The One in My Heart

by Sherry Thomas

  “Sure.”

  Anything to keep me from sending deeply humiliating texts that added up to the length of Broadway from end to end.

  Of course I hadn’t had any replies from him. And that was the most humiliating part of all: He conducted himself with dignity, whereas I behaved like an adolescent in the throes of her first breakup, all self-indulgent misery and hormone-driven drama.

  I put half an omelet and one scoop of scalloped potato on the plate for each of us and carried the plates to the living room. Zelda had just sat down next to me, remote in hand, when her phone dinged with the sound of an incoming text. I picked up the phone from the coffee table and handed it to her.

  Had Bennett read my texts? Or had their scent of lunacy been too strong for him to do more than scroll through, shaking his head at that endless spew of verbiage?

  “My God!” cried Zelda.

  I almost dropped my plate. “What’s going on?”

  “Frances Somerset texted from the hospital. Her husband had a heart attack.”

  “What?” I clutched the rim of my plate. “Is he okay?”

  “They’re operating right now, a quadruple bypass.”

  “Jesus. Does Bennett know?”

  “She’s been trying to contact him. His hospital says he’s in surgery and they don’t expect him to come out for at least another two hours.”

  I turned off the TV. “Which hospital is his dad at? Does his mom need someone to stay with her?”

  Zelda exchanged further texts with Mrs. Somerset. Fifteen minutes later we were in a cab, huddled close together on the backseat.

  “It can all go away in a heartbeat,” murmured Zelda, as the cab glided forward.

  I stared out the window. Cones of orange light from street lamps punctuated the night; shadows of still-bare branches swayed back and forth on walls and sidewalks.

  At the hospital we found Mrs. Somerset in a nondescript waiting room. Dressed in an incongruously glamorous gown of black cashmere, she rocked back and forth in her chair, her hands over the lower half of her face.

  We said hi. She leaped up and hugged both of us. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  Mrs. Somerset had no further news on her husband’s prognosis, and she still hadn’t heard back from Bennett. But she’d managed to get in touch with her other children. Imogene would be getting on a red-eye flight that landed early in the morning. Prescott, halfway around the world, wasn’t expected to reach New York until late the next evening.

  “Have you had any dinner?” I asked. “Can I get you something?”

  “No, we were on our way to a fund-raiser when Rowland—when we had to come to the hospital. But please don’t trouble yourself. I don’t want anything.”

  I got a coffee for her, tea for Zelda and me, and a couple of muffins—Mrs. Somerset might not want to eat now, but hunger caught up to everyone sooner or later, no matter the circumstances.

  We waited. From time to time Mrs. Somerset would give us an update from her far-flung children. Prescott is at the airport, about to go through security. Imogene has boarded—her boyfriend is coming with her. I hope Prescott doesn’t miss his connecting flight—the layover in Taipei is less than two hours.

  Around midnight Zelda moved to a seat in the corner—she was dropping off. I draped both our coats over her and went back to my chair. Two TVs were mounted on opposite walls of the waiting room, their volume muted. The one I happened to face had been set on a cooking channel. Chefs ran about frantically, mopping their foreheads with towels, shouting soundless commands at their underlings.

  “Evangeline,” came Mrs. Somerset’s soft voice.

  I glanced toward her. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Do you happen to know why Bennett set up the meeting with his dad, just the two of them?”

  After a moment of hesitation, I nodded.

  “Did he…Does he want a reconciliation?”

  I thought of Mr. Somerset on the operating table, his chest open, his fate in the hands of strangers. “Yes.”

  Mrs. Somerset covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God. If only he’d made that appointment for one day earlier.”

  “Maybe Mr. Somerset guessed. Maybe—”

  I forgot what I was about to say. Bennett stood in the doorway, looking tired, grim, and more than a little scared. Mrs. Somerset exclaimed and rushed up to him. He enfolded her tightly in his arms and murmured, “It’s okay. Everything will be fine.”

