Designs of the Heart

by Renee Ryder

  Nico, please! Come save me!

  She saw herself like an isolated island in the Pacific. For the first time in her life, no one was coming to help her. Grandma did when her mother abandoned her; later Lauren, just after her grandma’s death; then Ryan; eventually Susan and Nico, when Ryan put her on standby. Now, a prisoner of solitude in every sense, she faced the final end alone.

  Always waiting for others to rescue you! Come on, girl. Get a move on. You got yourself out here, you can get yourself back!

  Her own dignity gave her this slap across the face and shook her out of the self-pity. She still had so much to do and life to live! It couldn’t end like this.

  The hand she felt herself reaching for was already here—her own. She just had to grab it.

  A sudden determination ignited her urge to fight.

  The far away beach seemed unreachable, but the sea slumbered, flat as a table today. Keeping in mind that hurrying often messes up even the best-laid plans, she washed the streaks from her face and rolled onto her back in the water, as though on an operating table, swallowing her fear and keeping faith that she would be all right. Now she could breathe and float effortlessly, and gather her remaining energy.

  Face to face with the blue sky, she aimed her head toward the beach. Too exhausted to do the backstroke and unable to kick, she propelled herself with her arms as if making snow angels through the waves. That first stroke brought her one yard closer to the beach. Two, counting the slight current. It would take another three hundred strokes. Maybe more. But by setting aside the desire to rush and breathing between one push and the next, she could make it. Bit by bit, slowly and patiently, hoping that waves would not kick up, she would make it. She was afraid of contracting that muscle because the cramp persisted, although less painful than before. It would be wiser to avoid stressing the leg. She only had to relax her body and paddle her arms. It was her way to salvation.

  Her heart calmed, as did her breath. Fatigue dissipated and self-confidence grew.

  She noticed a thread of connection, and not a thin one, between the sense of liberation about Ryan’s fancied defeat and the sense of independence that she felt now in returning to shore on her own.

  Maybe Nico had only brought out the tip of the iceberg.

  She turned to check if she was proceeding in a straight line towards the beach. Yes! She still didn’t see anyone who could help her, but at this point wanted to do it by herself. The immensity and darkness of the abyss below instilled fear, especially if she looked at the dry land so far away. Like a version of vertigo. So she went back to swimming with slow but powerful ‘paddling,’ controlling her breathing, and starting to move her feet cautiously.

  Two more days until she turned twenty-six.

  She started to browse through her mind’s memory book of her time on earth, in order to understand things about herself that she still didn’t get.

  She mused about various points in her life; the relationships with Susan and Ryan, the pregnancy, the job interview with Alex, some friends that—after Grandma’s death—had tangled her up in smoking pot to cope, Lauren who had pulled her away from it, and a play at the end of middle school when she first came out of her shell, thanks to Mrs. Jenkins.

  They weren’t randomly exhumed memories. She pulled them up following the thread of how she always built relationships with people who became special to her. Except for Alex hiring her—she separated the personal from the professional in this case—they confirmed that a longing for approval from others, for acceptance from others, had never determined her behavior. What had altered it, sometimes even distorted it, was a terror that those who accepted her might decide they didn’t want her anymore. And in that thought loomed the full impact of the betrayal from her crappy mother. She had always related her ‘unwanted’ feeling to that painful experience in her childhood; but had never considered that it might affect her interactions with other people.

  She remembered her second year of college, when she was close with Ashley and Daniel. She became part of their group without even trying, just by being herself. Then there were two parties where she refused to smoke with them, which left her out of the group. She couldn’t stand the fact that those same people she spoke, laughed, and confided with were ignoring her now; so she had unwillingly adapted to their habits just to dispel the feeling of rejection. By trying marijuana, she avoided the same kind of pain with her friends that her mom had put her through. And they continued wanting her around, while her mother remained the only person who had abandoned her. Using this lens to examine some of her past behaviors, she saw the pattern of how scared she was of having her mother’s conduct legitimized by others. Ryan was an amazing guy, and that he wanted her made her feel very lucky. So far, she thought of her fear of being dumped as the consequence of loving him. But there was more to it. That maternal ghost hovered around her, sneering at the smallest quarrel with him; and to silence it, she never hesitated to step back when the disagreements with him entered dangerous territory. But this meekness didn’t come from an awe of Ryan. She simply could not allow anyone else to abandon her, because—in her mind—that granted credence to what her mother did. Or even approval. She didn’t want to believe it, but felt its truth ring through her. The fortitude she’d pulled from deep within kept her from cowering away from it.

  She turned back to check where the beach was. Still far away, but she already felt better. Her desire to deepen this newfound knowledge of herself by facing Susan, Ryan, and Nico became an energy source. Slowly, one stroke at a time, the distance to the beach shrank. She no longer feared getting lost in the depths—of the sea or of the heart.

  The iceberg was surfacing.

  Anger bubbled up. At herself and, consequently, at Ryan. She started wondering if she really loved him and, if so, how much.

