Just a Heartbeat Away

by Cara Bastone

  And she couldn’t be his.

  He wanted so badly to feel only friendship for her. To just call her up, the way he would Tyler or Mary. Say, Thanks, buddy. I really needed that talk last night.

  He knew he wouldn’t call her. There was too much risk of saying, Hey, come over again. Sit with me on my back porch after my boy goes to sleep. Let me kiss your shoulder and untangle your hair from your earring. I’ll make mediocre dinner, and you can sit on my lap the whole time.

  He’d never risk that. And so he found himself coming to the exact same conclusion he’d come to when he’d shown her his workshop. She was cute as hell and was his perfect match in another world. But in this world, she was too young, attached to someone else, and someone that Seb needed to start distancing himself from.

  He’d walked to pick up Matty, every other step filled with hope and relief and the others weighed down by disappointment and what-ifs. It was with this strange accordion of feelings, sandwiched somewhere between catharsis and fresh hurt, that he’d gotten to school five minutes early. He’d strode purposefully toward her office, popped his head in. He was just going to say thank-you. A quick, heartfelt thanks, and then he was going to grab Matty and head home.

  But she wasn’t there. Even the lights were out.

  She hadn’t been there the next day, Friday, either. Seb hadn’t asked anyone where she was. He also didn’t ask when she didn’t show up for softball either. Between Via’s absence and Seb’s recovery mode, they’d barely scraped by with a tie game, and Seb and Matty had gone home grumpy and exhausted.

  That’s when he’d called his in-laws. Would they like to come down for a few days? And in typical Sullivan fashion, as if the invitation wasn’t out of the blue or a secret delight to them, Muriel had emailed him their brisk, businesslike itinerary about four minutes after he hung up the phone.

  Art and Muriel Sullivan had arrived Sunday morning and the following Wednesday they were still there. Both of them inserted themselves into the house without fear of being told to butt out. Seb was as grateful as he was annoyed. When his own parents visited—which was for about two solid months every summer—they were true houseguests, all the way down to dishes left in the sink and casual reminders that he needed to pick up more toilet paper. The Sullivans arrived, set their bags down and started running every aspect of the house with military precision. It was, and had always been, as relieving as it was condescending.

  He didn’t need the help. But it sure was nice.

  Now, Wednesday late afternoon, after he’d picked up Matty from school, Seb sat at the kitchen counter, rocking his barstool back on two legs while he attempted to pay a few bills on his laptop. Muriel was putting the finishing touches on dinner and disinfecting his toaster, of all things.

  He smiled at her question, which was somehow rude and kind all at once. Well, are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or are you going to continue making everyone in this house ten minutes late for everything?

  “You know, Muriel, sometimes you remind me so much of Cora it makes my chest ache.”

  Her head snapped up with the speed and intensity of a sniper finding a target in the scope of a rifle. Her rubber-gloved hand stilled for just a second before she resumed denuding the toaster with a round of steel wool. She ignored the compliment. “So, that’s why you’re sighing and leaving your keys every place but your pocket? Because of Cora?”

  There wasn’t censure in her voice, exactly, but Muriel was the queen of compartmentalization. And she’d never understood that Seb hadn’t been able to put Cora’s death in a box where it had belonged.

  Seb typed a few keystrokes and paid Con Ed, then navigated to his National Grid bill. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “No, maybe, I don’t know,” Muriel repeated, pursing her lips. “How eloquent.”

  Seb chuckled so that he wouldn’t roll his eyes at his mother-in-law. “I mean, it’s not for the same reasons as it used to be. But every time I make progress and move on a little more, I get so sad.”

  He could feel Muriel’s eyes on his face and a familiar feeling of dissection gripped him. Cora had been able to do this, too. Just look at him and peel back the skin from muscle, the muscle from bone. Cora had said it was easy with Seb because he was such a big, innocent target. His dumb, blunt face showed every emotion. He stopped pretending to go line by line through the bill on the screen of his laptop and looked up at Muriel. The second their eyes clashed, she was back concentrating on the toaster.

