Hearts Unfold (42 page)

Mae, it turns out, had even seen you perform when you
were still just a teenager.
 
She
describes you as a remarkable talent, a charismatic performer, and very popular
with the ladies.
 
As she was telling me
this, I was gawking at your photograph on the record jacket.
 
My, but—as Mae pointed out—you are a nice
looking young man!
 
I can see why the
ladies, of any age, might find you appealing.
 
Mae asked me, in the midst of my gawking, if I was familiar with you,
popular as you are, and I managed to mumble something to the effect that yes, I
thought I had heard of you.

Imagine how I felt as your music played, and she told me
these things, as if I knew nothing about you.
 
Of course, the story of Peg Shannon was new to me.
 
Is she the friend you mentioned who saved you
from being “an even greater disaster?”

Things here are going well although I’m still a little
bit homesick.
 
Crestview is an amazing
place, more like a resort than a hospital.
 
Quite a few celebrities come here for “treatment of undisclosed
illnesses,” things like detox and plastic surgery.
 
As a private nurse, I have my own little
apartment, get my meals from the gourmet kitchen, and take my leisure in the
indoor pool or on the extensive, beautifully manicured grounds.
 
It hardly seems fair that they also pay me
handsomely to suffer all this luxury.
 
Not that I don't work, I do.
 
Ten-hour shifts that, depending on the patient, could be an eternity.
 
But Mae is a joy.
 
I spend a good part of each day reading to
her, and of course listening to music.
 
She loves to reminisce about the places she's visited (all over the
world) and the amazing life she's been privileged to lead.
 
Unfortunately, she’s very ill and will never
go home again.
 
But she seems content
with her situation, and it’s an honor for me to be here with her.

You must be traveling all over the country.
 
Your letters have each been postmarked from
different cities.
 
How long will you be
on tour this time?

I think a great deal about what you said about a future
together.
 
It seems strange to consider
such a thing when we don't even know when we'll see each other again.
 
I like to think of myself as a patient
person; but when it comes to you, I seem to be completely lacking in patience.
 
I want to sit and talk with you, not wait for
a letter to come in the mail.
 
(Not that
I have to wait all that long.
 
You’re a
wonderfully prolific pen pal!)

This coming weekend, I'm off duty.
 
I'll be so glad to go home, even for a short
time.
 
I always look forward to waking in
my own bed and watching the sunrise.
 
The
rhythm of life there is so calming.
 
(Believe it or not, I can be a bit mercurial at times myself.)
 
I love the profound quiet and the
wide-openness, which I think must be totally foreign to a city dweller like
yourself.
 

Will there ever be a time when I can introduce you to the
things I love about my life there?
 
Simple things like the ever-shifting sunlight and the sky at night, the
smell of coming rain, the color of the soil just after it's been plowed.
 
There is a time of day, right after sunset,
when everything seems to glow, as if holding on to the light for just a few
moments more.
 
Then the stars begin to
show themselves, one by one.
 
Gradually,
the night creatures begin to sing, and the darkness descends, until everything
is in shadow.
 
It is such a tranquil
time, when I feel I must stop, just breathe and listen, and be very still.
 
I try to imagine you with me in those
moments.
 
I believe two people could be
truly united in that kind of peace.
 
I
remember my father and mother, sitting together on the porch in the twilight,
not saying a word but somehow in communion with one another.
 
After my mother was gone, my father would sit
in that same spot, and I think he could feel her there with him.
 
It seemed to give him great comfort.

Stani, why do you inspire me to write such things?
 
I'm afraid none of what I've said will make
any sense to you.
 
But if we are to take
risks, I will risk sharing these thoughts with you.
 

Wherever you are, take care of yourself.

Impatiently yours,

Emily

Dearest impatient, inspired Emily,

You have shaken me to the core.
 
That you would imagine us together in such a
beautiful moment, that you wish for a time to share these treasures with me,
causes me to tremble with the most fearful hope.
 
Emily, does this mean that you begin to
picture us together as I do?
 
Perhaps it
is not I who inspires you, but rather your feelings for me?
 
Think on this, you have gone from the
certainty of our having no future whatsoever to the desire to share the most
sacred moments of your day with me.
 
What
can that mean?
 
Can you put a name to
that desire?
 
I will refrain from naming
it myself until you can do so.

As to the coincidence of your patient and her friendship
with Peg, what can I say except that it is indeed a small world?
 
Peg has a reputation for knowing all the
right people.
 
She raises money for all
sorts of charities, as well as for deserving young artists and musicians.
 
She came on board at just the right time to
turn me from a total misfit into whatever I am perceived to be today, be that
remarkable or charismatic or whatever other adjectives the critics find to
use.
 
What you see today, from my clothes
to my hair, even the way I walk, is in some way due to Peg's influence.
 
She's a magician as well as a lovely woman,
and she has indeed given me a great deal of her time and attention, for which I
will be eternally grateful.