  Were her feelings for him forged by her childhood trauma? She needed to understand if the sense of liberation she felt by imagining him losing the duel meant that she wanted to get rid of him, or that she would now be free from the fear of him abandoning her. The second one, most likely, because she’d never felt any sense of liberation before the brave Anna emerged. This raised another issue: she had to find out if Anna also could exist without her Pygmalion …

  Something unusual had happened with Nico. According to all of this analysis of her past, being accepted by others didn’t drive her. And that she hadn’t tried to make Nico like her proved it. But with the others, once they welcomed her and she let them in, her fear of being dropped increased. This hadn’t happened with Nico, and she’d opened up more with him than anyone else Maybe the situation itself had neutralized that fear from the beginning; she had Ryan and Nico lived in Italy, so their friendship would never last after the vacation anyway. But something didn’t sit right with that idea. Nico loved art and so did she, while Ryan looked more at a materialistic side of things. Nico had never said or done anything that made her feel less than because she was a woman, while Ryan sometimes seemed to show a latent sexism. Nico asked for her opinion before doing something, while Ryan didn’t.

  What an asshole, she thought, remembering how he had gone about arranging the current vacation.

  Given the kind of men they were and how they behaved, it would make more sense to fear being abandoned by Nico than Ryan. Why it was the other way must depend on the irrationality of love. She didn’t know. But she did know that the scared Hannah tended to please people who were important to her so as not to feed the feeling—etched onto her heart by her own mother—of being so unlovable as to make them abandon her. That Hannah would never solve this mystery. That Hannah had drowned in the Italian sea, and Anna was born from those same waters. Anna, a girl free from fear and guilt, yet craving to understand herself.

  The time when she turned away from her problems was over. She did it when she got pregnant by denying for a whole week what was happening, and a year and a half later, here she was making the same mistake again, even though
for only three days.

  Stop waiting for reality to come for you. Time to kick its ass!

  Ryan was great during those few weeks of pregnancy and even more in the emotional aftermath, but it wasn’t fair that he continued living off the interest. It wasn’t fair to her. Now she had to find out what existed beyond the fear that he could abandon her and her admiration for his loyalty and responsibility. Also, how much gratitude had affected her with regard to his promise that she wouldn’t become a single mother, like the woman who brought her into the world. A despicable woman whose selfishness was and would remain the sole cause of her abandonment.

  In these thoughts, she found the strength to swim.

  She turned towards the beach again. Halfway there.

  Yes, I’m doing it! she told herself, proudly.

  Then there was Nico.

  Perhaps her spiritual attraction for him didn’t blossom only from their common passions or the sad maternal stories that they shared. The suspicion sparked in her mind that their meeting could really be a design that fate had sketched on their hearts. Perhaps it wasn’t her own thought, but an echo of his words in the grotto; however, the absurdity of this idea was fading. One thought leads to another, and she found herself in a recess of her memory where they were both on the boat returning to the beach …

  “When I saw you, you were so beautiful. I had to talk to you! I felt it was too important. I had that cernia in my hand, so I improvised. When you told me you didn’t wanna take a photo for us, I admit, I felt like shit, hahaha. Then my dad says, ‘What did you say to the girl?’ I explain to him about the picture. But don’t worry, I told him you didn’t understand me ’cause you’re a foreigner. So he tells me he likes the idea and I should ask someone else. I don’t want him to see that it was just an excuse to speak to you, so I go ahead and stop the first guy who passes by. He takes the pic of us with the cernia. Luckily you saw us, understood, and wanted to explain yourself to me. If not, we never would of talked to each other. Or maybe fate would of found another way to make us meet …”

  Reminded of photos, she was sorry that they hadn’t taken even one together. They could have at the storage room, the festival, the woods, the hotel, or the grotto. And at a certain point, she had been about to propose it to him; she hadn’t because of Ryan, but she would have said yes if he’d suggested it. Maybe the episode with the cernia made him shy away, even though he had laughed it off.

  The pain in her hamstring seemed gone and, except for a little tiredness in her shoulders and arms, she felt good. So she swam crawl stroke the last hundred yards that separated her from the shore, not overdoing it but with a clear purpose in mind. She had to talk to Nico one more time before the afternoon. She needed to understand what kind of feelings bound her to him, so that she could face Ryan with more self-awareness.

  When her toes scraped against the sand on the seafloor and she found her footing, she finally closed the chapter on that terrible adventure. She had no time to revel in the achievement, because Roger and Susan stood on the shore among the people coming to and from the water, as if waiting for her. Their faces were clouded.

  “Hannah! You scared us so much,” Susan said, as she walked towards them in chest-deep water.

  “Jeez, you’ve been gone almost an hour,” added Roger, visibly annoyed. “You should’ve said that by ‘swim’ you meant ‘serious workout.’ ”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry at all. When I was way out at sea, I got a strong cramp and I was about to drown,” she explained, stopping behind a group of kids playing volleyball and rubbing the back of her thigh, with the water at her knees.

  The Corwins turned pale. Any sign of blame vanished from their expressions.

  “I didn’t see anyone who could help me, so I had to do it on my own. The sea was calm, so I did a back float to catch my breath and save my energy. I waited for the pain to go away and swam slowly towards the beach. That’s why it took me so long.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Did you swallow any water?” Roger sounded alarmed.