  “I don’t know why that should make you sad. You’re supposed to move on after someone dies.”

  She was being obstinate. But if she hadn’t been, Seb would probably have plunked her in the car and raced her to a neurologist. “Right. But sometimes moving on feels like leaving her behind. For a long time, grief felt like my only connection to her. And...” he swallowed hard “...a part of me doesn’t want to lose that, too.”

  Muriel’s back was ramrod-straight as she attacked the toaster with fresh vengeance. Seb read through her lines, a skill that had been extremely hard-won, and realized that she understood what he meant, even if she’d never admit it. Muriel looked up at the backyard through the window over the sink and suddenly banged on it so hard the glass shook in its boots.

  “Art!” she hollered at her husband through the glass. He and Matty were playing in the backyard. “Put down the newspaper and untangle your grandson’s pants from the fence!”

  Whether Art heard her through the glass or not, Seb wasn’t sure, but he watched Muriel eye the backyard for another few seconds before she resumed her scrubbing. “Just another pair of pants to mend along with the khakis he ripped the pocket off of,” she muttered to herself.

  Seb sighed, turning back to his laptop. Conversation over, he supposed.

  Muriel finished with the toaster and set it back on the counter, snapping off the rubber gloves and rinsing them, laying them out to dry. She immediately checked the roast in the oven and started dismantling the fridge for salad fixings. “Well, that’s just silly,” she said into the vegetable drawer.

  Seb’s hand froze over the keyboard. “I’m sorry?”

  “Feeling regret that your grief is receding is silly. And a waste of time. You should be grateful.”

  “Well—”

  “And of course your grief isn’t your only connection to Cora. You have your son. And you have all of your memories of her.” She slapped a bag of romaine on the counter and didn’t turn around. “And of course you have Art and me.”

  Seb was momentarily stunned into silence. The Sullivans had been an amazing support after Cora had passed, taking charge with Matty on so many occasions. But Seb had never exactly bonded with them. He’d always felt like a presence they’d tolerated in order to have access to their grandchild. When Cora had been alive, he’d barely exchanged more than pleasantries with them on either ends of their visits.

  Yet, here she was, referring to herself as a connection.

  “Do you...” he almost didn’t ask “...think of me that way? As a connection to Cora?”

  “No,” she answered so firmly that Seb felt immediate tears of reaction tighten behind his eyes. Damn, the woman was harsh. “But you remind me so much of Matty, and Matty reminds me so much of Cora, that, well, I guess it’s all just one thing a part of the next.”

  She was describing...family. Seb blinked at her rigid back, the perfectly knotted apron and the dyed blond hair, white at the root and tucked into a crisp French twist. She thought of him as family?

  “Muriel,” he started, testing the waters. “If I remarried, would you keep coming here?”

  “If I were invited,” she answered stiffly. He couldn’t see her face but he could hear her lip curling.

  “Of course you’d be invited.”

  She said nothing. Not for a long time. Seb had already gotten sucked into a few work-related emails when she s
poke up again.

  “So, that’s what it is then. You’re conflicted because you have a woman in your life.”

  “Oh—”

  “Well, that’s silly, too. Of course you should have a woman in your life. Matty needs a mother figure.”

  Again, Seb was stunned. He wished to heck that she’d just turn around already but he knew that was never going to happen. “You’d be all right with me finding someone?”

  “Of course,” she scoffed, like it was a waste of breath even to ask. “If she were a worthwhile person. Had a firm hand with Matty. If she wasn’t dreadful, naturally I’d be all right. I don’t expect you to be a widower forever, Sebastian.”

  “Well...” He cast around for what to say next. It was a conversation that had about forty different threads he could follow. “It’s not imminent. I—she’s not available. And she doesn’t even know I have feelings. It’s just something I need to get over. I’m sorry I’ve been moping.”

