Heart Breaths

by Hendin, KK

  A sob caught in my throat. “I had just turned eighteen,” I continued, my fingers twisting into the blankets. “Devi was almost three, and Ravi decided that we should all go out for my birthday. He rented a car, and picked us up to go on a picnic. We never made it.”

  Tears were running down my cheeks again. “We were on the highway when a semi came out of nowhere. The driver didn’t see us—he was too drunk to see anything.”

  I turned away from Gabe, my shoulders shaking. “The impact was so hard, our car flipped over three times. Ravi died almost instantly… his body wasn’t intact when the car finally stopped rolling. And Devi?” I could barely breathe. “I heard her dying, Gabe. I heard my baby dying, and I couldn’t do anything to help her.”

  The panic from that day was choking me. “I was trapped in my seat, and my baby was dying in the back seat. It took them two hours to get me out of the car. Afterwards, I found out that Ravi was planning on proposing. But he never got to. His family blamed me for the accident, and refused to speak to me again.” I took a shuddering breath. “And my family? They paid for rehab, took me back in, and pretended that nothing had ever happened. That I had never had a daughter. That I just went abroad for high school, and now I was back in New York to become a little Miss Society Page, just like my mother. It was three years ago yesterday, Gabe, and I didn’t remember. I didn’t remember the day I killed my baby.”

  “You didn’t kill her,” he protested, his voice hoarse.

  “I killed her!” I cried, tears streaming down my face. “I should have been sitting in the back with her. She asked me to before we left. I should have sat next to her, I could have saved her. It was all my fault, Gabe. All of it. It should have been me who died, not Ravi. Not my Ravi. Not my baby. Not my baby.”

  Reaching over, he gathered me into his arms and let me cry again. “I don’t even know what to say to you,” I heard him whisper. “Sorry isn’t nearly enough after what you went through.”

  “That’s all anyone said.” My voice was hoarse from tears. “That’s all they said. Like saying sorry was going to bring them back. Like they were some magic words that would fix anything. They didn’t fix anything, Gabe. They only made it worse.”

  I let the tears flow, and held on to him. “There’s a hole inside me now, that no matter what I do, I can’t close it. I didn’t talk for a year after the accident. I couldn’t. It hurt so much, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t cry.”

  Lifting my head and looking at his face lined with concern, and his eyes, filled with understanding, I made a decision. “Make me forget,” I whispered, letting the blanket drop. “Make me forget, Gabe.”

  I watched his eyes widen. “Maddie, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he hedged, trying to keep his eyes on my face.

  “It is,” I said. “I need to forget.”

  He shook his head, regret etched on his face. “I can’t, Maddie,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “It’s because I killed them, isn’t it?” I asked, the pain of rejection so much more painful than it had been with Crawford. “You don’t want to be with me because I killed them. You probably never want to see me again. I don’t blame you. Most of the time, I don’t want to see myself anymore, either.”

  “I didn’t say that,” he protested, gently covering me back up with the blanket.

  I rolled away from him, huddling in a ball, wondering how it was possible for my heart to hurt more than it already was hurting. “That’s why Crawford left, too,” I said, reliving the other day I had tried my hardest to pretend never happened. “That’s why he left me.”

  “Wait—Crawford?”

  “I hadn’t dated anyone for two and a half years after,” I started again, knowing that at this point, it didn’t matter. Gabe had said no. After this, I probably would never see him again. Or Noie.

  My heart splintered again and I gasped quietly, trying to collect myself. “I met Crawford at one of my dad’s business dinner things. He was nice, I guess. My parents basically shoved me out the door when he asked me out. He’s from a good family, and marrying into his family would have been advantageous for mine.”

  “Wait, marrying?” Gabe’s face twisted.

  I shrugged. “That’s what’s important to them,” I said, sniffling a little. “Having one of their kids marrying a Dupont was a social coup.”

  “But you were what, twenty?”

  I nodded.

  “And they wanted you to get married,” he repeated, disbelieving.

  I nodded, smiling wryly. My childhood was an entirely different existence than life in Eno. Another planet. Sometimes I wondered how they coexisted in the same universe. “My mom has wanted me married since I was eighteen,” I said. “I was tired of her nagging, and I knew it would get her off my back. So I went out with him. And then I went out with him again. And after seeing him pretty consistently for around six months, I walked into my house one day to find him in my bed with my sister.”

  I shrugged, trying not to let myself feel how much it had hurt. “Jen said that he told her we had broken up. We hadn’t. Crawford said it was because I was still obsessing over some made-up traumatic event that I would bring up to get sympathy from people, and that he needed to be with someone normal. He said he thought he could ignore that, because of who my family was, but apparently he couldn’t. So he decided that Jen would be a better idea. Same last name. No hallucinations.”

  “Made-up traumatic event?”

  “That was my parent’s story for any time I mentioned Ravi and Devi. That I was hallucinating. Because apparently it wasn’t as bad to be hallucinating about a dead Indian boyfriend and daughter than it was to actually have had a dead Indian boyfriend and daughter.”