  “Some got in my nose in the beginning. But now I’m fine.”

  “Poor thing!” Susan headed towards her, wading in up to her calves to hug her.

  Susan’s affection warmed her heart. Although she was now a stronger person, it didn’t at all mean that she needed to give up her mother/friend.

  “Let’s go. I have fresh water in our thermos. Or maybe some tea would be better. Roger, go to the cafe and get some.”

  “No. Roger, wait. Some water would be fine.”

  “As you wish, dear.”

  They escorted her like bodyguards through the people on the beach and back up to their umbrella.

  After the second glass of water, with Susan and Roger calmed down, she spoke again.

  “I’m so sorry to make you worry about me.”

  “Oh, dear. Don’t even say it.”

  “Sorry, Hannah. I was rude because I …”

  “Oh, no, Roger. Your reaction was normal. After you get scared, it’s human to vent.”

  “The fact is that when Ryan called, I rushed to …”

  “How is he? How did the flight go?” she asked, feeling shivers of various sorts all over her body.

  “He didn’t say much, because he had to go through customs and was afraid of missing his connection to Rome,” Susan explained. “But he said everything is fine.”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  “I was saying,” resumed Roger. “Ryan called on your phone. So, while Sue answered, I rushed to call you. I looked everywhere, but didn’t see you. When I returned to Sue, he had already hung up. That’s when I noticed your fisherman friend by the shore.”

  “Roger couldn’t find you in the water, so we thought you might be chatting with Nico.”

  “But when we saw him leave ten minutes later and you weren’t back yet, we got worried.”

  “He passed by right there,” Susan said, pointing to the stretch of sand between them and the street.

  “I was surprised and just nodded when he said hello, since I can’t speak Italian.”

  “At that point we walked down to the water and looked more carefully at the people swimming.”

  “We didn’t see you. Then Sue noticed someone, far away, swimming towards the beach.”

  “From the blond hair, we hoped it was you. We didn’t know whether to call for help. There are no lifeguards around and, without knowing if you were in trouble, we hesitated. It’s horrible when you don’t know if the danger is real or is just in your mind.”

  “I’m really sorry, Sue.”

  “That’s okay, Hannah. Let’s not think about it anymore. As the poet said, all’s well …”

  “True, Roger.” She relaxed into a smile, though she remained focused on her purpose. “So you said you saw Nico.”

  “He was carrying two buckets full of stuff. Maybe he was busy, that’s why he didn’t stop to ask about you.”

  “Um, do you mind if I go say hi to him?”

  “Of course not, dear.”

  “You sure you feel all right?” Roger still looked apprehensive.

  “Yes, otherwise I would’ve already laid down on the straw mat here.”

  “Just keep in mind that we’ve got reservations for lunch at one.”

  “Okay, Roger. I’ll bring my phone with me.”

  She wrapped herself in the towel again and took her bag.

  “Ten minutes at the most and I’ll be back.”

  “See you later.”

  Her conversation with Nico could only take a few minutes because Roger and Susan were waiting for her; plus his father would probably be there so they couldn’t speak in depth. She planned to invite him to coffee after lunch with the Corwins, before Ryan arrived.

  28. A Birthday Present

  The car made its way slowly through a narrow street hemmed in by buildings on one side and a small beach on the other. As soon as it
stopped, Ryan, messenger bag strapped across his blue shirt, hopped out quicker than the driver. He wasn’t used to sitting for so long and needed to stretch his legs, but mostly he couldn’t wait to write “the end” on the long journey that had begun back in Seattle.

  He looked up the street as the driver went to get the carry-on out of the trunk, and recognized someone heading towards him through the other pedestrians.

  “Dad!”

  It was like finding a little piece of home after crossing halfway around the world.

  “Hey, son,” and he shook his hand like it was an arm wrestling challenge. “How are you?”

  “Fine. I’m sorry you had to come down here.”

  “It would’ve taken too long to explain on the phone how to find the apartment. The owner met us down here, too.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “How was your trip?”

  “Long. I took something so I’d get some sleep on the plane to Frankfurt, so at least I won’t collapse as soon as I see a bed.”

  “Smart! I di—“

  “ ’Scuse me a sec, dad.”

  He approached the driver, now done unloading the car, and said, “Thanks,” while passing him a twenty euro bill.

  “Thank you, sir. I wish a happy stay to you.”

  While the car backed up—there was not enough room and too much foot traffic for a U-turn—his father looked at the carry-on, frowning.

  “Just this?”

  “I got back late from Tacoma last night and didn’t have time to pack much. It’s just for eight days … How’s mom?”

  “Great,” and, grabbing the handle of the bag, his father began to pull it along the street. “This way, Ryan.”

  “And Hannah?”

  “Well, this morning she …”

  “What?” he said, worried, since his father had stopped abruptly.

  “She got a cramp in her leg when she was swimming, but it turned out okay. She’ll tell you about it. I guess you were referring to her state of mind, though, weren’t you?”