  She was quiet again for a while. All while she dressed the salad and brought the roast out of the oven. She was slicing bread when she spoke again.

  “Maybe she’d become available if she knew you had feelings. I can’t imagine this other fellow can compare.”

  Seb coughed. Hard. “That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Sebastian. I give you plenty of compliments.”

  “Name one other.”

  She glared at him, then went back to arranging the slices of bread in the bowl. “I’ve stopped folding your laundry, haven’t I? I don’t call the school to check in on Matty anymore. I don’t insist on picking him up from school or buying his clothes. What would you call all of that?”

  “Oh.” Seb furrowed his brow. It simply hadn’t occurred to him. “You’ve been handing back the reins to me because you...trust me.”

  “Obviously I do. You’re a good father. Don’t make me hit you over the head with it.”

  He blinked at her. “But you’ve never liked me.” Maybe it was a stupid thing to say, but it was a piece of evidence he’d clung to for years. It had allowed Muriel’s disappointment in him to keep from sinking in too deeply. All the cutting comments and sideways glances, all the insinuations that he was incompetent, he’d been able to ignore to a certain extent, because she’d never liked him. There wasn’t even the chance of being good enough. It was just a personality thing.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” She filled a tureen with ice water to set on the table for dinner. He knew she’d fill a small pitcher next, with milk for Matty. And last would be the little carafe of red wine that she’d put out but frown when anyone partook. “I like you just fine. Now.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh at her candor. “But before...” he prompted.

  She just pursed her lips.

  “Oh, come on, Muriel. We’re this far in. Might as well go the whole way.”

  “Fine. Yes, before, I didn’t like you. You got my daughter pregnant after a few months of knowing her, and you were an absent father.”

  She let that little gem sit between them, blooming noxiously like a plume of bloodred ink in the ocean.

  “But I would have to be intentionally blind to ignore all the ways you’ve grown. Pushed yourself. And at great emotional cost. I used to think you were a lazy man. And maybe you were. But you’re not anymore.” She sniffed, patted her perfect hair, and finally, finally made eye contact with him. “I don’t hold grudges. It’s immature. And you’ve proven yourself just fine.”

  Matty banged through the back door, smashing through the moment and demanding Seb’s full attention while he laid out the three different types of autumn leaves he’d found in the backyard with Grandpa Sullivan. And then dinner was on the table and then it was bedtime for Matty, almost immediately followed by bedtime for the Sullivans.

  Just a few short hours after that mega-bomb conversation with his mother-in-law, Seb sat alone in his workshop, all the lights clicked on. He leaned back on two legs of his folding chair and clicked open his phone, going immediately to his texts. There were two new messages from the women he’d had to cancel on last week. He’d made the dates impulsively. They were both his age. Now they both wanted to reschedule. He clicked his phone closed and tossed it onto one of his workbenches.

  He didn’t need to text right now. Texting was another man’s game. Strangely, it was with Muriel’s words in his mind that Sebastian rose, selecting one raw slab of wood from his shelves and then another and another. He was going to do what he did best.

  He worked until midnight. With no drawings, no plans, he let the wood surprise him. Just the way he liked it.

  * * *

  SEB SPOTTED VIA from afar a few times that week. But he didn’t like what he saw. She looked slow and sad, and she was constantly alone. Usually he’d spot her with Sadie or Shelly or Grace, sometimes Cat. They’d be sitting next to one another in the teacher’s lounge or laughing over the Xerox machine. But she was chronically alone now. And the one time he went to her office, she’d been on the phone, offered him no more than a polite wave. He’d been certain her eyes were red like she’d been crying.

  Something was up. He resolved on Saturday morning that, if she wasn’t at softball that afternoon, he would call Serafine to check and see if everything was all right. Ever since he and Serafine had figured things out via text, that they weren’t a love match, he’d become much less stressed at the idea of hanging out with her. In fact, he’d been toying with the idea of inviting her over again, sometime when Tyler was supposed to come over as well. He liked the idea of seeing his friend as off-kilter and schoolboyish as he’d been a few weeks ago. It made Seb feel a little less like a twerp for nursing this crush on Via. See? Grown men can act like fools over pretty women; it happens every day.

