The Heart of the Matter

by Muriel Jensen

  Added to that he had charming children who’d fallen for her immediately, and exciting work and just enough of the spotlight to add spice to whatever appeal he had on his own.

  Anger was now allied with disappointment and a sense of betrayal. Her willingness to deceive him was one thing, but by keeping silent about the tests, she’d also deceived his children. He found that unforgivable.

  The book he’d proposed was a lie.

  Laura rapped on Jason’s partially open door, the stems of a bunch of asters clasped in her fist. “Did I leave that pottery jug in here?” She pushed her way in, scanning desktop, tabletop and windowsill until she spotted the fat blue jug she’d put in here several days ago filled with marigolds, which now looked faded in the light of this token from the boys. “Look what Adam, Eric and Matt picked for me!” She snatched the jug from his referencebook shelf, so thrilled with the boys’ gift that she didn’t notice Jason’s expression. “Isn’t that sweet?”

  She came around him to check his coffee cup, and finding it empty, picked it up with the hand that held the flowers.

  “I guess you were right about them being comfortable with the idea,” she rattled on. “Matt says…”

  She stopped abruptly as she looked up, prepared to leave him to his work, and saw him watching her. His expression was dark, almost hostile, the angular lines of his jaw set in a hard line. She could only stare at him for a moment, trying to figure out where that look fit in with the delicious harmony of the cabin.

  “Work…not going well?” she asked finally. The tension in him seemed suddenly to fill the room, and the pressure of it made her voice sound frail.

  “It was going well,” he said. His expression didn’t change.

  Was she supposed to know something she didn’t? “What happened?” she asked.

  “Cape Shore Hospital called me,” he replied.

  Her eyes widened.

  Aha! Jason thought. He had her. He waited for a confession.

  “Did they find something…worse?” she asked, taking a step toward him.

  Rage shot up in him, punching him to his feet. “Laura, you know damn well they didn’t find anything worse!” he said, shouting at her. “They didn’t find anything at all! My tests were mixed with someone else’s—a detail you failed to mention to me.”

  She stared at him, trying to make sense of what he’d said. But she couldn’t. “What?” was all she could think to ask.

  “My tests…” he said slowly, kicking his chair out of his way. It rolled back several yards. “Were confused with someone else’s. The lab says they told Barry and they told you—two weeks ago. Do I have to ask why you didn’t tell me?”

  Laura put his cup and the blue pot down because she was beginning to suspect what he was suggesting, and she was afraid she might throw one or both at him. She yanked the old flowers out of the pot, put them in his coffee cup, then put her flowers from the boys in the pot for safekeeping.

  Then she folded her arms and looked back at Jason over the angle of desk that separated them.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you think I would have done something so cruel, not to mention so unprofessional?”

  “Because the mistake brought you what you’ve always wanted,” he replied stiffly. “A man who adored you, children who worship you, the end of loneliness. And when you found out that the thing that brought us together no longer applied, you decided to keep it to yourself rather than risk losing all that.”

  She stared at him while she thought that through and decided that it probably would have been a good argument if she’d never made love with him. Certainly he couldn’t have experienced what they’d shared and believe that she’d use him for personal gain? He couldn’t possibly have seen the depth of what she felt for his children and be convinced that she would trick them by letting them believe their father had health problems when she knew he didn’t?

  But he did. It was written clearly on his face.

  She felt as though the floor of her world had rotted out from under her and left her suspended over the life she’d known before Jason and his mixed-up lab results had walked into it. She put a hand to her waist where pain was knotting and drew a deep breath. There was a small gasp in it, and she saw something shift in Jason’s eyes at the sound.

  She reached for the phone on his desk and stabbed out a number.

  “Cape Shore Hospital,” a cheerful voice replied.

  “Dr. Barry Driscoll’s office, please,” she said. Her throat was so tight, she was surprised to hear that she could speak.

  Barry’s receptionist answered, and Laura identified herself and asked to speak to him.

  “Hey!” his cheerful voice said almost immediately. “How’s the vacation? The nurses have a pool going for a wedding date.”

  As she hesitated, swallowing the lump in her throat, Barry asked, his voice sobering, “Is something wrong with Matt?”

  “No,” she said quickly, “Matt’s fine. Everyone’s fine, except Jason, who seems to be having a psychotic episode.” There was a loud silence on the other end of the line as she paused to swallow again. “Barry, what do you know about Jason’s tests having been confused with someone else’s at the lab?”

  “Ah…nothing,” he said after a moment’s thought. “No one’s told me anything. Why? What happened?”

  She explained briefly about the call Jason had received that morning. “Would you please tell him what you know?” She handed Jason the phone. When he resisted, looking in obvious indecision at her instead of it, she took his hand and forced the phone into it. Then she marched away.

  Jason had a sense of having cut his life off at the knees. He felt a painful, downward jolt and heard the office door slam.

  “Jase? Jason!” Barry was saying.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I’m here. What the hell’s going on, Barry? Do I have high cholesterol or not?”

