Heart the Lover (49)

‘Who’s on the way?’ I say.

‘His boss,’ Sam says.

The DA arrives in the doorway in a charcoal suit without a crease. He is tall and striking. Yash has said he’s planning a run for Congress. Yash has been writing his speeches. I vacate my chair but he doesn’t sit. He shakes Yash’s hand then rests his forearms on the bed railing and says, ‘Well, this sucks.’ He speaks like a voiceover.

Yash lowers his mask. ‘It’s not optimal.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’ve seen worse. I know that. How did it go?’

‘Yesterday?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Putty in my hands. I stole your line about not one good deed but the habit of goodness.’ His voice is mesmerizing.

‘I might have borrowed a tad from Aristotle.’

The DA nods twice. Then his face splits open. The smooth veneer cracks. He bends down closer and speaks quietly in a deep murmur. ‘I will never work with anyone as gifted again, Yash Thakkar. No one will ever come close. It’s been an honor and a privilege.’

‘The privilege has been mine, sir,’ Yash says.

They clasp hands for longer than I expect.

I signal to Yash that his oxygen is too low.

‘Pull yourself together, councilor, and go work the room.’ Yash says, and tugs his mask back up over his mouth and nose.

The DA moves slowly around the perimeter, introducing himself, repeating each name. He gives Yash’s mom a hug.



When he gets to me, I tell him my name and he says, ‘I have all your books.’

I look at Yash. ‘You foisted them on him, too?’

I see a smile beneath his foggy mask.

‘I’m a fan. The one about the musicians? Loved it.’

The DA moves on. Yash is feeling his neck again. It is swelling. How like him to complain about his job for years, when it turns out he is utterly revered by the boss.

He lowers his mask. ‘Do I look like a frog?’

I shake my head.

‘I do. I look like a frog.’

Sam taps my shoulder and gestures for me to step out of the room with him. I follow him down the hallway. He stops and leans against a wall between two rooms.

‘Jamie spoke to the doctor on rounds today about the air pockets. It’s something called subcutaneous emphysema.’

‘From the PICC line?’

‘Exactly.’ Small grin.

We discuss the options: They can make small incisions to release the air or they can insert a chest tube to remove it. Both involve risk of infection and further discomfort.

We shake our heads at the same time.

‘Okay, good,’ Sam says. ‘That was my feeling, too.’

He goes down the hallway to the bathroom and I go back to the room. The DA is gone. Yash is looking out the window. I sit in my chair and take his hand. He turns to me.

‘Let’s not argue, babe,’ he says.

‘No, let’s not.’ I sound like a Hemingway character.

‘I was thinking about how Silas got you to forgive him with a postcard. He must be some writer.’

He’s not done arguing.

‘All those years I tried to reach you,’ he says. ‘And you shut me out. For one lapse of judgement.’

‘It wasn’t a lapse.’

‘I was a lapse. I didn’t mean it to be the end. I thought we could talk it over.’

‘After you didn’t show up? Why not before I left Paris?’

‘I called on Christmas, remember? I wanted to talk then but you were in a rotten mood.’

‘Things were hard that fall.’

‘Hink, if I were given a hundred chances to do it over again, I would do it differently every single time. I loved you. I did. I just panicked a little.’

‘I know, it was a real commitment.’

He shakes his head and lowers his mask. ‘No, it wasn’t that. Or not only that. I mean, I was committed to you.’ His voice is much clearer, but the words come out slowly. ‘I was at the beginning of my life. I wanted to do so much. And I was barely responsible for myself.’ He stops to suck in more oxygen from the mask. ‘I didn’t know if I could carry us both, you know? Please don’t look at me like that. I was broke. You were broke. And you had debt. We weren’t being practical. I didn’t want to be like my father, saddled with responsibility so young. History repeating itself. And I wasn’t sure you understood the consequences—’

‘Consequences? Let’s talk about consequences, Yash. I was pregnant. I was five months pregnant in that Delta terminal waiting for you.’

And this is why I’d never told him. This slow shattering of his face. I never wanted to see it. He pulls away from me.

‘Whar mer,’ he says and is frustrated I can’t understand him.

His oxygen has plummeted. I lift the mask back over his mouth and nose. ‘Breathe,’ I say. ‘You have to breathe, babe.’

Above the mask his eyes are flashing back and forth.

Sam comes back in and around the bed to his spot on the other side.

Go away, I want to tell him. Leave us alone.

Yash makes a few sounds we can’t understand.

He turns to Sam. ‘Tell Cole not to come,’ he says slowly and with great effort. ‘I’m not going to make it to Tuesday.’