Designing Hearts

  Jill shook her head and collapsed in her desk chair. “I had no idea. He acted so …. We were together last night and ….” She shook her head again—too much information. “How could something like this happen? He’s everything to me—always has been. I thought he felt the same way.”

  Tom dropped into a chair and leaned forward. “Jill, if you haven’t talked with David yet, it would be good to hear what he has to say first.” The suggestion was gentle and balanced, typical of Tom. “I know he loves you. Sometimes men do stupid things. And it’s possible he’s been wrongly accused.”

  “Yes, it’s possible,” Jill said, blowing her nose. “But please, Tom, I need to know. Did he cheat on me when we were in college?”

  “If he did, I wasn’t aware of it,” Tom said. “It was mostly his ego that bugged me. I’m just saying you’d be better off if you gave him the benefit of the doubt until you know the truth. Whoever is accusing him might’ve made the whole thing up to get publicity.”

  “You’re right. It could be a publicity thing.” But Jill’s voice trailed off as an ugly certainty took root. David had been away from home more often than not the past year. He often stayed overnight in the city, complaining that he was too tired to commute home to Connecticut. He also was missing in action most weekends. Although Jill realized now that his frequent absences the past year were suspicious, it had never occurred to her that he could be unfaithful.

  “He’s always been my Prince Charming,” she said, shaking her head. “Stupid of me, I know. Or maybe I just wanted to believe in fairytales.” Deep down, somehow she knew the story on Entertainment Tuesday was true.

  Tom and Monica exchanged worried looks. “Do you want one of us to take you home?” Tom took her hand and warmed it between his. “You shouldn’t drive, as upset as you are.”

  “I’ll be fine. But thank you.” The vertigo had passed and Jill was clear-headed again. “The drive home will give me time to pull myself together before I talk to David.”

  “I certainly hope he has something to say in his defense,” Tom said, his mouth set in a thin line.

  Chapter Two

  During the twenty-minute drive home to Stamford, Connecticut, Jill fought waves of dread and anxiety. She was traveling the same route as always, returning to the spacious home where she and David had raised their twin sons, but she felt strangely disoriented. It all looked different somehow, as if she were seeing it through new eyes.

  Although the boys were fraternal twins, both had inherited their father’s good looks: glossy, dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes with dark lashes so long, they curled, and expressive faces that could be intensely serious or charmingly mischievous. Like David, the boys were nearly six feet tall with the same moderate build that looked great in any cut of clothing.

  Jill, with her fair complexion and nut-brown hair that tended toward cowlicks, couldn’t have looked more different from her sons. Deep down, she knew she was attractive, but she had never believed that her looks measured up to David’s. She often joked that she knew the identity of the twins’ father but wondered who the mother might be.

  The boys, Liam and Finn, were twenty-four and living on their own now, so it was just David and Jill in the big house. Finn was newly married to his high school sweetheart, Missy, and lived a short distance away. Liam shared a Greenwich Village apartment with his partner, Brian. Of the two boys, Liam was the one who most resembled his father—ironic, considering that their relationship had become so strained.

  It had always been a point of pride for Jill that simply by looking at Liam or Finn, she was able to conjure up a distinct image of David in her mind. She feared that from now on, the mere sight of her sons might bring pain instead of pleasure. This possibility brought new tears to her eyes.

  As she drove, a stream of memories rushed through her head, making David’s affair even more surreal. How could she have missed the signs when something so awful, so destructive to their marriage was happening right under her nose? Why, of all people, had David acted so recklessly, heedless of the risk of damage to his public persona? What could have caused such a change in his character? Even worse, did he love this other woman? If the answer was yes, Jill was certain it would tear her apart.

  David Hennessy was a familiar face in millions of American homes as host of a syndicated, popular evening talk show. It didn’t hurt his popularity that he’d been voted year after year as one of the sexiest men alive by Celebrity magazine. In his early years with the network, David had been a field reporter. As his star rose, he was tapped to become first a morning talk show host and then the host of an award-winning evening program focused on changing times in America.

  As the network became more extreme in its corporate point of view, David’s own beliefs became increasingly intransigent. His disposition at home was just as inflexible. Jill knew that David clearly understood on which side his bread was buttered, and his impressive ratings were proof of that understanding. As a young man, he had been more objective in his approach to most topics—a beacon of journalistic, objective integrity. However, as the years went by, he began to adopt the network’s more extreme mindset, publicly and personally. Jill recognized with a pang of disappointment that while her husband’s popularity and ratings depended on maintaining a more extreme viewpoint, his public and private lives were now one and the same.

  Unfortunately, this way of thinking was spilling over into his family life with hurtful consequences for Liam, their gay son. David had made it clear that he disapproved of Liam’s “lifestyle choice.” He insisted that Liam was just going through a phase.

  “He’s confused by all the moral ambiguity in the world today.”

  “It isn’t a choice, David. It’s who he is,” Jill said in frustration after Liam slammed out of the house, hurt and angry over his father’s unwillingness to meet Brian. “Support who he is or risk losing your son.”

