Chapter 11
Helena didn’t wake up till two o’clock in the afternoon.
Stretching her arms over her head, she took in the view of the sun-drenched bedroom, wondering where she was.
All at once, it came back to her: her departure from Orangeburg, her move to Nantucket, the accident, Matteo.
She tore the bedsheets off her and emerged, sort of sweaty, her hair a wild nest at the back of her head.
But she couldn’t care what she looked like, not now.
She hurried down the hall to find the couch empty, Matteo’s cane gone.
She staggered to a halt. Of course, he’d gone. Why had she thought he’d stick around?
“Morning!” Matteo’s voice came from outside. He’d heard her, scampering through the house.
Helena’s relief spilled through her. She assessed the floor in front of the broken glass door, realizing it was perfectly clean. Even the water had dried.
“The vacuum cleaner came!” Matteo explained, still from wherever he was on the patio. “I wasn’t sure if I should use it. I didn’t want to wake you up. But it was quieter than I’ve ever heard. I think they’ve revolutionized vacuum cleaners.”
Helena’s eyes slid over to the corner, where the vacuum in question glinted brightly. It looked state-of-the-art and far more expensive than anything Helena would have bought for herself. She swallowed. “What do I owe you for the vacuum cleaner?”
Matteo laughed. “Come outside! We’ll talk out here. If you want to.”
Helena walked tentatively across the carpet, careful to watch for any remaining glass.
She opened the door and stepped into the most remarkable scene: Matteo at the outdoor table, sipping a glass of wine and watching the waves roll up on the beach.
His sailboat shifted gently next to the dock, as though it had always belonged there.
Helena touched her wild hair, knowing she was a sight to see.
Matteo raised his glass. “To the woman who saved my life.”
Helena rolled her eyes. “Did you rest at all?”
“I slept off and on through the morning,” Matteo said. “But then the vacuum cleaner came, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I watched a little bit of a movie, then realized the real movie was out here on the beach. This is some view you have here.” He beamed.
“It really is,” Helena said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”
Matteo and Helena took a moment to gaze out at the water. She imagined that he was comparing it to his previous life in the Midwest: miles of cornfields and highways. There was a beauty in that, too, Helena knew. But this was something else.
“I wish I could offer you something else,” Helena said.
“You just got to the island!” Matteo said. “Opening your wine was probably stepping over the line as it is.”
“No. I don’t really drink,” Helena explained. “The property manager left it here as a welcome present.”
Helena sat beside Matteo for a little while, quiet and contemplative. She kept thinking he would get up and tell her he had to sail away. But two o’clock drifted to three, and still, he made no move to go.
“I think I’d better go to the grocery store,” Helena said finally. “I want to cook us a big, nutritious dinner.”
Matteo’s eyes glinted. Helena felt overwhelmed with euphoria.
When was the last time she’d cooked dinner for someone?
There had been sad meals for her mother while she’d been dying, meals that her mother had been able to get down without feeling sick.
But before that? She’d cooked for Elliott, creating dynamic, flavorful meals he raved about.
She’d missed that side of herself. Did it still exist, somewhere behind the liver disease, behind her sorrow?
“I wouldn’t say no to that,” Matteo said.
Helena showered, did her makeup, and decided to let her hair air dry.
After confirming with Matteo that he liked Greek food, she decided to make a Greek salad, cook some fish with plenty of olive oil and Greek spices, and roast some vegetables and feta along with it.
Slowly, trying to make her hand stop shaking, she wrote out an ingredient list for herself, then drove to the nearest grocery store, her heart pounding. She couldn’t believe this was her life.
But when she parked the car and cut the engine, her phone began to ring. It was a number she didn’t recognize, but it had a Nantucket area code. Thinking it was maybe something to do with the house or Nantucket logistics, she answered it.
“Helena, hi. It’s Bethany Sutton, the surgeon who operated on your friend, Matteo.”
Helena’s eyebrows shot to her brow line. Since leaving the hospital, she’d allowed herself to stop thinking about collapsing in the waiting room, about the doctor who’d pretended to care.
“Oh. Hi.” Helena gripped the steering wheel with her free hand. “He’s doing fine, by the way. He rested this morning, and he’s probably going to sail home, like. I don’t know. Tomorrow, maybe?”
“He’s going to be fine,” Bethany said. “I’m actually calling about you.”
Helena closed her eyes. The worry and care in Bethany’s voice startled her. “I’m okay.”
“I don’t know if I believe that,” Bethany said gently.
Helena wondered how Bethany had gotten her number. But then she remembered that, when she’d brought Matteo to the hospital, they’d given her a form to fill out. She’d written her cell number. She’d written her old address back in Orangeburg, for some reason. She hadn’t been thinking clearly.
“I know you said you don’t have health insurance,” Bethany said.
“It’s a problem that so many people in the United States face.
I hate it. Honestly, as a healthcare worker, I feel that we’ve failed so many people in this country.
But I want to come by and see you and check everything out, if that’s okay.
I’ll do it free of charge. You don’t have to worry about anything. ”
Helena told herself not to laugh, not at this kind-hearted offer. It was rare to meet people like Bethany—people who either performed their goodness or genuinely were good. Maybe it didn’t matter if it was a performance or not. Bringing goodness into the world made it real.
“I really don’t want you to,” Helena said.
“And I think you might regret it if you don’t get yourself checked out,” Bethany offered. “Your health is essential, Helena. I know you’re still young. I know you don’t want to think about the long-term. But…”
“On the contrary,” Helena said, unable to stop herself, “I think about the long-term all the time. And in the long term, it doesn’t matter if you come over, check my blood pressure, tell me to eat specific things, or what.
