In a Heartbeat

by Tina Wainscott

  “Paul, what does it mean?”

  He didn’t answer, but the sensation echoed through her as she continued to hold the ring.

  And then, several minutes later, his voice said, Ponee, Texas. Go, Jenna, go.

  “What kind of answer is that?”

  Jenna tilted her hand, and the ring rolled across the leather pad. She pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the bookcase. The atlas was tall and unwieldy; Ten months ago, even lifting the book would have been a struggle. She stood in the filtered slice of sunlight by the window and opened it to Texas. Ponee was a small town in the upper east corner; her finger had gone right to it.

  “This is crazy.”

  Jenna returned the atlas to the shelf and sat at the desk. She didn’t want to touch the ring or the watch again. She scooped up the plastic bag, clutching it tightly as she stared at Paul’s smiling face in one of the pictures. The almost sort of, mostly smiling face.

  “Why were you driving recklessly? You were afraid of something,” she found herself answering, remembering the fear even before Paul had lost control of the car.

  And what about the biggest question? Where had he gotten the four hundred thousand dollars in cash found with him?

  Jenna had given the police an answer that had satisfied her, at least for the most part: Paul had been on a house-buying expedition and had taken the cash to bargain with. The police had bought that after hearing that she and Paul renovated old houses for a living. But Jenna had been left with one niggling question: where had he gotten that kind of money?

  She wadded up the plastic bag. There was something else in it.

  For several minutes she was afraid to look. Paul wore only the watch and the ring, nothing else. She wanted to throw away the bag without looking. Even as she decided this, she dumped out another wedding band onto the desk pad.

  This one was more intricate than Paul’s, embedded with clear, perfect diamonds all around. It was also at least two sizes larger than Paul’s ring, with the minuscule scratches of many years of wear.

  She picked it up between her thumb and forefinger. This time it was startling anger that engulfed her, and a flash of night sky. The air was salty, like the ocean breeze at her house.

  Jenna dropped the ring. She had never seen Paul angry. His moods were steady, subtle. Whether he’d just smashed his thumb with a hammer, grieved over her damaged heart, or celebrated finishing another house, he remained calm and unemotional. Sometimes he would sink into a melancholy where she couldn’t reach him. Eventually he would come out of it, and then he would make love to her, but he never revealed what troubled him. She figured Paul was trying to protect her from whatever it was. Maybe it was her illness that painted him blue.

  So why was he doing this to her now?

  She had no doubt it was Paul. Where this knowledge came from, she didn’t know. She wasn’t frightened. No, not exactly frightened, but … concerned. All this meant that Paul had kept something from her. That meant she didn’t know him as well as she thought. The memories of the man she’d married kept her going, and if he wasn’t what she thought him to be, what did she have?

  Nothing.

  Sure, she had questions. But if the answers jeopardized all that she held precious, she didn’t want to know.

  She scooped up the pieces and put them into the bag, which she stuffed back in the drawer. And that’s when she saw the folded newspaper pushed to the back. When she pulled it out, she recognized it. A reporter from the Maine paper had come to the hospital, bringing a copy of the article he’d written about Paul’s car accident. He’d wanted an interview with the grieving widow who had received her husband’s heart. A great human-interest story, he’d said with a smile as dazzling and phony as a cubic zirconia. She’d declined, but somehow couldn’t make herself throw out the newspaper.

  Paul’s crumpled car made the front page, and Jenna shivered as she took it in. Her eyes clouded over, and she blinked to clear them.

  The article had scant information about Paul, before they even knew what the cause of the accident had been, or if alcohol had been involved. Her gaze strayed to the headline article about a woman’s body found at the bottom of a cliff. Details were even sketchier about that incident.

  She started to fold up the newspaper, and found beneath it another dated two days later. This one included information about her transplant. Just as she started to throw both newspapers away, another article caught her eye. They’d found out who the dead woman was: Becky White. There was no evidence of either foul play or intended suicide. The nearby inn had been closed for the winter, and the woman had no business being there.

  The strangest part was the woman had no business even being in Maine. Jenna dropped down into the chair, legs weak as she blinked to make sure she’d read correctly. The words were there in black and white.

  The woman had no business being in Maine because she lived in Ponee, Texas.

  When Jenna rested her head upon her pillow that evening, it was with thoughts of the baby she and Paul could have had. Those were the thoughts that kept her sane. She dreamed of her gray eyes and Paul’s sensual mouth on a little girl who laughed as she ran around the gazebo, or delighted in the smiley faces on the beach left by mermaids.

  When Jenna woke suddenly, she found herself down in the office, phone clutched in her damp palm. The yellow pages were splayed open to travel agents, and a woman on the other end of the line was saying, “All right, Mrs. Elliot, I’ve got you on a Delta flight at eight-fifty this morning into Dallas Fort Worth. According to my map, that’s just a few hours’ drive from Ponee. A rental car will be waiting at the airport, and your plane tickets will be ready at the counter in Boston. I believe everything’s in order. Thank you for calling Twenty-Four by Seven Travel, and I hope you have a pleasant trip.”