  “I don’t know. The last I heard about it was the test results I got that made me send you to Laura. If there was a mistake, no one’s told me. Just sit tight. I’ll call the lab right now and find out what’s going on. I’ll call you right back.”

  Jason sat down again and tried to analyze what had just happened.

  He’d accused Laura of lies and deceit on the basis of a two-minute phone call from a stranger—and without giving her the opportunity to defend herself, that was what just happened.

  He’d been a father too long to be ruled by irrational anger and snap decisions. So what had happened to him?

  He wasn’t sure. High cholesterol, though a potential problem, was generally highly treatable and sometimes even easily managed. Though he’d been a little concerned about the state of his health, he hadn’t been in fear of disability or death. So why had he reacted as though the news had been that he wasn’t dying, after all?

  Maybe because loving Laura seemed to have taken on such a life-or-death aspect in his life? And the notion that she’d been dishonest with him in any way had made him irrational?

  He put a hand to his face and groaned, sure he’d done something fatal to their relationship.

  He sprang off the chair and headed for the door, determined to try to apologize and explain his behavior.

  The phone rang shrilly, stopping him in his tracks. He strode back to the desk and picked it up. It was Barry.

  “Okay, look,” he said, his voice breathless and apologetic. “I’m sorry all to hell. It seems to be all my fault, though you’d think that after having worked for me for seven years that someone would know better than to put an important document on my desk without telling me it was there.”

  Barry paused and expelled a breath. Jason waited.

  “You’re fine. Healthy as a horse. Seems the lab confused your results with another patient who’d been in on the same day. It wasn’t until a few days later, when the other patient came in again for another procedure, that someone noticed a discrepancy and discovered the problem. They called me, I was in surgery, so they brought the results
to my receptionist, who put both reports on my desk.”

  “Both reports?”

  “The one for me and the one for Laura. Laura and I were supposed to conference that afternoon on another patient and my receptionist thought giving it to her then would be quicker. Meanwhile, my new PDR pages came in and were stacked on top of the reports, and I moved them to the credenza behind my desk, intending to look through them later, and apparently picked up the reports with them and didn’t realize it.”

  Jason listened to the unfortunate but very logical chain of events and, having seen Barry’s desk on more than one occasion, felt sure that was precisely what had happened.

  “Jase, I’m sorry,” Barry said. His usually light-hearted tone was absent and in its place was a very abject selfdeprecation. “You’re probably entitled to sue me for malpractice.” He sighed. “I suppose Laura’s had you eating sprouts and weed tea, or something, and tied you to the NordicTrac.”

  Jason couldn’t reply. Three weeks ago he’d have laughed with Barry over that remark, but today he knew that healthy food could be delicious and new every day if Laura prepared it, and he knew how conscientiously she directed his exercise and monitored his progress—and he knew how much better he’d felt since he’d been watching his diet and exercising regularly instead of just every Wednesday evening.

  “Jase?” Barry asked.

  “Yeah,” Jason replied halfheartedly.

  “Is everything okay? I mean, Laura sounded angry when she called.” There was a pause while Barry seemed to consider why that should be. Then he began anxiously, “You didn’t…?”

  “Barry, I’ve got to go,” Jason said abruptly. He heard a door slam upstairs and footsteps coming down. Angry, hurrying footsteps.

  “Jason, I’m sorry.” Barry started to say.

  “I know. And you’re forgiven. But you owe me big, buddy. Really big.” He slammed the phone down and hurried to yank open the office door. He was just in time to see Laura put Sergei’s carrier down so that she could open the front door. She carried her suitcase in the other hand.

  “Laura, please don’t,” he said, sprinting across the living room toward her.

  But she ignored him and, picking up Sergei’s carrier, walked out onto the porch, letting the door close behind her.

  Jason caught it before it latched, yanked it open and grabbed her by the arm at the top of the steps. She appeared calm, though her eyes were red-rimmed and her nose shiny.

  “Laura,” he pleaded. “Let me explain.”

  “Like you let me explain?” she asked coolly, pulling her arm from his grip. He wouldn’t have freed her, but Sergei protested the jostling with a plaintive meow.

  Jason followed her down the steps. “I was being a jerk,” he said. “Please. Be smarter than I was.”

  She stopped halfway down the steps to look him in the eye. “I am, Jason. I’m leaving.”

  “Come on, Laura,” he said in exasperation. “You’re not taking my car. Are you going to walk to Massachusetts?”

  “No,” she replied, going down the last few steps. “I’ve called a cab.” She pointed into the distance where something yellow was moving down the road. “And here he comes.”

  “You know,” he said, desperate to get through to her, “you can tell yourself that you’re being righteously indignant because I made a mistake. But the truth is that you finally have found a relationship that’ll work for you, and you’re taking the first excuse offered to back out. Three growing boys too much to deal with, after all?”

  She put Sergei and her bag down and shoved him hard with both hands. He attributed his ability to hold his ground to his exercise regimen.

  “I love your boys!” she shouted at him. The sound reverberated through the forest and across the lake. “This has nothing to do with them. It’s you! You, who’s turning out to be like every other man in my life!”