  Since the news of the heart attack, I hadn’t thought too much about our breakup or my unfortunate texts. But the moment he looked my way, embarrassment pummeled me.

  Especially since I hadn’t come clean about my sexual obsession solely because I went a little crazy. There had been an ulterior motive: I’d wanted to turn him on and stick a knife in his heart at the same time, to make an already painful separation even more difficult for him.

  To punish him, because he wouldn’t let me have my cake and eat it too.

  Because he, the one who had made every mistake in the book, had turned out to be the braver, wiser, and more principled of the two of us.

  By far.

  “Thanks for staying with my mom,” he said, and hugged me too.

  His strong arms, his wintry scent, the feeling of being safely enclosed—yet another memory to torment me when I was alone again.

  He didn’t wake up Zelda, but spoke in whispers with his mom. Then they sat down together, her hands holding tightly on to his, her head on his shoulder.

  I left and returned with a coffee for Bennett. “There are couple of muffins here, in case you’re hungry.”

  He accepted the coffee. “Thanks. I’m okay for now.”

  I sat down cattycorner from mother and son and wished I’d taken Zelda home at midnight, before I turned into a pumpkin. Without thinking I reached for my phone, only to feel my face scald. Hurriedly I put it away and looked up at the TV.

  On-screen a chef was crying, wiping ineffectually at the corners of his eyes. I really thought, read the closed-captioning, I really thought I had a chance. Not just to go past this round, but to go all the way, win the big prize. My mom thought so too. My friends. Everybody.

  If broken dreams were an actual substance, we could build a six-lane highway to the moon every day of the week.

  Something made me glance in Bennett’s direction. His mother seemed to have fallen asleep, her eyes closed. His gaze was on me. But I couldn’t tell whether he was looking at me or merely happened to be staring in my direction.

  “I was at a coronary bypass too,” he said.

  I remembered that he’d been in surgery, except on the operating end. “How did it go?”

  “It went fine. But during the previous major bypass at the hospital, the patient died midprocedure.”

  My hands tightened around each other. “I’m sure your dad will pull through.”

  “I hope so,” he said, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear. “I really hope so.”

  I wanted to reassure him. You’ll have time. He’ll recover. I can feel it.

  But I’d thought that Pater was going to make it too. I didn’t think it was possible for my father to be felled by a random car accident. After all, misanthropes were supposed to last forever, growing more bitter with each passing year.

  I got up and sat down next to Bennett, taking his free hand in mine. I didn’t say anything. Words were of no use here. One way or the other we would know before the end of the night.

  He lifted our clasped hands and kissed the back of my palm.

  And then we waited.

  I WAS STARTING TO DRIFT off when someone said, “Are you Rowland Somerset’s family?”

  Bennett and I both scrambled to our feet. “Yes, we are,” he said, giving his mom a small shake.

  She jerked and sat up straight. “What’s going on? Is he okay?”

  The woman in green scrubs was Asian in feature and about forty years old. She shook our hands. “Hi, I’m Dr. Pei. I’m happy to inform you that the sur
gery was successful. Mr. Somerset is now in recovery and should come out of anesthesia in about an hour or so.”

  I had tears in my eyes. So did Bennett. Mrs. Somerset wept outright with relief, leaning on her son. The commotion awakened Zelda, who leaped up at the news, which led to many hugs being exchanged. Then we all shook hands with Dr. Pei again, thanking her—and her team—profusely.

  “Will we be able to see him?” asked Mrs. Somerset.

  “Very briefly,” answered Dr. Pei. “He won’t be able to speak because he’ll still be intubated, and I would ask that you do not excite him, since he needs to rest.”

  After the surgeon left, we celebrated some more. Bennett and his mother shared a muffin, texted his siblings, and drank a toast with their cold coffees.

  “Do you want to go home?” I asked Zelda.

  “After Rowland comes out of anesthesia,” she said.