How do you feel about nursing patients who will, as you
say, never go home?
 
I would think it
depressing, but I don't hear that in your letter.
 
How can you find joy in forming a
relationship with a woman whose life is about to end?
 
I don't doubt that you do; I just want to
understand the means by which you avoid the obvious sadness in such a brief
friendship.

You can't know how thrilled I am to hear that you’re
impatient.
 
I am trying to arrange some
time, and I promise I'll let you know as soon as I can do so.
 
In the meantime, know that I spend a great
deal of time, as I travel around in cars from place to place, as I sit in hotel
rooms for hours on end, just imagining you with me.
 
I try to picture your face in the darkness of
the audience, wish for you to be waiting for me as I leave the stage, long to
hear you say my name as I enter an empty room.
 
I realize these places are nothing compared to the beauty you describe,
but they are where I am; and I would have you with me if only to bring some of
that beauty into my world of cars and hotels and concert halls.

I find myself envious of your sense of belonging to one
place, your intimacy with your home.
 
You
asked me once where I lived and I don't think I gave you an answer.
 
The truth is I don't really live
anywhere.
 
I still have a room in the
apartment I shared with Milo and Jana in New York.
 
It's where I get my mail and the address I
give to shopkeepers and tailors when there are things to be delivered.
 
Since so much of the time I'm traveling,
there seems little need for more than that.
 
But now that I've seen a real home, I find myself longing for such a
place.
 
I've always told myself that I am
most at home when I'm performing.
 
If I
have anything to compare to what you describe, it is the place I sometimes go
when I am playing my best, when everything has come together, the energy of the
orchestra and the focus of the audience, and there is only the music,
everywhere at once.
 
That has been what I
called home for a very long time, what I feared I might have lost after the
accident.
 
But home is a place to be
shared, is it not?
 
A place to turn for
comfort and security?
 
I don't know how
to go about finding such a place for myself, but I'm determined to begin
searching.

Please continue to write often.
 
My mail is sent by courier to wherever I'm
headed next.
 
The first thing I look for
when I arrive is your letter.

All my best,

Stani

Dear Stani,

I can't imagine what sort of life you're having,
traveling so much.
 
Are you getting
enough rest and eating regularly?
 
How
can you sleep, every night in a different bed?
 
I find I have trouble here at Crestview, and my apartment is very cozy;
it just isn't home.

You ask about nursing terminal patients.
 
I have seen death now enough to know that it
is a part of living.
 
My job is to
provide care and comfort to my patients, no matter the prognosis.
 
My mother died at home after a long illness,
and the nurses who came to care for her became like members of our family.
 
I think I learned from them that in some
cases death is the only healing to be hoped for.

There is so much to learn from people, at any time in
their lives, but it seems at the end they have a special kind of wisdom to
share.
 
Being with Mae, I have learned
that no matter how privileged a life there is still sorrow and loss, in her
case, the loss of a child.
 
Her only son
was killed in 1944, his plane shot down over Germany, yet she has talked about
him as though he were still alive.
 
She
has dealt with his loss by remembering him in life rather than dwelling on the
tragedy of his death.
 
She told me today
that she wanted to come to the mountains to die because she felt closer to him
here.
 
As a boy, he had especially loved
spending time at the family cabin in the Blue Ridge; and I believe she can
still sense him here.

She is very near the end I think, and seems to be at
peace.
 
She said she wanted to fill her
ears with the music and words she had loved in life, to take the sounds with
her to the other side.
 
I find that a
beautiful expectation, don't you?
 
The
idea that the things we love most will be with us gives a greater definition to
the concept of Heaven.
 
At any rate, she's
found real comfort in her books and music, and I’ve shared in that
experience.
 
This case has been one of
the most rewarding of my career so far.
 
I've been blessed by my time here and yes, I will feel the loss when she
passes.

You should know that I cried when I read your description
of the place you call home.
 
I think what
you experience must be intensely spiritual, but at the same time it sounds
transient and lonely.
 
How can you know
when you'll be there again if it depends on all those things, the orchestra and
the audience?
 
My home is so solid and
constant, always the same earth and walls.
 
It's been the same all my life.
 
Like an old friend, it waits for me to return and welcomes me when I've
been away.
 
I hope you will eventually
find that kind of place, that your search will be successful.

It's a sad state of affairs when we are reduced to
imagining one another nearby.
 
I confess
that in the past I often tried to imagine you, the sound of your voice, your
smile, the way you move.
 
I had only the
image of you so badly injured, so still on the floor by the fire.
 
Your photographs were fascinating to me
because they showed me things about you I hadn't been able to see that night.
 
But now that I have actually spent time with
you, I
have so much more to fuel my imagination.
 
May I say how pleasantly surprised I was by your voice?
 
I don't think that's something easily
imagined.
 
I never anticipated the depth
(or the accent!).
 
I think I imagined you
a tenor, rather than such a warm baritone.
 
At any rate, now I have so much more on which to build my fantasies.