Chapter Three
Years ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the feeling of privacy or know what it would be like to feel free and alone, and now that I have it, I don’t always want it. Mom and Dad sold our house shortly after my surgery and downsized to a one-bedroom condo. The money they spent on my medical bills took everything away from them. Dad worked fifteen-hour days at two different jobs, seven days a week just to keep up. He couldn’t even make it to my surgery until it was half over.
Once I was back on my feet and thinking about a future none of us thought I would have, the first thing on my newly formed bucket list was to get my own place and be on my own. I yearned for the freedom.
This will be my fifth year in this apartment and while it feels like home, it also feels empty. I do my best to pretend like this is the life I want to live, alone, without the intention of hurting another person the way I saw Ellie’s husband hurting, but there's part of me that just wants to experience some form of ordinary, even if it's for a short amount of time.
Like I do many nights, I take out my stationary, weave it into my old printer, and type to him. I tell him everything I did during the day and everything Ellie's heart experienced. While I write to Hunter daily, I only send the letters that have significance—something within them that will give him a little more peace in his life. I don’t know if he even reads them.
My letters have remained anonymous for five years, needing to keep Ellie's secret safe. She never wanted Hunter to know of her impending death. Her medical issues were invisible, unlike mine. She was able to keep the secret, whereas I wore my fate like a body suit. Everyone I passed on the street knew I was sick. Without enough blood and oxygen pumping through my veins, I looked like a zombie. The long glances I would get made it all worse. Old ladies would place their hands over their hearts and tell me they'd say a prayer for me. Mothers would pull their children away as if I was carrying a life-threatening disease, which I was, but it wasn't contagious to anyone but myself. Men would look at me and sometimes snarl; whether unintentionally or not, it made me feel like some beast who should never leave the house.
I became numb to it after a while but it may be because I began to avoid people, going out, and having any form of a life—one a dying woman could have. I was always envious of Ellie because of this. I wanted to be able to hide it all within my body, keep it hidden from the people I love, just to spare them the pain and fear, but instead I ripped every piece of my parents’ hearts out every day as they watched me decay.
However, when family and loved ones don’t have the time to process an untimely death and they’re forced to face the brutality of it in the moment it happens, left without goodbyes and I love yous, it has the potential to destroy everything and everyone left behind in the shadow of their loved one’s existence. In my case, Mom and Dad would have gotten relief after the grief passed. They would have closure and final words. Hunter received none of that, and while I don’t disagree with Ellie’s decisions, I saw the aftermath, and I can’t help but wonder about him every day, how he’s survived without closure, goodbyes, and I love you’s. I stole his wife’s heart, and I feel responsible in many ways.
I debate if it would be better or worse for him to know who I am, and since I haven’t been able to make a proper decision about it all, I’ve remained hidden.
I think about the words I want to write and the stories I want to share.
Dear Mr. Cole,
Four weeks have passed since my last note to you. In that time, the weather has grown cold and I have spent a great deal of time indoors, reading, cleaning, and writing a bit. I’m afraid her heart feels a bit empty these days and I feel guilty for not doing more to fill it.
I met a man, a man who doesn’t know of my weakness, losses or gains. I think he saw me for who I am and wanted to learn more about me, but I fear what he would think or do if he were to learn of my fragile state.
Anyway, I hope you and your daughter are doing well. Ellie once told me she dreamed of having a daughter. I know this isn’t the way she wanted it to happen, though. I’m sorry I have let Ellie’s heart down this past month, I will do what I can to bring back some of the warmth that has slipped away. Maybe this man I met will be different. Maybe he will be the first to love a bird with a broken wing. We can always hope, right? Take care and I hope the holiday season brings you everything you wanted this year.
Sincerely,
Her Heart
With a finished letter typed out on my screen, I close my laptop and move on to the next part of my night involving mindless TV, tea, then bed. Same thing every night. I’m supposed to be living and yet, I feel as though I’m skating through each day with caution until I hear the next bad piece of news.
It’s turning cold early this year and soon I will need to go harvest the blue jasmines I plant in the gardens every spring. I let them blossom and grow throughout the summer and then take them, with their roots, back to the floral shop for the winter season so they don’t die. Since Mom and Dad own the gardens, I’m allowed to plant what I’d like here. Dad actually wanted me to take up some of the groundskeeper roles at the garden, but I felt I could do more with the flower shop. Funny enough, flowers were never my dream job, not like Mom and Dad. I grew up in the gardens as Dad took care of the eight acres of land on a daily basis, on top of his office job. He and Mom enforced a life of everything flowers. I knew more about botany than any child should know. I loved it for a long time but as I got older and before I got sick, I had plans to become a teacher, and I got so close to achieving that goal. I continued reaching for it even after I was diagnosed but by the last year of college, classes, standing, and talking became too hard, and I was forced to give it all up.
I was invited back to finish my degree after the transplant but I had a change of heart, in more ways than one. The new heart in my body wanted to fulfill Ellie’s lifelong endeavors, which, ironically enough, was not only teaching but also running a flower shop. We talked about this for years, how if she got the chance after she saved up enough money, she would run her own flower boutique in the middle of town, right on Main Street. I urged her to follow her dream, but Hunter was already following his dream and running his dad’s family business, so she felt it was safer to stick with a definitive paycheck and benefits every week, especially since they were trying so hard for a baby.
Ellie never got her dream while she was alive, and I felt it was my responsibility to unravel her dream through the goodness left within this heart I carry of hers.
I pull into the empty lot of the gardens and make my way down the cobblestone steps that have been here for over a hundred years, up-kept by my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and their parents. These are our family’s gardens and I feel it all around me when I’m here. It’s like an ethereal stomping ground for the love between floating souls. That’s how I feel when I’m here, anyway.