  Three-quarters of an hour later, a nurse came and told us that Mr. Somerset was awake. Mrs. Somerset and Bennett went into the recovery room; Zelda and I remained just outside.

  The recovery room had a window that faced the corridor, its blinds half up. I could see Mr. Somerset on the hospital bed, surrounded by IV stands and various machines, looking incredibly frail. His wife went to him and took his hand. He lifted his other hand a bare inch off the bed. Bennett hesitated, a look of confusion and incredulity on his face. Then he rushed forward and gripped his father’s hand in his own.

  The nurse was already laying down the law. “Only one family member may remain with the patient. Everyone else must clear out.”

  “I’ll stay,” said Bennett. “Mom, you go home and take some rest.”

  “I love you,” said Mrs. Somerset to her husband.

  Bennett kissed his father on the forehead. “I love you too, Dad—and I’m sorry for everything. I’ll see the ladies to their cabs and be right back.”

  We walked out of the hospital. Mrs. Somerset hugged her son. “It’s so good to have you back. So very, very good.”

  He kissed her on both cheeks. “It’s good to be back.”

  The prodigal son had returned to the fold. The circle was complete. And I stood outside the circle, looking in.

  Zelda felt no such outsider status. She hugged Frances Somerset and then Bennett. “I’m so happy for you. For this entire family.”

  Mrs. Somerset left waving—and dabbing at the corners of her eyes. The next cab pulled up. Zelda got in first. I looked at Bennett and managed a smile. “Take care.”

  He kissed me on my lips. “You too. I love you.”

  My ears rang, as if I’d been to a too-loud concert. “But not enough to take me as I am?” I said, my words barely above a whisper.

  His voice dropped just as low. “The other way around. I love you too much to survive being kept at arm’s length.”

  “You want me to be someone I’m not.”

  “Your work is all about making ceramics conduct electricity. Ceramics are insulators. Why are you wasting your time?”

  A hundred rebuttals bounced around in my head, everything from source material and kilning methods to the molecular structure of electroceramics.

  “Are you coming or not, lady?” asked the cabdriver, getting impatient.

  I grimaced and got in. When we were about to turn the corner and lose sight of the hospital, I looked back. Bennett was still there, watching me leave.

  Chapter 17

  I WAS ALTERNATELY EXASPERATED WITH Bennett for talking out of his rear end—of course a subset of ceramics conducted electricity, and very well too—and infuriated because, as far as metaphors went, his had been pretty damn seamless.

  My work was all about improving properties that the layman might not even know ceramics possessed. And now he wanted me to do the same to my heart, to unearth properties that I didn’t even know it possessed.

  It was midmorning before I walked downstairs. Zelda was putting away groceries in the kitchen. A box of pastries from the 79th Street Greenmarket sat on the counter. Two big “Get well soon” balloons bumped against the ceiling, their ribbons tied to the fridge handle.

  “Morning, darling. I had a text from Frances. Rowland is fine. Imogene is already with him. Bennett went home to take a shower but should be back at the hospital in a few minutes. I’m taking the pastry to them, but there’s enough for all of us. Do you want to have one now or after we get to the hospital?”

  I poured myself a cup of tea from the pot she’d already made. “I have some experiments I need to keep an eye on. Say hi to everybody for me.”

  “So you’re planning to go later in the day?”

  It was a grey, drizzly morning. The shopping tote that still lay on the kitchen counter was wet on the outside. I took a dish towel and wiped it down. “No, I’m not going today.”

  Zelda nudged back the pullout basket where we kept root vegetables and turned around. “I know Rowland is out of danger. But I’m sure Bennett would appreciate your company. And Frances tells me Imogene is really excited to meet you.”

  I forced myself to look at her. “There’s something you need to know. Bennett and I, we were…we’ve never been together. He recruited me as his pretend girlfriend, because I offered a means for him to be nearer to his parents without his having to come out and say that he wanted to reconcile. Now they’re reconciled and my role is finished.”

