“Aunt Wes-wee?”
She looks down at Leo’s solemn little face.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Can you tell me more stowies about my daddy when he was a witto boy?”
A lump rises in her throat. At bedtime last night, after she taught them several nursery rhymes she and Sam used to sing when they were little, she told them Daddy stories in the dark until they fell asleep. Of course, she embellished a little, and Sam always came off heroically. But that’s what he was to Leslie, and that’s what he was to his children. A hero.
“Sure, Leo,” she tells the little boy who looks so much like his father did at that age. Sandy hair, green eyes, freckles across the bridge of his nose. He’s the picture of Sam. “I’ll tell you Daddy stories while we make the toast.”
“Tell the one about how he saves the puppy who got caught in the bwambwee bushes by the beach. I wish my daddy was still around in case Cupid ever gets stuck in bwambwee bushes. Do you think anjos can save dogs? And people?”
The unexpected question brings tears to her eyes. “Sure, Sam. Angels can save dogs and people.”
“I’m Weo! Wememb-o? Not Sam. Sam was Daddy.”
She ruffles his hair. “Sorry, kiddo. Of course you’re Leo. Okay, it was a sunny summer day and your daddy and I were at the beach with Grandma . . .”
“More coffee, ladies?”
“I’d better not. I should get home,” Rose regretfully tells Christine, seated across the booth from her.
“None for me either. Just the check,” Christine tells the waitress, who nods and drifts back behind the counter with her half-full coffeepot.
Christine Kirkmayer has been a pleasant surprise, Rose thinks, spreading another bit of concord grape jelly on her last triangle of toast. She looks up at the pretty, round-faced blonde on the other side of the table. Christine reminds her of Jenna, somehow, though with her pale complexion, light blue eyes, wavy hair, and all-around chubbiness, she looks nothing like her. But she seems to exude a warm, little-girl enthusiasm that Rose finds especially appealing on this dreary Sunday morning.
“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.
You 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?”
“Out on Pond Ridge Road,” Isabel informs her, as Mary rolls her eyes to suggest that anyone in their business should be well aware of this fact. “He has a fifty-acre estate out there. I hear there’s a recording studio in the main house and a mini amphitheater on the grounds.”
“Wow. I’d love to see it.”
“Well if he lists the place, you most likely will.”
Isabel smiles at Cameron’s slightly star-struck expression. She’s just a kid, really—not long out of Bryn Mawr, living back home with her parents over in Bedford, half-heartedly dabbling in a relatively cushy career while attempting to land a husband before the biological clock starts ticking.
There are dozens of young women like her around here; Isabel supposes that after next year—her last at Vassar—her oldest daughter will join the ranks.
Andrea won’t be able to afford a place of her own—certainly not in the city, and not even here. Her father sure as hell can’t be counted upon to give her money once he’s fulfilled his tuition obligation.
These days, Ted is financially focused on the McMansion he’s having built down in Armonk, and on the toddler sons he has with his second wife. Formerly the “other woman” in Isabel’s doomed marriage, Shelby is a living cliché: blond, slender, and apparently oblivious to the fact that she’s got a few good years at most before her husband strays—if he hasn’t already begun to.
Oh, well. Ted’s infidelity is no longer Isabel’s problem, thank goodness. He belongs in the past, along with her low self-esteem, her money problems, and her life-threatening illness.
These days, she’s fit and healthy, feeling good about herself and her single lifestyle at last. She may not be wealthy by Westchester County standards, but she just deposited a nice fat commission check in her savings account and a slightly smaller one in her checking account, enough to cover the in-ground pool she plans to install this summer.
And unbeknownst to her coworkers, she’s already laid the groundwork to snag the Jason Hollander listing when he puts his estate on the market next month. She’s the listing agent for Hollander’s good friend and Pond Ridge Road neighbor Hesper Cantwell III, who is asking and will probably get 2.5 million dollars for his sprawling Victorian mansion on ten acres. Hess, as he prefers to be called, introduced her to Jason Hollander last weekend.
There was something slimy about the way the record producer looked her up and down appreciatively before she removed her sunglasses and he apparently realized she was almost old enough to be his mother. Still, she gave him her card, and he said—
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