“That, I am,” he says. “You must be Ari,” he says in a teasing voice dripping with sarcasm.
I wipe my hands off on the dish rag and place the wooden spoon down on a napkin. “Hey hon,” I say, walking toward Ari. “I see you’ve met AJ. Feel free to ignore him; he’s in a particularly obnoxious mood today.”
“Hon,” I hear Charlotte’s voice quietly echo through the kitchen. I don’t think she intended for me to hear that, but I did. Irritation noticed.
“How was work?” I ask Ari.
“Good, we did well today. You know, with Mother’s Day in a few days, things have been a little crazy.” Mother’s Day—the day I have hidden Olive and myself from in a dark room as we watch movies from the minute we wake up until the minute we go to bed. I have done my best to avoid her knowing much about Mother’s Day. I don’t think it’s necessary, seeing as it would probably cause her unnecessary sadness. She’s aware it’s a holiday but she knows it as the day we watch movies together all day. Movies without commercials, I should add.
Ari moves her hand out from behind her back and reaches out with a small bunch of blue jasmines. “Olive, I heard these are your favorite?” she says, leaning down to hand them to her.
Olive runs over to Ari and carefully takes the flowers from her hand. “These are my favorite. My mom’s, too. That must be why you drew them on the back of daddy’s letter,” she giggles.
“It is,” Ari says softly.
Olive looks up to me and back at Ari. “Daddy said you knew her?”
A tight-lipped smile touches Ari’s mouth, illuminating her deep dimples. “I did know her. She was a beautiful and incredible woman and you look just like her.” Ari touches her fingertip to Olive’s nose.
“Daddy says that, too,” Olive giggles.
“Hi, I’m Charlotte.” Charlotte steps out from behind me and offers her hand to Ari. “I—I’ve heard so much about—you. You—,” she laughs uneasily. “It’s nice to—this is nice.” Her voice sounds friendly enough, although unsure, as she introduces herself.
“Oh my goodness,” Ari says gleefully, “I-I” she stutters, sounding similar to the way Charlotte does. “I’ve heard so much about you, too. Hunter gushes about you all of the time.” Gushes? Geez. Didn’t know I was going that far. Charlotte’s cheeks turn a scarlet hue and she backs away, moving toward the front door where Lance is now standing. Wow, this is awkward.
“Hey babe,” he says to Charlotte. Babe. Gross. He gives her a peck on the cheek and runs his hand down to the small of her back. I shouldn’t be watching, but I am, and now I know Ari is watching me watching them since she nudges her shoulder into mine before gripping the sleeve of my shirt and pulling me into the kitchen. This was such a bad—no this was a fucking horrible idea.
“Are you okay?” Ari asks me, grabbing the wooden spoon from the counter and stirring the bubbling gravy. “You haven’t met Lance before tonight?’
“Yeah, this is a little more stressful than I thought it would be. I’m just glad you came,” I tell her, trying to laugh through my words.
“Why? Because your ex-girlfriend invited her new boyfriend over to your house to celebrate her daughter’s birthday?” Ari’s eyes are squinting from her grin and her teeth are pressed firmly into her bottom lip. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic, or truthful. “Then you add me into the picture, the carrier of your wife’s heart, and things can seem a little weird.” Her laughter relieves some of my stress. “Relax. Everything is fine. There’s a reason there is no instruction manual for life.”
“Uh,” yup, that’s the only thing I can think to say right now because everything she just said is true.
“Hunt, not to make things more stressful, but I do have one question?”
With only a second of breathing freely, my chest tightens back up. “Yeah?”
“I’m pretty sure Charlotte is married to the chief of surgery at Brookhill Hospital. Or was, I should say...I mean, he was the chief of surgery.”
“What? She’s divorced.”
“Oh, well, that makes sense then,” Ari retorts.