  Zelda stared at me as if I’d told her that all along I’d been a green-skinned alien from a planet that orbited Betelgeuse.

  I scraped my fingernail against a balloon ribbon. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. He wanted to keep it a secret.”

  Zelda pinched the bridge of her nose. “But I thought he really had a thing for you—and you him. All the times you spent the night at his place—surely you weren’t just strategizing about his parents?”

  “It was a partnership with…benefits.”

  “Are the…benefits going to end too?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I opened the dishwasher and took out a handful of plates so I wouldn’t be just standing there, stupidly saying, “Yeah.”

  “I don’t understand. I mean, I understand the having-a-girlfriend-to-make-reconciliation-easier part. But if the two of you do in fact enjoy each other’s company, why stop? And last night, didn’t I hear him say that he loved you?”

  Had Bennett and I broken up for any other reason, I’d have made something up—or maybe tried to get out of the conversation. But now that he’d shone such a glaring light on the way I lived my life, now that I was exposed for all my tricks and maneuvers, I couldn’t bring myself to be business-as-usual with Zelda.

  “He wants a real relationship. And I have a problem with that.”

  “I know you’re busy, darling. But surely nobody is too busy for love.”

  “It’s not that. I may be…I may be incapable of a real relationship.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Zelda huffed. Then, less certainly: “Isn’t it?”

  I kept reaching into the dishwasher. Glasses, mugs, silverware returned to their designated places—anything to prevent me from actually squirming with discomfort. “I don’t like to be asked questions. I don’t like having to talk about things I don’t want to talk about. I’d rather be alone than open myself up to be poked and prodded.”

  “My God,” whispered Zelda.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, it’s just that…I remember a conversation with your father. He stood exactly where you’re standing now, and he said more or less the same thing.”

  I froze, a spatula in hand.

  “You know how your father was—great in a crisis, took his responsibilities seriously, and so droll and witty when he was in the right mood. But dear God, a lot of times it was downright impossible to hold a normal conversation with him. I think his father must have been a nasty piece of work, and his mother most likely an alcoholic—so many things touched him off. Absolutely innocent questions on my part would make him snap and tell me it was none of my
‘fucking business.’”

  The spatula handle dug into my palm. I might not have heard that particular argument, but I very much recognized Pater’s emotional volatility.

  “It was getting to be too much for me. I wanted our marriage to work, but I also needed him to make a good-faith effort to not be so difficult—and to not keep me always at a distance.”

  What had Bennett said last night? I love you too much to survive being kept at arm’s length.

  “That was when he told me I could do what I liked but he had no intention of changing. I realized then it would be only a matter of time before we parted ways.” She looked at me, her eyes wide with the distress of a doting mother who had just found a stash of coke in her child’s room. “But you aren’t like him at all. I mean, you’re as dependable in a crisis as he was, but the similarities end there. You’re the daughter any woman would wish she had. You are…you are…”

  I was, in some crucial ways, very much my father’s child. But whereas Pater lashed out, I dodged and sidestepped, when I couldn’t lie outright.

  Zelda covered her mouth. “I should have seen it, shouldn’t I? Bennett has known you, what? Seven or eight months at the outside?”

  “I’m really good at hiding my deficiencies.”

  “There have been times when I’ve asked myself how it is that you’re never fazed by anything life throws at you. And then I say to myself, Of course you’re that graceful, and of course I’m that lucky to have you.” Her voice turned hoarse. “I should have been more observant. I should have realized you were keeping too much to yourself. I should have…”

  Tears spilled down her face. And mine. I never wanted Zelda to see that I wasn’t as normal and well-adjusted on the inside as I appeared on the outside. She had been the best mother in the world. To be a cause of pain and doubt to her—my heart felt as if it had been scored with a sharp knife.

  “Please, please don’t blame yourself. I’ve been an adult for a long time now. For better or worse, these have been my own choices.”

  I wanted to comfort her better. To hug her and tell her that everything would be fine. But at this point, that would be only more lies, wouldn’t it?