  David waved away her comment. “I can’t accept this. Remember those girls who hung all over him in high school?”

  “Yes, I do remember. They were his good friends. And if you recall, he took your second cousin to prom. Liam knows who he is, even if you don’t.”

  Jill often worried how deeply Liam could be hurt if the media ever picked up the story that David Hennessy had a gay son. Far from being ashamed of Liam, Jill was proud of him for living an authentic life. At the same time, she suspected that Liam kept his sexuality private—except from supportive family members and close friends—because he loved his father and didn’t want to do anything to hurt his career. Not surprisingly, this caused even more stress for family members, but most especially for Brian, Liam’s partner.

  Jill acknowledged that she could have been more insistent that David stop ignoring Liam and fully embrace the reality of his son’s life, accepting Brian as a member of the family as she did. Other members of their family accepted Brian. Jill’s mother had reassured her that David was a big enough person that he would come around, eventually.

  “Don’t be afraid to speak your mind to your husband,” her mother said several times.

  Jill wondered now at her own reluctance to confront David on the subject of Liam’s well-being. Had she feared all along that standing up to him would irreparably harm her marriage? But now, knowing that David’s alleged affair indicated a huge rift between them anyway, she wished she had spoken up to help Liam. It might not have changed the course of events, but she would know that she had done everything possible to support her son.

  Jill had to admit that it had been a long time since she and David had discussed anything serious. It was all superficial between them. Although he told her often enough that he loved her, she now saw that he’d been detaching more and more. Discussions usually resulted in David waving his hand dismissively at Jill or mocking her opinions.

  “Okay, honey,” he’d say with a smile, but the tone was condescending. “You go ahead and think that.”

  Remembering the attentive young man who had captured her hea
rt in college, Jill found it difficult to reconcile her feelings for the primetime, larger-than-life character David had become. But having been a celebrity wife for so long, she also understood that ratings equaled reality in the minds of many. Forced to live on the public stage, they’d been giving a theatrical performance of sorts, and Jill played her part well.

  Jill and David had been introduced at a sorority party when she was an interior design student and he was a political science and broadcast major. David’s fraternity was located directly across the street from Jill’s sorority house. During the first month of their sophomore year, she secretly admired the handsome, dark-haired boy with the arresting brown eyes and charismatic grin who parked his aging Triumph Spitfire with impunity in the no parking zone. Campus security officers, especially females, turned a blind eye to any infractions where David Hennessy was concerned.

  Jill had her own circle of friends, but was quiet and introspective by nature while David was popular and always surrounded by people. She was surprised when he broke away from the crowd at a Friday night mixer and introduced himself to her. They spent the entire evening talking about anything and everything, and for the first time, she felt comfortable letting down her guard with such a popular guy. David seemed to know how to draw Jill out of her shell with sincere questions and the gentle yet protective stance that made her feel safe with him. She had never experienced that kind of instant, comfortable rapport with a guy while also being so attracted to him. When he invited her to an outdoor concert and brought along a picnic basket with crusty French bread, cheese, and a thermos of red wine, she was a goner. They began dating steadily, and for the next three years were undeniably the couple in the campus Greek system most likely to wed. Jill fell hard for David’s quick sense of humor and easy way with people. Wherever David went, he was the center of attention.

  “That kid will be a star someday,” her mother predicted. “There’s something about him you just have to watch.”

  Jill, with her quiet, more reserved personality, basked in the glow of being David’s Girl and then David’s Wife. Everything about her world seemed brighter because he was in it. After graduation, when he was hired as a field reporter for a small television station in southwestern Pennsylvania, David quickly became a celebrity in every household within a six-county area. The station was flooded with calls asking to see more of him on the air. Wherever he did a live broadcast, crowds (mostly female) gathered. Within six months, he was named to an evening anchor role, and advertising revenues shot through the roof during the nightly broadcasts. It wasn’t surprising when a much larger network affiliate in southern Connecticut invited him to join their news team. David jumped at the chance to move from Pennsylvania to Connecticut, close enough to New York City that he could envision his next big career move. He fully intended to end up at the network’s main studio, and no one who knew him doubted that he was well on his way.

  Meanwhile, Jill took a job as an interior designer for a Eurasian furniture company, and at the insistence of the owner, began taking classes in feng shui, a Chinese art form that used natural elements such as wood, fire, water, and earth to help people enhance their spaces. From her own life, she knew that feng shui could create balance and harmony, bringing about positive change.

  Madly in love and having the time of their lives, Jill and David married that summer in Stamford and moved into a two-bedroom starter home near her parents, where they lived in honeymoon bliss. After their twin boys were born, Jill and David set up housekeeping in a stately colonial in Rosewood Estates, an up-and-coming neighborhood near the best schools. David insisted that Connecticut was where he wanted to raise a family. With her parents nearby to help with the twins, Jill couldn’t have agreed more.

  “This is a house that can grow with us,” David said as they nestled one night in their new Early American four-poster bed.

