymore,” he whispered into the nape of my neck as he started to massage my breasts. “And you deserve this. We deserve this. John says he wants to introduce me personally to the managing partners. I’m pretty sure this invitation means a promotion. We can stop in Paris on our way back and celebrate our twentieth in real style.”

  “Don’t tempt me!” I said, turning around in his arms to face him. I let the nightgown tumble to the floor between us. “You know how worried I am about Olivia. And I’ve got the college tour all lined up for—” But his mouth closed over mine before I could finish, and I felt myself temporarily forgetting everything else but the pressure of his lips on mine. That’s all Richard ever had to do—a kiss, a touch, even just a look at times—and I was ready. I don’t understand people who are constantly seeking new partners and sexual novelty. For us, all we ever needed was the easy, often hilarious intimacy we shared naturally. The knowing exactly when and where and how to do the right things. After twenty years, it seemed to me that practice had pretty much made that part of our life perfect.

  “I hope everyone has as much fun as we do,” he told me later as we lay together, spent and happy, on top of the still-made-up bed. “Think what this is going to be like in Paris!”

  “Good try,” I told him, sitting up on one elbow and taking him in. As far as I was concerned, he had just the right amount of chest hair. Not a dark heavy mat like some of the men I saw in the pool at our country club, but just enough for me to run my fingers through and enjoy its springy give under my touch. He was a little heavier now, smile lines creased his cheeks and forehead, but he still had the same open, boyish good looks that had first drawn me to him. “But not even your very considerable powers of persuasion can change my mind. You go to Hong Kong and wow senior management. I’ll stay here, hold Olivia’s hand, and take Franny on the tour. Paris can wait another month or two. It’s not going anywhere, is it?”

  I heard a strangled sob. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was coming from me. Tears were running down my cheeks. I changed lanes, put on the brakes, and pulled off to the side of the road. Then I let go and really wept.

  It was Tom, of course. The knowledge that Tom was waiting—that a possible new love was there for the taking—that brought Richard so vividly back to me. I had loved my husband: his mind, his sense of humor and responsibility, his unabashed adoration of our daughters, his very physical presence. I’d loved everything about him—and yet, clearly, I hadn’t had the slightest idea who he really was. I realized that I would never be able to get over how wrong I’d been about him—about us. Just as I would never recover from the wrong he’d done me. And yet I knew that if I was ever going to have a chance at happiness again, I would have to try. I’d have to finally leave all the unanswered questions and ambiguity behind. Though Richard had walked out many years ago, the fact was, I’d continued to stay in our marriage. I’d never quite given up. Yes, I’d been embittered. Vengeful. But the very depth of those emotions had kept me mired in this one-sided, damaging, and endlessly bewildering relationship.

  And Tom was waiting. But I knew his patience was starting to give way. His anger had startled me the other night. Richard had never really raised his voice to me or the girls. He’d cajoled and kidded—and, yes, sometimes even made love—to get what he wanted. But what darkness that seemingly sunny nature had disguised! I reminded myself. Better to be with someone who was honest about what he wanted.

  I need you to think about how you feel. I need you to decide what you want.

  I thought I knew now. I started the engine. I adjusted the windshield visor against the noonday sun. It was time to move on.

  Part Four

  31

  Downtown Shalesburg didn’t have a traffic light. It consisted of a church, a gas station, and a row of late-nineteenth-century two-story clapboard buildings that had seen better days. There was the Second Time Around consignment shop. The Cut & Dry hair salon. A number of empty storefronts with For Rent signs in the windows. And the Shalesburg Market, which seemed to be the only place open on a Saturday afternoon. I parked in front of it and went inside. I spotted a woman with a small girl in one aisle, but they seemed to be the only people in the place besides the man behind the register. He was in his late fifties, balding, with a face the color and texture of beef jerky. He looked up as I walked over to the glassed-in deli case to the right of the register. A chalkboard on the wall behind the counter listed the day’s specials.

  “All out of the meatball sub,” he told me. “But I can make you up anything else you might want.”

  I ordered a ham and cheese on rye and watched as the man set swiftly to work. He looked up as he got ready to slice the sandwich in half.

  “Pickle with that?” he asked.

  “Sure, I’d appreciate it,” I told him. “And I’d also appreciate it if you could tell me how to get to the Delaney farm from here.”

  He shook his head as he tore off a sheet of waxed paper from a roll on the counter.

  “Should’ve known,” he said darkly to himself as he wrapped up the sandwich and tossed it and a packet of potato chips into a brown paper bag.

  “I’m sorry?” I said, handing him a ten-dollar bill. “I’m just asking where the—”

  “You’re press, right?” he said, shoving the bag across the counter at me. “Don’t you people have any decency? That poor family is going through enough grief right now without the likes of you nosing around again.”

  “I’m a friend of Mara’s,” I said. “I’ve driven all the way over from Massachusetts to pay my respects.”

  “Oh,” he said, hesitating for a moment, but then he seemed to regain his angry momentum. “Well, I’ve just had it with reporters. These last couple of years have been a total media circus around here.”

  “Why?” I asked him. “What happened?”

  “Thought you said you were a friend of M
ara’s.”

  The woman with the child had come up to stand beside me at the counter, waiting her turn.

  “Oh, come off it, Verne,” she said now. “You have any idea how paranoid you sound?”

  “Can’t be too careful,” he shot back, depositing my bill in the cash drawer and handing me the change. He closed the register and crossed his arms over his barrel chest.

  “Mara’s been working for me in Massachusetts,” I said, turning from Verne to the young woman. “But she didn’t tell me why she left.”

  “We all wondered where she’d gone,” the woman said, lifting her basket of groceries onto the counter. Though slim, pretty, and only in her mid-twenties, she already had a worn-down look. “If you can hold on a sec, I’ll show you how to get to the Delaneys’.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I walked to the door. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  “Sorry about Verne,” the woman said a few minutes later when she joined me under the awning with her bag of groceries. Her little girl followed her out, intent on ripping the wrapper off a Tootsie Roll Pop. “But he was a buddy of Mara’s dad and has taken this whole thing pretty hard.”

  “Do you mind telling me what happened?”

  “No, but let’s sit down,” she said, moving toward a wooden bench to the right of the door. “I’ve been up half the night with this one’s younger brother.” She leaned over to pick up the paper wrapper her daughter had dropped. “Teething!”

  “I remember the days,” I said.

  “Oh, boy, am I looking forward to the time when I can look back, too,” she said with a sigh, collapsing onto the bench and closing her eyes. After a moment or two, she straightened up.