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 carehere.
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 Ican’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 abstractway.
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 deepinside.
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 thegardens.
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 theground.
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 thesteps.
“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 theelaboration.
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’mnervous.
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 heartknow?
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 namewasdragged 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 thestory.
“It was nice to meet you,” I say, trying my best to leave his name off the ends of my goodbyesentences.
“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 throughme?
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.Iwould want to know, Ithink.