  Jill had never been happier. As she learned more about the fundamentals of feng shui and put them into practice, she knew that her own home reflected her sense of contentment and fulfillment. But over the years, as David’s career skyrocketed and he moved quickly into a national reporting job, Jill and the twins saw less and less of him. His handsome face and irresistible smile appeared regularly on the cover of newspapers and magazines, and he was often a guest on late night talk shows. Jill was thrilled when he landed a job co-hosting a news magazine filmed during the day. It allowed him to be home most evenings in time for a late supper, just the two of them. He was even able to spend time with the family on the weekends. Life seemed ideal, even with his daily commute back and forth from Manhattan.

  David wasn’t content as a co-host and eventually ended up with his own show. Gone were the days when he was home for dinner, except on Saturdays and Sundays. He rarely made it to the twins’ peewee soccer games, and missed their high school graduation when it conflicted with the announcement of a presidential hopeful. Jill, who was enormously proud of David’s career, excused him from the usual responsibilities of marriage and parenthood, and eventually adjusted to life as a married woman living mostly alone.

  “Do you ever wish you’d married someone other than David?” Monica asked one day in her typical blunt fashion as they took a coffee break in the office kitchen.

  Jill had just learned that David was planning to stay overnight in the city again, and could hardly contain her disappointment. She missed seeing him and longed for time alone together. He hadn’t been home more than one weekend night in several weeks and had missed two family gatherings. Even Finn, ever his father’s champion, was thoughtfully silent when David missed his new daughter-in-law Missy’s birthday dinner. Of course Jill made the usual excuses, but he wasn’t buying.

  “I don’t want to judge, but I wouldn’t be happy living like that.” Monica looked intently at her.

  Jill took a thoughtful sip of coffee. “I’m very happy with David, and I’m happy for him. Look at who he is and what he’s accomplished.” Then, seeing the skepticism on Monica’s face, she added, “I still feel the same way I did the first time I saw him.”

  Monica raised one eyebrow. “But what do you get from marriage other than the honor of being Mrs. David Hennessy? He’s never there for you. For all intents and purposes, you’re a single woman without the benefits of being single.”

  “He’s a very busy man with a lot of demands on his time,” Jill said, jumping to David’s defense. She did, however, recognize the truth in what Monica said. “Everyone wants a piece of him. Celebrities have different demands on their lives than other people, and spouses and children learn to deal with it.”

  Monica looked unconvinced. “I couldn’t live like that. But I guess you’re used to it by now.”

  Jill tried to dismiss Monica’s comments in the same way she ignored other critical remarks about David so often lobbed her way by friends and neighbors. It was easier to defend him than to acknowledge the doubts that began creeping into her thoughts, eroding the sense of stability she worked so hard to maintain. Rather than absorb the thoughtless comments and careless slights David levied on her and the boys, she tucked them away at the back of her mind, occasionally reviewing them so that, like old photos, they became dog-eared and achingly familiar. She glossed over her hurt feelings by remembering how special she’d felt to be singled out by David as the woman in his life.

  “Whatever time David and I have together is precious to both of us,” she insisted, averting her eyes as Monica flashed another doubtful look. “Besides, I knew it would be this way when I married him.”

  Jill longed for more attention from David, and she had briefly considered demanding that he make it a point to be home on weekends. But then she wondered if making such a demand would put more stress on him and push him away. Either way, the request would be pointless. David was her husband, but he was also the property of the network and his viewers. As his wife, Jill was expected to be supportive, flexible, and independent—a role she performed naturally as the years went by.

&n
bsp; The drive from the office to their home that day was the longest Jill could remember as she agonized over what she would say to David. It would be a painful discussion, possibly marking the end of her marriage. She was anxious to hear directly from him what had really happened, but afraid that the truth might be more than she could handle. She had no idea when he might arrive home but wanted to be prepared for whatever happened. As she left the main road and rounded the corner onto her normally quiet, tree-lined street, her stomach lurched. “Oh, no,” she said under her breath, clutching the steering wheel in a death grip, her knuckles white as bone.

  A group of onlookers were gathered outside the Hennessy home, including at least two reporters and two cameramen. A man with a large digital camera crouched beneath a tree on the wide, grassy median, readying himself for a shot. A television van was parked haphazardly in front of the house, its portable tower stretching into the sky. Private security officers directed traffic, attempting to stop anyone who didn’t live in the neighborhood. Jill was forced to stop as well and let them know it was her home that was the center of all the attention.

  One officer said, “If I were you, I’d get as close to the front door as possible and run like hell inside. Sorry, ma’am,” he added when he saw her stricken face.

  Jill noticed many of her neighbors standing outside their homes, craning their heads for a better view. When they saw her car enter the circular driveway, their stares turned grim and their jaws started to flap. Jill knew that from now on, nothing would be the same. She decided not to enter the house through the garage, fearing that she might be followed inside. More than anything, she wanted to protect their home from such a violation of privacy. She could see David’s black Range Rover parked in the garage and quickly hit the button on her visor to close the automatic door.