I’ve made peace with what’s going to happen to me.
And I really would like more peace from you, if that’s okay. ”
Helena took a staggered breath. She prayed that Bethany wouldn’t ask for more details. She wanted to be off the hook.
“I really have to go,” Helena said, before Bethany could say anything else. “Thanks for calling.” She hung up, leaving Bethany in the dark.
Once inside the grocery store, Helena walked purposely, stoically, collecting all of the items from her list and feeling grateful that Meg and Elliott wouldn’t burst around the corner and surprise her. She was a stranger on Nantucket. It was just as she’d planned.
Back at the house, Matteo had cleared off the grill and turned it on. “I found some charcoal,” he said, beaming as he hopped back to his seat on the patio. “I figured we could grill most of what you planned for dinner? That way you don’t have to be stuck inside.”
Perhaps because she was going out of her mind, Helena had bought another bottle of wine for Matteo, and she’d grabbed a bottle of nonalcoholic wine for herself.
She watched as Matteo poured her a careful glass.
As the charcoal heated in the grill, they clinked glasses and looked each other in the eye, albeit briefly.
A shiver went down Helena’s spine. What was going on?
The dinner turned out to be one of the most delicious things Helena had made in recent memory.
She filled their plates with fish and roasted vegetables, and they sat at the outdoor table, listening to the waves and talking.
Matteo gushed about the food and asked if she’d had any professional training.
“You’re kidding, right?” Helena asked, cackling.
“I’m not! I don’t know. I’ve never been a very good cook. My ex-wife had a few cookbooks, and I managed to work my way through a couple of recipes. But everything always turned to mush,” he said.
Helena leaned back from him, if only slightly. Neither of them had mentioned their real lives yet. Bringing an ex-wife into the story was intriguing, but it also frightened her.
If Matteo told her about his past, was she meant to share as well? Was she meant to tell him about her diagnosis?
Keep it together, Helena, she told herself.
She tried to imagine what a normal question was after a big reveal like that. She came up with: “Are you still friendly with your ex?”
Matteo didn’t seem perturbed by the question. “She’s still back in the Midwest. We don’t talk often, but sometimes we give each other a call. Usually, I call her on our daughter’s birthday.”
Helena inhaled. She tried to focus on the roasted potato in her mouth, how it mashed between her teeth. He had a daughter! But of course he did. He was in his mid-forties or so. People had lived lives by then.
“My daughter passed away,” Matteo explained. “So you know. My wife and I like to keep tabs on each other because of that. If we’d gotten divorced the old-fashioned way—you know, because we hated each other—maybe we would have turned our backs on each other.”
Helena set down her knife and fork. She felt so foolish and exposed.
“I’m so sorry,” she said finally. “I didn’t know.”
Matteo smiled kindly. “How could you know! That’s why I’m telling you.”
“I’m so sorry,” Helena said again, sounding flustered.
“Thank you. It sucks. It’s always going to suck.
” Matteo raised his shoulders. “It was an accident. Neither of us was with her at the time. She was with her friends, driving too fast. Those Midwestern roads seem to go on and on. I used to speed down them, too. Maybe that’s why I had to get away from all that.
” He shook his head sadly, then turned his attention back to the food.
It felt as though he’d discussed this thousands of times. Probably, he had a therapist who’d helped him work through the worst of it. Helena rubbed her thighs, wondering if she needed to tell him something of her own backstory in exchange. Wasn’t that how people got to know each other?
But did she really want Matteo to get to know her?
She was going to die—sooner, rather than later—and she knew better than to open her heart to a stranger.
Matteo had lost his daughter, and then he’d lost his wife through divorce.
If he, for whatever reason, fell in love with Helena and then lost Helena, too? Wouldn’t that be the cruelest thing?
Helena knew she needed to stop it. She let the silence go on a little too long before she said, “I was married, too.” Elliott's story was the least bad and most normal of the batch. It could serve as a pretense, as fake proof that she was letting Matteo in.
“He had an affair during COVID. It was with one of our friends,” she said. “It was a small town, and I guess I should have known, but I didn’t. They’re having a baby now.”
“Idiots,” Matteo said.
“It’s really okay,” Helena lied. She felt a sense of dismissal coming over her.
She knew she needed to get Matteo to leave, to stop trying to get to know her, to back away from the chaos that was her liver and her heart and her mind.
She got to her feet and cleared their plates.
Already, it was nearly seven, which meant they’d lose light soon.
Before she’d thought it through, she said, “Do you think you’ll be able to make it back tonight?”
Matteo blinked at her, his smile faltering just the slightest bit. “I think I’ll manage it!” He said, sounding chipper and happy, although, at that moment, Helena knew she’d ruined it. Like the glass door, she’d smashed whatever they’d been building over the past few hours.
Shivering on the patio despite the warmth, she watched as he prepared himself to leave, moving around deftly with his cane.
There was a bit of sorrow in his smile as he said goodbye and a final thank you.
“This was an incredible day, all things considered,” he said.
“If you’re ever on the mainland, look me up, okay? ”
Helena said she would, although she knew she wouldn’t. He knew that, too.
She watched as Matteo untied his sailboat from the dock, filled the sails with wind, and floated off toward the northern horizon.
Tears filled her eyes. This was the closest she’d felt to another human since her father’s diagnosis, since her mother’s death.
But it could be, she knew. Romance was for the living.
And she couldn’t disappoint Matteo like that. She couldn’t ruin his life.