I decide not to waste time today since I have to get all of the arrangements done in the shop before I leave for my faux date tonight. Many nights, I end up closing the shop close to eight, rather than five, which is the intended closing time.
As I’m placing each jasmine carefully into my carrying box, I hear a sound across the small pond. Curious, since my car was alone in the lot, I search around until I see a man in the distance. He has a hand up to one of the trees and I think he’s talking to it. How bizarre...
After a moment of watching the man continue to talk to the tree, I realize I’m being incredibly rude by staring, so I go back to pulling the jasmines from the ground.
Every flower I take from the soft soil reminds me of Ellie. These were her favorite flowers, so I make sure to plant them here on her behalf every planting season.
“This is a privately owned garden,” a man’s voice says from behind me.
I lift my head and turn toward him. It’s the man I was watching a moment ago. Surprised and almost speechless for a brief moment, I acknowledge what he said, as I recognize the sad look in his eyes that has obviously remained with him like a permanent scar. A million different emotions hit me at once, being this close to this man. I want to tell him I know who he is. I want to tell him I know why he must be in the gardens and at that tree in particular. Though, if I did that, the years of hiding my identity to protect him will all be for nothing. Instead, I search my mind for the right words in order to avoid a hint of who I am. “Are these your flowers?” I ask.
He peers down at his closed hand, holding a bunch of jasmines. “No,” he replies quietly. “I got permission from the owner of the garden.”
My parents. He got permission from my parents to take jasmines from around the tree when he visits—the jasmines I have planted for Ellie every year. I didn’t realize he was the one taking them but I should have assumed. Mom and Dad never told me they granted him permission to pick these flowers.
“I did too,” I tell him. “I help the groundskeepers out sometimes since I manage a flower shop downtown. The shop I work for supplies the seeds in the spring and takes what’s left at the end of the season. Since we’re getting an early freeze, I’m making my rounds sooner than normal this year.”
He looks taken aback by my response. I’m guessing he assumed these flowers are naturally grown here, but blue jasmines don’t typically grow in New England. They require cultivation and special care here.
Our conversation continues through short spurts of small talk, and I want to do what I can to keep the conversation going, just for the sake of hearing how he’s doing, how he’s surviving. The connection I feel toward him is like nothing else I have ever felt before. We’re both attached to the heart in my chest and it’s a blatant feeling that only I can know at the moment. Considering he doesn’t know who I am, and he’s still looking at me like every word I’m saying is one he wants to hang on to, it makes me feel guilty for hiding the truth. I want to apologize for so much but I can’t.
The last time I saw him and the images of him in the photos looks different than the man standing in front of me today. He looks like he’s been through hell—the lines on his face tell a story of loss, and the slight droop on the outside corners of his eyes show a permanent sadness I don’t remember seeing before. He speaks as though happiness is not part of his emotional wiring, and all I want to do is fix it. Broken hearts can’t always be put back together though, or at least if they are, they are never placed back the same way they once were. Hearts are like broken vases—it is possible to glue all of the pieces back together, but there will always be cracks and flaws that keep the vase from being less than perfect, even if it’s still beautiful in an abstract way.
I want to help you, Hunter. I want to tell you that a day doesn’t go by where I don’t think about what you’re feeling or how you’re doing. I want to hold your hand and tell you it’s okay even though it’s not. I want to apologize for keeping a part of your wife to myself. I want you to feel her heart and know it’s still beating with the love she had for you locked deep inside.
It doesn’t take long for our talk to turn to the subject of losing someone and about that being the reason he’s here today in the gardens.
When I fear what he may ask me next, I find no other option beyond running from the conversation. Anxious and upset, I jog up the steps as my foot catches on one of the cobblestones. My box of jasmines flies from my hand a mere second before I fall to the ground.
Nothing hurts but the wind feels as if it was knocked out of me as I pull myself back together, but not quick enough to avoid an extended encounter with Hunter, who is racing up the steps.
“Are you okay?” he asks, trying to help me up. “Did you lose someone too?” He knows he upset me. My intention of keeping this conversation from happening has been shadowed by gloom weighing down over me. Have I lost someone? Yes, and no. To answer that question wouldn’t make sense without a lengthy explanation, but I simply answer, “Yes, I lost someone,” leaving out the elaboration.
Surprisingly, and thankfully, he didn’t push for more information, and I make the mistake of prolonging this encounter through more abstract statements, like I tend to do when I’m nervous.
Feeling as though I dodged the identity revealing bullet, I come to another brick wall when he asks, “Where is your flower shop?” Why does he care? Maybe it’s for the jasmines. Maybe it’s because something deep inside of him is making him want to be near this heart. Could he know? Could his heart know?
No. There is no way I can allow him in the flower shop or allow him to know anything about me. He could find out my name that way, and while I know my name was kept private from the donation, my name was dragged through the public eye and the news. I was a local medical miracle as well as the patient associated with one of the biggest violations that particular hospital was ever incriminated for. Surely, he’s heard the story.
“It was nice to meet you,” I say, trying my best to leave his name off the ends of my goodbye sentences.
“Likewise,” he says as I sweep past him, walking quickly, but carefully, up the rest of the stairs and to my car. Seeing he didn’t follow me, I close my eyes for a small second, feeling the heart in my body beating out of my chest. Do you know why your heart is beating so hard, Ellie? Can you feel him through me?
Throughout my entire drive to the shop I’m flustered, and my thoughts are spinning. I feel a connection to Hunter through Ellie, and I’m not being fair to him by keeping that to myself. I wonder if he would want to know the woman who has his wife’s heart? I’m scared of hurting him if he doesn’t. I would want to know, I think.