  “Jesus,” Gabe whistled.

  I sank back onto his pillows, exhausted. “I should go,” I whispered, drained.

  “Stay here,” he said, pulling up the blanket to cover me again. “Stay.”

  “I can’t.” I said, struggling to sit up, but the exhaustion making it near impossible. “I should go. You don’t want me here. You shouldn’t.”

  Leaning over me, Gabe stroked a hand down my cheek. “Is this because I won’t sleep with you?” he asked softly.

  I felt myself blush again, and moaned in embarrassment. “Forget I said anything,” I whispered. “Just let me go. You don’t have to see me again. I get it.”

  Catching my face in his hands, he looked at me, serious. “Maddie,” he said, his breath tickling my cheek. “If it wasn’t for the fact that the anniversary of their deaths was yesterday, and the fact that I have a shitload of my own emotional baggage that I had to deal with,” he leaned down until our lips were nearly touching. “You wouldn’t be the only one naked in this bed right now.”

  Brushing his lips against mine, he stood up. “I’m going to get my papers from the living room,” he said, as though he hadn’t just set all my hormones on fire. “If you want, I can come and work in here. No phone calls, just paperwork.”

  I shrugged. “If you want,” I whispered.

  Cracking a smile, he looked down at me. “What I want is to lick you from top to bottom,” he said, his voice growing husky. “But what you need is to get some rest.”

  Turning, he walked out of the bedroom, leaving me lying there in his bed, naked, exhausted, turned on and completely and utterly befuddled.

  I lay there in his bed, running my hands absently over the blanket. I had told someone what happened.

  I told someone.

  God, it still hurt so much. It still hurt. How did people do it? Keep going. Keep breathing.

  How had I done it?

  I looked down at my hand, down at where the engagement ring would have gone. Down where the wedding band would have been making a permanent tattoo into my finger. It was empty.

  Jen was going to have a wedding ring.

  She was going to have everything she ever wanted. Everything she ever said she wanted.

  And me?

  I didn’t ev
en know if I knew what I wanted anymore.

  I don’t know if I ever had.

  Gabe walked back in, briefcase in one hand and a cup of coffee in another. He handed me the cup of coffee and headed to the rocking chair. “My mom won’t be back with Noie until around five,” he said, putting on a pair of reading glasses. “You have no reason to rush out.”

  “Thanks.” My eyelids drifted close.

  The only sound in the room was the faint sound of the ocean and the occasional click of a pen. “Gabe?” I asked sleepily, drifting closer and closer to sleep.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you hate me now?”

  “Why would I hate you?”

  “Because all I am is regret.”

  “You’re not,” he said softly. “You’re stronger than that, Maddie.”

  My eyelids drooped close. “Only sometimes.”

  Sleep came. Deep, dreamless slumber, the kind that I hadn’t had in years. The kind that I had ached for.

  Gabe had moved at some point while I was sleeping—the rocking chair was a little closer to the bed, and his fingers were flying across the keyboard.

  I yawned widely, snuggling into the blankets. Was it bad that I never wanted to get out of this bed? I didn’t care.

  “Hey,” Gabe said, his voice deep and soft. “Sleep well?”

  “Yeah,” I peeked at him, sitting there, so solid and sane. “Thanks for letting me steal your bed.”

  He smiled. “Whenever you need it, Maddie.”

  “How long was I sleeping for?” I asked.

  He glanced at his watch. “Around four hours.”

  “Four?”

  “You were pretty tired.”

  Emotional exhaustion will do that to you.

  Gabe shut his laptop and stood up to stretch.

  I wasn’t going to look at that golden swatch of skin that peeked out while he stretched. I wasn’t. I turned and stared at his bedside table, trying to look at anything but him.

  A cordless phone sat on the table, on top of a pile of magazines.

  “You have a house phone, too?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, it’s usually for emergencies. Or when I need to make a phone call and Noie is playing Angry Birds.”

  He walked toward the bedroom door. “I’m going to make something for lunch. You in the mood for anything specific that’s not leftover pizza?”

  “Actually…” I looked down at the phone. “Can I make a phone call to New York?”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll save you a slice of pizza.”

  “Thanks.”

  The door closed softly behind him. Leaning over to the phone that was lying on the bedside table, I dialed a number that I hadn’t though I ever would dial again.

  The phone rang. Once, twice. “Hello?”

  You can do this, I told myself. You need to do this.

  “Salena?” I whispered.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Maddie,” I said.

  There was silence on the other end. “I just… I just wanted to call you. To see how you were.”

  I could hear the sound of her breathing on the other end.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “How are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I spent the day in meditation yesterday,” she said, the soft lilt of her accent flowing through the phone lines. “He is happy, Maddie. He wants you to be happy, too.”

  I clutched the phone tighter. “I want to be happy, too.” I said. And then I told her the truth. “I don’t know if I know how to be.”

  “The same way everyone else is, priya,” she said. “By breathing with your heart.”

  “Breathing with my heart,” I repeated.