“But, I didn’t think he was a surgeon,” I say. Although, I do remember the on-call doctor at the hospital recognizing Charlotte the day Olive fell at school. I never thought to ask how she knew anyone there because I was so wrapped up with Olive. I’m always so wrapped up that I never ask important questions. I also never thought to ask much about her ex-husband. Other than hearing he’s an asshole on a daily basis, I didn’t see the need to know more about him.
“Was the chief of surgery?” I ask her.
“Yes,” she says, her eyes scanning the kitchen, rather than looking at me.
“So, do you know Charlotte?” I ask, holding my focus tightly on her wandering eyes. I realize wives of surgeons aren’t typically found in the hospital but I can’t help but wonder, after their odd greeting in the living room.
Ari looks down to where her fingers are fidgeting with the hem of her black shirt. “Yeah, I mean, Dr. Don Drake was my doctor for years. He was the best there was and I was dying. I was practically living at the hospital with the amount of testing and episodes I had, and Dr. Drake seemed to always be on an endless shift so Charlotte was around quite a bit. Actually, a few times she brought me flowers. I’m just not sure she remembers me. I’m sure she visited plenty of his patients.”
It’s like this whole other side of Charlotte I don’t know. How could a heart surgeon of his status be consulting underground somewhere now?
“Charlotte!” I shout into the living room. I’m getting to the bottom of this.
“Hunter, what are you doing?” Ari, says, pressing her hands up against my chest. “Stop.”
It is several seconds before I even hear Charlotte’s feet moving across the floor and I’m guessing her hesitation is playing a part in her speed. “Do you need something?” she asks, walking over to the turkey.
“Hunter,” Ari says again.
“Look at her, Charlotte,” I tell her.
Charlotte turns on her heels and slips her hands into her back pockets. It takes her a minute but she lifts her chin, forcing eye contact with Ari who now looks incredibly uncomfortable. “Ariella,” Charlotte says. “How could I forget you?”
Charlotte places her hand gently on Ari’s shoulder. “How’s the heart?”
“Did you know about Ellie?” I ask Charlotte. “Your husband, he’s the chief of surgery over at Brookhill. Don Drake, is that his name? The surgeon who removed Ellie’s heart.” My words may be a little harsh considering Ellie died from an aneurysm, but for five years, I have had no one to blame and right now blaming him feels so damn good.
“Ex-husband,” she snaps. “And I don’t believe Ellie was a patient of Don’s,” Charlotte says softly, so softly I’m not sure she’s being truthful. “He was a heart surgeon and Ellie didn’t have heart problems, right?”
“No, she didn’t.” There is still a lingering explanation somewhere in this room and I don’t know who the hell to turn to.
“You know something, don’t you?” I take the wooden spoon from the counter and throw it across the kitchen. “Did you know I was the fucking reason Ellie died? Huh? Did you, Charlotte? God,” I laugh. You must have. “You fucking knew about Ellie, didn’t you? Clearly, HIPAA regulations don’t matter in your household. You know all that doctor-patient confidentiality crap. Is that why Don doesn’t have a job at the hospital anymore? Because he immorally broke laws?” As the words continue to filter from my unfiltered mouth, I hear Dad’s words ringing loudly in my head. You know what assuming does.
Tears are now spilling from Charlotte’s eyes, and she’s holding herself tightly as Lance steps into the kitchen with his gym-buff air-lats stance. Dude, you don’t fucking work out. You look like you just stare in the goddamn mirror all day flexing.
“What’s going on in here? Everything okay, babe?” Fuck you and your babe shit.
“Yeah,” she says, sniffling. With a hand on his shoulder, she force
s a fake, tight-lipped smile and squeezes her hand around him a little more. “Just a misunderstanding. Why don’t you go talk to AJ for another minute? I promise I’ll be right out.”
Without much concern on his part, he places a quick kiss on the top of her head and grabs a beer from the counter before heading back into the living room.
“You have some nerve accusing me of all that,” Charlotte says under her breath. “You also have the audacity to upset Ari after she’s only been in this house for five minutes. She didn’t ask for any of this.”
I glance at Ari, who is leaning awkwardly against the wall, hugging her arms around her body with her sleeves curled over her hands. Her teeth are pinched over her bottom lip and her focus is glued to the tiled floor.