  “Imperfect, you mean,” he said quietly.

  She raised both hands, then dropped them emphatically. “You accused me of withholding medical information from you to serve my own purposes!”

  He nodded. “I admitted that I acted like a jerk.” He ran a hand over his face and tried to piece together an explanation that made sense. “When I passed out during that basketball game that started all this, it scared me. But worse than that, it scared my kids. They’ve already lost their mother, and I became determined that they weren’t going to lose me. I hated the diet and exercise, but I did it for them.”

  She was listening, but her expression hadn’t changed. The cab drew closer so he hurried on. “When the lab called, all I could think about was that they’d been frightened for nothing, and that it sounded like you’d been a part of that.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he forestalled her with a raised hand. “I know. I should have known better. You’ve been kindness itself to them and, after our initial prickly meeting, very loving with me. But I’m human, Laura. And I’m not always emotionally sound myself. Loving you made me feel as though I’d finally regained my feet in life and…it looked as though you’d betrayed me in a way that also used my children. I felt before I thought Please try to understand that.”

  The cab pulled into his driveway. Laura studied him a moment, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just not big enough right now. Maybe later. This all moved so fast, maybe time apart will help us put things in perspective.”

  “Damn it, Laura,” he said in pain and frustration, “you’re just like your damned cat. You’ll stick your head out of the cage for food and an occasional pat on the head, but you’d rather live in the wire box than step outside.”

  Hurt registered in her eyes. “How dare you blame me!”

  “I’m not blaming you for my mistake,” he said, following her to the cab. “But you just promised to marry me. Is this the full extent of your willingness to understand and forgive? If our relationship dies here, it is your fault!”

  “Laura?” A small voice came from behind Jason. He turned to find his three boys standing behind him, wide-eyed and pale. Buttercup, sensing a problem, was leaning against Adam’s leg.

  Matt came forward on his crutches and got between him and Laura. “Where are you going?” he asked, his voice tight with worry.

  Jason saw Laura swallow, toss her things into the back of the cab, then turn her attention to Matt. She leaned over him to kiss his cheek, then looked into his dark eyes.

  “I have to go home, Matt,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “But I’ll come and see you, I promise.”

  “But…” His chin began to quiver. “Aren’t we getting married?”

  “Well…we need to talk about that a little more first,” she hedged, casting his father a dark glance for being responsible for this painful moment. “You have to finish your vacation while I go back to work, then we’ll see what happens.”

  He dropped the crutch on his good side and caught her sleeve. “But I don’t want you to go. I’ll be afraid if you go.”

  “No, you won’t,” she said firmly, framing his face in her hands and brushing a tear away with her thumb. “You know I’m not a Power Ranger, I’m just Laura. When you’re brave, it isn’t because of me, it’s because of you.”

  “I know you’re not a Power Ranger,” he said as she turned to climb into the cab. “You’re the mom.”

  Laura fell onto the seat with the weight of the pain she was causing Matt. You’re the mom.

  Jason lifted Matt onto his hip and took his crutches in his free hand.

  “Goodbye, Laura,” he said, and took a step back to let the cab back out of the driveway.

  Laura watched from the side window as Adam and Eric and the dog went to Jason as he and Matt buried their faces in each other’s shoulders.

  She sobbed all the way to town, then all the way home on the bus back to Farnham.

  11

  There comes a time when a man has to take a stand, political correctness be damned. It is possible to be understanding and kind without b
eing docile and blindly cooperating. Women do it all the time.

  —“Warfield’s Battles”

  The Farnham house was like a tomb. Jason unpacked the car and the boys carried bags in with a listlessness that expressed what he was feeling inside. Even Buttercup looked depressed.

  Jason’s own sense of defeat, however, was beginning to undergo a major change. The incident yesterday had been all his fault; he would admit it to the whole world. And maybe he did deserve to lose Laura for it. But his boys didn’t.

  He’d tried to call her for hours last night, but her answering machine had picked up and she hadn’t called him back. Voice messaging had picked up her calls at the hospital this morning.

  It was now midafternoon of a bleak and rainy day—the first change in the sunny summer pattern that suggested the gradual change to fall was beginning.

  Adam came out of the house to help him with the last of the bags. “I put on the coffee,” he said, intending, Jason guessed, to cheer him. “Love stinks, doesn’t it?”

  At the moment it would have been easy to agree. But he didn’t want to set Adam on a brambled path. “Actually, it’s usually pretty great. It’s confusing, sometimes exasperating, and almost always makes you give more than you thought you had in you. But when it works—it’s great.”

  Adam took the grocery box from him. “Yeah. I really liked being with Brianna. I miss her already. But I bet some rich dude where she lives is gonna make her forget all about me.”

  Jason reached into the back seat for forgotten hats and jackets. “I don’t think so. Of course she’ll spend the time until next summer with the kids who are near her, but I think you made an impression on her. Phone her, let her know you’re thinking about her and that you’re looking forward to seeing her next year.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to tell girls—women-when you like them.”

  Jason draped the jackets over his arm, put Adam’s hat on his head and closed the door. “Who said that?”