  “You need to stop treating your heart like it is a safe box, Maddie,” she said. “You need to treat your heart like it is your lungs. It needs to breathe. It needs to keep on opening itself up, over and over and over. You can’t live without your heart breathing.”

  “How do I get it to start breathing?”

  “You find one person. One thing. Something. It doesn’t matter what. And you need to take a little breath of air, just for them. You have to love them enough to take a small little breath. And then you take another one. A little one, too. Just a small breath. One breath in, and one breath out. Love one person, for one moment. That is your breath in. And then, take one moment of hurt. One moment that made you put up your wall. And breathe it out. Let it out of your body, slowly. Tell it that it has done its job for you. It has served you well, and now it is time to breathe it out.”

  I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you before,” I whispered.

  “Maddie, sometimes you need to give yourself space to heal,” she said, her voice calm and full of understanding. “Are you in a good place now?”

  I looked around the room, sunshine pouring through the windows, the faint sound of the ocean blowing through. “I think so.”

  “Good,” she said. “I think you are in a good place, also.”

  “I love you, Dādī.” Grandmother.

  “I love you too, Pōtī,” she replied. “Namaste.”

  “Namaste,” I said, letting the phone drop to my lap.

  Making sure the door was firmly closed, I picked up the clothing Gabe had left for me. Sam and I were not the same size in the slightest- Sam had the body of a pin-up girl, and I still had the body of a skeleton. But clean clothing that made me look even more pathetic was better than dirty clothing that fit. I got dressed slowly, and piled all my clothing into a neat stack.

  “Do you have a plastic bag I can borrow?” I asked, standing at the doorway to the kitchen.

  He looked up. “In the drawer. Wait, where are you going?”

  “I’m going to breathe,” I said.

  Lifting a hand, he brushed his fingers down my cheek. “You’re going to be okay,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you have the eyes of a fighter,” he said, leaning down and planting a gentle kiss on my cheek. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

  “Why are you being so nice?” I asked, watching his hand fall to his side. “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m an emotional train wreck, who you don’t even know. I just cried all over you like some deranged person, then propositioned you, and then went on to tell you about how fucked up my life is.”

  He looked at me, flabbergasted. “I’m not even going to answer that question,” he said. “But one thing.”

  I looked up at him, silent. “You’re not the only one who had a fucked-up life.”

  The crack in his voice broke my heart a little bit more.

  Chapter · Thirteen

  The museum was closed when I parked my car in the abandoned parking lot. Walking down the little path I had come to know so well, I thought about what Salena had said.

  “Let your heart breathe.”

  Finding a space in the middle of the field, I sat down, folding my legs into proper position. It had been years since I had done yoga, but some things just didn’t leave you. Focusing on the sound of my heart beating, I breathed. In and out. In. and out.

  “Think of one thing you love. One person. Let yourself love them.”

  Closing my eyes, I let my mind drift as I breathed. One thing that I could let myself love. One person.

  I thought of the Lost Colony. Of Eleanor Dare’s little baby girl, Virginia. How thrilled they probably were when she was born. That Eleanor was okay. That she was okay. She was the next generation. As the first British child born on American land, she was hope.

  I breathed in, thinking of a little baby girl. One who took her first breaths on the very island I was on. She was so little when Governor White left. So full of hope, and so helpless.

  I breathed in, and let myself love her. Let myself love who she was. Who she could have been. What she was. What she meant.

  I let my heart breathe her in. Breathe
in her little gurgles of laughter that would pour out when her mother tickled her. Breathe in the coos of contentment when she lay nestled in blankets, safe from the world.

  “Where were you?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

  “I was out,” I answered evasively.

  “With who?”

  “Some kids from school,” I said.

  “Which ones?”

  “None that you know,” I answered. She wasn’t going to ruin this for me.

  “And why don’t I know them?” she asked, her voice sickly sweet.

  “They don’t really run in the same social circles as we do,” I said.

  Her lips twisted in disgust. “Madeline, I told you not to fraternize with the scholarship kids.” She spit the words out like they were spoiled caviar.

  “They’re also people, Mother!” I protested. “Just because they don’t have as much money as we do doesn’t make them bad people.”

  “Of course they aren’t bad people,” she said. “But there are other people that it would be much more advantageous for you to associate with.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that!” I exploded.

  I was going to let it go.

  I had to.

  Sitting there, legs crossed, back straight, breathing in the smell of forest and beach, I realized something. She wasn’t going to change.

  I didn’t know if she realized how horribly offensive she could be. How obnoxiously classist.

  I didn’t know if she even meant well.

  But her judging people based on the amount of money in their bank account didn’t mean that I had to. Didn’t mean that that was automatically the way people judged me. I took a deep breath in, and then let it out. Let out the look of horrified disgust on her face when I had told her who I had gone out with. Who I was becoming friends with. Let out the eye roll, the one that was accompanied by mutterings about what a failure I was to the family.

  For that one evening, I breathed out.

  It had served me well.

  It had.

  It taught me something that I had suspected. Something that I needed to know.

  That my mother wasn’t always right.