Helena rolled her eyes, then joined his laughter. It felt delicious to laugh, to sit on a sofa with a gorgeous man, to eat the dinners he prepared for them, to roll around, kissing. If Matteo’s liver wasn’t a match, if they couldn’t go through with the transplant, Helena told herself that this was still how she wanted to spend the final year of her life. However long she had left, she knew that Matteo would be there, making her giggle.
Why was she so lucky?
That weekend, Helena and Matteo went over to Bethany Sutton’s for lunch. Over a feast of lasagna and nonalcoholic wine, they laughed with Bethany, Rod, and their three children,Maddie, Phoebe, and Tommy. Phoebe especially cracked Helena open with laughter. She was a thespian, and she told them that she planned to move to London to study Shakespearean theater. She told them that she was a reincarnated silent-film actress.
“She’s been saying that since she was seven,” Bethany said. “Her father used to hate it.” Bethany beamed, as though the idea of her ex-husband hating something like that pleased her.
“How’s it feel to be a real Nantucketer?” Rod asked Matteo, beaming.
Matteo said it was beyond his wildest dreams. “I wake up every day next to the most beautiful woman in the world, on the most beautiful beach in the world.”
“Can you believe this one left for so many years?” Rod gestured toward Bethany.
But Helena now knew more about Bethany’s backstory: how Bethany and Rod had dated in high school, how Rod had had a girlfriend while Bethany was away, how that girlfriend had gotten pregnant and ripped Bethany and Rod’s relationship in two, for the time being. It was a wonder that they’d found their way back to one another.
That night, although Helena was exhausted and she needed at least ten hours of sleep, she slow-danced with Matteo in the kitchen of their place, shifting gently against him as an October rain came down hard outside. Matteo kissed her nose, her chin. He told her, “You’re brilliant. You’re the greatest love I ever could have found.”
Sometimes late at night, if Helena stayed up, she asked Matteo questions about his daughter, Jenny. She thought that talking about Jenny made her feel more present, as if her memory were still ongoing. Matteo told Helena stories about Jenny as a kid, how funny she’d been, how she’d hardly ever cried. Matteo said that he’d tried to teach her things that he’d loved, but that she’d always marched to the beat of her owndrum. “I loved that about her. I loved everything about her,” he said, his eyes far away.
Sometimes Matteo asked her questions about her parents, about what they’d done together, about what it had been like to say goodbye. Helena didn’t hold back. She knew these were the sorts of conversations that drew two people together, that drew their hearts closer. But she was unafraid, suddenly. She wanted it all.
At the beginning of November, they heard from the hospital that they were a match. The doctor wanted to schedule their surgeries immediately. Helena heard herself make an appointment for the day before Thanksgiving, which felt obscene. But if this really worked, there would be so many more Thanksgivings after this. There would be glorious days with friends and food and laughter.
Matteo said the date fit his life perfectly, because Helena was his life. They laughed and cried and kissed and began to prepare. If all things went well during the surgery itself, they weren’t necessarily in the clear. Sometimes organs could fight you, and sometimes they rebuked the new system within the first year. Matteo, too, would have a few years of recovery. He decided to take those months off from work so he could tend to himself and Helena.
After they returned home, they decided to hire a nurse to help them. They’d hire a cleaner and get their groceries delivered. They’d focused entirely on the joy of being together and learning to be well again.
24
It was one of the greatest regrets of Bethany’s professional career that she couldn’t be the one to perform Helena’s transplant surgery. The night before it happened, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Bethany and Rod went over to Helena and Matteo’s place to wish them luck. Bethany, who felt like the size of a house, wrapped her friend in a hug and willed the doctors at the Nantucket hospital to do their very best for her brilliant friend.
“I can’t believe it’s happening,” Helena breathed into Bethany’s ear.
“It’s going to be wonderful,” Bethany said.
But all the following morning and into the afternoon, Bethany waited with bated breath. Her kids were out of school for the week in the lead-up to the holiday, but they knew to keep quiet, to tend to their mother. Bethany made a nest on the sofa, and Maddie insisted on bringing her snacks and drinks. Phoebe put on a film she thought they would all like, and although it was way too intellectual for most of them, they sat through the two and a half hours and had a long family discussion afterward, which pleased Phoebe.
“Now, I have to watch an action movie, or I’ll scream,” Tommy said, going up to his room.
Bethany suggested that they put on something silly, like a rom-com or something, to take her mind off Helena’s surgery and the fact that she still hadn’t heard anything from Helena’s surgeon. Bethany had requested that he call her immediately after the fact with an update. Of course, there was no way to tell how long something like that would last. There were numerous things at play, numerous factors. And more than that: she knew better than to think that Dr. Sutton was the first thing on the surgeon’s mind.
The patient had to come first. The patient always came first.
When the rom-com finished, Bethany, Maddie, and Phoebe remained quiet, tears in their eyes. It had been a tear-jerker at the end. Phoebe sniffled and blew her nose.
“Wasn’t it better than your artsy movie?” Maddie teased Phoebe.
“No! It was overly emotional and sloppy,” Phoebe said, using words she’d probably read online. “But yeah. I mean, it was sad. It got to me. I have a heart, okay?”
Maddie and Bethany laughed. Phoebe passed the bowl of popcorn over and wiped her cheeks of tears. “I don’t know if I have the energy to date. It looks crazy.”
“You’re going to love it,” Maddie told Phoebe. “It’s so much drama, and I know how much you love drama.”
“It doesn’t have to be drama,” Bethany tried. “Your stepdad and I…”
“We know all the drama you had back in high school,” Maddie interjected. “Just because you’re chill now doesn’t mean you were always chill.”
Bethany laughed. “You have a point.”
