Home Again
She knew that the time had come.
“They say the truth will set you free,” she said quietly.
“The letter … is my way of trying to change, set my life right. I want to be a good father to Lina, but I don’t know how. Sometimes I look at her and I wonder where all those years went and what my life would have been like if I’d walked her to kindergarten and seen her in the school Christmas pageants. I know I have a long way to go, but I’ve got to start somewhere—and the heart feels like the beginning.”
Madelaine carefully set the letter on the bench and turned to look him full in the face. She realized in that instant that she’d never stopped loving him, and the knowledge made it difficult to breathe. “When I was talking about the truth setting you free, I didn’t mean you. I was talking about me.”
He flashed her a grin. “Another deep, dark secret you’re keeping from me?” He saw her seriousness, and his smile faded. “Lina is my daughter?”
“Of course she is.” Madelaine leaned closer. Almost against her will, she touched his chest, felt the heart beating, fluttering in perfect rhythm. She searched for the words, just the right ones.
“You’re scaring me, Mad.”
“I’m afraid you won’t forgive me,” she whispered. She wanted to heap explanations and apologies on him, to make him understand the miracle she’d given him, but he was watching her so closely, she couldn’t think straight. “It made a miracle out of a tragedy, remember that. There was no time to decide, no time to talk to anyone. You were in a coma. You were dying and I had to save you.”
“Madelaine.” He touched her chin, tilted her face and forced her to meet his gaze. “I know that. Why—”
“It was Francis’s heart,” she said, feeling her tears rise and fall in burning streaks down her face. “We gave you Francis’s heart.”
He froze, drew his hand back. He went so still, it was frightening.
“Say something,” she pleaded.
He stared at her, his face pale. “You let them cut Franco’s heart out?”
She flinched. “He was brain-dead, Angel. He wasn’t going to get better. You have to understand—”
“Jesus Christ. You let them cut his heart out?”
“Angel—”
“You lied to me.”
She shook her head. “Not a lie … I just let you believe …” She looked away from him, ashamed. “I lied,” she admitted quietly. “I lied.”
He lurched to his feet and strode away from her, stumbling and running across the dark cemetery.
She ran after him. “Angel, please—”
He spun around, slapping her with the coldness of his gaze. “Please what? Please understand that it was right to put Francis’s heart in my body?”
She was crying so hard, she could barely see him. “It’s what he would have wanted….”
“And you think that helps?”
He ran from her, disappearing into the shadows.
She stood there forever, breathing hard. Then, woodenly, she turned and went back to the bench, collapsing on its metal seat. Curling forward, she buried her face in her hands and cried for all of them.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, but when she looked up, it was dark. A few lights had come on around the cemetery, creating pockets of shimmery light.
Footsteps moved toward her slowly.
She straightened, tried to make out his shape among the shadows. “Angel?”
He stepped into a puddle of light about ten feet away. He was standing tall and straight, his hands plunged into his pants pockets. She couldn’t see his face. “That’s why I’ve been dreaming about him,” he said in a dull, soft voice.
She didn’t know how to answer. The physician in her wanted to deny it, wanted to tell him that the heart was just another organ, no different from the kidney or liver. But the woman in her, the woman who’d loved Francis and his brother, couldn’t be so sure. “Maybe,” she said. Then she realized it was a half answer, the kind of safety that had ruined her life, and she said, “Yes. I believe that’s why you dream of him.”