Your Heart Belongs to Me

“What is there to think about?”

“Life … death … I don’t know.”

“We can’t decide on treatment without a definitive diagnosis.”

Ryan hesitated. Then: “Is it treatable?”

“It may be,” said Forry.

“I wish you’d just said yes.”

“Believe me, Dotcom, I wish I could just say it.”

Before Forest Stafford was Ryan’s internist, they had met at a classic-car rally and had struck up a friendship. Jane Stafford, Forry’s wife, bonded to Samantha as if she were a daughter; and Dotcom had since been more widely used.

“Samantha,” Ryan whispered.

Only upon speaking her name did he realize that the preliminary diagnosis had pinned his thoughts entirely on the pivot point of this twist of fate, on just the sharp fact of his mortality.

Now his mind slipped loose of the pin. His thoughts raced.

The prospect of impending death had at first been an abstraction that inspired an icy anxiety. But when he thought of what he would lose with his life, when he considered the specific losses—Samantha, the sea, the blush of dawn, the purple twilight—anxiety quickened into dread.

Ryan said, “Don’t tell Sam.”

“Of course not.”

“Or even Jane. I know she wouldn’t mean to tell Sam. But Sam would sense something wrong, and get it out of her.”

Like wax retreating from a flame, the mournful lines of Forry Stafford’s face softened into sorrow. “When will you tell her?”

“After the biopsy. When I have all the facts.”

With a sigh, Forry said, “Some days I wish I’d gone into dentistry.”

“Tooth decay is seldom fatal.”

“Or even gingivitis.”

Forry sat down on the wheeled stool, where he usually perched to listen to a patient’s complaints and to make notes in his files.

Ryan settled into the only chair. After a while he said, “You made a decision on the ’40 Mercury convertible?”

“Yeah. Just now. I’m gonna buy it.”

“Edelbrock two-carb manifold? That right?”

“Yeah. You should hear it.”

“What’s it stand on?” Ryan asked.

“Nineteen-sixty Imperials. Fifteen-inch.”

“Chopped?”

“Four inches.”

“That must give it a cool windshield profile.”

“Very cool,” Forry confirmed.

“You gonna work on it?”

“I’ve got some ideas.”

“I think I’d like to have a ’32 deuce coupe,” Ryan said.

“Five-window?”

“Maybe a three-window highboy.”

“I’ll help you find it. We’ll scout some shows.”

“I’d like that.”

“Me too.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

The examination room had a white acoustic-tile ceiling, pale-blue walls, a gray vinyl-tile floor.

On one wall hung a print of a painting by Childe Hassam. Titled The White Dory, Gloucester, it was dated 1895.

On pale water, in a white boat sat a fair woman. She wore a long white skirt, a pleated and ruffled pink blouse, and a straw boater.

Delicate, desirable, she would have been a handsome wife in those days when marriages lasted a lifetime. Ryan was overcome with a strange yearning to have known her, to have heard her voice, to have tasted her kiss, but she was lost somewhere in time, as he might soon be, as well.

“Shit,” he said.

Forry said, “Ditto.”

SIX (#udf5c8c93-8926-536c-8eee-32450ad6ade1)

Dr. Samar Gupta had a round brown face and eyes the color of molasses. His voice was lilting, his diction precise, his slender hands impeccably manicured.

After reviewing the echocardiogram and examining Ryan, Gupta explained how a myocardial biopsy was performed. He made use of a large poster of the cardiovascular system.

Confronted with a colorful depiction of the interior of the human heart, Ryan found his mind escaping to the painting of the woman in the white dory, in Forry Stafford’s examination room.