Page 25 of The Wrong Heart

I shoot her a quick text back, taking a seat.

Me:It’s always weird. That’s why I love us. Coffee talk on Saturday?

While I await her response, I scroll through my unopened texts and nibble my lip when I notice a missed message from my mother.

Mom:Give me a call when you can, sweetie. Dad threw out his back and won’t be able to finish the remodel on your bathroom. He’s okay, don’t worry. I will try to see if Al is able to give you a good price.

A lump forms in the back of my throat as I attempt to call her back, but it goes straight to voicemail, which means she’s probably in bed already.

The bathroom.

It was one of the last things Charlie and I discussed before…

Before winter rolled in.

We bought this house together three years ago, and it was a fixer-upper to say the least. Drab carpeting, funky wallpaper, a mauve master bathroom.Mauve. It was a running joke between us for years, but it was always pushed to the bottom of the to-do list, trumped by other projects and financial commitments. But Charlie had received quite a large pay raise at the beginning of the year, giving us the opportunity to finally tackle the bathroom.

It was one of many things left undone, and one I finally decided to pull the trigger on after an entire year of crying myself to sleep on those mulberry tiles, begging the decorative, floral wallpaper to bring him back to me.

I send my mother a reply, licking a dab of lemon batter from my index finger.

Me:Give Dad a big hug for me. Don’t worry about the bathroom. I’ll stop by for dinner this week. xoxo

There’s a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach when I set my phone down. A tumor. And it’s the malignant kind, that I know, invasive and deadly, spreading rapidly and infecting all the parts of me I try to keep from its reach—from its stems and hungry roots.

But I’m stronger than my sickness.

I have to be.

Heaving in a calming breath, I pluck my phone from the tabletop and open up my e-mail app. An unsent draft stares back at me, riddled with clumsy words and ill-defined thoughts.

What does one say to the man who holds her husband’s beloved heart in his chest?

What am I supposed to say to this person, this faceless man, who is by all accounts a complete stranger, but who feels closer to me than anyone else in this world?

He has what I want. He has what Icrave.

He has a piece ofmyheart inside of him.

I enlarge the little window that hosts my response, worrying my lip between my teeth as my brain scrambles to assemble words and coherent thoughts. And then my thumbs start swiping at the digital keypad, transmitting a frenzy of feelings.

from:

Magnolia

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