The One In My Heart

I’d first called him on Monday, five days ago. And he’d texted me that evening. Biscuit walked and fed. House key back under the sundial. Do you need me again tomorrow?

I’d just spent a couple of difficult hours with Zelda, getting shouted at. I knew it had been the mania talking—Zelda was in a place where she could do no wrong, and anyone who stood in her way became a source of immense frustration. All the same, by the time she finally fell asleep I’d been shaking. Bennett’s offer had brought a surge of relief: At least I didn’t have to think about Biscuit for another day. If you don’t mind, I’d be ever so grateful.

Consider it done.

We had similar exchanges until Thursday evening—Zelda had come down from her hypomanic state and I needed to go back to Cos Cob anyway for the handover of house and dog back to Collette. I can take it from here. Thank you for everything.

No problem.

They were the texts of a busy man who took his responsibilities seriously. But I couldn’t have imagined that he would also be…beguiling.

This morning, after I finished packing, I’d taken Biscuit for a long walk. Twice we’d passed his house. It was set back quite a bit from the road, but built on a small incline, so I could still see the second story, with its white walls and green trim.

I didn’t run into him. And he didn’t call or text. A good thing—what happened between us should be an event in stark isolation. The perfection of a leaf preserved in amber.

Last night, after I reached Collette’s front door, I’d turned around to wave good-bye. I expected to see the Roadster reverse and drive away. But it didn’t. As seconds ticked by, it sat in place, a muscular, palpable presence.

I took a step toward him, my mind racing with possibilities. The hell with Mrs. Johnson’s lung. If Bennett turned off the car and came out, I would keep him up all night—and make him late for his shift.

He reversed and drove away. I stood a long time, my hand braced on a pillar of the porch, watching the direction in which he’d disappeared.


ZELDA AND I LIVED ON the Upper West Side, a stone’s throw from Central Park, in a narrow, four-story stone-and-stucco town house. Some people believed the house to be part of my late father’s inheritance, and he’d never disabused anyone of the idea. But he’d bought it for a pittance in the early eighties, when Manhattan’s real estate market hit rock-bottom. Second-best investment he’d ever made, he used to say, after the Andy Warhol original that he’d picked up for two thousand dollars and a used dining room set.

Inside it was comfortable and slightly shabby, full of books, records, and Middle-earth memorabilia. Zelda thought the place resembled a hobbit hole. To me it looked more like Wallace and Gromit’s house—old-fashioned, but with a sense of whimsy.

Zelda sat in the living room, a pair of jeans in her lap, a heaping laundry basket on the coffee table before her. Her fully grey hair, usually in a stylish layered cut that reached her shoulders, was tied up in a messy ponytail. “Hello, darling,” she murmured, as I bent down to kiss her on her cheek.

Those two words formed part of my oldest memory: that of the first time we met. Eva, this is your new mother, my father had said. My new mother’s eyes had twinkled with curiosity and a zest for life. She’d brought me a teddy bear dressed up like a Buckingham Palace guardsman. And when she’d crouched down, offered me her hand to shake, and said, Hello, darling, in her cut-crystal English accent, she’d instantly become the love of my life.

I sat down next to Zelda and pulled a couple of T-shirts out of the laundry basket.

“I’m back.”

A few beats passed before she answered, “How are you?”

I could never know how difficult it was for her to respond—could only guess by the vast difference between her usual bubbly self and this subdued…prisoner. “Fine, busy as usual.”

To keep up the appearance of a normal conversation, I prattled about what I still had to do to get ready for the fall semester. By the time I ran through my checklist, she’d finally finished folding the pair of jeans in her lap and was staring at the laundry basket, willing herself to reach out and take another item.

The undertow of hopelessness, the most insidious part of depression, sometimes made the simplest tasks seem as daunting as setting out across the Sahara Desert with no compass and no supplies. I couldn’t bear to watch her struggle. Mumbling something, I went to the kitchen and filled two glasses of water. But when I came back she’d succeeded—she had a pair of my pajama bottoms in her hands.

Tears filled my eyes—from immense pride…and a raging sense of injustice. Zelda had always worked diligently to manage her illness—she saw her therapist twice a week and took her meds faithfully. But sometimes she developed adverse reactions to those meds; sometimes other prescription drugs disrupted their effectiveness.