Chapter 21
Less than an hour later, Matteo was on his sailboat, charging across the Nantucket Sound, his heart pounding in his throat.
It was wickedly cold for late September, far colder than it was back in the Midwest, and frigid water sparkled on either side of the sails and cast itself over his beard, across his cheeks.
Matteo could feel the tears, brimming behind his eyes, but he kept himself focused, his eyes on the far horizon.
He couldn’t let himself fall apart, not now.
But the truth of it was: Helena had asked him to leave, and he hadn’t known how to fight for her. He hadn’t known what to say.
He’d been dumbstruck when he’d heard that man in the next room, talking to Helena about her disease.
Standing like a fool in the kitchen, he’d told himself not to make any sudden movements.
He’d been frightened that he’d drop something, that he’d let the bowl of cereal crash to the floor.
When Helena had returned to the kitchen, her eyes had been two dark pools.
They’d stood like that for a long time, looking at each other.
Matteo had almost wanted to pretend nothing had happened.
But finally, he’d mustered the strength to ask her what was going on, and she’d said, “I’m dying. ”
She’d said it as simply as that. She’d said it as though it was something she’d already emotionally dealt with and set to the side. But what was he supposed to do about that?
He’d asked her, “When were you going to tell me?”
And she’d said, “I don’t know.” She’d sniffed and sniffed and said, “I really need you to go.”
Now, Matteo pulled his sailboat into the harbor, tied up, and walked out onto the mainland toward his truck.
There was a sense of unreality to everything.
He couldn’t believe that just yesterday, he’d felt on top of the world.
Finally, Helena had invited him to stay the night.
Finally, he’d felt as though their relationship was moving in a healthy and promising direction.
Now, he was on his own again. But it was what he was accustomed to.
He drove to the house he’d rented when he’d left the Midwest: a one-story brick that he’d done very little with, decoration-wise. It still felt like a bachelor pad, which, he guessed, was what it was, since he was a divorcé, a bachelor. He hated the sound of that.
It was a little after one when he got in, and he spent a little time on the sofa, staring into space, wondering what he should do with the day. It wasn’t like he could work. He checked his phone to see if Helena had called or written him, but she hadn’t.
It was over. It had to be over. He knew that.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was an enormous tragedy. He couldn’t shake the feeling that it could have been helped.
This was the same feeling he’d experienced after his daughter’s death.
It had been three years since the accident. Matteo still remembered their final days together as a family, as they’d been frantic. Matteo had been on the verge of signing a major new client to his firm, and he’d been up to his ears in research and PowerPoints and phone calls with his team.
His wife, Piper, had been busy, as well.
Now that their daughter Jenny was old enough to drive herself to school and to friends’ places and to team practices, Piper had thrown herself into building her own business, one that involved photographing and planning weddings.
Piper had always been endlessly romantic.
She fell for every romance novel, every romantic story.
She was the perfect person to take that on.
On their last night as a family of three, Matteo picked up burgers from their favorite place downtown and met Piper and Jenny on the back porch, where they drank diet sodas, ate, and talked about their days, albeit briefly.
Matteo and Piper only had an hour or two before they had to go to their separate studies and burrow themselves in more work.
That final dinner together couldn’t have been more ordinary.
Jenny talked about what they’d learned in English literature class that day.
They were reading Jane Eyre, a novel Piper loved and gushed about.
Matteo listened, trying and failing to remember anything about the book.
He reminded himself to remain in the conversation, to listen to what Jenny had to say.
But the truth was, his mind was half-elsewhere, considering the meetings he had scheduled for tomorrow and what else he still needed to do that night.
Jenny was a little bit moody—such a difference from how she’d been a few years back, when she’d been dancing and singing and laughing all the time. Matteo was the first to admit he knew nothing about being a teenage girl. Piper always told him that Jenny would grow out of it.
During dinner, Jenny made a brief mention of Steve, her on-again, off-again boyfriend.
Matteo and Piper made eye contact over the table.
Maybe Jenny and Steve were back on? But Steve was largely bad news, they thought.
He played in a band and had been arrested for drunk driving and had already broken Jenny’s heart twice.
Matteo bit his tongue to keep from telling Jenny to stay away from Steve.
He didn’t want to be that kind of father.
In the days that followed the accident, he wondered nonstop: if he’d said something, if he’d forbidden Jenny from seeing Steve, would Jenny still be alive?
Or would Jenny have just done what teenage girls were meant to do and ignore their parents?
Steve was driving when the accident happened. The cops said they were going 110 miles per hour, which Matteo couldn’t help but compare to his own record of 125. Midwesterners and wide, open highways—it was a classic case.
It was also the single-worst moment of Matteo’s life.
To make matters worse, Matteo and Piper didn’t learn about the accident till more than two hours after it happened. Matteo was in meetings all evening without his phone, and Piper had forgotten hers at the gym. When they learned the news, they met to identify the body together.
They had to identify the body of their daughter: the girl they’d brought into the world, the girl they loved more than life itself. In the parking lot, they sat in disbelief, their hearts breaking. They hugged one another, but there was a sense of unreality in one another’s embrace.
They never kissed or touched one another romantically again.
Death. Matteo had come to New England to escape death, but he now saw how stupid that was. Death was the only permanent thing. It was everywhere. It affected everyone.
The difference between him and Helena was that she was going to die sooner rather than later. How soon, he didn’t know. He hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t told him.
He didn’t know what to do about his broken heart.
That evening, when Helena still hadn’t called, and Matteo hadn’t dared to contact her, he walked the three blocks from his place to a diner where he ordered a burger and a milkshake and alternated between taking small bites and staring at his hands.