  Chapter 2

  Jenna could feel Paul guiding her through the motions as she made the early morning drive to Boston, the same way he’d guided her into making the reservations. No one even knew she was gone. There was no one to tell, no one who cared.

  At the airport, she felt slightly claustrophobic among the crowds. When was the last time she’d been around so many people? She tried to casually wipe away the light sheen of perspiration on her forehead.

  Jenna picked up her ticket and hurried to the gate. She could remember when just getting through a day had required this much frustration and effort, but back then she could blame her failing heart. It’s only a plane trip. Just a ride in the sky. She shook her head. You never were a good liar.

  While she waited at the gate, a man struck up a conversation, but she made an excuse to move away. She didn’t do small talk, had little experience with it. Instead she busied herself with her doodles.

  A while later, she settled into her window seat on the plane, taking in all the unfamiliar smells around her: the musty scent of the upholstery, coffee brewing in one of the alcoves, and the mix of perfume and sweat. Flying had never been a pleasant experience. It always meant she was going somewhere strange, someplace she didn’t want to go.

  She closed her eyes, fourteen again. With the imprint of her parents’ murders in her mind, the people in the remote African village had packed her scant belongings and taken her to the tiny airfield. Being an American there was dangerous, they’d told her. That was why the renegades had killed her parents. Jenna had escaped in a cargo plane so old it rattled and squeaked.

  That distraught girl sat with her knees pulled up against her chest, arms coiled around them, as if she could curl into a ball and disappear. She didn’t know what would be waiting for her at the other end of her long journey. Fear and anxiety mingled like a sour ball in her stomach.

  “Afraid of flying?” said a man with a sympathetic chuckle as he took the seat next to hers.

  Jenna noticed her drawn-up posture and placed her feet on the floor. She met the man’s gaze briefly, but looked out the window. “I’m more afraid of landing.”

  The drive to Ponee was un
eventful, but the closer Jenna got, the more tense she became. She’d traveled halfway across the country to a town she’d never heard of for a reason she did not know. But Paul knew. She hoped he would continue to guide her, because once she arrived, she had no idea where to go.

  Jenna had always pictured Texas as flat and dry, barren like the deserts of Arizona. Here the road wandered through rich green pastures and trees. She saw no cacti and nary a cowboy hat anywhere. The sky was a brilliant blue speckled with dots of clouds reminiscent of whipped cream. She took a deep breath as she passed the sign welcoming her to Ponee, population twelve thousand nine hundred.

  Pastures turned into residential, which then turned into a quaint downtown area. Some of the side streets were actually made of red bricks, harkening back to a simpler time. A time before heart transplants. Before car accidents.

  Was she being led to Becky White’s family? That was the only connection Jenna had to this place. One thing she did know: she was definitely being led. Her hands held steady on the wheel, driving straight through town with a purpose she did not feel.

  Every time she thought about turning around and hightailing it back to the airport, she felt a bigger urgency to keep going. Along with that urgency came the fear of what she might find. She knew, somehow, that it wasn’t going to be good, could feel that her memories of Paul were in jeopardy.

  Didn’t he realize what he was doing to her? What had he thought about in those last few seconds when his life had flashed before his eyes? What unresolved issues did he now want her to fix? Whatever those thoughts had been must have lingered in his heart, to be transferred to her.

  He should have been thinking of his life with her, of keeping whatever secrets he’d harbored from her just that — secret. Obviously he had not. Instead, he’d been stricken with this sense of doing the right thing.

  Her mind played cruel devil’s advocate games with her as she drove. Had he met with this Becky that day, and had she given him the money? Had Paul lied about looking at a house so he could meet this woman?

  The stores thinned out, and Ponee once again became rural. She passed more pastures dotted with cows and bordered with Texas bluebonnets and purple verbena.

  Jenna blinked. How had she known what those flowers were? Anxiety tingled through her. What was she doing here, anyway? She was a coward, content to never know the truth behind Paul’s accident or the money found with him. Unbidden, the sense of doing the right thing swirled through her the same way it had when she’d touched Paul’s wedding ring.

  “Who am I doing right for, Paul? This woman’s family? What can I possibly tell them to make things right?” What would she tell them? “Maybe I’m just going crazy. I wonder if Ponee has a sanitarium where the loonies can sit out on the porch and count the cows all day.”

  Her hands turned the wheel to the left, leaving the highway for a narrow ribbon of road. It was freshly blacktopped and created mirages of puddles that were never within reach. Stands of scrub oak lined the road, and on the right, acres of bright green pasture coated the land. Several horses grazed on the vegetation, their brown coats shiny in the mid-morning sun.

  Jenna’s throat started going dry. The more she swallowed, the drier it became. But her hands were moist, reminding her of that awful vision of Paul’s accident and the way his hands slid over the wheel. She wiped trembling hands on her khaki pants. A low thrumming sensation started in her chest and swirled lower to twist her stomach.

  I can’t be getting carsick. She and Paul drove for miles, hauling their furniture with them, whenever they moved to their next project. Jenna had never experienced the faintest bit of nausea, even when she read.