I cup my hand around Ari’s elbow and tug her into me. “I’m sorry.”
She begrudgingly complies with my effort to make her less uncomfortable but she doesn’t look at me or say anything.
“I did not know Ellie’s history and to be quite honest, I didn’t know much about her death. What I do know is that Don lost his job after a hospital-wide malpractice suit following Ariella’s transplant. You must have heard about his case; everyone in this state heard about it. It was all over the news, as was Ari.” That’s why she looked familiar to Dad. Unbelievable.
I feel lost at the other end of her story. I don’t remember hearing anything about this doctor. “I wasn’t exactly watching the news after Ellie died. I was managing a newborn while mourning.”
A sheen of sweat covers Charlotte’s forehead as she rakes her fingers through her hair. “Things were kept under very tight wraps when it came down to the details but what the public knew was that Don mishandled the paperwork for the transplant. And I don’t know more than that because days after the surgery, he was let go from the hospital. At the same time, he told me he wanted a divorce. I asked him over and over again what had truly happened and he would only tell me there was a misunderstanding and he was wrongfully terminated. That’s how our marriage was—need to know basis only.”
“Mishandled paperwork? What the hell does that mean?” I bark at her, as I pace back and forth with my hands on my hips. Did he do something to Ellie? I know that sounds absurd but what can be mishandled with organ transplant papers?
She shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. Regardless, he now sells scripts underground to international sources, making more money than he did as a surgeon. Except, he doesn’t have to file taxes or let anyone know he’s making a dime. That is why I’m here, living with you, in case you forgot.”
Stunned, at a loss, and trying to piece together this garbled information, Charlotte sweeps by me, grabs the platter of sliced turkey and takes it out into the dining room.
“I know what she’s talking about,” Ari speaks up after Charlotte is out of hearing distance.
I huff a soft laugh. “What?”
“I didn’t know he got fired because of me.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask again.
“I shouldn’t have gotten Ellie’s heart, Hunter.”
“Didn’t you say she wanted you to have it?” The oxygen left in my lungs feels like it’s being sucked out through a tiny straw. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“She did but I guess a living donor can’t promise a heart to a particular person. It’s against medical ethics or something.”
I’m trying to think my words through before they spew off the tip of my tongue, ultimately putting Ari in a corner and emotionally beating her senseless. “Then how did you end up receiving her heart?” The question I form is much better than many of the other thoughts I had to choose from.
“Dr. Drake sort of had a thing for me…”
I can feel my face burning from the inside. I know I’m red. I know I look like steam should be coming from my ears. And I’m not sure I can handle whatever is about to come out of her mouth next. “You can’t be serious…”
“I never gave in, Hunter, but he made his feelings pretty clear,” she says, breaking her gaze from my face.
“You didn’t tell anyone?” I ask, trying to keep calm regardless of how flaming angry I am right now.
“He wanted to save me more than any other doctor. I—”
“I get it,” I cut her off.
“When Ellie and I figured out we had the same blood-type, she came with me to meet with him and told him she would only donate her heart if it went to me. She played him, knowing she could easily blackmail him with what I told her about Dr. Drake—the things he had said to me, the moments he tried to…” She sighs and swallows hard. “In any case, it worked. There was no paperwork. Everything was a verbal agreement.”
I squeeze my hand around my chin, feeling my head begin to pound. It feels like someone just slapped me upside the head with a frying pan. “Jesus.”
“There would have been no other donors—my chances were less than two percent. He didn’t even put up a fight. I can only imagine what you’re thinking right now, but if you were me, wouldn’t you have done questionable things to save your own life?”
Guilt. That is what Ari is surviving with. Owning the heart from my dead wife, being the reason the chief of heart surgery conducted malpractice and subsequently lost his medical license. He should have lost it, regardless. Piece of shit. I wonder if the answer to her last question would be different if she asked herself that right this second. To live or die? I think most people would choose to live, regardless of what the repercussions might be.