He’d thought getting out of the house would help him think.
He’d thought it would contextualize things.
Instead, he thought more about Jenny than he had in a long time, about loss, and about what that loss had done to his soul.
Helena flitted in and out of his mind. He couldn’t believe he’d put so many of his hopes and dreams upon her. He realized now that that was sort of unfair. But he hadn’t known she was dying!
The server, one he’d gotten friendly with over the past few years, came by to check on him. “You doing okay?”
Matteo raised his chin and looked at the server.
Her name was Kathy, and she was a little bit older than he was, divorced as he was, but with three children whom he sometimes saw eating at the restaurant.
He could see from the way she looked at him that she liked him, or thought he was handsome, or liked that he came in and sat by himself looking sad.
“I don’t know,” he answered finally. “Is anyone okay?”
Kathy smiled. “You’re preaching to the choir about that one.”
Matteo raised a french fry and nibbled on the end. Kathy glanced around, then asked if she could sit at his booth for a while. There weren’t any other customers just then, and, she said, her feet were killing her. “I’m working a double shift,” she said.
Matteo was grateful for the company. He passed his food over, but she waved her hand away.
“I can’t eat that stuff anymore,” she said. “It makes me sick.”
Matteo understood.
Kathy sighed. “Tell me. What’s on your mind? Is it girl trouble?”
Matteo laughed, despite himself. “I wish it were so simple.”
“Try me. I’ll be the voice of reason. I’ll be objective,” Kathy said.
“Maybe I need an outside perspective,” he said. “I started dating someone. You’re right. She lives on Nantucket, and she’s an artist, and we met in this really crazy way. It’s hard to explain, but basically, I sailed up onto her property and immediately put my foot through a slab of glass.”
“I knew you were a source of drama,” Kathy teased him.
“She rushed me to the hospital, but then promptly pushed me out of her life when it was clear there was something between us. I couldn’t get her out of my head.
I’m a romantic guy, I guess. Or I always thought I was.
I left flowers on her dock, and she eventually called me back.
We’ve been seeing each other for a little more than a month.
I haven’t felt this way in decades, honestly.
I finally stayed the night at her place, and sort of by chance, I found out she’s been keeping something pretty big from me. ”
Matteo’s hands shook as he sipped his water.
“What a cliffhanger,” Kathy said.
“Sorry.” Matteo laughed, then quieted immediately to say, “She’s dying.”
Kathy leaned back in the booth, crossing her arms. “Shoot.”
Matteo nodded. The air in the room crystallized. “I don’t know what to do. We didn’t talk about it. She asked me to leave.”
“This is why she pushed you out of her life at first,” Kathy said.
Matteo raised his shoulders. He’d sort of put that together, but Kathy could see it plain as day.
“Have you considered things from her perspective?” Kathy asked.
Matteo shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out my own.”
Kathy smiled. “Okay. Consider this. You have, like, a year to live. What would you want to do with your time left?”
Matteo closed his eyes and tried to shove himself into the idea. “It would be hard to figure that out, I guess. Maybe I’d sail a lot. Maybe I’d want to be around people. Maybe I’d want to be alone. I don’t know.”
“You wouldn’t want to have love around you?” Kathy asked tenderly.
Matteo’s heart felt squeezed. Love was not cheap, he knew. Love was something you had to work at that gave you boundless energy back. Love was essential. It was the hardest thing of all.
“I think she messed up by not telling you,” Kathy said firmly. “But I also totally get why she didn’t want to. She wanted to pretend that everything was all right. Who doesn’t want to do that?”
Matteo nibbled on another fry. He saw what she meant, although it was hard to accept.
When he returned home that evening, he saw that he had a missed call from Piper.
It was almost as though Piper had felt the heaviness of his thoughts.
They’d had a sort of psychic connection when they’d first met, something they hadn’t been able to break even after their divorce.
He wondered if Piper had told her new husband about that. He guessed not.
“Hey,” he said when she answered.
“Hey there. How are you?” Piper sounded worried but also tired. He could hear the baby somewhere nearby, cooing gently. It brought back a flood of memories that he shoved back.
“Not great, to be honest. But you knew that.”
“I had a hunch,” Piper affirmed.
Matteo wanted to burrow against her. He wanted to put his head on her shoulder and listen to her breathing.
They weren’t in love anymore, but they would always love each other. Jenny, their beloved Jenny, was a part of them forever. They could never get away from each other.
“Tell me,” Piper pushed it.
Matteo swallowed. “I met someone.”
“I take it that isn’t a good thing?”
“It’s really complicated,” Matteo said.
“Isn’t all love complicated?” Piper asked.
Matteo’s thoughts swirled. “This is more than the normal amount of complexity.”
“What’s the normal amount?” Piper teased him. “I don’t think there’s any real way of measuring that.”
Matteo closed his eyes. He tried to picture himself and Piper and Jenny on the porch, eating burgers for the final time. He tried to hear Piper and Jenny, laughing together.
He could barely hear it.
“I know you’re scared,” Piper said so gently that at first, Matteo thought she was talking to her new baby. “But being in love means taking a risk. Being in love means leaping, no matter what awaits at the bottom.”
Matteo wanted to protest. He wanted to tell Piper about Helena’s liver disease, about how little time she had left. But before he could, the baby let out a wild, raucous scream, and he knew she needed to go.
“Love you, Matteo,” she said. “Call me again. We’ll figure this out together.”
But Matteo knew he was on his own.