The waiting room is full of older people, spouses waiting for their partners, some people my parents’ age flipping anxiously through stacks of paperwork. Sera leaves me with a sketchbook, because she’s thoughtful like that. I sit and doodle while I think about the awkward visit with my dad yesterday. The boys wanted me to go, so I said yes, but there was a woman over. Someone new. She was young, pretty, and shocked to see me.
“No need to tell your mother about her yet, okay, boys?” he said to Adam and Oliver, giving me a nervous look over their heads as the woman slipped on her shoes and left. She was clearly shaken by the fact that my dad has an eighteen-year-old.
“We don’t lie to Mom,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. Dad just changed the subject.
“Do you boys want to go out on the new boat?”
The whole thing had sat heavy on my chest since, reminding me of how fleeting love can be.Sera and I won’t be like that,I tell myself.
Sera’s gone about an hour, which she told me to expect, so I hope that means things are good. But when she steps back into the waiting room, the look on her face tells me the appointment hasn’t gone well. Her eyes are red, her cheeks splotchy.
I jump up and hug her, breathing in the sugar-lemon smell of her and holding her slightly trembling body tight. If I could hug the sadness and the worry and the sickness right out of her, I would. She nestles her forehead into my chest, like she can hear my thoughts.
“Not good, huh?” I say, my throat thick.
“No.” Her voice is small. “Not good. I have to come back next week.”
“Do you want to tell me?” I ask.
“Ejection fraction is still low.” She swallows. “They’re submitting my name to be moved up the list.”
My stomach sinks. “Let’s get out of here.” I reluctantly let her go and loop my arm around her waist, hoping she’s up for the plan I threw into place while waiting.
She leans into me and we head for the door.
Sera is quiet the whole way to the garage. In my truck, I grab her hand across the bench seat and kiss each of her knuckles, like she’s been in a fight, which she has and still is. She leans across the bench and gives me a butterfly-light kiss on the lips, whispers a thank-you, and then settles in against the window. I hope she’s not too tired for her surprise.
It takes her about ten minutes to realize we’re not going home.
“Wait.” She stirs and sits up, swinging her head to look around the part of the city I’m taking us through. “Where are we going?” She looks at me with curious anticipation, and I know I’ve chosen right. I try to keep a lock on my grin, but she pulls it out of me.
“A surprise,” I say, making sure she can’t see the directions I’ve put up on my phone, which is resting against the dash by my always-a-little-off speedometer.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m walking a slack-jawed Sera into the blissfully air-conditioned lobby of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I pull the tickets up on my phone, purchased in the waiting room of the hospital, and then tug Sera into the building.
“I’ve never been here,” she manages to say as we’re directed past the gift shop to the long glass hallway that leads to what our ticket taker says is officially called “The Palace.”
“Me neither, but it’s supposed to be cool.” I grab a map and then we step into a moody and dark European-looking entryway. I look at the pamphlet. “So, she built this entire building as a museum to house her personal art collection. She even collected a lot of the architecture, like the pillars and some of the ceilings, not just the paintings and statues and stuff.”
“That’s awesome,” Sera says.
As we move out of the entryway, the sun reappears, beaming through intricate pillars surrounding a lush courtyard. I lean over the rope keeping us off the beautiful mosaic floor and squint up at a massive skylight. It doesn’t look that big, butthere are people at every open window and balcony on the first three floors. It’s bustling with tourists trying to get out of the oppressive heat.
“This is the place that was robbed, right?” Sera asks as we head into an area labeledThe Spanish Cloisterto get away from the crowd around the courtyard.
“Yeah”—I flip through the pamphlet—“in 1990. They still haven’t found any of it. The empty frames are upstairs.”
“They left the frames? That’s…a statement.” We fall quiet as we continue deeper into the museum. Directly ahead is a huge painting, and it brings us both to a halt.
“Wow.” The painting is taller than me and probably ten feet wide. It features a woman dancing in front of a group of guitar players in a sparse room. The movement of the piece is incredible; I can almost feel the ruffles of her skirts whipping around her. There are a couple of women who must be friends of hers watching with delight from the right.
“What’s going on with her hand?” I ask, finding the limb twisted in a way that looks uncomfortable.
“She’s dancing. No, reaching for something,” Sera says, a little breathless. There’s a twang in my chest, the thrill of sharing her artistic interpretation. “Beckoning.”
“She looks so…focused,” I say quietly.
We observe her for a while longer, as other guests come up and take photos and look at the strange collection of pottery and stools that decorate the space in which the painting hangs.