“I get it,” I tell her. I still don’t get why Ellie didn’t tell me any of this, though. I would have told her not to get involved.
“I don’t expect you to understand. Ellie kept this from you and you have every right to be angry and heartbroken, but I promise you she kept this from you because she loved you.” It doesn’t matter how many times she says this, the thought of secrets, secrets this fucking big, between us, hurts like hell.
“I need a break from this conversation. My head might explode trying to come to terms with all of this.” Ellie was a strong-minded woman. If there was something she wanted to accomplish, nothing was getting in her way. It doesn’t come as a surprise that she would bust her way into the chief of surgery’s office just to tell him what’s what. Only my wife could control what happens to her organs after she dies. The thought brings a proud smile to my face—a foreign feeling when considering the unknown details of Ellie’s life I’ve come to learn in recent months. What I do know is that she wanted Ari to live. She made that happen.
“We should join everyone. The food is going to get cold,” Ari says. I place my arm around her and lead her out to the dining room, pulling out a seat for her.
“I want to sit next to Ari,” Olive says breathlessly, as she runs into the dining room. “And Daddy, you can sit on the other side of Ari.”
Everyone circled around the table is quiet except AJ, who is chewing his bread obnoxiously loud while taking the time to stare at each one of us for several seconds.
“So,” he says, pointing with his butter knife. “You two know each other?” He points back and forth between Charlotte and Ari. “Small world, huh?” The room goes utterly silent. Oh God, AJ. Shut the hell up! I yell, inside my head, while trying to catch his eye.
“I would hardly say we know each other,” Ari responds. “Charlotte was just a lovely person who brought me flowers on occasion.”
“Did you know Ari received Ellie’s heart?” AJ continues with a question to Charlotte, a question I considered asking but decided to hold off on after the way the last conversation ended.
“You and Ellie were friends, right?” Charlotte asks Ari, redirecting from AJ’s question.
“We just worked together, but yes, you could call us friends.” Keeping my thoughts to myself. Keeping my thoughts to myself. I knew all of Ellie’s friends. All of them except Ari. Why did you keep this from me, Ellie?
“And Ellie promised you her heart once she died?” Charlotte continues
.
“Well—” Ari stumbles.
“Ah,” Charlotte says. “Don made it very clear he was not going to lose you. I assumed the mishandling of papers might have had something to do with your case but I never knew for sure.” Charlotte isn’t being rude with the way in which she’s stating her realization. Instead, her jaw is grinding back and forth, suppressing what looks like a possible grin. “That man was a total a-hole to me and never failed to let me down, but to his patients—some of his patients—he would never let a beautiful girl like yourself down.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” Ari says, cautiously.
“It doesn’t really matter now,” Charlotte says. “It’s actually nice to finally have an answer to what happened.”
“Nothing happened…” Ari says, sounding on the brink of tears.
Charlotte allows a slight smile to form over her lips, almost as if she’s grateful for the answers. “Thank you.”
Silence consumes the table and the discomfort grows ten-fold. Lana and Olive are staring at each other with perplexity, and AJ and Lance are probably trying to figure out what the hell everyone is talking about. I never intended for tonight to end up like this. I didn’t think tonight through very well, obviously, and we have gotten way off track from celebrating Lana’s birthday.
“We have a birthday girl here tonight,” I say. “That’s why we’re all here so let’s put everything else aside so we can let Lana enjoy her favorite dinner.”
“You started it,” Olive says, her nose crunched up and her bottom lip pursed over her top.
Charlotte snorts and mutters something under her breath, which I’m assuming is some type of sarcasm.
“So,” Ari says, following my lead, “how old are you today, Lana?”
Lana holds up a hand full of fingers and then two more fingers on her other hand, but doesn’t speak up. She’s upset. Lana is always talking unless something is bothering her.
“Sweetie, is something wrong?” Charlotte asks her.
“Is Daddy a bad man?” she asks, fingering a hole into the piece of bread in her hand.
A Heart of Time Page 21