  She hadn’t realized her foot had eased off the pedal until she noticed the car slowing. Just ahead, elaborate arches announced “Bluebonnet Manor” on her right. A paved one-lane road snaked beneath the arch and between two sections of fenced-off pasture. The car eased into the turn-off and stopped beneath the arches. It was the most beautiful, peaceful scene Jenna had ever laid eyes on: blue skies, green pastures, gentle breezes caressing the wildflowers flanking the drive.

  She opened her car door and leaned out to wretch.

  Nothing came out but the horrible sound of dry heaves. Jenna regained control of her stomach and righted herself, dabbing at her watery eyes. The air outside was hot and smelled of grass and earth. Now she recognized the tightening sensation as dread. Like the way she’d felt the night Paul died as she’d watched the beacon warning her of trouble. Only this was ten times worse.

  “Why are you doing this to me, Paul?” Her voice sounded hoarse. “Why couldn’t you just leave me to live in peace with my memories?”

  In answer, her foot lifted from the brake and depressed the gas pedal. She slowly moved down the winding road. Ahead and to the right a group of young men were playing football. Their field was partially hidden by trees. A road led off to the right and past them to a huge, T-shaped barn. She looked to the left, at the immense brick home and found herself heading to it.

  An odd sense of familiarity curled through Jenna. Home. A place of history and happy memories. It was not the same feeling she got when she stepped into an old house and sensed the history of it, wondered at the people who had lived there. Bluebonnet Manor, with its formal arched entrance and garden terrace, its steeply gabled roof and massive chimneys looked like nothing she had ever lived in or wanted to live in. But it welcomed her home. Jenna had never felt anything so strong and sure. It pulled at her and scared her to death at the same time.

  She’d never had a home, not in any real sense. She’d grown up in huts and tents, moving on when her parents’ work was done. With Paul, the place they called home was temporary, until it was finished and put on the market.

  Paul had grown up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Philadelphia. He’d shown her old black and white pictures of him and his parents in front of their modest wood-frame home.

  “I don’t want to do this. Paul, you know I’m a coward. Please let me leave.”

  She had paused just beyond the bank of trees that blocked the house from the barns and the young men playing football. She parked behind the triple garage.

  Her stomach twisted again as she palmed the keys and stepped out into the warm air. From somewhere behind the house, a plume of aromatic smoke curled up into the sky. She felt frozen for a moment, looking at the red brick wall that rose up two stories, bisected by a chimney. Upstairs a deck stretched out from what looked like a bedroom.

  Pain and fear ricocheted through her body. She walked away from the house toward the small forest. It sounded like a perfect Sunday afternoon — men laughing, a dog barking, music. If she were watching this on television, she’d be soaking up the atmosphere of true-blue America.

  Instead she was meandering through the throng of trees with dread mounting in her, body growing stiffer as she neared what she now saw were grown men playing football. No one had noticed her yet, this interloper who moved steadily toward them. She was trespassing, yes, but that sense of being home prevented her from worrying about that aspect. Being arrested was the least of her worries.

  She moved to the edge of the trees, clinging to the rough bark of a slash pine as though that could keep her from being pushed out into the open. Rock and roll music pounded from a huge boombox. The barking belonged to a monster black dog who ran back and forth on the outer edge of the playing field as though he fancied himself the coach.

  Jenna had heard that things were bigger in Texas, and so it seemed thus far. Even the white barn was immense; beyond that was a large ring where two people worked with a jittery white horse. A charge-like scream pulled her gaze to one of the men who stormed through the brigade of men with such exuberance, she was riveted by the grace of his backside — until he was buried in a mass of testosterone.

  Her fingers tightened on the tree even as she felt urged to take a step forward. Was she to continue on to the barn? What would she say when inevitably someone asked her busines
s? She had only the name of Becky White. A deep breath didn’t ease the anxiety swirling around her insides like a tornado. She wanted to turn and run back through the trees, back to her car. Instead, she took two steps out and clasped her hands in front of her, fingers twisting around each other.

  The men were hunched over in their positions, watching each other, not her. One shouted out a series of numbers and hiked the ball between his legs to the one with the graceful backside, who took several steps back and readied himself to throw before the stampede of men reached him.

  That’s when she saw his face.

  Jenna’s mouth dropped open. At that instant, the man looked over at her and froze. Their eyes connected before six men buried him. Jenna sank back against the tree, legs unable to hold her weight. Her hand covered her mouth, the other arm went around her middle. It couldn’t be! No, no, Paul was dead. She had scattered his ashes along the rocky coastline by their home in New Hampshire. He couldn’t be here in Texas playing football!

  The man who looked like Paul, so much like Paul, fought his way out of the tangle of bodies and teasing. His gaze went immediately to her, and tossing the football behind him, he walked over. His dark blond hair was longer than Paul’s, long enough to be bound in a ponytail. Several strands had broken free, and one damp lock of hair hung over his forehead. He wore a gray jersey shirt with the sleeves cut away, the bottom shorn off at the midriff. His muscles glistened with sweat as he moved purposefully toward her, brown eyes filled with an almost startled curiosity. Jenna managed to stand on her own, though it took every ounce of strength within her.