  Seb, Matty and Crabby, the whole motley crew, pulled into the parking lot next to the softball fields. Two seconds later, the Sullivans pulled their Benz smoothly into the spot next to Seb’s truck. He tried hard not to sigh. They’d wanted to come to his softball game, of all things.

  Seb was fairly sure that they decided to come only after Matty had spilled the beans that no one specifically watched over him while Seb was playing. But it wasn’t like he was running wild! Seb could see him the whole time. Still, no matter what the reasoning was, Sebastian found himself both looking forward to and dreading the thought of seeing Via for the first time in a week and a half under the watchful eye of his mother-in-law.

  He’d had exactly zero more heart-to-hearts with Muriel, if you could even call it that. But still, he was very well aware of just how sharp her vision was.

  “Remember what we talked about, Matty?” Seb asked his son as he hauled him out of the booster seat in the back of his truck. Crabby hopped down with leonine grace. The effect was immediately squashed by the tongue lolling out one side of his mouth.

  “Right. Don’t give Grandma and Grandpa a heart attack while they’re playing with me outside, and don’t make it seem like you let me run wild like a lost boy,” he recited, almost verbatim.

  “Right. And there’s a stop at Ample Hills ice cream in it for you if you can manage to pull the whole thing off, capisce?”

  “Capisce.” Matty nodded extremely solemnly. He took his artisanal ice cream very seriously.

  “Well. This is quaint,” Muriel said, her utilitarian pumps clicking on the parking lot pavement.

  “What’s the difference between a softball field and a baseball field?” Art asked, pushing his thick lenses farther up his nose and buttoning the middle button on his tweed blazer.

  Knowing his in-laws enough to realize that neither of them actually expected an answer, Seb hiked his bag over his shoulder, took Crabby’s leash in one hand and Matty’s hand in the other.

  He was halfway past the bleachers when he saw her. Hair dusting her shoulders as she lean
ed forward to tie one shoe and then the other. Those mid-length sweatpants hugged her in some very interesting places, and her team T-shirt was a size too large, which for some reason, Sebastian found adorable. She straightened up and was pulling her hair into a bun when she looked around and saw him staring at her.

  He looked like a dope, he was sure, standing there with his arms overflowing with bags and kids and dogs and that look on his face like he thought she was just about the cutest thing to ever walk the Earth. But there was nothing he could do about that. Not really. It was just who he was. This was what he had going for him.

  She waved a little, and Seb realized that he’d stopped walking in his tracks. He attempted a little wave back and ended up tangling Crabby’s leash with his softball bag. When he’d finally sat Matty down on the lowest bleacher, tied Crabby to one of the crossbars and re-slung his bag over his back, Muriel’s eyebrow was raised so far up her forehead her plastic surgeon would have fainted on the spot.

  Seb chose not to acknowledge it and instead nodded to his in-laws. “See you after the game.”

  “Ice cream!” Matty flashed him a double thumbs-up and then turned to his grandparents with an expression so contrived it was almost comical. “Shall I show you where I play?”

  Seb was laughing to himself as he stepped down into the dugout.

  “What’s so funny?” Sadie asked him from where she stood next to Via and Rachel.

  He made a feeble attempt at not immediately drinking Via in like a glass of ice water on a hot day.

  “I told Matty to put on a good show for his grandparents in exchange for Ample Hills and I’m pretty sure he just used the word shall.”

  The three women burst out laughing, and Seb took the unguarded moment to study Via’s face. Looking at her hurt. Or it felt so good it hurt. Either way. His chest clamped down like a dog’s mouth on a hand trying to take its food away. She looked like she’d been crying again, but she was also here, in her softball stuff, laughing and talking. So that was a good sign. He wondered, for the millionth time that week, what the heck was going on with her.